Never Coming Home

by Evonne Wareham

  ‘At the moment, the police are going with tragic accident. Once Valentina is fit to question, there may be charges. It depends on her mental state. You don’t have to think about it yet. And when you do … You could give Giles Pugh his exclusive.’

  ‘So I could.’

  Kaz slid from his arms, crossing the room to the bed to bend close and kiss her daughter’s cheek, unable to keep from touching her for too long. ‘He gave her back to me.’ She looked up at Devlin. ‘Those were the last words he said. Find Jamie.’

  She sat beside her daughter on the bed, curling her legs under her. Devlin stood, looking on. The small form was sprawled across the toy-strewn bed. Her hair had fallen over her face, like her mother’s did, and she was sucking her thumb. Maybe later there would be shrinks and therapists, but right now Jamie Elmore looked like she was doing fine. Resilient, like her mother.

  Kaz looked up, apparently aware of his stillness. ‘I think I’ll sit here with her, for a while.’

  ‘Fine.’ Devlin moved over, kissing her briefly on the lips. ‘Don’t sit up too long.’

  ‘Not too long,’ she agreed, eyes already back on her daughter’s face.

  There wasn’t much to pack. He had it all in a bag in less than ten minutes.

  He’d done what he set out to do. Kaz had her child back. They were a family again. He didn’t do families. Never learned how.

  All that was left for him to do was leave.

  He stood for a while, looking at the door. The way out was that way. He’d promised the kid … He’d promised the kid to take care of her mom. Best way to do that was let them both get on with their lives. Without him.

  He stared at the door some more. Jamie Elmore was going home, with her mother, who loved her. He shut his eyes, just for a second, thinking of a child, dwarfed by a huge bed, and the woman who sat beside her, watching. And the most peaceful hour of his life.

  When he was done, he went down the corridor to knock on Suzanne’s door. She took a moment to answer. When she saw him, and the bag at his feet, she let the door swing wide and stepped back. There was no sign of the old flame he noted, in the part of his brain that wasn’t solidifying into a dark grey lump of misery. And that was nothing compared to the pain in his chest.

  ‘You’re leaving.’ Suzanne’s voice was flat.

  ‘What else can I do? Kaz has her daughter back. She has everything she needs. That doesn’t include me.’

  ‘Have you asked her that?’

  ‘No. And I don’t intend to. I’m not a settling-down kind of guy.’ He tried a smile. He could see from Suzanne’s face that she wasn’t impressed.

  ‘You love her, don’t you?’

  Devlin shook his head, tongue between his teeth.

  ‘Oh, yes. I know,’ Suzanne accused. ‘Torture wouldn’t get it out of you.’ She sighed. ‘Has it occurred to you that Kaz wouldn’t care who you are, or what you’ve been?’

  ‘I care.’

  Suzanne gave him a long look. ‘Yes, you do.’ She raised her hand. ‘Go then. If you think it’s right.’

  ‘It has to be.’ He picked up the bag and headed for the door. ‘Tell her goodbye for me.’

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  London, two weeks later

  ‘I don’t understand how a man can just melt into thin air.’ Kaz pushed aside her preliminary doodles for a new commission. The sparkling water feature was coming out more like a gloomy duck pond.

  ‘It’s what he does.’ Susanne was standing by the table, leafing through a magazine . She tapped a picture of a model wearing what appeared to be a bright-blue space suit. ‘Do you really think we’ll be wearing that this winter?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ Kaz took the magazine out of her mother’s hands. ‘Listen to me, when I’m whining at you.’

  Suzanne sat down on the sofa and folded her arms. ‘He didn’t want to intrude on you and Jamie. That’s why he left.’

  ‘Intrude!’ Kaz poked a cushion. ‘It feels like running away to me. He wasn’t prepared to take on a woman with a child. Which is fine, because I didn’t ask him to.’

  ‘But did you want him to?’ Kaz contemplated throwing the cushion at her mother, but picked at the fringe instead. ‘What did you think was going to happen?’ Suzanne quizzed softly, when her daughter didn’t answer. ‘That Devlin was going to stick around? Audition as husband material?’ Suzanne made a face. ‘Kaz, that is not the man he is, and you know it. I doubt if Devlin has ever had a fully functioning relationship with a woman – head, heart … and the other thing,’ she improvised quickly, when she saw her daughter’s expression. ‘Which doesn’t mean he can’t, but he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t believe that a woman would take him on, regardless of his past. And you are so pathologically afraid of being dependent on someone, you won’t admit when you’ve latched onto a good thing. Neither of you is prepared to commit. To open up to each other and take a chance.’

