Heart Wish

by Mary Crawford

  “Where is he?” I ask incredulously.

  “Barboursville, West Virginia. We are still trying to backfill the details, so I don’t have much. I’ll keep you informed as we find out more. We’ll keep Tyler in the loop.”

  “Thanks, Boss. I appreciate it,” I say as I try to absorb it all.

  Abruptly, my knees give out from under me, and I collapse to my knees.

  On the way down, Kendall tries to catch me, but I stop her. “I’m going to hurt you. Just let me go.”

  “Let me help you, please. I love you,” Kendall pleads as she wipes my forehead with a towel. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s my brother. Toby is alive!” I frown as a wave of dizziness passes over me. “He only wants to see me; not my parents. Now what? Should I even tell my parents he’s been found? Should I go check him out to see if he’s okay first? Do I need to call a psychologist? I don’t know what to do next,” I stammer as I try to stand.

  Aidan leans over and helps me up. “I don’t know about you — but I’d start with a shower. No matter how luxurious Tristan’s plane is, the shower is going to leave something to be desired for a guy your size. Take a moment to collect your thoughts. I’ll send Tara over to Joy and Tiers to put together a care package for your brother. I know from working with the kids at camp, food can bridge gaps words sometimes can’t. Kendall can drive you over to Tyler’s office in a few minutes.”

  “I can drive,” I protest.

  Logan pats me on the shoulder. “Technically, you can... but... hold your hand out, buddy.”

  I do as he asks, and I’m embarrassed to see I’m unable to keep it even remotely steady. My drill Sergeant would be horrified.

  Logan quirks his eyebrow at me. “Question is, should you?”

  “Shower it is,” I mumble under my breath.

  “I’ll be here for you when you’re ready,” Kendall says as she gently kisses me.

  “I know,” I say as I return her kiss and brush one against her eyebrow as I head toward the dressing room.

  Tyler stares at me over the top of his coffee mug. “You want to explain to me why the woman who is directly responsible for the fact that we were able to locate your brother is sitting outside of my office instead of by your side?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. This all seems surreal. I need to deal with one issue at a time. Right now, all I’m thinking about is Toby.”

  “This is what Kendall does. She helps people through these kinds of ordeals. Last I checked, you are a member of a family going through the trauma of having a missing family member. I think you’re missing the point.”

  “Look, it’s not like I’m not grateful, but my brother is in crisis and I need to get there. I don’t have time to sort out all of my romantic issues with Kendall. I’ve got to stay focused on Toby.”

  Tyler throws up his hands in the air. “I think you’re making a huge mistake, but it’s your life.”

  “Can you stop pretending to be Oprah Winfrey for a moment? What about Toby? What do we know?” I demand.

  Tyler consults his notes. “Rapture Borges has been detained on suspicion of kidnapping. She is being held without bail after someone recognized Toby shopping at a local Walmart in West Virginia.”

  “She?” My mouth goes slack. “My brother was kidnapped?” My vision goes gray as the implications of that sink in. “He was barely thirteen! Oh, Sh—! This is gonna break my mother’s heart. My dad is truly going to want to kill somebody now.”

  “Before you jump to any conclusions, this is very early in the investigation. We don’t have any evidence to determine the nature of their relationship. We are going to have to wait and see how all that plays out.”

  “What do you mean we don’t have any evidence?” I bellow. “My brother doesn’t even want to see my parents? That’s proof enough that something is completely screwed up. She kept my brother for five freaking years. That’s the definition of twisted.”

  “I’m not saying it’s not, Jameson. I’m just cautioning you not to get ahead of what we know. We are treading very carefully because your brother is almost an adult. We don’t know what he’s been through. At this point, he is refusing any help and counseling. We must proceed with caution not to make the situation worse than it already is. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “How in the hell am I going to know if I’m making the situation worse? We thought he was dead!”

