My rage was beginning to diminish and be replaced by that old familiar guilt again. I didn’t care for her mother, but I hated the thought of what Brandon’s death did to her. “I thought that you didn’t care. I thought that you hated me.”
She looked like my Ariana when she said, “I could never hate you, but I was angry with you. I was angry with you for not explaining to me what happened that day. I was angry with you for leaving, and the longer you stayed gone, the angrier I got. But even while I fought through my own emotions about it, I made sure that Conner knew all of the good things about you. I made sure he was surrounded by things that reminded all of us of you. I made sure my parents didn’t say negative things about you in front of him, and I made sure that he had a relationship with your dad. But when you came back and I was faced with the real possibility of telling him that you weren’t dead and that I had lied to him, I panicked. I went in the house and I took or put away anything that I could, hoping you’d be in and out of town so quickly that you’d never notice. Tyler…I just can’t bear the thought of him being angry with me and not wanting anything to do with me. I don’t know how to explain that to you, Tyler. It’s a feeling that you’ll never understand unless…”
“Unless I’m a parent.” It was a catch twenty-two.
She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. I’m sorry, Tyler, I really am.”
“So what do we do now?” I asked her.
She looked at me with those big hazel eyes, the ones that I could never say no to, and she pleaded with me, “Please let me talk to him first. Let me try and explain to him why we lied.”
“My dad went along with this? He told him I was dead, too?”
She nodded, and more tears flowed down her cheeks. I guess Dad wasn’t really lying. He’d told me the night he kicked me out that I was dead to him. I guess he meant it. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
I didn’t acknowledge her apology. I was still too angry. “I’ll give you one day, Ariana. You’ve already had a lifetime. Tomorrow, I get to meet my son, and if you haven’t told him the truth, I will.” I don’t know if she was going to agree or not. I couldn’t stand to be there any longer. I needed air. I turned on my heel and left her standing there. Brushing past Max in the hallway, I slammed out the door. As I was pulling out of the long driveway, I passed a kid on a dirt bike. My kid. I almost stopped him, but what would I say? I doubt that he would just take my word for things after his mother and grandparents had told him something different for years. So I just drove on, watching him in the rear view mirror and wondering what he was like. It was all just so incredibly surreal.
********
I was a bundle of nervous energy the rest of that day after I left Ariana. I spent a lot of time in that room, Conner’s room, and I tried to imagine what my dad might have been like as a grandfather. It was impossible for me. I’d spent so many years with the image of the drunk and the abuser in the forefront of my mind that it was hard to remember him sober and kind. From the looks of the room and the sound of Ariana’s voice when she talked about him, Conner knew a different man than I did.
Blake texted me to meet Leif at eleven at the bar in New Orleans. At nine, I showered and dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans. I hadn’t talked to Blake about weapons, but I had a bad feeling about this Paulo guy, so I tucked my gun into the waistband of my jeans. I got to the bar just before eleven. Leif had texted me to take a seat at the bar and not to go looking for him. The plan was for him to come on to this Paulo guy and see if he could get him to leave with him. When I walked in, I saw a young guy with dark skin behind the bar. He seemed to be flirting with a couple of college girls. I saw another guy sitting alone at the end of the bar. He gave me an almost imperceptive nod of his head. Leif, I presumed.
I took a seat and ordered a beer. Paulo sat it in front of me with a glass that I pushed aside and went back to cleaning glasses. I could see Leif out of the corner of my eye. He wasn’t a very big guy, maybe five ten or eleven. He had blonde hair and dark blue eyes and one of those grins that made him look completely innocent. I’d known a ton of guys like him in the army, and I’d be willing to bet he got whatever he wanted with that smile. Right now, he was using it on Paulo, the bartender. Paulo seemed to be flirting with a couple of college-aged girls who were sitting at the bar, but every once in a while he’d go over and see if Leif needed anything, and although I couldn’t see Paulo’s face when he looked at Leif, he had one hell of a smile when he turned back around.
I was on my second beer when the girls went over to sit at a table with their friends and Paulo turned his attention solely on Leif. If he wasn’t gay, he was definitely bi. I could hear him asking Leif his name and what he did for a living. In a thick southern accent Leif said, “I just got out of the service.”
“Wow, what branch?”
“I was a Green Beret.”
“Awesome,” Paulo said. He sounded impressed. “So you could kill me with your bare hands?”
Leif grinned and said, “You’d be surprised what I can do with my bare hands.” His tone was flirtatious, and Paulo laughed like he got the double entendre Leif had meant for him to get. I saw Paulo look around to see if they were alone. I stared down at my phone like I wasn’t paying attention, and then heard him whisper something to Leif. I couldn’t hear what he said, but it was obvious from his look what his intentions were. I heard Leif say, “I got all night.”
Another guy sat down at the bar, and when Paulo went to wait on him, Leif texted: “I’m meeting him outside at midnight.”
I looked at time, it was eleven forty five. I texted back: “Should I wait in my car?”
