Their Only Child

by Carla Cassidy

  She jumped as Sully came through the door, slamming it behind him. “Dammit, I should be down there talking to that creep!” he exclaimed.

  “But you know that’s not possible,” Theresa countered. She sighed. “Oh, Sully, we can’t take chances. If Burt had something to do with Eric’s disappearance, you wouldn’t want to do something that would jeopardize a case against him.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he replied grudgingly. He leaned against the front door, as if too weary to move.

  “Is that what you and Donny were frighting about just now?” He shook his head, and Theresa frowned, suddenly realizing how silent the house was around them. “Where is everyone?”

  “That’s what Donny and I were fighting about,” Sully replied. He paced across the confines of the kitchen, from one end to the other, then back again. “He has to pull most of the men from this.”

  “Why?” Theresa asked, her voice plaintive and higher-pitched than usual.

  Sully paced the length of the kitchen once again, then stopped just in front of her. Stepping close, he placed his palms on either side of her, framing her face, much as Robert had done earlier in the morning. “Right now, Eric is nothing more than a missing kid…possibly a runaway.”

  “You know that’s not true. Eric would never run away,” she protested, oddly comforted by the familiar feel of his large, strong hands against her skin.

  “You know that, and I know that, but without a ransom demand, the police can’t discount the possibility that Eric ran away or got lost. And Donny can’t justify all the manpower on this one case.”

  “So then what happens now? The police just forget that somewhere out there is a little nine-year-old boy who for some reason can’t get back home?” She wanted to rant, she wanted to rave over this new bit of information, but she didn’t want to move away. from Sully’s touch. His fingers were warm, easing somewhat the icy winds of fear that had blown through her since the moment she discovered Eric hadn’t made it to school yesterday morning.

  “Donny will still be in charge of the case, and he’ll continue to work it, with probably half a dozen men. But it won’t be the priority case for all the officers, like it was in the initial hours of the search.”

  “Are they giving up?” she asked, the question easing out of her on a painful breath.

  “No.” He dropped his hands from her face. “But crime in this city hasn’t stopped because Eric is missing. There was a murder on the south side of town a few hours ago, and two armed robberies in the past eight hours. When I was on the force, we used to talk about the fact that the holidays bring out the worst in some people.”

  She sighed, his words producing a cold wind that blew straight through to her core. “Come on, Sully. Let’s decorate the tree. At the moment, it’s the only thing we can do for our son.” She grabbed his hand, and together they went into the living room.

  It took them several minutes to get the boxes of decorations from shelves in various closets. Then, as Sully worked to string the lights, Theresa unpacked the box of ornaments they’d collected during their married life.

  It felt odd, to be working on the tree with no joy in her heart, without the sound of carols playing on the stereo, the pungent scent of spiced cider filling the air.

  It felt even odder to be decorating the tree with Sully. She’d believed it was something that would never happen again. She’d reconciled herself to Christmases without his presence, just as she’d adjusted to lonely nights in her solitary bed.

  She sat back and watched as Sully untangled a string of lights, his brow furrowed in concentration. She’d never believed much in love before Sully. As the eldest of four children, it had been up to Theresa to hold her family together when her father walked out on them, when she was fifteen.

  Theresa had watched her mother fall apart, her sisters draw into shells of hurt and bewilderment. She’d become the strong one, holding the family together, and she’d decided then that she would never give a man that kind of power over her. Until the day she met Sullivan Mathews.

  She’d just moved from her family home back east to Kansas City, to take a job in the prosecutor’s office. Sully had been the state witness on her very first case. She’d taken one look into his ash-colored eyes, felt the power in his slow, devastating smile, and known her life would never be the same again.

  They’d been married six months later. She’d given all she had to give to Sully…but it hadn’t been enough. Resentment bubbled up in her chest as she once again gazed at him. The one time she decided to trust a man with her heart, he’d cast it aside like a ‘pair of worn pants.