  “If I were your CO right now, I would remind you to put a lid on it. You’ve got the time it takes you to fly across the country to pull it together. Your brother needs to see the calm, serene logistical soldier he knows and remembers. Behind-the-scenes, be as angry as you want to be, but your public face must give nothing away. Your brother needs to see only love and support.”

  “Point taken. Anything else?”

  Tyler walks around his desk and shakes my hand as he pulls me in for a hug. “Man, I don’t get to tell people news like this very often. I’m so happy for you. Go tell your brother how much you love him. Not very many people get another chance.”

  “Your brother won’t look anything like you remember. I just want you to be prepared,” the grizzled detective with the handlebar mustache, who is driving me from the airport to the hotel room, remarks off-handedly.

  “Sir, my brother has been gone so long, it’s nearly impossible for me to determine whether my memories are real or just wishful thinking. Even before that, I was serving in the military, so I was deployed for much of his childhood. My memories of him consist of cheesy school pictures and scarce video calls on holidays.”

  “That’s too bad, Son. I’m sorry it worked out that way. Things could’ve been worse, I suppose. Just the other day, we found a family of four that had been missing goin’ on twenty-seven years. Somebody stuffed them in a big ole’ abandoned silo. The world is a really sick place.

  “True enough. I’m not afraid to say a part of me is not looking forward to finding out the exact details of the hell my brother’s been through.”

  “Try not to press the lad too hard. The details will come out in due time.”

  I sigh. “I know. That’ll be one of the most difficult things for me. I’m one of those guys who needs to know all the pieces to the puzzle, so I can start to reconstruct them and come up with a logical answer. I have a feeling there won’t be logical answers to this problem.”

  “I can guarantee that there is no logic to kidnapping a child from a library and keeping him for more than half a decade. You’re gonna to have to let go of that idea.”

  “Thanks for the reminder. I need to leave the puzzle solving to you guys and just support my brother.”

  “Just keep that thought in the front of your mind and you’ll be fine. Just remember your brother is alive. Not the same person he was, but alive.”

  As I wait for the law enforcement agents to check my ID before allowing me to enter Toby’s room, I have to clench my jaw to keep it from trembling. Honestly, I doubted I’d ever see this day.

  The first thing that strikes me when the door opens and I come face-to-face with my little brother is that he is not so little. He towers over me. His hair is long and curly like our mother’s, and his eyes are turbulent with grey suspicion, just like dad’s.

  “What happened to your hair?” Toby asks incredulously as he scrutinizes me.

  “Turns out fighting terrorists is a little intense and stressful. My hair started falling out, so I decided to shave my head and get it over with.”

  “It looks badass. All I’ve got are these stupid Goldilocks curls,” he says with a grimace as he runs his fingers through his long mop.

  “Hey, don’t knock it. Girls go crazy for that kind of thing.”

  Toby shudders. “Thanks, not interested. Don’t know if I’ll ever be.”

  “No problem. I can take you to go get your hair cut right now, if you want me to. You can even get a high and tight. It would make Mom cry because she always loved your curls, but it’s your body. You can do what you want
with it.”

  Toby rolls his eyes. “Like she would care. She never bothered to look for me.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Rapture told me they never went on TV or had any big search parties for me. They were just happy I was gone and not embarrassing them anymore.”

  “Well, ‘Rapture’ was missing a few key facts. In fact, all of her ‘facts’ were wrong. Mom and Dad have tried everything they could to find you. At first the media was interested in your case, but after they couldn’t find any dirt on Mom and Dad, they quickly moved on. We couldn’t get anyone to feature your case after that. Dad even gave up his teaching career, so he’d have the time to devote to searching for you.”

  “If that’s true, why did it take you so long to find me?” Toby challenges with a dark look on his face.

  I grimace. “We didn’t have much help. The world is a big place, and you seemed to vanish from it without any explanation. Local law enforcement agencies never seemed to believe you were taken. They thought you were just a moody teenager. The authorities seemed to think you had some long-standing beef with Mom and Dad and just split on your own.”

