Their Only Child

by Carla Cassidy

  Taking her arm, he led her into the kitchen and toward the sink. He turned on the cold water and pulled her hand beneath the gentle flow. “It doesn’t look too bad,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any glass in it” With a paper towel, he dried the wound.

  “You have any bandages?”

  She nodded. “In the drawer by the sink.”

  He found them and placed one over the cut. “Okay?” he asked.

  She looked at him, her eyes open wounds of pain. “No. No, I’m not all right.”

  He pulled her to him. She seemed to meld into him, her body fitting perfectly against his. He closed his eyes, smelling the sweetness of her hair, her body heat warming his.

  “I keep wondering why this has happened to us. What did we do wrong?’’

  “We didn’t do anything wrong,” Sully said as he tightened his arms around her. “You can’t think that way. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.”

  She leaned away from him so that she could look into his eyes. “Yes, they do, don’t they? Just like the night you got shot.”

  “That was different.” He released her. “Come on, let’s get that plywood up before it gets any colder in here.”

  He felt her gaze on his face, studying him, knew she’d never understood about that night he was shot. She hadn’t understood, because Sully hadn’t told her about his suspicions, and he’d certainly never confessed the residual fear that tormented him after that night.

  It took them only a few minutes to fix the window.

  “You’ll need to have somebody come out and replace this pane,” he said as he hammered in the last nail. “But I imagine you won’t be able to get anyone out until after the holidays.”

  They both turned as Donny flew in the front door. “I heard you got a demand,” he said without preamble.

  Sully nodded and gestured toward the note, which lay open on the end table. He watched as Donny carefully picked it up by the corner and read it. “We also got a call,” Sully said when Donny had finished reading the note.

  “You get it on tape?”

  Sully nodded, and the three of them went into the kitchen, where the tape of the caller was played over and over again.

  “What happens now?” Theresa asked.

  Donny sank down to the table. “We probably need to turn this over to the FBL.”

  “No…” The word shot out of Sully. He didn’t want the federal boys in on this…not yet. He knew the police department were his friends, would do whatever it took to get Eric back safe and sound. If the FBI entered into the scenario, then they could all find themselves bound up with red tape and bureaucracy. “Not yet.” He looked at Theresa, then at Donny. “There’s no guarantee this ransom demand is legit. We don’t know for sure that Eric has been kidnapped.”

  “But the caller knew what clothes he was wearing,” Theresa protested.

  “He could have picked up that information off the newscasts,” Donny explained. He looked back at Sully. “You know I can’t encourage you to meet that ransom demand.”

  “But of course we’re going to pay it,” Theresa replied. “We’re going to do exactly what the caller told us to do. We can’t take a chance by not doing that.”

  Sully could tell by Theresa’s voice that he didn’t dare oppose her on this. As a cop, he knew it was never wise to play a kidnapper’s game. As a father…he’d jump through hoops to get his son back.

  “Then we set up a sting. If we’re going to get this guy, it will have to be at the drop,” Donny said.

  “No!” Theresa looked first at Donny, then at Sully. “You heard what he said. No cops. We can’t take a chance. We have to do what he said.” There was an edge of hysteria in her voice.

  “Theresa, I promise you we’ll make sure this guy doesn’t see a cop. He won’t know we’re there, but we can’t let him take the money and run. The risk is too great.” Donny turned and looked at Sully. “Can you get the money?”

  “Somehow…some way, we’ll get the money,” Sully answered, although he wasn’t sure how. He and Theresa had never managed to get together much of a savings account, and his paychecks from his job as a bouncer weren’t exactly terrific.

  “Robert.” Theresa looked at Sully. “Robert will get us the money. I’ll call him right now.” She disappeared into the living room, leaving the two men alone in the kitchen.

  “This isn’t about the money.” Sully frowned and rubbed a hand across his forehead, where it felt as if a metal band were slowly tightening.

  “What do you mean?”