  Never again, she promised herself as she once again focused on unwrapping the ornaments. Never again would she allow a man to get so close, to own her heart so completely. The heartbreak Sully had left behind was tremendous enough to last a lifetime.

  “You should have asked me about the dog,” she said as she looked over to where Montana was stretched out on the sofa, as if he’d lived here forever.

  “I figured if you wouldn’t let Eric keep him, then Montana could stay at my place and Eric could see him on the weekends,” Sully replied as he spiraled lights around the tree.

  “And I’d be the bad guy,” Theresa replied irritably.

  Sully paused and looked at her, the wrinkle back in his brow. “Is there a reason why you’re attempting to pick a fight with me?”

  “I’m not—” Theresa flushed, realizing that was exactly what she’d been trying to do. “Maybe I am,” she admitted, although she wasn’t about to confess that she needed to feel anger toward him in order to guard her heart against other, unwanted feelings where he was concerned.

  He put the lights down and walked over to where she sat on the floor. Hunkering down beside her, he smiled—the first real smile she’d seen from him since he arrived at her house. The same slow, catastrophic smile that always made her heart skip a beat and her pulse race. “It’s a natural instinct, I think.”

  She looked at him curiously. “What is?”

  “The need to fight, to fill yourself with anger to mask the fear.”

  “You preferred drinking to fighting to mask whatever it was you felt.” It was a blow below the belt, and she saw the impact of the verbal punch in the narrowing of his eyes, the soft intake of his breath. He stood up and walked back to where he’d been working.

  Theresa knew she should apologize, but the words had been said more to remind herself of what they’d gone through than in an effort to hurt him. Still, shame coursed through her.

  His brief bout of drinking had always been a taboo topic between them. At first, Theresa had thought he drank to ease the physical pain the bullet had left behind. But eventually she had had to face the cold, hard truth, that he drank to endure the unhappiness of their marriage. He’d stopped drinking almost immediately after he left her.

  “Theresa, I’m not going to fight with you, no matter what you say to try to get under my skin.” He finished hanging the lights and began arranging gold garland on the boughs. “Our son is missing, and if we can’t help each other get through it, then we belittle the love that produced him. We mock the years we spent together. I’ll fight with Donny, and all the personnel in the police department, if that’s what it takes to save Eric. But I won’t fight with you. I just can’t.”

  Theresa stared down at the ornament in her hand. She and Sully had bought it for Eric’s sixth Christmas. It was a little red bicycle…just like the one that had been under the tree on Christmas morning. “You remember this?” She held it up, offering a smile as truce.

  “How could I forget it?” He returned her smile—a gesture of forgiveness that made her grateful. “I was up until two in the morning putting together the bicycle we gave to Eric that year.” He finished arranging the garland and crouched down next to her amid the ornaments that chronicled their life together.

  They took turns hanging the baubles on the tree, each one evoking a specific memory to be savored. And ea
ch memory of Eric nourished Theresa’s inner strength, fed the belief that somehow Eric would find his way back home to the parents who loved him.

  ‘The phone has been quiet for a while now,” Theresa said as they dripped long pieces of tinsel on the branches.

  “Yeah, Donny told the reporters out front to let their colleagues know that whoever called and tied up the line would be arrested for obstruction of justice.”

  Theresa looked at Sully in surprise. “Can he do that?”

  Sully smiled. “Probably not, but as long as the press thinks he can, they’ll abide by his wishes.” He bent down and gently picked up the ornate porcelainfaced angel, with her featherlike wings.

  “No,” Theresa cried as he reached up to place her in her heavenly perch atop the tree. “No, please… Remember, that’s Eric’s job.” Every year Sully had lifted Eric up so that he could be the one to set the angel in place as the finishing touch to their tree.

  Sully’s eyes darkened with pain, and he returned the angel to her box of tissue. “You’re right,” he said softly. “We’ll wait and let Eric put her where she belongs.” He plugged in the lights, and the tree came aglow, as if a physical manifestation of their hope, their faith.

