Running Scared

by Lisa Jackson

  And just as suddenly, the dark window beneath his hands became the white fiberglass wall of the shower stall. The roar of the vehicle’s engine was now the sizzle of the water as it sprayed over him.

  It was all in his head. Another freakin’ vision.

  Quickly, he rinsed himself and cut the shower off. His heart was still pounding as he threw the curtain aside and stepped out into billowing clouds of steam. What the hell did it all mean, handcuffs and a cage inside a car? Was Todd planning some kind of kinky torture for him now?

  He toweled off, trying to shake off the weird vision. When he wiped the layer of moisture from the mirror over the sink, he was surprised by his own reflection: the curve of the muscles in his arms and shoulders. Biceps. Working out with Daegan was beginning to pay off. Another few weeks and he’d actually be buff.

  If, of course, Daegan was going to stay another few weeks, which he wasn’t. Wrapping a towel around his waist, Jon decided he shouldn’t let his new pumped-up body go to waste. Sign-ups for track were going on at school, and Jon knew he was a fast runner. He would sign up today, but Mom didn’t have to know until after the tryouts. The last thing he needed was her pushing him to get out there and make some friends. Yeah, right.

  He pulled on jeans, a T-shirt, and a flannel shirt, then hearing his mother downstairs in the kitchen, crept into her bedroom. The top drawer of her dresser was where she kept loose change, old bills, photographs, and family documents. Somewhere in these stacks of folders and envelopes was his birth certificate, which he’d need to sign up for the track team. Reaching into the drawer, he sifted through papers, thumbing the corner of files marked: BILLS, TAXES, and MEDICAL.

  His birth certificate was in a folder on the bottom, its embossed seal from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts catching his eye as he slid it out. Did his mom ever wish she’d stayed in Boston? He wondered about it sometimes, but always figured she’d needed to get away from the memory of his dad.

  The crystal paperweight on the dresser glimmered in the dim lamplight as he slid the drawer closed. Mom had always loved this thing, a glass porcupine. He picked it up in one palm and immediately felt seared by the energy encapsulated in the glass.

  A name flashed before him: Tyrell Clark.

  He wasn’t familiar with the name, but it had popped quickly into his mind along with a vision of a dark-haired man in a fancy suit. Tall, dark, handsome, and a little cheesy. Jon didn’t know who the man was, but he sensed his mother’s strong disdain for him.

  And his mom…she was so much younger, like a college kid, her brown eyes outlined in makeup.

  “I’m offering you a son,” Tyrell says as he tosses the glass paperweight into the air and catches it. “No strings attached.”

  He can feel his mother’s shock and fear. “You—you want me to adopt him?”

  Adoption…

  Stunned, Jon fell back onto her bed and let the crystal paperweight drop from his hands to the thick comforter. Adoption? It couldn’t be true. His father was Jim Summers, the man who was killed when he was…

  He stared at the birth certificate in his hand, the sharp pain in his gut telling him to put the facts together. It was true. Undeniable. Hadn’t he always wondered why he didn’t resemble his mother? He was adopted, and she’d been lying to him all along…all his life.

  Fifteen years old, and so far, his entire life was a lie.

  Kate hung up the phone, but the sound of Don McPherson’s voice rang in her head. True, he was giving Jon another chance but there had been a hint of doubt in his words. She knew that deep down the vice principal was hoping that Jon would transfer to a different school and become one less problem for Don McPherson.

  “Jon,” she called up the stairs. “Hurry up. The bus’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”

  “I know,” he said and thundered down the stairs, his hair still wet, his expression unforgiving. He blamed her for forcing him to go back to school.

  She had his breakfast, toaster waffles and orange juice, on the counter. He ignored the food and snagged his backpack and jacket from pegs mounted near the back door.

  “I’ll be home late,” he said, reaching for the doorknob.

  “Late? Why?”

  He stared at her and his expression didn’t soften. “Group project.” It was a lie and they both knew it.

  “Can’t you do it here?”