  Sully looked at Donny. “Think about it. Twentyfive thousand dollars is a pathetically paltry amount for a kidnapper to request. Why not a million…half a million? If you’re going to go to all the trouble and risk of kidnapping a kid, why do it for twentyfive g’s?”

  “So, if it’s not about the money…what’s it all about?”

  “I don’t know.” Sully pinched the bridge of his nose, his headache now pounding with nauseating intensity. “It could be a hoax…somebody hoping to cash in on a hot news story. At least we know it isn’t Burt Neiman.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Wasn’t he in custody for questioning?”

  Donny frowned. “Yeah, but we couldn’t hold him. He was released about two hours ago. He would have had plenty of time to throw that brick and make the call.”

  Theresa came back in the room. “Robert is going to bring the money by first thing in the morning.” Sully noticed that some of the fear had left her eyes. “It’s going to be all right,” she said, as much to herself as to anyone else. She sank down at the table across from Sully and reached for his hand across the table. “We’ll give him the money and he’ll give us back Eric. It’s going to be just fine, isn’t it?”

  Sully nodded wearily. He didn’t have the heart to tell her they couldn’t trust the word of a kidnapper.

  ANOTHER NIGHT of darkness. Another night without her baby. Theresa sat alone in the deepening shadows of her bedroom, trying to fill the emptiness with thoughts of Eric.

  She’d been in labor with him for nearly twenty hours…excruciatingly hard labor…and yet the moment he was born and the doctor placed him on her chest, she’d magically forgotten those hours of pain. Instead, she’d been filled with a love so intense, so profound, she wept with joy.

  As he lay there on the warmth of her breasts, his bright blue eyes had looked at her with ancient wisdom, as if in the instant after birth he still retained all the secrets of the universe. Then he’d blinked, and that wisdom had faded away and he’d been just a baby. Her baby. His arms had flailed and he’d begun to cry and she had wondered if he cried because his prebirth memories and knowledge had seeped away, leaving him frightened and helpless in a brand-new world. At that moment, Theresa had fully understood the meaning of the maternal bond.

  Flashes of Eric filled her head, memories rich in clarity and texture. The smell of his skin after a bath, the silky softness of his hair, the feel of his hand in hers, so small, so trusting.

  The winter he was three, she and Sully had bundled him up in a snowsuit and taken him out into the snow, where he’d promptly gotten stuck in a snowdrift. She closed her eyes, her mind filled with the vision. She could see clearly the look of surprise on his face when he’d realized he couldn’t move his legs. His blue eyes had flashed in consternation, his cheeks had reddened like ripened apples, and he’d raised his arms to her for help. She’d picked him up and promptly lost her footing, tumbling backward into the drift

  And Sully. She remembered Sully, his cheeks ruddy from the cold, his rich laughter warming her throughout as he helped them out of the drift.

  She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, the memory of Eric’s giggles, of Sully’s laughter, filling her heart. She tried to hang on to the pleasant memory…but the harder she fought to retain it, the more elusive it became, until it finally disappeared and she was once again a frightened woman sitting in a darkened bedroom while her husband sat in the kitche
n with several police officers, plotting strategy for a ransomdemand payoff.

  “Be safe, Eric,” she whispered. “Dear God, keep him safe until tomorrow, when he can come home.” Surely if they paid the ransom, the kidnapper would release Eric. Surely the man knew he held her heart, her very soul, in his hands.

  “Theresa?” Sully walked into the room. He closed the door behind him and sat down next to her on the bed. “You should get some sleep.”

  “So should you,” she countered, noting how the flickering Christmas lights outside the window splashed their brilliant colors across his tired countenance. “I was just thinking about Eric,” she said, grateful when Sully put an arm around her. She leaned into him and sighed against the front of his shirt.

  “What about him?” he asked softly, his hand raising up to caress the length of her hair down her back.

  “You remember how when he was little he’d call butterflies ‘flutterbys’? And the way he’d make up stories before he could read? He’d look at the pictures in his books and make up things to go along with the pictures. And how he loves the rain because he says it washes the whole world clean and makes it smell nice?”

