“So what?” Leo said, rolling his head, drunk with delirium. “He ran from my office, crying. He ran outside. I figured that was the end of it and he would forget all about it in time.”
“Cool story. You done?”
“Except I kept typing away on my keyboard, so focused on that damned thesis. I didn’t even notice the nanny didn’t show up for work that day. I worked until early hours of the morning. I went to bed and then remembered I never tucked in Jason, so I went to his room to kiss him goodnight, but his bed was empty and still made,” Leo clenched his eyes closed and Mia saw a rawness of emotion rip through him that she hadn’t seen before. Gone was the always-joking Leo who refused to take anything seriously. His grief, his pain, ripped her apart as she watched him remember.
“I walked over to the window, knowing in my gut what I was going to see,” Leo choked out the words. “I didn’t want to look, but I had to. I had to confirm it with my own eyes.”
“What do you mean?” Brendan glared at him. “What was outside the window?”
“At first it looked like just a pile of his clothes: a little red hoodie crumpled out in the center of dark backyard, lit only by a spotlight of moonlight. Very eerie…like some weird artsy movie,” Leo said. “But then I realized it wasn’t laundry. It was you. You were lying under the tree. Face down.”
Mia fell to her knees and shook her head. “Leo, no…”
“I never ran so fast down those stairs. God damn, I must have flown, because I didn’t even feel one step under my foot. When I got to him, I could see his little hand poking out from under the hoodie. It was blue. I knew before I ran to him and held him. I knew it already. He was gone. He’d been gone for a long time already.”
Brendan stared at him. He lowered the knife in front of him to his side, his breath becoming louder and more strained, “What happened to him?”
“You climbed the neighbor’s treehouse when they were out of town. You fell out of it, a thirty-foot drop. Police say you were lying there, dead, for damn near twelve hours before I found you.”
Brendan shifted his feet side to side, still gripping his knife and watching Leo. “He was a dumb kid, mister. He shouldn’t have tried to be independent. That’s how he got himself in trouble. That’s how the bad people got him and hurt him. Because he didn’t listen and made bad choices.”
“No, you weren’t dumb. All you wanted was that damn treehouse and everything it represented. Freedom,” Leo said. “He had dreams, goals in his life, and I crushed them all with my arrogance. With my pride. I murdered him with my neglect.”
Mia lowered her gun and watched Leo. Her heart seized and crumpled in her chest. All this time she had been focused on her own grief and pain, but she had somehow gained her strength in her meltdowns and endless clutter. All along the real need for healing was within the healer.
“No…” Brendan said. Softer now. His hand open and the knife fell to his feet with a clatter. It was like he couldn’t get the weapon away from himself fast enough, “You shouldn’t blame yourself, mister. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Of course I should,” Leo groaned. His voice tortured by the memory. “It’s why I needed to find Mia’s son, Brendan. I needed him to be alive and to bring him back to Mia. So I could make peace with what I have done.”
“Walter,” Brendan said firmly and gestured his arm to the side. “Back away. Now.”
The bear obeyed and sauntered off to a corner where it slumped down for a nap. Moments later its eyes fluttered closed and it was snoring again, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day.
“I know you can never forgive me for putting you last, Jason,” Leo said to him. “I don’t expect you to.”
Brendan approached him and kneeled in front of him. The softness Mia remembered in Brendan’s eyes when he was a child returned. He watched Leo with a soft compassion that made her cry. He placed a comforting hand on Leo’s shoulder.
“I can’t even forgive myself,” Leo said.
Brendan’s eyes widened at the words. His eyes shifted from wild and insane to gentle and hurt. It was as though the memories of the last four years danced in his mind and the fog lifted, Leo’s words splaying bright sunshine across his memory of who he was. Brendan he wearily got to his feet. His gaze drifted over to his Mia, who still held the pistol pointed at him, then back at Leo.
“My name is not Jason,” he said to Leo. “I’m so sorry, sir. But I’m not your dead son. I never fell from no treehouse.”
“If you’re not Jason, then who are you?” Leo’s eyes crossed, as consciousness fell away from him, piece by piece.
“My name…” he started, “…is Brendan.”
Mia gasped and clasped one hand to her mouth, the other hand still pointing the pistol. Her tears had no way of staying inside of her anymore.
“And that lady over there?” Brendan continued. “That’s my mom.”
Mia dropped the aim on her pistol to the ground. Tears stung at her eyes and she nodded. She raced to Brendan, who lunged himself into her arms. She barely had time to stop the gun as he fell into her arms. As if fulfilling some weird malfunctioning duty, the gun blasted one last stray bullet in the forest to their right.
“Jesus, Miss Floyd,” Michaels scolded as he ran after the gun to pick it up. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack today?”
She cradled her boy in her arms, her head ducked against his, and kissed every last strand of hair on his head. She was careful not to touch his wounded shoulder, and immediately unwrapped her own shirt to bandage him. With each moment she touched him and he looked at her with recognition, it was like years of tightly wound anxiety unraveled and exploded out of her.
