by Sweet
Then, one day, everything changed.
Kiara was 17 and had been begging her mother to let her get at least a part-time job so she could help out. Even though she was often told how beautiful she was, Kiara had no interest in dating. She had her hands full with helping her mother look after things at their home and she never minded that.
But Renee insisted that Kiara focus on school and then she could see about getting a part time job after graduation, if she was still interested. She told Kiara that college was a must and that she would figure out a way to pay for it.
Ronan was just 5 years old but turning into quite a handsome little boy. He loved his mother and his sister above all other people. His first year in school had been very exciting for him. Making friends had come easily to him and he was quite popular. It may have been this trait that made him want to ride the school bus rather than have his big sister take him to school and home each day. He begged to do this constantly.
One day—a very fateful day—Kiara needed to meet with her counselor after school, but Renee would already be at work. They all agreed that Ronan could ride the bus home from his school that day. Kiara would use the little car they owned and would make sure that she was also at home within the time frame of the bus dropping him off.
As it turned out, Murphy’s Law intervened in the form of Kiara getting caught up in a traffic jam caused by an accident. For once, the time seemed to be flying past as the line of cars crawled at a snail’s pace. She wasn’t sure what to do because she wasn’t in a position to turn around and go another way. All she could do was pray that things sped up.
When she finally arrived home, it was only ten minutes late than expected so Kiara figured it could have been much worse. Assuming that Ronan would be sitting on the front steps waiting for her, she was more than a little surprised to see the front door standing open.
She wondered how he had managed to get inside as she quickly parked her little car and hastily got out of it. Racing to the open front door, she was calling his name by the time she reached it.
Getting no answer, she called Ronan’s name again.
That’s when she noticed that everything was unnaturally quiet.
Something told her to stop yelling for her little brother and to proceed with caution. Walking slowly and quietly down the small hallway, she approached the living room.
Peering inside, she saw Ronan standing over by the fireplace. His face was ghostly pale and his eyes stared blankly.
Taking a huge breath of relief, Kiara started toward him, asking why he didn’t answer her. He didn’t appear as if he even knew she was there. Turning her head, she followed his gaze and the sight that met her eyes chilled her blood.
Her mother, the lovely Renee, lay on her back on the floor, eyes open and vacant. A small trickle of blood slid from the corner of her parted lips and a very large knife protruded from her chest.
As Kiara was trying very hard to take this in, she heard the door at the back of the house slam shut. Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to her that the monster who did this to her mother just may still be in the house.
Her heart breaking at their loss, she grabbed Ronan and ran for the front door. She didn’t stop until she reached her car and threw Ronan inside.
Starting up the car, she didn’t even worry about seatbelts even though she was normally very safety conscious, particularly where her little brother was concerned. She squealed tires as she took off in a direction that would put distance between them and the nightmare that waited inside the house.
Chapter Eight
LATER, SHE WOULDN’T understand why she didn’t simply call the police with her cell phone. Instead, she drove to the police station.
By the time she got there, she was so hysterical that she was practically incoherent. Fortunately, the man who spoke with her could understand most of what she said and dispatched some officers to her house immediately. Renee’s lifeless body was still lying there right where Kiara and Ronan had last seen it.
Obviously, it was a homicide, but nothing had been left behind indicating who had committed this horrible act. Kiara was questioned at length about what she had seen and heard when she got home. They really wanted to question Ronan but that turned out to be of little use.
The little boy was in a state of shock and was finally taken to the hospital for an examination and observation. Sadly, even though Ronan was fine physically, he had not spoken another word since that day.
The morning of their mother’s murder marked the last time that Kiara had heard the sweet sound of her brother’s voice.
Finally, the story was pieced together that explained a lot. According to the estimated time of death and when the bus had dropped Ronan off, there was an excellent chance that he had walked in on the murder taking place.
Most likely, he had gotten a good look at the murderer, which was enough cause for concern since the culprit hadn’t been apprehended. Worse yet, the sound of the slamming door that Kiara had heard shortly after her arrival had to have been the murderer.
Kiara was allowed to stay overnight in Ronan’s hospital room because he seemed to be less agitated with her there. There was an armed policeman outside of the hospital room guarding them that night. It turned out that Ronan spent a week in the hospital as various specialists tried to get to the bottom of his problem. The child psychiatrist on staff was of the opinion that Ronan was still in shock of some sort and that this was a problem that would sort itself out in time.
Things got even more complicated at the end of the week when Ronan was actually fine to be released but no one knew what to do. Kiara wasn’t quite 18 and wasn’t legally allowed to take custody of him. In fact, she, too, was headed for foster care. The night before they were to be taken, Kiara found out that she and Ronan would be going to separate homes.
Even though she had tried to reason and, finally, beg the social worker to not separate them, it did no good. They were going to be collected at 8AM the next morning and that was that.
