My father didn’t seem to hear me. He stepped around me, grabbed Henry and pulled him into his arms.
“I knew you’d come home one day,” my dad muttered, his voice hoarse. “I knew you would.”
What was going on? My mouth gaped open, and I wondered if I should call a psychologist or act as referee before Henry pulled back and slugged my father for his weird behavior.
My dad stepped back and turned toward me. The tears streaming down his face caused my heart to lurch. “Gabby, it’s your brother. He’s come home. He’s come home.”
Chapter Twenty-One
I blinked. “My brother? Dad…”
I looked at Henry. Maybe he looked a little bit like Tim, but he wasn’t Tim. He couldn’t be. Tim was gone. And Henry was… well, he was weird.
But Henry just stood there staring at us. Tears streamed down his cheeks also, leaving little rivulets in the dirt.
“Henry?” I questioned, waiting to hear his denial. Why wasn’t Henry denying this and setting my father straight? Why was he crying?
He locked gazes with me, and I knew my father’s words were true.
“Tim?” I whispered. I stepped backward and clutched something—it just happened to be Riley’s arm was there—to balance myself.
He nodded.
I shook my head, the skeptic in me rising to the surface. “No, I can’t believe this. It can’t be true. This is… it’s some kind of set up or something.”
“Pompadour Tim, rah rah rah, here comes a bull so rah, rah, run,” Henry said.
It was a rhyme I’d made up about my brother once and it had stuck. We’d sit in Tim’s room and make up silly rhymes for hours. We’d both be giggling so hard by the end that our sides hurt. The memory squeezed my heart.
Next thing I knew, I sank to my knees, weeping. No, this couldn’t be my little brother. He couldn’t have been in my life for this long without me ever knowing. Siblings could sense each other…
Riley put his arms around me, but there were no words at that moment. Just emotions. Strong emotions that collided inside me.
My dad hugged Henry—Tim. Tim held onto him also.
“Maybe we should all sit down and talk,” Riley muttered.
I nodded. Yes, I needed some answers.
We shuffled into the living room. The silence in the room was thick. No one seemed to know what to say or do or where to start. Finally, I drew in a deep breath and attempted to pull myself together. Truth and doubt collided inside me. One minute I believed that Henry was my brother; the next I knew this was a mean-hearted trick.
I had to bring out the investigator in me and get to the truth of the matter. I rubbed my sweaty hands on my jeans and swallowed, my throat suddenly dry.
“Did you know that I was your sister this whole time?”
He nodded, his emotions restrained as he sat across from me. Henry no longer looked like a fanatical freak. Something about the way he sat reminded me of a lost little boy. I knew he wasn’t the prodigal son because he hadn’t left on his own accord, but he was the lost son who’d come home.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why wait until today?”
“I actually came over to the apartment to meet you a couple of months ago, but I chickened out. In the process, I met Sierra, and I realized that by getting to know her, I could get to know you.” He looked down at his hands. “I’ve had a lot of hurts in my life. I didn’t want to be rejected by my sister also.”
“How about dad? Why not go to him?”
Tim looked at our father. “The same reasons.” He squeezed the skin between his eyes as if fighting tears. “Look, I know it probably doesn’t make sense. I had all of these crazy expectations of what our reunion would be like. Then fear set in and I began to wonder how you’d both accept me. With open arms? With skepticism? Had you moved on with your lives and forgotten about me?”
“We’d never forget about you, Tim. Never.” My dad reached forward and grabbed his hand.
I wanted to say the same thing, but the words stuck in my throat. Instead, I asked, “What happened, Tim? After you were taken at the park that day, what happened?” My voice sounded shaky and unsure and very much not like my voice.
“You mean after those two men snatched me?”
I nodded, tension digging deep into my back as I braced myself for what I might hear. I had so many fears about what had happened to Tim, so many nightmares…
Tim wiped one of the tears rolling down his cheeks with the back of his hand. “They took me to a nice couple. They lived in Northern Virginia. I guess they’d desperately wanted kids but when they couldn’t have their own, they decided to adopt. Only they couldn’t afford to adopt. So they went with the next option. They kidnapped me.”
My throat burned and I closed my eyes, unable to face my brother. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t all that bad. After awhile, I kind of forgot about my old life. Living with them seemed to be the norm. They told me that you guys died in a fire. I believed them for a long time, just like I believed that they’d legitimately adopted me.”
“So they were nice to you?” My voice cracked with emotion. I’d had nightmares about him being hurt at the hands of someone merciless.
He nodded. “They were a little shady with other people, but they never treated me poorly.”
My heart calmed for a second. Good. He hadn’t been tortured or abused, which had always been my nightmare for all of these years.
Thank you, Jesus.
“Three years ago, they both died in a car accident. That’s when I decided to do some research for myself. I didn’t come up with anything until a couple of months ago. That’s when I saw the article about Gabby and something clicked inside me. I kept digging and eventually found a newspaper article detailing my kidnapping. I realized what had happened.”
I realized at that moment just how little I knew about this man. When he was just Henry, I just dismissed him as a weirdo. But now there was so much I wanted to know. “Where are you living down here, Tim?”