  Instinctively they moved together, Sully’s arm wrapping around her shoulders as she leaned into him. The beauty of the tree almost made her shiver, but the emptiness at the very top caused a lump to form in her throat

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Sully tightened his arm around her. “But it’s not right And it won’t be right until he’s home.”

  Theresa closed her eyes, wanting to tell Sully that nothing had been right since the moment he left her. But she couldn’t put that on him, couldn’t burden him with her weakness. And God help her, but Sully had always been her weakness.

  She wanted him to be happy, even if his happiness was dependent on a life without her. Still, she was grateful that he was here for her now.

  Without him, she would stop being strong. Without him, she’d fall apart, lose her mind, plunge into a deep, black hole that would swallow her up.

  “We’ll get through this, Sully,” she said, turning so that she stood directly in front of him. She reached her arms up and locked her hands behind his neck.

  Gazing into his soot-colored eyes, with their sinfully long, dark lashes, she thought she saw a spark of something she’d never thought she’d see again in his eyes.

  Beneath the worry, beyond the disquiet, desire flared. He tightened his grip on her waist, tugging her closer against the solid warmth of his body. His breath was warm and sweet on her face as he looked down at her.

  “Sully?” She wasn’t sure what question she was asking, and in any case he had no reply. The nebulous expression she’d thought was desire disappeared, shuttered behind blankness as he released his hold on her.

  “Theresa…” An explosion at the window interrupted whatever he intended to say. Glass flew inward as the window shattered.

  Sully yanked Theresa to the floor, covering her body with his. For a long moment, neither of them moved, the only sound the howl of the frigid wind that suddenly filled the room.

  “What…what happened?” Theresa finally whispered.

  “I don’t know…. I think somebody wanted to get our attention.” Sully stood and held out a hand to help Theresa up. “There.” He pointed to a brick on the floor just beneath the window, amid glittering shards of glass.

  “What is it?”

  Theresa watched as Sully carefully dusted glass pieces from the brick, then picked it up. An ordinary red brick, a rubber band holding a piece of paper around its middle.

  She held her breath as Sully pulled off the rubber band, then opened the sheet of paper, his hands trembling. He scanned the contents briefly, then looked at her, his gaze cold and hard. “We’ve finally got our ransom demand.”

  Chapter Seven

  Sully held the ransom note with two fingers, although he suspected he didn’t need to worry about smudging fingerprints. Whoever sent it had probably been smart enough to wear gloves while preparing it.

  He read it carefully two times, the first time his mind working like a cop’s. Plain paper. Block letters. Impossible to trace. Dammit.

  The second time he read it, his mind worked like a father’s. Horror swept through him, chilling him, as the frigid wintry air cascaded through the window.

  “What does it say?” Theresa’s voice was hoarse as she moved next to him. Montana whined, and she absently leaned down and scratched his head.

  “It says for you to take a paper sack filled with twenty-five thousand dollars to the Pineridge mall tomorrow afternoon at two. You’re to place it in a trash can in front of Dillards, on the first level. The bills are to be small, nonsequential and nontraceable. No cops. No tricks.”

  “Do you think—” Whatever Theresa had been about to say was interrupted by the shrill ring of the phone. She and Sully froze. As the phone rang a second time, Sully pulled her into the kitchen, where he turned on the recording equipment and gestured for Theresa to answer.

  “You got my note?” The strange voice filled the kitchen.

  Theresa’s eyes flickered to Sully’s. “Yes,” she breathed.

  “If I see a cop, the boy dies. If you jerk me around, the boy dies. Do as you’re told and he’ll be all right.”

  Sully wanted to crawl through the receiver and follow the wires to the monster at the other end of the line. Instead, he quickly scribbled several words on a pad, then held it up for Theresa to read.

  “How…how do I know you have Eric?” she asked, reading Sully’s question.