Kiara thought over everything and realized that she simply couldn’t let this happen. She and her little brother just could not be separated from each other. This was a time that they needed each other more than ever.
By the time her 18th birthday rolled around, Kiara wasn’t sure she would be given custody of Ronan.
No, she couldn’t take any chances. She had to take care of this now.
During the night, she slipped out of the room, telling the officer on guard that she was going to the vending machine on the floor under them. Since this was something she often did, the officer didn’t think anything of it.
Only this time, she rode the elevator down to the lobby where she darted through the double doors and headed to the parking lot for patients. Hopping into her little car, she raced home as fast as she dared.
Once there, she took a flashlight from her glove box and carefully entered the house. The yellow crime scene tape was still there and gave her just a second’s pause. She honestly didn’t believe that anyone would be watching the house all the time in case she and her brother returned, but it still didn’t help her to feel safe here.
When she got inside, she didn’t even go past the living room where her mother’s body had been found. Instead, she went straight upstairs and got a suitcase down.
Throwing in as many clothes as she could manage, she then included some special things to her like photo albums. She went into Ronan’s room and repeated her actions. Last of all, she went into her mother’s room.
There was a place in the back of Renee’s closet where the floor lifted up and there was a small compartment that you had to know about in order to find. This was where Renee had stashed part of her tip money from work. Not that long ago, she had shown it to Kiara telling her that she wanted her to know where it was in case she ever needed it.
At the time, Kiara didn’t understand what she meant. Now she had to consider the fact that maybe Renee had known someone was after her.
Not taking the time to count it, she quickly stuffed a duffle bag with the money and climbed out of the closet. For a minute, she allowed herself to gaze around her mother’s room one last time. She crossed over to Renee’s dresser and lifted a small framed picture of the three of them. It had been taken a scant few months ago when they had actually taken a small vacation. All three of them were smiling broadly and looked so happy.
Picking up the photo, she put it in the duffle bag. She took a few more things of her mother’s before leaving.
One last stop was in her mother’s bathroom. Looking through the medicine cabinet, Kiara found what she was looking for and then started her way back downstairs.
The entire trip hadn’t taken her longer than about 15 minutes, but she knew she had to have an excuse ready for what took her so long to visit the vending machine.
It turned out to be easier than she imagined. She stopped on the way at an all-night coffee shop and bought the police officer guarding Ronan’s door a cup of his favorite coffee.
When she pulled back into the hospital parking lot, she opened the cup and added the contents of what she had pulled from the medicine cabinet. She knew he would be happy to get this cup of coffee and wouldn’t scold her too badly when he saw it.
And that’s just what happened.
Kiara planned everything around the morning shift change at the hospital. Things always got a little crazy then and she would have a better chance of her plan working. By then, the guard was snoozing peacefully in his chair and people were coming and going.
Wrapping Ronan up in a blanket, she put him the wheel chair she had snagged earlier and down the hall they went.
In the end, it turned out to be much easier than she had ever thought it would be to get him out of the hospital. No one even looked twice at them. It was still a little dark when they reached the car, which made things even simpler. She settled Ronan in the back seat and they took off.
Kiara really didn’t have a plan beyond getting them away from Social Services so she kind of played it by ear. She drove for twelve hours, stopping only for gas when she needed it and food that she and Ronan ate on the road.
It was impossible to say when they would have been discovered missing, but she had to assume that it would have been shortly after the shift change had gone into effect. That’s why she had put as many miles as possible between them and her old home town.
Finally, she couldn’t stay awake any longer. Taking some of the money she had found in Renee’s closet, she pulled into a small roadside motel. It turned out to be almost too easy to get a room. No one asked her any questions because she was paying in cash. It quickly occurred to her that they simply didn’t care who she was or why she was there. She was paying and that was all that really mattered.
Kiara got Ronan settled into one of the beds in the motel room, and took a quick shower. While she was towel drying her hair, she turned on the television hoping not to see herself and Ronan on the news. It turned out that there seemed to be other important things going on in the world currently that over shadowed the disappearance of a 17 year old girl and her 5 year old brother. She finally felt it was safe for her to get some sleep.
Thus started their cross country adventure.
This worked out pretty well for them until the money started running low. They traveled from town to town, never staying very long in one place. Kiara kept up with Ronan’s school work by teaching him herself. In spite of the fact that he still wasn’t speaking, he did quite well because he was such a bright little boy.
He learned everything she taught him from the second-hand books that she found in used bookstores and thrift stores. Even now, at 14, he was more advanced than a lot of seniors in high school.
But he still didn’t speak.
Chapter Nine
THEIR MONEY RAN out eventually, and that’s when Kiara had come to the Moon Bay area and sold her car.