He shrugged. “Here and there. With different friends. I got laid off from my job, you know.”
“Is that why you became a freegan? Out of necessity?”
He cracked a smile. “You’re really hung up on that, aren’t you? No, I’m a freegan because I really do believe in that way of life. It started for me in high school, just for fun. Dumpster diving and stuff. It just progressed from there. We didn’t have much when I was growing up, so I learned to appreciate things. It’s a lesson most people in America could learn.”
“I looked for you every day,” my dad muttered. My dad wept again. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my dad cry like that. Usually, he just drank away his troubles.
I turned my head sharply toward him. My dad did? All I’d seen him do was drink. When had he searched for Tim?
“I did Internet searches, hoping I’d find some more information. When I didn’t, I turned to the bottle to numb the pain.”
My heart beat at double time. That’s why my father had begun drinking like a fish? Guilt pounded with each heart beat. Perhaps I just shouldn’t have judged him so easily.
My dad stood, still touching Tim’s shoulder as if afraid he might disappear again. “Stay with me. I don’t have much but what I have is yours.”
Who was this man? What happened to my dad, the one who only thought about himself?
Tim nodded solemnly. “The police are looking for me.”
“I don’t care. You’re my son. You have a place at my house.”
Tim nodded again. “Okay then. I could use a warm place to sleep.”
My dad put his arm around Tim’s shoulders. “Let’s go then. We all need some time to process this great news. And you, my boy, need to settle into your new home. I’m going to clear out the spare bedroom for you, and you’re welcome to stay as long as you need. I don’t care about those cops looking for you.”
They stepped toward the door. I couldn’t let them go. Not yet. �
��Tim…”
They paused and looked back at me.
I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry,” I muttered.
He nodded. “I know.”
With that, they left.
***
Riley looked at me from across the couch. After several moments of silence stretched by, he finally asked, “Are you okay?”
I’d hardly heard the silence as my thoughts absorbed me. “I’m in shock.”
“Do you think that’s really your brother?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s him. I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier. I thought he looked familiar, but…”
“It’s been a long time.”
“Yes, it has.”
Riley squeezed my hand. “What can I do for you?”
I shrugged, wishing I had an answer. “I’m just processing everything still.”
“It will take time.”
“How could I not have seen it, Riley? He’s my brother.”
“People change. He was just a boy when he was taken. And now his looks are concealed behind that beard and those bulky clothes he wears. Don’t beat yourself up over this. I thought you might be happy. Are you happy?”
I wiped at a tear that pricked my eye. “I am happy. I’m in shock. I’m a lot of things.”
“How about we grab a bite to eat? Especially since the shrimp boil didn’t go over that well, not with the dirty newspaper and all of that.”
I actually cracked a smile at that. “That sounds good.”
We walked across the street to The Grounds. The paintings still glared at me when I walked inside, feeling like stabs to the heart. Riley put on brakes when he saw them. “Wow,” he muttered.
“I know.”
He touched the painting of Tim. “This is creepy, Gabby.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
Sharon appeared behind us. “I haven’t seen Becca since I found out these paintings were about your life, Gabby. I tried to call the number she left, but it was bogus.”
“So was the address.”
“Gabby,” Sharon muttered, clutching my arm.
“What is it?”
She pointed at the window. “There! There she is!”
I stepped toward the window, at the young woman standing there peering inside. She spotted me and took off in a sprint.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I took off after the girl. “Stop!”
She didn’t slow. She’d gotten a good head start. My leg muscles burned as I tried to catch the petite woman, who didn’t look much older than a college student.
Riley darted in front of me. Rush hour might have been over, but traffic was still thick. The girl darted in the middle of an intersection, narrowly missing oncoming cars. I dodged a few myself and nearly broke one of my legs in the process. I didn’t even care. I just wanted to reach that girl and find out who she was.
Riley reached the other side of the road just as the girl took a hard right into an alley
Get her, Riley, I silently urged.
I gasped in deep breaths, trying desperately to catch up, wishing my legs were longer and that I was in better shape. Neither were true, though.
I rounded the corner into an alley. My foot caught on some cracked concrete, and I nearly toppled but caught myself. So close, so close.
Finally, I reached the end of the alley and stopped abruptly. Riley stood there, hands on hips, staring at the parking lot in front of us.
“Where did she go?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I lost her.”
“You take the left, I’ll take the right.” I didn’t wait for him to respond. I darted to the right. No sooner had I done so, did a maroon sedan squeal out. Before I could reach it, the car pulled onto the street and to safety.
“Did you get the license plate?”
I shook my head. “Mud covered the numbers.” Just two weeks ago the temperatures here had been in the sixties and it had been raining. Maybe the mud—frozen now—was left over from that temperamental weather shift.
“I don’t get it. Who is that girl, and what does she want with you?”
I shook my head again. “I have no idea. This just keeps getting stranger and stranger.”
And something else was bugging me also.
Why did the girl look familiar?
***
I’d talked Riley into watching High School Musical with me that evening. And now, only halfway into the show, his head tilted back on my couch and his body didn’t move.