  “No, Ma, we can’t.” He opened the door and she reached forward, not wanting him to leave with such bad feelings—hoping to mend fences.

  “If you want, I could drive you,” she offered, but he just stared at her hand, touching his bare arm, and he swallowed hard. Drawing away from her, he took a step back. “Jesus.”

  “Jon?”

  Running his tongue around his teeth, he shook his head. “No,” he whispered, his voice strange and unfamiliar. “I—I don’t believe it.”

  “What?”

  “You…you’ve lied to me.”

  “About what?” she asked, but his eyes, wide and serious, glared at her, and he swallowed as if there wasn’t a drop of spit in his mouth.

  “Who’s Tyrell Clark?”

  “Oh, God.” Her knees nearly buckled. Somehow he’d broken through and seen her thoughts.

  “Who is he?” Jon demanded, his voice rough, his expression still as death.

  “A man—he’s dead now,” she admitted, her throat barely working, her insides trembling. Why hadn’t she told him before? Why did she let it go so long so that he had to find out this way?

  “You’re not my real mother,” he accused her, backing away from her as if being in the same room was against everything in which he believed. “Oh, God, you’re not my mother!”

  “Of course I am.”

  “But I’m adopted!” he accused her. “Adopted!”

  There it was, hanging in the air between them. The lie. The one they’d lived with for fifteen years. “Yes,” she admitted, her voice catching. There was no reason to keep up pretenses any longer. All the lies she’d so carefully constructed over the years were falling around her feet in ruin and dust. “I—I adopted you. Soon after Jim and Erin died,” she said, her voice empty. “And I wouldn’t have loved you any more if I’d carried you in my body and—”

  “Don’t!” he said, nearly frantic, his hands on either side of his head. “This Tyrell guy—was he my father?”

  “No—I don’t think so.”

  “This is so weird,” he said, eyes blazing with accusations. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  “Of course.”

  “When?”

  “When the time was right,” she said, trying to stay calm though her heart was thundering and her throat was tight.

  “And when was that going to be?”

  Tell the truth, Kate. Don’t back down now. No matter how much it hurts. “I don’t know. I—I wanted to, but you were too young to understand, and then, once you were older, I was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “That I’d lose you,” she admitted.

  “I can’t believe this.” He looked at her as if she were the embodiment of evil, as if everything she’d ever taught him wasn’t to be trusted, as if his entire life was a lie.

  “Jon—” She reached forward, but he stepped away, as if afraid to let her touch him again. “I think we should talk this out.”

  “No way! I don’t want to talk about it. You lied to me. Daegan lied to me. Everyone lied to me.”

  “No! Oh, baby, no.”

  “Don’t call me that ever again. I’m not and never will be your baby.” Angrily he shoved his arms into the sleeves of his jacket.

  “If you don’t want to go to school, if you want to ask me any questions—”

  “Why? So you can lie to me again?” he said, nearly tripping over Houndog as he backed to the door, and for the first time since he’d been in the fight with Todd, he seemed anxious to return to Hopewell High. His fingers scrabbled for the knob.

  “We’ll talk about this tonight
, when you get home. I’ll explain everything.”

  “You bet you will,” he said, his lips white with fury.

  “Jon, trust me—”

  He made a sound of disgust deep in his throat. “I think it’s only fair that I know who I really am.”

  “You’re my son,” she called after him, but he was already off the porch and running through the blanket of snow, his head ducked against the wind. “You always will be.” But her words bounced off the walls of the little house and echoed around her, mocking her—calling her every kind of fool, letting her know that she’d lost her boy forever.

  “Damn it,” she muttered, fighting tears, her fists curled into balls of frustration. She couldn’t lose him! No way. No how. Jon was her son and he was only fifteen, not old enough to make any life-altering decisions. He might be hurt or angry, but he was still her boy and she’d fight tooth and nail to prove it.