  “I didn’t! I was minding my own business.” Toby goes over to the hotel bed and flops down. He props himself up against the headboard and glares at me. “Go on.”

  “I was stationed overseas and couldn’t help much. Mom and Dad hired a bunch of people to help, but they were not very honest and fed the media negative news stories about our family. It just snowballed. After we lost public support, no one seemed to care that you were missing. We couldn’t get any news outlets or social media sites to share your story to get the word out.”

  “So, basically what you’re telling me is Rapture was right? It was all just a show for the media? No one really looked for me? Your soldier buddies never launched an operation to find me? Mom and Dad’s church friends or all their coworkers at school never gave a rats-ass about me?”

  “We looked — for years, we looked. But we had no idea where to begin. Dad would drive around for hours. He hired private investigators, psychics and anyone else he could think of. He even tried hiring a publicity team to revive your story in the news.”

  “Lip service, nothing but lip service,” Toby spits.

  One of the agents watching my brother steps forward. “I don’t think this is productive. I think you should step out of the room, Sergeant Payne. You are upsetting your brother.”

  “Enough!” Toby yells. “I will be eighteen in seventy-four days. You don’t get to decide what happens to me. I’m done with that. I don’t need a babysitter. I’ve managed just fine on my own. I’m alive, aren’t I? No thanks to any of you. Haven’t you all seen brothers fight? He might be a stranger to me, but he’s still my family. I can argue with him if I want to.”

  “Son…” the agent starts to argue.

  “The name is Tobias Payne. Don’t forget that. Right now, I’m gonna go get some food and get my haircut with my brother. I’m done with you and everyone like you.”

  “We still need you to come down and be interviewed by our forensic folks,” the younger agent insists.

  I step forward and place my hand on the guy’s shoulder. “With all due respect, you’re not going to find out anything from my brother in the next two hours that he won’t remember in two months or two years. Give him a break.”

  “This is not your area of expertise, so just back off,” the agent growls.

  “Apparently, it’s not your area either. Let us handle it our way. We’ve got this covered. I’ve got more layers of security clearance than you’ve ever dreamed of. I can keep my brother safe.”

  The argumentative agent looks toward the officer who drove me to the scene for guidance. The older officer merely shrugs. “It’s not like we have a better plan. The kid has a point. He hasn’t done anything wrong, and he’s free to leave. Sure, we’d like him to cooperate in the investigation, but we can’t compel him to seek medical treatment because he’s not in any immediate danger.”

  “I don’t know. What if the kid has been brainwashed or has that Stockholm syndrome or something?” the officer pushes.

  “Dude! I’m not stupid. Rapture was mental, but that doesn’t mean I am,” Toby says, rolling his eyes.

  I look over at Toby. “So, what kind of vibe are you feeling here? You want to see people or slide under the radar?”

  “Not really feeling social right now. Outside and private sounds good.”

  “Okay, give me a couple, and we’ll bug out of here.”

  “For real?” Toby questions with hopeful eyes.

  “I promise,” I reply as I fish my phone out of my pocket.

  Toby looks up at the agent. “Now that my brother is here, can I go to the bathroom without you watching me like a hawk? I swear I’m not going to off myself.”

  The agent reluctantly steps away and waves Toby toward the restroom. “Help yourself. I’m going to go back to watching the game.”

  The older agent grabs some soda from the fridge and comments, “I think I’ll join you. These two seem to have it handled. Now, we just have to figure out how to do the paperwork.”

  While Toby is away, I text Tristan. Urgent SOS. I need a male hairdresser and a few changes of clothes — about your size and size 12 shoes at plane ASAP.

  Bigger than you? Tristan texts back immediately.

  Yeah. He’s a giant.

  Toby okay?

  Maybe. Working on it.

  Give me 20. Stuff will be there.