He was asleep.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop thinking. If only I could turn my brain off sometimes. But I couldn’t.
I thought about Tim. I thought about that dreadful day he’d been taken. My whole world had been shattered. So had my mom and dad’s. We’d never exactly been a normal family, but, after that day, we’d gone downhill quickly.
I’d known it was my fault. I should have been keeping a better eye on Tim. I shouldn’t have ever turned away. But I had. And then he was gone.
Days and weeks passed and there was no word on him. There were no leads. It was like he disappeared into thin air.
Slowly, our lives had returned to a new normal.
But it never felt complete. Never.
Halfway into college, my mom found out she had cancer. I dropped out of school so I could take care of her. Meanwhile, my dad drowned his sorrows with his new best friend, Jack Daniels.
It was strange because I’d dreamed for so long about what it would be like to have Tim back. And this scenario was never a part of my dreams. I thought I’d be elated. Instead, I still felt guilty.
I mean, had my dad really searched for Tim every day? All I’d seen him do was drink.
Perhaps I should do what I did best. Whenever worries overwhelmed me, I just poured myself into being nosey—yes, I poured myself into other people’s problems.
And there were plenty of other people’s problems to distract me. Facing their reality seemed better than facing my own.
I slipped out from underneath Riley’s arm, pausing just one moment to watch him. Now that I thought about it, he kind of reminded me of Zac Efron from High School Musical. They both had the same hair—a little too long, the same blue eyes, the same awesome smile.
How was I ever so lucky that Riley had actually wanted to date me?
Again, I needed to stop thinking about myself and focus on other people. Isn’t that what the Bible said to do? It probably wasn’t meant quite that way, but still.
I found one of my little spiral bound notebooks. Call me old school, but I still liked to spell things out using pen and paper sometimes.
I needed to make a list of all of my suspects. Maybe writing everything down would help to sort out this crazy mess.
First suspect: Crazy Stalker-Painter…code name: Becca Bowling. Who was she? I had no idea. What was her motive? Again, I had no idea. But she was there, in my life, shadowing me and painting pictures depicting my history. That made her a suspect in my book.
Second suspect: Lydia Harrison. She would have the most to gain by her husband dying. But she’d have nothing to gain by bombing his building, unless he had some kind of insurance policy that would guarantee them more money.
Third suspect: Mark Daniels. What was his connection with Lydia? Was someone paying him off? Was that reason to murder?
Fourth suspect: Clifford Reynolds. He’d definitely acted suspicious at the Go Green meeting and he seemed to be avoiding me like life avoided the Grim Reaper.
Fifth, and perhaps mostly likely, suspect: Bruce Watkins. He marched to the beat of his own drummer, to use a cliché. And he was fanatical about the environment. He’d possibly written the how-to manuals for ecoterrorists everywhere. Seemed a good suspect to me.
Final suspect: Broken Arrow. He was definitely up to something. But what? What did he know? Was his Native American tribe bent on revenge?
And who was that person that Henry—I mean, Tim—had mentioned to me? Sierra’s friend,
Tree? I’d be paying him a visit tomorrow.
I guess I could cross off Henry—Tim? How long would it take me to get used to that?—off my list of suspects. But that still left me with a lot of people to wade through.
I looked at the list and sighed again. I don’t think I’d ever had so many suspects, or so few leads. There’d always been at least one front runner in my mind. Looking at this set of people, no one jumped out. Was there someone I was missing?
And where was Sierra in all of this? I closed the notebook. Maybe tomorrow I’d get some answers. For now, I’d go back to staring at Riley and marveling at the fact he was my boyfriend.
I ever-so-softly traced his jaw with the backside of my fingers. He was one in a million, the man of my dreams.
So why did I feel inadequate? He’d never made me feel inadequate.
I’d been in enough bad relationships to know a good relationship when I saw one. What Riley and I had was good.
So why did fear linger in the back of my mind?
“Are you trying to seduce me?” Riley popped an eye open and grinned.
I slapped his arm playfully. “You know me so well.”
His arms reached for me and pulled me toward him. He tucked my head under his chin. “Do I even want to know what you’re thinking?”
“I’m just awestruck that we’re together.”
“Awestruck? Wow. I like that word. But you’ve got to know that I’m the lucky one.”
I pulled back and looked him in the eyes. “Why are you lucky?”
He straightened some. “Because you’re spunky, you’re caring, you’re gorgeous. You don’t take things at face value but you search for the truth yourself. You don’t let anything stop you from getting what you want—in a good way, not a run all over people way.” He squeezed my hand. “You’re my Gabby.”
My face warmed at his sincerity. I tucked my head back under his chin, content to be “his Gabby.”
***
Tree Matthews agreed to meet with me for lunch the next day. I pulled into a parking garage in downtown Norfolk and then hurried across traffic until I reached a popular restaurant located on the Elizabeth River. In the evenings, it transformed into a bar that beckoned those into the nightlife scene. But right now, the place was just a restaurant full of business men and women, taking their lunch breaks.
Organized Grime (Squeaky Clean Mysteries) Page 13