  There was a long pause. “Blue jeans. Blue sweater and a Chiefs jacket I got him…and if you want him back, you’ll do as you’re told. Follow your instructions.” A click…then the sound of dead air.

  “Wait!” Theresa cried, but it was too late. The caller had hung up.

  “I’ve got to contact Donny,” Sully said as Theresa sank into a chair at the table. “Dammit, wouldn’t you know we’d be contacted when nobody else was here?”

  “Can’t you tell where the call came from? Send Donny with a bunch of men to the address where the call was made?” Theresa asked.

  Sully looked at the caller ID box and frowned. “A pay phone. And I’ll just bet a check of the phone will yield nothing, not even a partial fingerprint of the caller.” He picked up the phone and dialed the number of the station. “Let me speak to Lieutenant Holbrook.” he said tersely to whoever answered the phone at the station.

  As he waited for Donny to get to the phone, he thought again of that voice. It had sounded like the embodiment of evil. Without emotion, without passion.

  “Holbrook isn’t available at the moment.”

  Sully tightened his grip on the phone. “This is Sullivan Mathews. My kid is missing, and we just got a ransom demand. You find Holbrook and make him available.”

  “He’s en route to your house now.”

  Sully slammed down the phone, the force of his action making Theresa jump. “He’s on his way here,” he explained. Cold. The house was cold. Or maybe it was just him. Cold to the bones. Cold to the soul.

  “That voice. Something wasn’t right. It didn’t sound human,” Theresa said.

  Sully nodded. “The caller used a voice synthesizer or something to alter it.”

  There was no way to tell for sure if the ransom demand had been a hoax, or the real thing. One thing was certain. Sully hoped if it was true, he got just one minute…one second…alone with whoever had taken his son, whoever had orchestrated this horror.

  “You have any plywood around here?” he asked.

  Theresa looked at him blankly. She looked dazed, unfocused. Sully wondered if the phone call had shoved her into shock. “Plywood?” she finally echoed.

  He pulled her up from the kitchen chair and led her into the living room, where the temperature had dropped some twenty degrees and the wind whistled through the broken glass of the window.

  He need
ed to keep her moving, needed to take her mind off the call, the horrible possibilities. “We need to fix the window, Theresa.”

  She looked at the window, then appeared to pull herself together. She shrugged her shoulders, as if casting off a heavy shroud. “Of course…the window. There are some scraps of plywood in the garage.

  ‘I’ll get the plywood. Why don’t you clean up that glass?”

  She nodded, and Sully left the living room. Once in the garage, he sat down at the workbench, needing a moment to summon strength. If the call had not been a hoax, then now they knew. Eric wasn’t lost. He hadn’t fallen in a ditch and broken a leg. Somebody had him. Somebody was holding him against his will.

  The bicycle Sully had spent hours putting together several Christmases ago stood in the corner. The chrome and paint shone like new, not a speck of dirt or mud to mar the appearance. Eric was a good kid. He took care of his things.

  That was why Sully had decided to get him Montana. Theresa wouldn’t have to remind him to feed the dog, or clean up a mess. Eric was unusually responsible for his age. Such a good kid.

  Tears burned at Sully’s eyes. He drew in deep gulps of air in an effort to stymie them, but it was no use. As he thought of his son’s sturdy little body, the scent of boyhood that always clung to him, Sully lost it

  His tears oozed from his eyes, trekking down his cheeks, as he stood in the center of the garage and stared at the bicycle.

  The tears made him angry. Another sign of weakness. Another character flaw. He swiped at them angrily, then grabbed a hammer and a handful of nails from the workbench.

  By the time he found a piece of plywood the right size, his tears had stopped. Instead, a cold hard ball of anger sat in his chest. He welcomed the anger, found it easier to accept than tears. Besides, he didn’t want Theresa to see his weakness.

  When he returned to the living room, Theresa stood in front of the window, blood running from the tip of one of her fingers. “Theresa!” He dropped the wood and rushed to her side, realized instantly that she’d cut herself while cleaning up the broken glass.