Owen

by Barton, Kathi S.

  They were still fussing over that when he got them loaded in his truck to go to his brother’s home. When they arrived a few minutes later, Harley was in the yard with his dad and having fun with the swing. Conrad stayed back but watched them both.

  “That’s my brother-in-law, Harley, and his dad, Alexander Dorsey. Would you like to go meet them?” Conrad said yes and held his hand while he took him there. When he stopped a few yards from them, Harley squealed and jumped off the swing too soon to come to them.

  Before he could go and help him up, Conrad was there. Helping him stand, Conrad brushed him off and asked him if he was all right. After a few minutes the two of them went back to the swing, and Conrad carefully pushed him in it. It was nice to see them getting along, and Alexander said that too when he joined him and Clare.

  “He loves that thing. I offered to pay for it when your dad had it put in, but he said that all the kids have been using it. Caleb’s boys were out here a bit ago, but they got called in to clean up. Those boys are coming along too, don’t you think?” Owen explained some of what had happened with the boys when they were called in for dinner. Conrad easily convinced Harley to join them, and they went in ahead of them.

  “Well, would you look at that? I usually have to beg him to come off it. And there he goes inside like it was all his idea. Thank you, my dear. I think I might just have found someone for Harley to have a day with.” Owen told Clare again about the school, and what he had hoped that Conrad could do there. “Oh, my yes, someone to help with painting. Some of them are quite good at it, just need someone that can help them with the colors and all. There are a few of them that have never held a brush before going there. You should really let him go. He’d be such a nice addition to the staff.”

  They were still talking about it when they entered the house. Owen knew right away that something had happened. Or that Dominic had found something about her dad and had shared it. When Mom came forward and asked Clare to help out in the kitchen, Owen wasn’t the least bit surprised when she told her no, that she wanted to know what had happened. They looked at Rayne when Mom did.

  “I’m Gabe’s wife, and I can and do talk to ghosts.” Clare looked at him then back at Rayne. “You were right about your parents. They’re both alive. I’ve had people looking for them since Owen let us know your theory about them. There are several deaths attached to their being alive as well.”

  “They’re alive.” When she looked as if she might crumble, Owen scooped her up in his arms and took her to the living room. Setting her down on the couch, he sat down beside her and took her hand into his. “They’re really alive? And you talk to ghosts? What does that pay? I’m looking for a job.”

  “Clare—” He was cut off when Rayne sat down on the other side of Clare. Clearing his throat, Owen started to explain. “She and my brother can see them, and they help them when they’re able. There are a lot of them around all the time, and when we need something from them—you know, like finding out things that we’d not be able to do—they can get in and out of places we never would be able to.”

  “There was this man, he was supposed to be their pilot that day. The day that they were killed they hired this man to take them on a vacation. Was he part of it as well? He had a wife and five kids. Barely making it on his own.” Rayne asked for a name, then looked to her left. After asking someone there to find it, she looked back to Clare. “Just like that? You believe me that there might be someone else helping them. Why would you do that?”

  “Because you’re a part of this family. And while none of us know you that well, we’re willing to help you. And there is the added fact that you made Caleb and his parents have such a good time today with your old boss. I wish I could have been there too.” Rayne looked sad for a moment, then she looked at Owen before speaking. “Owen, you have a visitor. He’s here now, and he isn’t happy with you.”

  “Who is it?” She told him it was Michael Macintosh. “Which one? I mean, her father isn’t dead, so it’s not him, so it must be the first or second one. Which one is it, Rayne, and what can he want with me?”

  “He wants you to stop this now, before you get her hurt. He thinks that she’s been hurt enough.” Owen looked at Clare, then back at Rayne. “He’s thinking that with the two of you looking for answers, all you’re going to get is more questions and someone hurt. He doesn’t want his granddaughter hurt by her father anymore.”

  “He needs to be held accountable for his actions.”

  Rayne stood up and looked again. He had a feeling that Wally had found them some answers. “Norman Crass is in on it. Left his wife with all kinds of debt, too, that she’s drowning in. There was an insurance policy that he took out, but there was some question about whether or not it was him on the crashed plane. The dental records didn’t match, so she can’t collect. Also, your parents aren’t in this country at the moment. But Wally thinks that they’re on their way for some reason. Do you know what could bring them back?”

  Clare nodded then looked at her brother. Owen told her they’d protect them both. When she got up to pace, talking to herself as she did so, Owen was able to figure it out. He stood up and asked if they could eat now. Things needed to settle up in his head, so he could figure out a way to help. The insurance policy on Conrad was going to make her parents rich, but not if he wasn’t in the home where he was to be taken care of. And not by the staff.

  Chapter 3

  There were so many places where he could just walk around that Conrad had to stop and think about which way he wanted to go next. The big house, Owen told him, was his to look around. He knew what he meant, that he didn’t own the house, but he sure would like to live there. He’d slept better last night in the big bed than he ever had before. Wandering down the hallway, he heard voices at the other end and went toward them. He found Owen in the room with his sister and went to join them.

