Withholding Secrets

by Diana Fisher

  After a while of complete silence and sobs, I gave Sky a nudge and we got up to make our way down the lit hall to where the bathroom was supposed to be. Finding the light switch on the wall just inside the doorway, I flipped it and illuminated the room that was twice the size of ours and a shower that filled the back wall. The glass doors were frosted and lined in brass. The scent was thick with bachelor pad, but a lot cleaner. The stool was tucked into a smaller portioned off section for more privacy and the long counter with the big sink was wiped down and masculine toiletries were neatly arranged in the corner. Some cologne, tooth paste, a brush in a holder attached to the wall.

  “We need to fix your leg, Keri.” Her dark glassy eyes looked down at the bloody sandy-gunk covering my thigh and knee. “I’m sorry that I pulled you.”

  “It wasn’t you who did this, Sky. I’m fine, and it just scratched me. That’s all.”

  “I was scared when you grabbed me. I heard something and I stepped out and…” She wrapped her arms around my neck. “I was so scared lying up there, and I was coming down to you because I just didn’t feel like something was right. You were there to protect me, Keri. I knew that you would keep me safe.”

  “Always, Sky. No matter what.” I squeezed her back and released her in order to find a towel for her to use. She needed to get cleaned up and warm before she caught a cold, or pneumonia.

  “The kids tease me at school and say that I don’t have a mom. I always dreamed of having one like you, Keri. I love you so much.”

  Choking back the tears, I looked at her and smiled, though the thick, pasty lump of heaviness was filling back up, fast. “I love you, too. And you will always be my little girl. Now, you get in the shower and clean up. I will find you something dry to wear.”

  “I don’t know why he would want to leave us.”

  “Hey. Jordan has always protected you. I am sure that he wouldn’t run out on you like your dad did. Kane will find him for us. If not, I swear I will not rest until I find him myself.” I pointed at the shower. “Go ahead. I will be right out the door, and I will find you something to put on.”

  “Keri, Coach Kane would never hurt me. I know that he won’t. He’s good. He’s a good man.”

  “He is, isn’t he?” My stomach clenched harder. When Kane saw us in the club, that look was enough to make me want to vomit again. There would have been no way that we would have gotten out of the house if I had Sky change into something else. We never would have gotten out in time. What else was I supposed to do? It was me in underclothing or her, and I wasn’t going to let a little girl run around in hers. Especially not Sky. Maybe it was wrong to come to Kane, but I didn’t really know the neighbors, and everyone’s lights were off. Besides, the people in the town were really talking bad about us, seeing as I had a kid at ten. They couldn’t even get the age right. I was twenty-five … and a half.

  “I think he likes you.” She tugged the sweatshirt over her head, careful not to get any mud and dirt all over. “He’s really nice to us. Do you think that I could get some of my money to get him a gift for Christmas this year?”

  My heart double assaulted my chest again, as the guilt clenched my stomach tightly. Kane probably wouldn’t be talking to us by Christmas. And Christmas wasn’t something that I thought about yet. It was still a couple months away, but I knew that once Halloween arrived, Christmas would be right around the corner. Besides, there wasn’t any money for her to buy Kane a Christmas gift even if we could.

  “I would like to get him a nice calendar book that he can keep better track of things. Do you think that he would like that?”

  “I am sure he would like anything that you give him, but I really would like you to save your money that you earn. If you would like and you see something that you want to get him, then I will give you the money for it.” How could I look her in those soft brown eyes that were still scared and tell her that her money was gone? I would just have to figure something else out and sneak the money back into their accounts before they found out.

  “We never had a Christmas. Do you think that we can this year? Can we have a really nice dinner and a tree that we all can decorate?”

  “Of course. We have a little while to think about it, so…” Keeping the smile on my face, I reached in the shower and twisted the brass handle until the water spurted out through the brass showerhead. Closing the front glass door, I tried to swallow the thickened lump, but the guilt was adhering it to the walls of my throat so I couldn’t. Christmas. Their money. The money Kane was tossing my way to help me out. How in the hell was I ever going to get caught up?

  Walking out, I went to the bedroom next to the bathroom and looked at the king sized bed with the black comforter. The bed was made and the dresser top was cleared off. The room was white, and the furniture was black and simple. There were nightstands on both sides of the bed with black based lamps and white shades. Simple, like Kane was. But I wondered how many women had been in that bed of his and if it was clean or not.

  Once I found out where the hell Jordan was and if the intruder was gone, I had to get the kids home. We had someone in our house, and now I had to think of how I would make it even safer for them. Maybe I should move Jordan upstairs with Sky just in case I had to get them out again.

  I checked all the neatly packed dresser drawers in the one bedroom and found a red sweatshirt and a pair of gym shorts that had a drawstring in the waist yet. Putting them in the bathroom for her, I slipped into a dry t-shirt that came down to mid-thigh and paced the living room floor for that door to open. Kane did punch in some numbers on the pad by the door, and I was sure if I did try to open it, the cops would be there instead of searching my place for the intruders. For now, I just had to wait.