“Yep, you sober?”
I had a flash back to Brandon. Since that day I hadn’t had more than two beers before driving. I texted back: “As a judge.”
I threw a ten down on the bar and got up and went outside. I made my way to my car, and while I sat there and waited, I thought back to my conversation with Ariana earlier. I hated to see her cry. Once the anger wore off, my heart hurt for her. I tried to imagine how bad things must have been for her after I left. She’d lost her brother and between him and I, her two best friends. Then she found out she was pregnant and had to tell her parents it was with my baby. Who did she even have to talk to about that? She was right, I left her to deal with a mess. I never thought of myself as a coward, but running away had been the closest I’d ever come to being one. I pictured my son’s face in my head, and I felt another kind of emotion. It was something I’d never felt before. I’m a father. I’m the father of a kid who was almost a grown man. I felt a pain in my heart over all of the years I’d missed out on, and I resolved to do whatever it took to at least make some of that up to him.
My phone beeped, and I looked down at it. It was another text from Leif: “Going to his place. I told him I didn’t have a car.”
“Right behind you.”
About ten minutes, later the two men emerged. They were both smiling, and I watched as Paulo led Leif to a gray ford pick-up with a six-inch lift on it. They got into it, and I waited until they’d merged into traffic to follow them. I followed them through the French Quarter. He took Canal Street up to the freeway, and once he was on the freeway, they headed out of town toward Franklin Street and the swamps. It got a little harder to follow him without being spotted out there. This late there wasn’t that much traffic, so I had to stay far behind them. After a series of turns on dirt and gravel roads surrounded by swampland on either side, he turned into a long driveway. I drove by quickly and parked at the end of the road. I waited several long minutes before turning around and parking at the edge of the driveway they’d turned into. I got out of my car and walked up toward the trailer at the end of the drive with my gun in my hand. I was raised in Louisiana, but the swamps at night were not a place I’d ever gone. I had the gun out more in case of gators than humans.
When I got to the trailer, I saw that it was set up on risers to keep from flooding. Six cement s
teps led up to the front porch. Instead of taking the steps, I rolled underneath the wooden railing and up against the trailer. I could hear voices inside, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I lay there trying to breathe quietly and just waited. Probably a half an hour or so passed, when all of a sudden I heard a scuffle and men shouting. I got up and went to the door. The wooden door was unlocked, so I pulled it open. The screen door was locked, but I could see Leif and Paulo through the screen. They were on the floor and Paulo was punching Leif in the face repeatedly. I didn’t take the time to wonder why Leif didn’t seem to be fighting back. I just kicked in the screen, pointed my gun at Paulo and said, “Put your hands up and step away from him.” Paulo looked like he was going to hit Leif again. Leif looked unconscious. “Do it and I spray your brains all over that couch.” He put his hands up and slowly got to his feet. “Now step away from him and lay down on the floor on your stomach.”
“Are you going to rape me?”
“What? No. Get on the ground!”
I realized he looked terrified. I thought it was the gun, but his words made me wonder if it was something else. He took a few steps but instead of laying down he ran for the door. He was already doing a broad jump off the porch before I caught up with him. I threw my big body at him, and we landed with a thud in the mud. I was on top of him and he started screaming and saying, “Don’t rape me! Kill me, but don’t rape me!”
I wished that I had handcuffs. I held the gun to his head with one hand and his hands behind his back with the other. “What did you do to Leif?”
“Who?”
“The guy in there on the floor. What did you give him?”
“Just a little Mickey. He was going to rape me.”
“Are you crazy? You brought him home with you.”
“If I hadn’t brought him here willingly, he would have taken me by force. I could see it in his eyes. He wanted me.”
“Did you bring Elliot here, too?”
“Who?”
“Come on, you know who I’m talking about. Elliot worked with you Paulo. He had a crush on you.”
“He was disgusting.” I didn’t like the way he said “was.”
“Where is he Paulo?”
“Probably burning in hell,” he said.
“Get up!” I pushed up off of him, and as he stumbled to his feet, I said, “If you run again, I’m going to shoot you. Now walk toward the house.” He did as he was told, and when we got to the porch, I had him sit down in a lawn chair. I didn’t take the gun off of him as I used my foot to kick open a tool chest sitting on the porch. There was a rubber tie down on top of the tools. I reached in to get that and saw the duct tape. I picked that up and handed it to him and said, “Wrap your ankles together.”