Leo found composure and stood. He looked at Mia, as though unsure whether to approach her or not.
She lifted one hand and gestured to him. “Come,” she whispered.
He obliged. He wrapped his arms around her and the boy. Mia caught sight of the ‘family’ tattoo on his arm and she touched it gently with her fingertips.
Leo smiled at her. “We’re going to be all right.” He kissed her forehead. “I will never let you go again. I will never kiss you goodbye again, Mia.”
She closed her eyes and melted into him, as she whispered, “The family is finally all right.”
*******
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ten Days Later
Sunday, September 27: 3:42 p.m.
“That about does it,” Catherine, the lovely Irish lady from Organized Zen Company, loaded the last of the boxes into her red truck parked on the driveway. She appeared back in the doorway with a smile and a hug for Mia.
“You are an absolute life saver.” Mia beamed as she looked around at her sparkling home. It felt empty now, without the stacks of junk piled to the ceiling and enough clutter to overflow three junkyards. The dark wood floors beamed back reflections like polished black granite. There were mahogany beams in the center of the room that she had almost forgotten existed.
The minute Mia had arrived back from the hospital, after the hiking trip from hell, she had googled home organizers and the lovely Catherine showed up three hours later with charts and graphs, organizing baskets, and an endless supplies of hugs for a teary-eyed but determined Mia. It took Catherine and her team ten days of solid hard work to transform the disaster into the beautiful, gleaming condition it was in now. She’d taken only one small break one week ago to attend Nate’s funeral, a beautiful service held on the beach. Returning home after that, Mia had finished cleaning her home and vowed she would never let it get that bad again; she would never let herself become swallowed in her own fear and misery. Never again.
Now that Glenda was gone, there was a weird emptiness that swelled the house. All this time Mia had no idea she was her and Leo’s child. All this time she had been plotting to take Mia’s home, and possibly even her second son, in revenge. It seemed so surreal now. They’d sent another helicopter to pick up Glenda’s and Jessica’s bodies, and after
the autopsies, had sent them back to their hometown for funerals. Mia had not been invited and was mighty glad.
Mia gazed out the window at Brendan kicking a soccer ball around the yard. He seemed blissfully resilient and carefree, as though he’d forgotten everything. All over again. Or, perhaps he remembered it, but had let it all go.
But not a day went by that he didn’t ask her about Walter. Where he was and if someone was feeding him pizza. Because he loved pizza, Brendan would remind her incessantly. Although, Mia would never be able to hear the word pizza again, without being incredibly horrified. It was something she was working on, among other things, with her new therapist.
She wished she could lie to her son and tell him that his best friend had been rescued and sent to a zoo to live out the remainder of his life with a hyperactive yellow Labrador retriever to help the lazy bear keep up his daily cardio and that he was enjoying his days getting sandwich bribes from zoo tourists when the opportunity presented itself. But the reality was that, despite being Brendan’s only friend and protector for four years, Walter had slaughtered two people, bad guys or not, in an unspeakably gruesome manner, and because of that, had been deemed a danger to society. The order to execute the animal came quickly, after they’d all been rescued. She would tell Brendan about it someday. But for now, she was enjoying the peace of him not having the suffer the agony of losing a loved one, like she had endured for four excruciating years in her self-inflicted prison.
Brendan’s ball veered from the yard and down into the bordering ditch. He bolted after it, disappearing from her view for a few seconds, and her heart lurched. She touched her fingers to the now clean window pane. When he came back into view with the soccer ball tucked protectively under his arm, she blasted out a sigh of relief. It was still hard to let him out of her sight, but she knew latching onto him in a state of perpetual panic would do neither of them any good. As long as he was close enough that she could see him, even for snippets at a time, she was as comfortable as she ever expected to be.
“It will take a while to get used to it,” Catherine soothed her, as if sensing her trepidation. Mia was not sure if she was referring to her newly cleaned house or having her son back home. “But you’ll get there. One day at a time.” She warmly extended a business card. “Please do call if you need anything.”
“Thank you, again, Catherine.” Mia took the card with both hands.
Catherine gathered up her bags and headed to the door, kissed each of Mia’s cheeks, and swept the door open. The person standing on the other side of the door caught Mia’s breath in her throat.
Leo.
Catherine gave Mia a knowing smile and then headed down the garden path to her car.
“Baby.” He strolled into the house and took a long look around the open gleaming spaces. He nodded at a piano in the corner. After his eyes made a full circle around the room, they swept back to her meet hers. Her tummy clenched in thrill and she held back a smile as he said, “You did good.”
He came to her and wrapped his strong arms around her. Over his shoulder out the open door, she didn’t see his usual red mustang parked out there. Instead, was a dark blue minivan.