  Chapter 19

  I sat on the black carpeting in the bedroom with my back pressed against the dresser. Hearing the soft breathing that was coming from the little girl tucked deeply in the bed, I managed to push myself up from the floor as my leg bit at me hard. The burning flesh where the fence jammed into the muscle was reminding me of how much I needed a shower, and the stiffness in my arm wasn’t good. But I didn’t care about the pain. It was nothing compared to the destruction that my heart and stomach were causing, assaulting each other, waiting for any word on Jordan.

  I made my way into the kitchen and looked at the liquor on the shelf above the sink again. How I wanted to have a drink. It helped people numb away the pain, right? It wasn’t like I hadn’t drank before. I had, but nothing much. Nothing that I enjoyed or had gotten tipsy off of. I just didn’t care for it. But there I was licking my lips as I thought about it. Just enough to take the edge off, the worry. But I couldn’t.

  My child was out there somewhere and I had no idea where. I had no idea if he was hurt, if he had gone into the house with that intruder, or if something bad happened. We should have stayed hidden in the shadows until he came home. He wouldn’t have run off on us. I should know better than to think that of Jordan.

  Something wasn’t right. Someone had to have been watching and waiting for the right time to strike. My money missing, the talking around the town, and now, the break in. There was something that was connecting all of it. But what? What was the connection?

  It wasn’t Kane, because he was shocked that Sky and I arrived in the club filthy and in the middle of the night. It was someone else. Someone else was after something, but what? This happened a day after my paycheck was supposed to go into my account and it didn’t. Maybe that was the kicker. Maybe that was why the intruder. They were looking for my paycheck, and it had to be that son of a bitch I was married to.

  The door lock clicked and my heart stopped. I stared at it, frozen, and the only sound was the tick of a clock. Finally, Kane emerged through the door and went straight for the box on the wall. Watching over his shoulder, I had gotten the first three, but not the last number. I couldn’t get it with his body swaying into my line of sight. And it was not the same code as his bank card. If I tired and hit the
wrong button, the alarm would go off. My shot at going back to the house was gone now, and there was no way I could find Joe and beat him until he could barely breathe.

  “Where is he?” My voice shuttered as I closed my eyes. “Where. Is. Jordan?”

  “Keri…” His large hand came up, halting me from speaking, but that was not going to stop me. I needed to get back to the house and find Joe. Joe was the only one who was doing this to us, and I could stop him. I needed to stop him. If he was going to walk out on me and his kids, that was fine. He could. But leave us the hell alone.

  “Where the hell is he?” I screamed, the words shredding my throat as I pushed myself away from the counter. “Where the hell is my son?” As I lunged at him without even thinking, I balled my fists tight, wanting to hit him, wanting to hurt him. That was my kid out there, and who knows in what kind of condition. “Damn it! You were supposed to come back with him! You were supposed—”

  “Keri, settle down.” His voice was calm and his eyes were tired. Those emeralds were dull and overflowing with stress. And I was that stress. “He’s out there.”

  “Out where? You left him…” I tried to hit him, but he wrapped his arms around me tightly, holding me to his chest. Once again, proving that I was tiny, I didn’t have anything under my feet or something that I could get a solid grip on.

  “Where’s Sky?”

  “Why the hell do you care? Don’t you think about…” Instant regret pierced into my stomach as the thought of what a grown man could want with my little girl shot into my mind, the worst kind of thought imaginable. That wouldn’t be the first time that little girl was under the hands of a grown man, but it would be the last. And I would make sure I followed through with that promise.

  “Where the hell is she, Keri?” His eyes were cold and hard as they dug into mine, wanting to mentally slap me across the face for thinking that. “Where is she?”

  “She’s in your bed.” What was I doing to him? What was I accusing him of wanting to do? The tears filled my eyes so fast that I couldn’t even see straight. The pulsating throb intensified in my leg and my stomach clenched its hardest, damn near doubling me over. “She’s in your bed. I can move her.”

  “No. Let her sleep. I didn’t want her to be awake for this.”

  “You found him?” Kicking my feet, I tried to separate by waist from his hands, but his hold was too much for me.

  “He’s in the club. And he’s fine.”

  “How could you leave him out there? Kane, he ran away from us once already.” My heart shattered hard at the thought of that boy out on the streets, doing who knows what. Why was he wanting to get away? Why was he sneaking out in the middle of the night? Why the hell didn’t I know he was sneaking out on us?

  This was, once again, all my fault because I shouldn’t have the two kids and everything wanted to just prove to me that I made a mistake. But it was my mistake, and if I had to do it all over, I would.

  “Keri, the club is locked down and the alarms are on. He’s not running, and he wasn’t running away. The cops are on the way, and they have to talk to you.” Instead of putting me down, he just kept me pinned to his side like I was a little rag doll he decided to carry around with him.

  The breath shot out of my lungs, burning my torn up throat. I tried to pull away from him, but he held onto me tighter. “How could you … how could you do that to us? To me? Kane, they are going to take my kids. Let me go! I have to … Let me go!”