  Need discretion on hairdresser. Former military good.

  No worries. Isaac has lists for this kind of thing.

  Really?”

  Not kidding. Anything else?

  A Jeep would be cool.

  Got a friend with a dealership nearby. Might take thirty. Can you stall?

  Do my best. Sorting out egos might take that long.

  Okay, talk to you later. Love playing Santa Claus.

  Me too.

  As I tuck my phone in my back pocket, Toby sticks his head out of the bathroom door. “Are the ‘minders’ distracted?”

  I nod toward the other room. “Yeah, they’re watching the game.”

  “Going to take a shower, but they creep me out. I feel like the cops are going to take pictures for evidence or something. Stand guard, will ya?”

  “No worries. Nobody takes pictures of you without your permission. You are in charge. You hear me? I’m right here.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Sweet! Is this like the one you drove in the Army?” Toby exclaims with wide eyes.

  “Well, not exactly. This is quite a bit more upscale than I used to drive — but the concept is the same.”

  “Still, these are righteous wheels.”

  “I figured you could use a little privacy.”

  “Yeah, don’t know much about that. Where are we going?” Toby asks as I drive toward the private airport.

  “It turns out the most isolated place I know is the plane I flew in on. I brought some food. With any luck, there is a barber waiting for you there.”

  “That’s just sick. You’ve been out living the life of the rich and famous while I’ve been stuck in hell,” Toby snaps at me.

  “I know it looks bad, but that’s not what’s happening here. I work for a very generous boss, but I’m just a computer technician. He is lending me his resources to help you. I’m nothing special, I promise you.”

  Toby wipes tears from his face with his sleeve as he turns his face away from mine. “Would’ve been nice if you could have had a boss like that a few years ago.”

  My stomach sinks to my feet as I see the search through Toby’s eyes. None of my decisions are ever going to make sense to him. Hell, they make little sense to me. There are so many things I would do differently now. I don’t even know if I deserve Toby’s love and forgiveness.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t find you sooner. It doesn’t mean we didn’t love you every second of every day.”

&nb
sp; “I missed you too. I still don’t know what that means. It’s not like I can go back to being thirteen.”

  “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished that we could turn back the clock and change history. But, we can build new memories,” I suggest as I pull up to the plane hangar. “You want to eat or get a haircut first?”

  “Chop this crap off. Rapture said it was going to make as world-famous. It’s a pain in the butt, and I’m smart enough to know she was just using it as a disguise.”

  “Works for me. Looks like there’s already somebody here,” I comment as I see someone standing outside of the plane.

  “Your boss just lets you borrow this thing — like whenever?”

  “You’d have to know him, but he has a thing about planes. This is only the second time I’ve ever taken him up on it.”

  “What did you do on the first trip?”

  “Oddly enough, I helped return a lost baby boy to his worried parents.”

  “Is this a weird hobby for you now or something?”

  “No, just came up in the course of my job.”

  “You may be my brother, but I gotta say, you’re weird.”

  I laugh. “Not even the first person to make that observation, Toby.”

  I jump when someone knocks on the driver’s side window. “Excuse me, sir. Are you Sergeant Payne? Isaac Rogan told me to report here, but I’m not sure I’m in the right spot.”

  “That’s us.”

  “Okay. I would hate to think I was standing in front of the wrong plane. I’m Domingo Curley,” he says as he steps aside to allow me to jump out of the jeep.

  “Seriously? That’s a great name for a hairstylist,” Toby says with a smirk.

  “Yep, not so good for a sharpshooter.”

  “Imagine not. You still in?”

  “Nah, I was involved in an incident with the ‘not so friendlies’ that messed me up for a while, so Uncle Sam and I parted ways. I am strictly civilian now.”

  Toby lopes around the Jeep and shows Domingo his hair. “I don’t care what you do. You can even shave me as bald as my brother here. I just want this hair gone.”