It didn’t take them long to become a part of the homeless population on the street. Kiara had discovered the abandoned building quickly enough and found out where the local soup kitchens were located as well as the times they operated.
They didn’t actually go hungry, but Ronan was a growing boy and seemed to be hungry more and more. That’s why he had tried to take the food from the convenience store.
“Then you walked in and found us,” Kiara said, looking at Graeme. “That sort of brings us to here.”
Dreama and Hollianne both had tears in their eyes along with looks of horror on their faces. Graeme continued to look at Kiara intently as if he were pondering all that she had just told them.
Everything she said rang true, but it seemed so impossible for a 17 year old girl to pull off everything she had on her own. He sort of wished he had Simon here. Simon could have simply shaken hands with Kiara and cleared the whole thing up.
Graeme had a special gift of sorts but his was more about finding people. Simon’s gift could tell him if someone was lying or not. But Simon wasn’t here so he would just have to mull this over on his own.
As he looked at the very beautiful woman sitting across the desk from him, he saw no sign of deception from her. Of course, she had had several years to practice looking sincere, but he just didn’t feel that was happening here.
At last, he spoke.
“They never found out who killed your mother, then?” he asked.
“No,” Kiara answered. “I followed the news closely ever since the day it happened. If they did find someone, I never heard about it.”
Graeme nodded thoughtfully. He would need to check into that more carefully because it changed things. Without knowing who killed Renee, he couldn’t possibly know who to trust, which meant that he couldn’t simply hand Kiara and Ronan over to the Graves’ brothers until he knew more.
Now, he had to decide how much he should tell her about why he was hired to find her. He supposed the truth was the obvious answer but he would make some conditions for now.
As if she was reading his mind, Kiara spoke up once more.
“Now you know my story,” she said. “You said that you had something to tell me.”
“You’re absolutely correct,” he replied. “I’m going to tell you everything, but what you’ve just shared with us about your past changes things a bit.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean that you and Ronan may still be in some sort of danger even now. So I’ll tell you what’s going on, but you’ve got to promise me that you and Ronan will remain here in my home until I’ve sorted it all out.”
“Honestly, I can take care of myself as well as Ronan,” Kiara all but snorted. “You can’t do something like this! This is a free country!”
“Kiara,” Dreama said. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I know that you’ve been through a lot and that it’s difficult for you to trust someone. But Graeme has only your best interests at heart; yours as well as Ronan’s. You can totally trust him. He’s not telling you that he wants to hold you and your brother prisoners here. He’s saying that he wants to make sure that both of you are safe before he starts telling anyone that he found you.”
Kiara looked a little nervous. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but how do I know we’ll really be safe?”
This time, it was Holli who spoke. “Dreama and I have both been through some kind of serious stuff and, even though we didn’t know it then, Graeme was playing a huge part in helping us. So please, just give him a chance to see what’s going on before taking off out of here, okay?”
Suddenly, the defiant look left Kiara’s face and she actually looked a bit ashamed.
“Damn,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry. All of you have been so kind to Ronan and me, and then I go back into street
mode just because you want to protect us. What you must think of me!”
“What we think is that you’ve come through a very difficult time,” Hollianne said. “In fact, ‘difficult’ is probably too tame of a word to describe your experience. You’re actually doing much better than I would be. You can ask my husband, Erick, when you meet him. He’ll tell you what a mess I was when he met me. Actually, he invented a job for me in order to help me.”
“A job. And then he’s now your husband?”
“He started to protect me from the first moment he saw me,” she said. “Oh it’s a long story, but if you want to hear about it someday, I’ll be happy to tell you. Anyway, Kiara, I promise you that you can trust Graeme. Besides, if you just really aren’t comfortable staying here with him, you and Ronan can always come to our home. Dreama was staying with us until she and Simon got together but she’s living with him now since they got engaged. We’ve got plenty of room and tons of security.”
“You know,” Kiara began in her soft, husky voice. “That won’t be necessary. I’m feeling very embarrassed and ashamed of myself for the way I reacted. Graeme, if you really want Ronan and me to stay here and you feel that it’s necessary, then we’ll stay. Besides, we really don’t have anywhere else to go.”
She said that last part with a bit of a short sad laugh. These words and accompanying sound ripped through the room causing Graeme, Hollianne and Dreama to feel little tears ripping in their hearts. It also made Graeme more determined than ever to find out what was exactly going on.
But now, he needed to explain to Kiara just what she was faced with.
Chapter Ten
“OKAY,” GRAEME SAID. “You said that you never knew who your father was or who Ronan’s father was. Does that mean you never had a single hint?”
“No, none,” she replied. “I got curious once and went digging through my mother’s important papers. I actually found my birth certificate along with Ronan’s, but the father was listed as Unknown. So it didn’t actually help.”