  “Keri, listen to me. I got to your house and the intruder was still in there. I waited around until I saw Jordan come back. I snatched him, and then, I called the cops. Some people in the club were questioning why you walked in like you did. My staff is good about reporting things that aren’t right.” His hold loosened, and I could feel the soft carpeting under my bare feet. “I snatched him, and no one knows that he wasn’t with you. He heard something, so he climbed out the basement window and waited for you two to come from the upstairs. You three got out of the house together. You all came here and he had gotten mixed in the crowd while searching for me. Do you understand me?”

  “If they find out that I am lying—”

  “No one knows, Keri. Don’t offer anything unless they ask. Then you’re not lying. You have to do this, this way.” His hold loosened even more, allowing me to turn and face him. The pad of his thumb brushed against my cheek, wiping away a stowaway tear, and a fire began to build up in my belly to help repair the damage the night brought on. Kane was really there to help us, and now, I could see that for sure. “They aren’t going to ask Sky to make her relive this unless you give them doubt. And you won’t as long as you listen to me.”

  I nodded as the pain crushed my chest and a thousand questions popped into my mind as to why Jordan felt it necessary to sneak out in the middle of the night. Following Kane through the first door, I looked back just in case Sky were to have woken up and grew scared that I was gone.

  “The alarm is on, just not on the inside, and no one’s going to get past us.” His eyes softened as he placed his hand on the small of my back, urging me to go into the club first. His breath hitched as he gave me a little shove and allowed some space to fill in between us. “You could have showered.”

  “How could I when he was out there?” I hissed as I saw Jordan standing in the empty club with tears in his eyes. No doubt that Kane told him how someone had broken in and Jordan wasn’t there to protect his sister. Seeing him with his tail tucked between his legs and his head hanging in shame, my heart was still breaking off into little shards that were waiting to attack me with my bad parenting. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, still keeping his look at the wooden planks of the dance floor.

  “Go into the apartment and take a shower. Get cleaned up. There are plenty of clothes in the bedroom, and check on Sky.” I raked my bottom lip through my teeth, hearing Kane sucking in a deep breath. I had plenty more to say, but being so angry on top of it would only make me say something I regretted later. And I didn’t want the kid to think I hated him. I was just packed to the brim with anger over him sneaking out, the intruder, and the man who had enough guts to rob us blind. And when I found Joe, I would skin him alive and make him pay for everything. “You ever pull a stunt like this again—”

  “I’m sorry, Keri.” The soft whine finally emerged from the young man as he lifted his look from the flooring to meet mine. The horror of what could have been was stealing every bit of golden tan he had coloring his face.

  Just as I opened my mouth, Kane’s large hand clamped over it. Once again, I was under the hand of the man who was helping up far too much lately. “Go, and she will talk to you later. I need to get the cops in and out. Remember what I told you.”

  His dark eyes lowered as he went into the apartment with his shoulders slumped and his heart dragging on the floor behind him, breaking my own heart even more.

  “They are here.” Kane’s shoulders tensed as he looked back at me. “I need to turn the alarm off, but I will turn it right back on when they are in here. Do not spout off. Do not lose your temper. I called them because the intruder was still in your house.”

  Taking a seat at the bar, I watched him move around the very dimly lit club and find the hidden box. Opening the door, my heart sank hard, dropping into the empty pit of my stomach. Two cops walked in and spoke with Kane first. And as he promised, he put the alarm back on right away.

  As the two uniformed officers came over to me, I wished that I had taken a shower and put on some more clothing. The one was eyeing my legs while the other was focused on my chest for a minute before talking to me about the break in. All I pretty much said was that we had gotten out of the house just as the person entered and ran here for safety. They never questioned the ‘we’ part at all. Then, they told me that when they arrived at the house, no one was inside and only a few things were disturbed, but my room had the most destruction. With nothing to go by, it was pretty much a dead end, and they told me that we shouldn’t g
o back until we had security systems put in place and all the locks changed. I took their suggestions lightly, knowing that if I had the money, I would in a heartbeat, especially with the threat of the two missing girls about Sky’s age and the unknown person riffling through our belongings.

  After they left, Kane bolted the door and put in the code into the alarm. That one was different, and I only caught the first number.

  His eyes eased back as the exhaustion began to darken them for the night. His shoulders were slumping and his body was ready for a sound sleep, in a bed in which Sky was likely taking up the whole space by now. “We can’t leave here tonight, but tomorrow—”

  “We will go back home.”

  “Like hell you will.” His shoulders stiffened quickly as he stomped across the floor going straight to the bar. “Over my dead body, Keri.”

  “I can make that happen.” Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Jordan standing in the dark hall, wearing a pair of sweats that clearly were Kane’s and a shirt that fit him even better than the ones he had in his closet. “Jordan, go to bed.”

  “Keri…” Kane’s voice quieted as he did something under the counter and I heard a click; not the loading of a gun, but like two pieces of glass meeting and kissing slightly. “Talk to him.”

  Sliding off the stool, I pulled back the anger and went toward the boy. Feeling the warmth behind me, I noticed that Kane was there, close. So close. If the man hadn’t smelled that good before, he was more intoxicating now after being in the rain, sweating, all mixed with that masculine spicy cologne.