  ‘And that’s your take on it, is it?’ Kaz glared at her mother.

  ‘It is. For what it’s worth.’ Susanne sighed. ‘No charge for the psychoanalysis.’ She took her daughter’s hand. ‘Kaz, forget common sense and pride for a moment. What’s your heart telling you?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Kaz was studying the arm of the chair as if it was about to do something amazing. ‘Devlin and I had a fling. It was never meant to be more than that. I’m just mad at him, because he didn’t bother to say goodbye.’

  ‘Oh, darling, it might have been meant to be a fling. But they don’t always turn out the way you expect. Believe me, I know.’

  Kaz took her hand out of Suzanne’s and got to her feet. ‘I need to do something about Jamie’s tea. Are you staying?’

  Suzanne shook her head. ‘I have a dinner date.’

  Kaz raised her eyebrows. Since Italy, the old flame had been burning pretty bright in her mother’s social calendar.

  ‘A least one of us knows a good thing when she sees it,’ Suzanne said crisply.

  Kaz made a growling noise and headed for the kitchen.

  The letter came the next day. When Kaz saw the American postmark her heart did a painful war dance against her ribs.

  When she opened it, the wave of disappointment had her reaching for the wall for support.

  ‘Mummy?’ Jamie wandered downstairs, dragging Patchy behind her by one leg. Kaz straightened up, to rearrange her face and ruffle her daughter’s hair.

  ‘Hello, pet. Want some breakfast?’

  ‘I’ve had a letter.’ Kaz hunched the phone between chin and shoulder, pouring cereal into bowls. Her eyes flickered to the folders and rolled designs stacked on the counter, ready for work. The envelope lay beside them ‘Here you go.’ She pushed one of the cereal bowls towards Jamie. ‘I’m just talking to Grandma,’ she explained as Jamie looked up enquiringly. Curiosity satisfied, Jamie dug in her spoon and left her mother to it.

  ‘It’s from Mrs Kettle. She’s coming to London.’ Kaz whisked herself and the phone out of the back door and out of her daughter’s earshot. ‘Sally Ann Cheska’s grandmother. She wants to see where her granddaughter’s ashes were scattered.’

  Laura Kettle arrived in London in the third week of June and Kaz arranged to take her to the Albert Bridge. It was a lovely bright sunny day.

  ‘I understand why you chose this place.’ Mrs Kettle leaned over the parapet, looking down at the water. ‘The bridge is pretty, and the river and the boats. So much to see. Everything to appeal to a little girl.’

  ‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ Kaz admitted. ‘I thought Sally Ann … I thought it was my daughter.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry.’ Mrs Kettle turned away from the river. ‘Mr Devlin explained everything to me.’

  ‘Devlin! You’ve seen him? Recently?’

  ‘Why, yes.’ Mrs Kett
le sounded surprised. ‘Just before I wrote you. He came to visit with me. I can’t say it wasn’t painful, what he had to tell me, but it was best to know.’

  ‘He was holding your granddaughter, when she died.’

  ‘He didn’t say, but I kind of thought that he was. It’s a comfort to know she wasn’t alone. I guess it was a comfort to you, too.’

  ‘Yes. God, this is so weird.’

  ‘Doesn’t have to be.’ Mrs Kettle put out her arms. After a second, Kaz returned her hug. ‘You have a lovely daughter.’

  Jamie was waving to them from the Battersea side of the bridge, towing Suzanne towards them.

  ‘Thank you.’ Kaz turned. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she said formally. ‘And for my father’s part in it.’

  Mrs Kettle shook her head. ‘Not your fault, honey. The Lord takes, but He gives too. My Luanne, my daughter … she’s pregnant. This babe … well she swears it’s going to be different and I believe her.’ Mrs Kettle cast a tentative glance at Kaz. ‘It’s Bobby Hoag’s baby.’

  ‘Bobby … Devlin’s partner?’