  She turned in his arms so that she was facing him, and placed her hands on either side of his face. She could feel the slight roughness of day’s-end whiskers on his cheeks. “He’s the best of us both, isn’t he?” she asked.

  He nodded, and in the depths of his eyes she saw need…the aching need of a man in torment, whose only hope for comfort existed in her arms. “Oh, Sully,” she said softly, then kissed him.

  The instant her lips touched his, passion flared inside her, hot and raging out of control. She tasted his response, as hot and desperate as her own.

  Together they fell back on the bed, their mouths still locked as they drew strength and gave comfort to one another. Hungrily their tongues flicked and swirled around each other, needing passion to usurp fear, desire to replace uncertainty. They wanted to lose themselves in each other, momentarily forgetting their heartbreak, their fear.

  “Make love to me, Sully,” Theresa gasped when the breathless kiss finally ended.

  “Theresa…I…” Indecision darkened his eyes. Theresa knew he was allowing rational thought to gain hold. She didn’t want that. She wanted irrational thought, mind-numbing emotion.

  “I need you, Sully,” she whispered as her hands worked the buttons on his shirt. She splayed her hands across the warmth of his bare chest, and he groaned…a groan of surrender.

  This time it was his lips that captured hers, stealing her breath, then giving it back to her, as his hands caressed up and down her back, tangled in her hair, evoking flames wherever he touched. Within minutes, his passion was huge, leaving no room for thought, no place for anything but this moment in time.

  She surrendered utterly to him, aching with the need to assuage the emptiness that gnawed at her insides, allowing need to engulf her, in a momentary respite of mindless alienation from painful emotions of fear for her son.

  Pushing his shirt off his shoulders, her hands caressed his broad chest, exploring the familiar contours of hard muscle dusted with wiry hair. At the same time, he pulled at the bottom of her sweatshirt, tugging it upward, over her head. He threw it across the room, then unsnapped her jeans.

  “Wait…” She moved off the bed and stood, quickly removing the rest of her clothing. He did the same, his eyes glittering darkly as they lingered on her.

  The first frenzied flood of passion passed as they stared at each other in the semidarkness of the room. She knew Sully didn’t move toward her because he was giving her a chance to change her mind, to call a halt to their lovemaking before it progressed any further. And that caring only made her want him more.

  She moved toward him…against him…gasping as her naked flesh made intimate contact with his. Oh, she’d forgotten. She’d forgotten the exquisite joy of naked flesh upon naked flesh, of heat meeting heat, soft need melding with hard hunger.

  She’d forgotten the beauty she always found in making love with Sully. Even though they had been separated for nearly a year, it had been much longer since they made love. The physical aspect of their relationship had died on the night of Sully’s shooting.

  As she pressed her body against his, she felt the rapid beating of his heart, the hardness of his desire pressed against her thigh. With a deep, almost guttural moan, he wrapped his arms around her, his lips seeking the flesh of her neck, the secret erogenous place behind her ear.

  “Theresa…sweet Theresa,” he whispered as his hands cupped her buttocks and drew her more intimately against him.

  “Love me, Sully. Love me like you used to.”

  He swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. Sully had always liked a slow pace when making love, and this night was no different.

  He stroked her body in long, fluid motions, kissed her in the intimate places he knew evoked the most pleasure, until she trembled with urgency. Still he held back, taking her to heights she’d never reached, loving her as she feared she’d never be loved again.

  When he finally entered her, she cried out his name, clutching his shoulders and meeting his thrusts with frantic need.

  Together they climbed…higher…faster…until they climaxed, each crying out the other’s name.

  Afterward, Sully watched her sleep. She’d fallen asleep almost immediately, as if their lovemaking had used up the last of her reservoir of strength.

  He stifled the impulse to reach out and stroke the rich darkness of her hair, not wanting to bother her sleep. If she could find some modicum of peace in the oblivion of sleep, then he didn’t want to disrupt it.