  “Those are pretty.” She handed him one of them, telling him to be extra careful. They were old and expensive. He decided that he really didn’t want to hold it after all. “You can, Conrad. It’s very delicate. You should feel how light it is.”

  “No thank you. I’ll just look at it in your hands.” She held it for him, turning it around so he could see it. “Even the inside is all pretty too. I wish I could paint a cup like that. Wouldn’t that be really pretty with a plate of cookies next to it?”

  “It would. Do you want to take a picture of it?” For some reason, he didn’t. Conrad usually liked taking pictures of pretty things, but this was just too much so for him to mess up with his camera. “Would you like me to take it for you?”

  Clare was forever helping him out. It was like she knew what was in his brain all the time. When he nodded, Owen said for Clare to hold it and he’d take the picture for him. But Conrad had an idea.

  “Can you take the picture, so I can see Clare? I think I’d like her to be holding the pretty cup. Like she’s gonna take a sip of tea with it.” Clare did just what he wanted, and he smiled at her. “You’re so pretty, Clare. Much prettier than these cups, and they sure are pretty too.”

  “Thank you, Conrad. But look at all these. Owen has fifty-four sets of them.” She pointed out the ones that had tea pots, and other sets with it. There were some that even had little plates that Owen told him were dessert ones. He never touched them, but Conrad loved looking at them all.

  When they had seen all the cups that were taken out of the big trunk, Owen took them to see the paintings that had been in one of them too. Conrad loved them. The watercolors were just beautiful on them, and whoever had painted them really liked the sea. He asked what the words were on the back of one that he liked the most.

  “It’s a seascape from a small city outside of Rome. It doesn’t say where exactly, but I’m thinking near one of the resorts that are there now.” Owen walked to the large map that had red and blue pins sticking in it all over the place. “I’ve been tracking where the cups have come from, as well as some of the paintings. The bl
ue ones are cups that she’s had made and where she picked them up from. The red ones are some of the cities she’s mentioned she painted in. There is a diary, but most of it is written in French, so I’m having someone translate it for me. One of the pack has a good ear for language.”

  Conrad looked at the pretty book and then the handwriting on the inside. It was fancy, like she had taken her time or something to write it just perfect. Even when she messed up and scratched it out, it was still pretty. He gave the book back to Owen while he explained that he didn’t want it lost, so he’d made copies of the pages to be read.

  “Why do you have this, Owen? It’s kind of girly, ain’t it?” He corrected him like his sister did. “Isn’t it?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think it is, but I’ve not used them for anything other than to set them up in this room. There are other things too. Like a trunk full of clothing that belonged to the woman that owned these. I found a bunch of men’s watches too. She loved to collect them because her father had. Then when she was about twenty, they broke off their relationship and he died a few years later.” Conrad said that was sad. “It was. They never spoke again, as far as we can tell. She was in another country—she doesn’t say where—when she got the news that he’d died. By the time the letter reached her, he’d already been gone a month or so. She went home for a time, but didn’t stay. It mentions her mother, but never much about them being very close.”

  “My mom and dad were mean. I tried to be a good person with them, but they didn’t like me to be around. I wasn’t supposed to breathe their air. That was hard for me not to do. I didn’t know how to tell what air was theirs so I’d not breathe it.” Owen smiled, but Conrad could tell that he didn’t like them either. “When Clare came to get me out of the house I was in, she told me that I was a free man. I love her for coming to get me.”

  “I bet you do. And the two of you, you’ve been having fun, right?” Conrad told him that they did. And that he helped around the apartment too. “Clare told me that you make a good salad. I don’t usually eat salads, but I’d try one of yours.”

  “I’ll help with it for dinner then.” He started to go to the kitchen to help, but he forgot the way. When Owen went into the hallway with him, showing where the stairs were and which way to go when he got down them, Conrad hugged him. Owen was a nice person, and he really liked being around him all the time.

  The cook, a man by the name of Skyler, said he’d love the company in making a salad. Conrad gathered all the things up that he would want in the big bowl and put it all in order to cut up. But he wasn’t careful enough and cut his finger. When he was washing it up, Owen asked to see it. He cried then, thinking that he’d never get to make a salad here ever again.

  “It’s all right, Conrad. I can fix it for you. If your sister is all right with that.” He looked at it with Owen and knew it was going to have to be sewed up. He told his sister that he was powerfully sorry. “I can fix it. And it might not be such a bad idea that I have a little of his blood to find him if he needs me.”

  “Please do that then.” When Owen asked him if he trusted him, Conrad didn’t even have to think about it, he told him he trusted him a bunch. Owen put his finger in his mouth and Conrad felt his tongue roll over it. When he pulled it out of his mouth, not only was it not bleeding anymore, but the sore was all gone too.

  “How did you do that?” He told him that it was a secret. “I can keep secrets. I know lots of them that I can’t tell anyone about. Huh, Clare?”

  “Yes, you said you had a lot of them.” She sat down at the long table in the middle of the room, where he’d been cutting up lettuce. “Conrad, do you know any of them about Mom and Dad?”