  She was still trying to pull herself together when she heard the rumble of a truck’s engine, and her heart, in eager anticipation, kicked into high gear. Houndog began barking, and through the window she saw Daegan’s ugly green pickup and the cowboy himself, stretching out of the cab. Her breath caught somewhere deep in her lungs at the sight of him, tall and lean, his features as rough-hewn as the mountains to the west. A stranger and yet intimate, a man she didn’t dare trust but to whom she’d already carelessly given her heart. Before his boots stopped ringing on the steps of the porch, she flung open the door.

  “Hi, I—Something’s wrong,” he guessed, his eyes narrowing on her face. “Jon?”

  “He’s…he’s fine, I think,” she said, drawing on some inner reserve of strength she didn’t know she had. “Or he will be.”

  “Neider used him for a punching bag?”

  “That’s part of the problem.” How much did she dare tell him? He was leaving soon anyway; what could he possibly care about her or her son? Yet the glint of anger in his eyes convinced her that in his own way he was concerned.

  “What’s the other part?”

  “It’s personal.”

  He waited, kicking the door closed with his foot.

  “I don’t suppose it matters anymore,” she allowed. Now that Jon knew the truth, there was no reason to protect him any longer. “Jon and I got into an argument this morning,” she admitted, watching Daegan’s reaction. “And…and he found out that he’s adopted.”

  A jolt, like a ragged bolt of lightning, passed behind Daegan’s eyes. “I thought—”

  Waving away his arguments, she said, “I told everyone he was mine, including Jon, and there just never seemed the right moment to explain that he was adopted.” Tears burned behind her eyes but she wouldn’t give in to them. “It doesn’t matter to me that someone else gave him life. I love him as much as if I’d carried him for nine months. Oh, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Jon will come home after school, we’ll hash this out and then, I suppose, if he wants to, I’ll help him try to locate his birth parents.”

  “Who are?” he prodded, an edge to his voice.

  “I don’t know.” How much should she confide? How much could she? She let out a sigh. “But you didn’t come here to listen to me go on and on.” Her heart tugged as she met his gaze. “I thought you were leaving.”

  “Tonight.”

  Oh, God. Her world was crumbling apart. “So soon?”

  “I’ll be back to move the animals, but I’ve got some business I’ve got to take care of and it won’t wait.”

  Her throat was suddenly clogged and her heart beat a desperate, painful rhythm. “Jon will miss you.”

  “And you?” he asked, stepping closer to her, studying her with an intensity that burned straight to her soul.

  “No way,” she lied, but her lip quivered, belying her words. His gaze shifted, and slowly he lowered his head, brushing his mouth over hers so gently she thought her heart would surely break.

  “Good thing you’re so tough,” he said, then linked his fingers through hers. “Come on. Grab a jacket.”

  “Why?”

  “I think you need to get out of here.”

  “But my job—”

  He leveled a flinty gaze at her that cut her to the quick. “You deserve a day off.”

  “You make it sound very appealing, but I’m not the sort of person who blows off work just because…” Because my world is falling apart, she wanted to say. Because you’re leaving and it’s my last chance to be near you, to savor your lips brushing against mine the way they just did.

  “Come on, Kate.” His fingers tightened over her hands, seductive and convincing, chasing away any lingering doubts. “It’s my last day in Hopewell.”

  Liar. All these years his mother had been a liar.

  Correction…the woman he’d thought was his mother.

  Jon kicked at a stone along the roadside, sending it skittering ahead over the frozen earth into a ditch. She’d lied to him all along, treated him like a baby, an idiot who couldn’t handle the truth.

  Her deception made Jon feel sick, his emotions raw and tender at the knowledge that she’d controlled and manipulated his life all these years, hiding the things that were most important. He was in no mood to actually go to school now, but he didn’t have much choice. On a frozen autumn day in Hopewell, Oregon, there weren’t a lot of recreational options for kids cutting school.

  He would get on the bus, keep his head down, eyes on the ground, and push through the day. Basic survival was the only plan for a day like today. His feet scraped the ground, the toe of his sneaker rolling a handful of pebbles down toward a white van on the side of the road. Some guy kneeled beside it—no one Jon recognized. The man was working a jack under the van, just replacing a tire.