“What happened to the mustang?” She pulled away from him, alarmed.
“That old thing was getting lame.” He shrugged. “Had to get something I could hang my arm out of with a ‘family’ tattoo and not look like a hypocritical jackass.”
She grinned and bit her lip and inched up on her tippy toes to kiss him. “Mmm, I don't know,” she admitted. “That thing was pretty hot, though. Driving a minivan just makes you look like a soccer dad with a fiber intake shortage.”
“As long as I’m by your side,” he said, “then I’m the happiest constipated soccer dad going.” He leaned down and smooched her again, only to have their kissing interrupted by ahems at the door.
They both turned and saw two police constables standing there, both with hands on their holsters. Mia jumped back just a little at the sight of them and then relaxed. It would take some time to not expect Glenda to be lurking around every corner. It was only Constable Barter and her acne-faced sidekick, Auxiliary Allan Michaels. In Penelope’s hands, she clutched a pile of file folders, and her face, although pleasant, was pursed with some urgency.
“Hey Penny. Allan,” Leo called. “We were just thinking of having a barbecue this weekend to celebrate Brendan’s homecoming. You down?”
Penelope and Leo were relaxed as good friends again. Funny how almost losing your life together changes people.
“As long as you’re not going to be serving that cheap watered down piss-water beer again,” Penelope said without a flicker of humor. “That crap I drank on our hiking trip almost made me gag up a lung. Forget about being shoved off a cliff, I’m surprised it wasn’t the beer that almost killed me. But listen, guys, I’m here on business. We have some important news. We’ve been investigating the case.”
“Oh?” Mia raised her eyebrows, not sure if she should be curious or terrified to hear that Barter was still investigating what should be a closed case.
“Auxiliary Michaels, here, has been doing some sleuthing, and I am proud of what he’s uncovered. Damn proud.” Penelope nodded with as much respect as she would ever give her younger partner. “Why don’t you tell them?”
“With pleasure.” Michaels nodded back to her. “We ran a DNA test on Glenda’s body. Turns out she is neither your, nor Leo’s child. She is not even transgender as she claimed. The estradiol pills she claimed to be taking were nothing more than iron pills disguised as estrogen.”
“What?” Mia scrunched up her nose and looked up at Leo. “Why would she do that?”
“Who knows,” Allan said. “Probably all part of a hoax to make you believe she was your son, to trick you into giving you her house.”
“Oh my god,” Mia said. “Does that mean…the skeleton in the cabin…was that our son?”
“Negative again,” Michaels said. “We ran a DNA test on the remains found in the cabin, and while the results proved to not be related to you, Miss Floyd, they shared some DNA with you, Mr. Lawson.”
Mia felt Leo tense in her arms. She looked at up him.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Leo said.
“Possibly a cousin, niece or nephew of yours. Anyone in your family gone missing approximately four years ago?”
“No…” Leo said. But Mia watched him rub his chin thoughtfully, as though he was recalling something he wasn’t saying.
“Believe you me, this whole thing downright confused me more than you can imagine,” Allan said. “So I looked into matters further and tracked down what looks to be your son’s DNA in the database. And boy, let me tell you, did I ever crack open Pandora’s box. It sure was a head-scratcher, I tell you. First of all, the database we use is a real finicky and crashes a lot. This one time I tried to enter my dog’s DNA and my own DNA just to see—”
“Oh for crying out loud,” Penelope blasted. “Will you just bloody well get to the point and tell them what you found.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Allan nearly saluted her, then turned his attention back to Mia. “I think I found your firstborn son, Mia and Leo,” Allan hurried, not wanting to irritate Penelope any further. “It appears he maybe have been taken out of the country, possibly against his own volition.”
“What does that mean?” Mia felt her heart hammer relentlessly. Leo gripped her hand comfortingly.
He took her in his arms and glared at Allan. “Can’t you see Mia has been through enough already? Where is he? I will go get him.”
“He’s in Tunisia, a small country in north Africa.”
“Is he okay?” Mia pleaded. Her son was out there. Alive. Not a rotting skeleton at the bottom of a cabin, although god bless whoever that was.
“No, ma’am, I don’t believe he is. I believe your son is in terrible danger.”
“We need to go find him,” Leo blared. “As in, now. And we need to find out who my dead relative is in that
cabin. Are the two cases connected?”
“We’re on the case,” Allan said. “We intend to rescue him and bring him home to you. But, I’ve got to be real honest with you.” He gulped and looked over at Penelope, as though not sure if he should say it. He slowly turned his gaze back to the couple. “Mia. Leo. If you want to back out now, you can tell me. Because this is gonna be one hell of a dangerous mission.”
*******
Will Leo and Mia find their son and finally bring him home? Find out in A Perfect Hostess, book two of the thriller-romance Blueflower series.
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Kirsten Mitchell
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Kiss Her Goodbye: Thriller/Romance with a shocking twist Page 22