  Mrs Kettle nodded. ‘Seems like he and my Luanne hooked up for a night or two. Mr Devlin told me a bit about how Bobby died. We’re not gonna tell Luanne. We agreed, Mr Devlin and me, that it would just be an accident. A road crash in Ireland, on those twisty roads they have there.’

  ‘It sounds … a good idea.’ Kaz bent down as Jamie pelted along the bridge and threw herself at her mother’s knees. ‘Hey, you!’

  ‘Come and feed the ducks.’ Jamie had captured her mother’s hand, and stretched the other out to Mrs Kettle. ‘We kept some bread.’

  They strolled on, to the park. Kaz sat on a bench with Mrs Kettle, watching Jamie and Suzanne throwing pellets of bread to a flurry of ducks.

  ‘Er … did Devlin say anything about what he was planning to do? Now he’s lost his partner?’ Kaz asked, after a moment.

  ‘Can’t say as he did, though I got the feeling he would be moving on.’

  Kaz’s heart accelerated uncomfortably.

  Jamie danced back to them, and scrambled into her mother’s lap.

  ‘Have you been to Disneyland?’ she asked Mrs Kettle politely.

  ‘Can’t say as I have.’

  Jamie beamed at her. ‘You can come with me and my mummy and Mr Devlin.’ Kaz’s knees jerked. Jamie looked up indignantly.

  ‘Sorry, precious, cramp,’ Kaz excused herself. ‘I don’t think that we’ll be going to Disneyland any time soon, pet, and certainly not with Mr Devlin.’

  ‘He said he’d like to come,’ Jamie refuted, calmly. ‘Mr Devlin is in love with my mummy,’ she confided to Mrs Kettle, before clapping both hands over her mouth.

  Her dismay would have been comic if Kaz’s heart hadn’t been thumping almost too hard to breathe

  ‘I wasn’t supposed to tell. It was supposed to be a secret.’ Jamie’s fingers twisted on the lapel of her mother’s jacket. ‘But it’s all right, Mummy, because he’s going to take care of you, when you let him.’

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ Kaz waved a shoe at her mother, before tossing it into the open suitcase. ‘I’m going on a manhunt. I can’t believe that sneaky bastard told my daughter he loved me, and somehow forgot to mention it to me!’

  ‘Jamie probably tortured it out of him.’ Suzanne ambled over to look in the case, removing a delicate lace top that was in danger of being snagged by the heels of the shoes. She looked up sideways at Kaz. ‘Was it so important? That he should tell you he loved you, before you told him?’

  Kaz sat down with a plump on the bed. ‘Yes. I didn’t know it though, until Jamie said it. I was just so mad. At him, at myself. I spent years trying to live up to Oliver’s expectations, and when Jeff came along I threw myself into his arms. I know I did,’ she confirmed, when she saw her mother’s expression. ‘I just so didn’t want to do it all over again.’

  Suzanne sat beside her on the bed. ‘But the sneaky bastard got under your defences anyway.’

  Kaz looked at her, saucer-eyed for a moment, then burst out laughing. ‘He did. And how!’ She put her hand up, to brush her eyes. ‘I trust him, Mum. It happened, almost from the beginning, but I tried to ignore it. I never expected to say that about a man and especially about a man like him. I don’t care what he’s done, or what he’s been. We’re both going to have to deal with baggage. Apart from a tendency to run out on me, he’s the most dependable guy I’ve ever met. If I have to go after him, to convince him of that, then that’s what I’ll do.’ She chewed her lip. ‘Will you take care of Jamie for me? I shouldn’t be leaving her so soon, but I have to. I might already be too late. Mrs Kettle told me he was getting ready to move on.’

  ‘In that case the sooner you go, the better.’ Suzanne nudged her elbow. ‘Leave this, I’ll do it. Jamie is still awake. Go and read her a story.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ Kaz brushed her lips over her mother’s cheek.

  ‘Oh. You might need this.’ Suzanne took the card from her pocket. ‘Mrs Kettle gave it to me.’ She grinned. ‘I asked her for it. It’s Devlin’s address in Chicago. His home, not his office.’

  Kaz brushed her daughter’s hair away from her face. ‘I think you need a haircut, kid.’

  Jamie didn’t look impressed. She tilted her head and squinted one eye. ‘Grandma could take me, when you go to ’merica,’ she suggested hopefully. Kaz smiled. The upmarket salon that enjoyed Suzanne’s patronage treated young customers like visiting royalty.