  Boy, did she ever just hit it right on the head, he thought. Looking at Owen, then at Clare, he decided that there wasn’t anybody in the world that would never tell on him more than his sister and his new friend.

  “They was at our apartment one day when you were at work.” He whispered it, but Conrad knew that Owen was listening too, and he wanted him to. “I was thinking that you messed up in knowing that they was dead. But I never talked to them. I hid away from the door when they knocked on it. Dad kept yelling that I was to let him in, but I never did that. I took their picture when they was out there.”

  He pulled up the picture of them standing in front of the apartment. When Owen took it to look too, he told him he was sorry that he’d not told them before this. But his mind was all messed up and he forgot about it.

  “Don’t worry about it, Conrad. You did the right thing in not going out there with them.” He smiled at Owen and he grinned back. “You keep right on doing that. But if they come around here, you let me know, all right? And if you promise not to tell anyone about this, I’ll tell you how I fixed your finger. I’m a wolf.”

  “Like one of those guys in the school?” Owen asked him what he meant. “Sometimes when we’re really bad, they put us in a room with a bunch of people. Then they take off their clothes and turn into wolves. Two of them are bears, but they don’t never come in there with us. But I see them around sometimes. They’re big.”

  “They shouldn’t be scaring people like that. It’s against the rules.” Conrad knew the rules at the school, and nobody had ever told him that one. “Not there, buddy, but the rules of wolves. We’re not supposed to scare people that might be afraid of us by being our animals. It’s unfair to them, and rude.”

  “They never hurt me. I was always being good, so they’d not hurt me.” He looked at his sister and she was crying. “Don’t cry, Clare. It’s all right. I was never a bad person, so I was never in the room. But I heard about them. That’s why I know about it.”

  “I know that, Conrad. You’re always a good man. I just hate that you had to suffer through that for so long.” He hugged her then, and when she hugged him back, he laughed. “I wish I could have gotten you out sooner. We would have had even more fun.”

  “You give me fun every day.” She laughed at him, and Skyler reminded him about the salad. “I’m going to make the best salad in the world. You guys just wait and see.”

  “You do that. And while you’re making the salad, I have something else that I want to show Clare. Will you be all right here?”

  He said that he would, and Skyler said he was going to enjoy having him close too. It was nice to have so much room to work in, and Skyler was going to show him how to use the fancy grater too.

  ~~~

  Owen took her to the pool house. He’d had the locks on it changed two days ago and more security put around it. There was a sublevel in the thing, something that he’d been startled by, but it was the perfect place for the money to be hidden away. Taking her there now, he told her about what he’d done so far in getting things taken care of.

  “There are five more trunks that I’ve unearthed. I haven’t told anyone about the other four yet. I was sort of afraid to. Not that they’d take any of it, but I was afraid that someone would come looking for it, so I didn’t tell them.” She asked him what he’d found that was so scary. “Let me show you first. Then you can ask me all the questions you want. But before we go in there, I was wondering something.”

  “I’m not having sex with you.” He grinned at her. “You can wipe that grin right off your face, mister. It might be charming to your mom, but to me it’s nothing but a leering look. I’m not going to have sex with you.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask you that.” Her face turned several shades of pink to red. “However, if you ever change your mind, I’d like to say that I’m all for it. Anytime and anyplace you wish.”

  “What did you want, Owen?” This time she turned away from him when he wiggled his brows at her. “Damn it, will you please be serious? For once in your life?”

  “I can be serious. I can. But my question to you was about you living here, with Conrad.” She started to tell him no flat out, but he stopped her. “If they have any idea as to where you two might live now, they’ll come there. And you’re a hell
of a lot safer here, with my family and me to help you, than you would be in that apartment. They already got in there once, that you know of. If they come back there, they won’t stop with just knocking on the door if they think you’re not there with him.”

  They entered the pool house and he watched her pace the room. She did that a lot, he realized—paced when she was thinking. She also talked to herself. Which was good for him—he could hear her thought process.

  “You know about the insurance policy.” She stopped and looked at him. “It’s for seven million dollars. If he dies by an accident, then it’s doubled. When I was talking to Rayne about it, Wally told her that they have set bombs all over the place, and while your brother is there, the entire building will come down and kill all the people inside. And even though they have insurance on Conrad, they’d sue right along with the rest of the families to get even more.”

  “Even if they did that, they’re no longer on the policy.” He asked her what she’d done. “After I was able to bring Conrad home with me, I was contacted by a firm that had handled the policy. They said that in light of my parents being dead, that I should be the beneficiary of it. So, they not only changed it to my name on that one, but the one that the home took out on him as well. At the time, I had no idea that they were alive. But once I did, I thought about the amount of it and started doing some checking. I’ve also been making the payments on it. I was...I can’t afford that anymore either.”

  “You found out that they were alive or that maybe they didn’t get on the plane in the first place.” She told him that she didn’t think they’d gotten on the plane. “They didn’t. I have a friend that can read their minds. I was going to ask you before I sent her there to check.”