  Seeing that no traffic was in sight, Jon cut a wide swath around the van, stepping onto the black tar roadway.

  “Pretty cold morning,” the man called cheerfully. His breath lingered in puffs before his face.

  “Yeah.” Jon walked past the van as a few snowflakes sank through the air. Snow…what else could go wrong? An inch or two of snow and they’d close the school, sending him home to have to deal with her…his so-called mother.

  “Hey, can you give me a hand?” the man asked, interrupting Jon’s thoughts.

  Jon turned and saw that the man was now in front of the van, tire iron in one hand. He wore a belted leather coat—one of those long coats that came down to his knees. The guy had to be a city slicker, not from around here.

  “I have to catch my bus,” Jon said, gesturing down the road. The man’s smile was making him uncomfortable.

  “I don’t think so, Jon,” the man said, quickly pushing back his coat and pulling something from his waistband.

  A gun…pointed right at Jon.

  Jon’s throat went dry. Shit! “How do you know my name?”

  The man nodded toward the back of the van. “Get in. We’ll have time to talk inside. Plenty of time.”

  Quickly, Jon weighed his options. He was a fast runner. If he made a break for it, he could be down the road in seconds, darting off the roadside to hide behind trees or bushes. He was fast…but a bullet was faster, and the ditch at the roadside was too steep to cross. He’d be trapped down there, a clear target.

  He strained to hear the rumble of an approaching car, the hum of tires on pavement, but there was only silence. A passing car could save him now, but who was going to be heading this way at this time of the morning? Sure, the school bus would pull by the intersection ahead, but that was a good half mile away, out of sight.

  His eyes swung back to the gun, the metal pistol aimed at his heart and coming closer as the man approached.

  “Got a problem, kid?” the man said, striding toward him. Keeping the gun trained on Jon’s chest, he reached down and snapped something over Jon’s right wrist. “Hands in front of you,” he ordered, and when Jon raised his arms, he watched as the cuff was clipped over his left wrist.

  Handcuffs.

  The sight sent him r
eeling back to the vision. Oh, God.

  His throat grew tight, knowing the future, knowing that his wrists would become red and raw from trying to writhe out of these things. It would hurt like hell, but he’d have to try. He had to get away from this man, because everything in his gut told him this guy was the one chasing him in his nightmares.

  The killer.

  Oh, God. This was the man…the gun…

  His heart pounded, his pulse thrumming at the realization that this was the man who wanted to end his life.

  “That’s better,” the man said, his tone light, as if they were talking about the weather. “Things’ll go a hell of a lot better if you follow along, Jon. Now, into the van.” When Jon approached the passenger door, he shook his head. “Nah, no death seat for you, kid. You’re riding in the back. I told your grandfather I’d take good care of you. Luxury accommodations all the way.”

  “My grandfather?” Jon said. “He’s been dead a long time. You got the wrong person, man.”

  “You Jon Summers?” the man pulled open the back door of the van. When Jon nodded, he said, “Then you’re mine now, kid. You’re all mine.”

  Glancing into the van, Jon felt fear stab through his chest at the sight of the bars separating the front seat from the back.

  Here was the metallic cage…the dark tinted glass…the horrors of his vision.

  His nightmare was unfolding before him.

  He had seen his own death in his dreams, and now his life was collapsing around him.

  “Come on, kid,” the man said, shoving Jon into the darkness. “We’ve got miles to go before we sleep.”

  I will always remember this day, Kate thought as she watched Daegan saddle both horses. First Jon learning that he was adopted, and now Daegan leaving…it was too much to absorb, too much difficult emotion jam-packed into a short period of time. As soon as Kate had called the college, they’d driven over to Daegan’s place, where he’d filled a thermos with coffee and started saddling the horses, despite the cold temperatures. Inside the old McIntyre barn, away from the wind, it was warmer, but the animals snorted nervously as their hooves pawed the straw in anticipation of the cold outside. Bridles jangled as Daegan snapped them into place.