  ‘You’ll have to ask her.’ Kaz sat beside her daughter on the bed, and cuddled her close. ‘It’s OK, is it? For me to go? You’ll be OK with Grandma?’

  ‘’course I will.’ Jamie was already sorting through the storybooks Kaz had dumped on the bed, picking out her favourite. ‘You’re going to find Mr Devlin.’

  ‘I’m going to look for him.’ Kaz took a deep breath, a shiver of cold over her heart. ‘He might have gone away.’

  ‘But if he hasn’t, you’ll find him.’ Jamie nodded. ‘Patchy and me will look after Grandma,’ she informed her mother kindly. ‘You don’t have to worry about us. You find Mr Devlin, and bring him home.’

  Kaz stared out over the wing of the plane, willing it to fly faster. Was she going to be too late? Would Devlin have already disappeared into another life? If they had something, if he really did love her, could he walk away? Of course he can, if he thinks he’s doing the right thing. And if he’s scared.

  She pondered the thought. Devlin knew even less than she did about holding a family together, and he was carrying so much guilt. A short, fierce burst of anger at Scary Woman and all her works made Kaz grit her teeth. Who had the right to do that to a young man, to take away everything he was …

  She watched a cloud drift past. She knew the answer to that one. No one had the right, but because it was done, hundreds of thousands of ordinary, normal lives were able to go on, every day. Ordinary men and women, like her, who had no idea what blackness might be out there, and who wouldn’t want to know. They just went on living, and men like Devlin took it all into their souls and carried the burden alone.

  The man on the seat beside her gave a loud snore. Startled, Kaz jumped, and then giggled. So much for deep, dark thoughts. If she could find Devlin, they would have their own try at being normal. See if they could make this home and family thing work. If she could find him …

  There was nothing she could do, sitting on a plane. She might as well follow her companion’s example. She cradled her head in her hand, and settled down to doze.

  It was the final box. Devlin stared down into it. He’d left Bobby’s office until last and the bottom drawer of the desk, the personal stuff, until the very end. Half a pack of cigarettes, a handful of matchbooks, a well-worn baseball cap, three
neckties, a couple of paperback books, a Spanish dictionary. The debris of a life. He hefted the shallow cardboard carton onto the cleared desk, and looked around.

  He’d been holding it in all morning, regret and a simmering anger that dripped through his frame like acid. At least that pain was hot – not cold, like the other. Waste. The life of a friend, at the hands of a madman, and now there was another kid growing up without a father, down in Tennessee. Bloody circles – they never stopped. He folded the lid of the box closed and leaned against the desk.

  The place was still, with only muffled sounds from the street outside marring the quiet. Most of the furniture was gone already, phones disconnected, the sign on the glass door rubbed clean. If he closed his eyes, he could see Bobby, standing in the doorway, grinning, and smell the smoke from his illicit cigarette, but that was all in his mind. There were no ghosts here, only memories.

  It was all finished here. He could be on the road tonight, if he wanted. His life in Chicago was ended. And he was doing what he always did. All he knew. All he’d been taught. Move on and start over. When it’s not broken you don’t fix it. But if it’s broken beyond repair? Less than three months, three sodding months, and his whole life had come apart at the seams. If he’d never met Kaz Elmore … If he’d never learned to love her … Then he wouldn’t have the searing pain in the centre of his chest. He could manage the days, but the nights –

  He leaned back and scrubbed a hand over his face. She hadn’t come looking for him. He’d … hoped was the wrong word, but he’d kind of wondered. She hadn’t come, and that was fine, because that really was how it should be. She was tending her child, and her business, and forgetting that any of this had ever happened. One day there’d be another man, a good man, able to give her the things she needed. The ache in his chest, because it wasn’t him … He’d just have to get used to it. The need to punch his hand into the wall at the thought of another man in her bed – that was going to take a while to die.

  Devlin took one last look from the window. He had a plan, of sorts. He was going to travel. See all the places he’d never seen. Sit on beaches and mountain tops and beside rivers and try not to think of her. Eventually the hurt would fade a little. He’d done this before, so he could do it again. And this time it was worth it. The pain might be eating him, from the inside out, but he’d been right to leave her. He was feral. He didn’t belong in anyone’s home.