“Please don’t rape me…”
“Shut up and do it!” He took the silver tape and wrapped his ankles together once. “Again,” I told him. He pulled it around one more time, and I said, “Now tear it off and start your wrists. He did that, and I let him struggle with his wrists for several seconds before putting the gun down and taking the tape from his hands. He had felt the full weight of me on the ground, so I assumed that was what prompted his decision not to fight me now. I wrapped up his hands and then I wrapped a few pieces around his upper body and the chair. He opened his mouth and I said, “Unless you plan to tell me where Elliot is, I’d keep that mouth shut.” He shut it, and I left him there and went in to check on Leif. I said a silent prayer that he wasn’t dead. That would be just my luck.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
TYLER
My body was sore the next morning when I got out of bed, but shockingly, I had slept through the night without any nightmares for the first time in years. I limped into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My face was scraped down the side from where I’d hit the ground, but that was my only battle scar. I took a shower before I went to bed to get the mud off of me, but I took another one then to loosen up my muscles. After I dried off and pulled on a pair of shorts, I called Blake.
“Hey buddy, how are you feeling this morning?” he asked me.
“Like I got hit by a truck, but probably better than Leif. How is he?”
“He’ll be okay. They found chloral hydrate in his system, so they’re giving him an IV with stuff to counteract that. His nose is probably broken, but thanks to you, that’s about it. He’s still in the ER. He’ll probably be there most of the day, and then they’ll cut him loose.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? Leif is going to be okay, and Paulo is down at the parish jail.”
“I didn’t go in soon enough.”
“Listen to me, if you hadn’t been there, Leif would probably be dead like Elliot.”
“We know he’s dead for sure?” My heart ached for that kid who only wanted to have some fun with someone he was attracted to.
“The police found his clothes in Paulo’s trailer. They still had bloodstains on them. They haven’t found a body, but with all that swamp…” I felt nauseated. Blake didn’t even have to say it. With all that swamp, they probably won’t find a body unless the gator that ate him is autopsied for some reason.
“Has he said anything to them?”
“I’m not sure, but what the detective did tell me was that when Paulo was in college he was raped by his roommate.” That explained him begging me not to rape him. By killing Elliot and trying to kill Leif, he probably thought he was getting even. Damn. “You did a great job, Tyler—and if you want to keep working with us, we’d love to have you.”
“I have some family stuff to deal with,” I told him. Now that I knew about Conner I couldn’t imagine leaving again. I wanted to get to know my son. “But in a couple of weeks I might take you up on that. Here’s the deal though, my dad left me a business worth a ton of money and a ton of money in the bank. If I take this job, I’d like to come on as a partner. I’d also like to invest in some equipment, whatever we need.”
Blake laughed. “Everybody wants to be the boss.”
“Hey once you give the orders, it’s a little hard to follow them.”
He laughed. “Okay, but what we need is a plane…”
I knew he was kidding, but I wasn’t when I said, “Okay, I got that. I’ll call you in a few days.”
After I hung up with Blake, I grabbed my keys and started out the door to head for the Douglas house. When I pulled open the door, I came face to face with Ariana. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I looked around behind her. My son wasn’t with her. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“I’m not changing my mind, Ariana. I made a lot of mistakes, but I’m not walking away from my son.”
She nodded and asked, “Can I come in?”
I stepped back and let her in the door. She waited for me to close it, and then she followed me into the study. We both sat down, and she said, “I told Conner.”
She looked miserable. “Did he not take it well?”
She shrugged. “He’s just really mad at me. He’s never been so angry with me before. He told me he grew up without a father and it was my fault. He said that we could have looked for you, and he’s right. I could have. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the money myself eventually.”
I had an almost overwhelming desire to pull her into my arms. I fought it and said, “Ariana, there are things about that day that you don’t know. That day before Brandon and I got into the accident, my mother died.” I took in a shaky breath, and when I let it out, I said, “She died because I gave her too much morphine.” I heard her let out a little shocked sound and I went on. “She asked my dad to do it, and he couldn’t. She told me how much pain she was in and she begged me to do it, and I did. I killed my mother and then my father kicked me out of the house and said he never wanted to see me again.”
“Jesus Tyler.”
“I’m so sorry about Brandon. I was drinking because I was depressed…honestly, I hated myself, and at that
moment I didn’t care what happened to me. Brandon took my keys, and I insisted on still going for a drive. I thought it would clear my head. I didn’t even consider that he was too drunk to drive. So Ariana, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about Brandon and that you had to raise Conner by yourself, and if it helps, I ask God to forgive me for what I did to my mother every day. I don’t know how to make that right. My father hated me for it. I was sure you would hate me too, so I was a coward—and I left.”
“Your dad didn’t hate you. He talked about you all the time. He told Conner about you and how you stood by your mother when he couldn’t. He always told Conner not to grow up and be like him, but to grow up and be like his dad, the hero.” I felt a lump in my throat. I honestly believed that he hated me.
“What about you, Ariana?”
“What about me?”
“Do you hate me?”
“I was there, Tyler, remember? I saw how much your mom was suffering. I saw how the pain had completely consumed her. What you did was not murder. It was easing her pain. She was going to die anyways. You just kept her from spending a few more days or weeks in excruciating pain. I know that has to be a hard thing to live with, and I wish she hadn’t asked you to do that, but I believe your mother did not want it to screw up your life. Where have you been anyways?”
TYLER (Blake Security Book 2) Page 11