  He rolled over on his back, watching the blinking outside Christmas lights’seeping through the curtains to paint colorful patterns on the ceiling.

  He’d forgotten the pleasure of making love with Theresa, forgotten how completely she gave of herself to him, how sweetly she surrendered. But he wasn’t fool enough to read anything into this particular night of lovemaking.

  She’d needed him to sweep away her heartsickness. Just as he’d needed her. When Eric was back home and things returned to normal, he and Theresa would resume their separate lives.

  He both eagerly awaited and dreaded the coming of the next day. If they paid the ransom, would Eric be returned to them unharmed? Was it a real demand…or the work of a crackpot? Who was behind this? If the motive wasn’t money, then what?

  God, there were so many questions…so few answers. Without motive, it was almost impossible to guess who might have Eric. And if the motive was strictly money, it could be anyone.

  He slid from the bed and padded to the window. Staring out into the purple shadows of dusk, he wondered what they had missed…. What clues had they overlooked? Who hated him or Theresa enough to do this? Or was it possible Eric had simply been a random pick?

  Making a decision, he grabbed his pants and tugged them on, then grabbed his shirt. He fastened each button methodically, thinking back over everything that had happened since he heard about Eric’s disappearance.

  It was time he started thinking like a cop, not like a father…time to stop taking everyone else’s word for things and investigate on his own. And he knew exactly where he intended to start. Donny might have had to walk on eggshells with Burt Neiman, because of his badge and the responsibilities that came with it. Sully had no such restrictions. He wasn’t a cop anymore.

  ERIC WATCHED the coming of night through the narrow cracks around the boards at the window. He didn’t want it to be night again.

  He’d spent the morning reading the comic books that had been in the bag, then eaten one of the sandwiches and taken a nap.

  After he awakened, he’d tried to pry the boards off the window. He’d worked and worked, until his fingers ached and he’d broken two nails. He’d finally managed to release one side of one board. It wasn’t enough to let him climb out the window, but it was a start

  If the police didn’t come to rescue him to
night, then tomorrow he’d work on prying off the boards again. Sooner or later he’d make a space big enough to wiggle through.

  He stared at the window, where the last flickering light faded with every breath he took. The dark scared him, but he would be all right if he just thought of stuff.

  He curled up on the bed and closed his eyes, then drew a picture of his mom in his mind. Even though she was his mother, he thought she was one of the prettiest women in the whole world. He liked the way her nose wrinkled when she laughed, how her hair smelled when she gave him a hug. Her blue eyes were the color of the sky, and they almost always twinkled and danced. He held on to the vision of her until it hurt and he felt the burn of tears behind his eyes.

  He missed his dad, too. His dad was the strongest, greatest guy in the whole world. Eric remembered the time his dad had come to his class to talk about being a policeman. Eric had been so proud.

  Even a bad guy’s bullet couldn’t kill his dad. Eric thought his dad might be related to Superman. Maybe a cousin or something.

  He also missed the smell of his classroom, and Bobby Johnson’s goofy laugh. He missed his hamster, Petey, who sometimes bit him but never too hard.

  The one thing he didn’t miss was his poster of Joe Montana. And he didn’t miss it because he knew Joe was here in the cellar with him, whispering in his ear, telling him it was going to be all right And Eric believed Joe. He’d seen the films of the old football games where Joe had pulled miracles in the fourth quarter of a game with mere seconds left. Joe was the miracle man, and next to his dad, Joe was the bestest hero in the world.

  Yes, Eric believed in Joe, and he believed in miracles. He pulled his legs up tighter against his chest, wishing for a blanket to keep him warm and a nightlight to chase away the dark. He could use one of those miracles any time now.

  Chapter Eight

  Sully left the house and got into his car. Before starting the engine, he checked the glove box to make sure his gun was still inside. He’d stowed it there before going into Theresa’s, knowing the sight of the gun would frighten her.