by Brenna Lyons
Intense pain burned behind her eyes, and her screaming started again as she tightened her grip on his hand. He would not force her to let go. Though the pain and the light seemed to tear her mind apart, he would never force her to die for him.
Katie found herself dragged up and away from the blinding pain and the endless fall. Strong arms closed around her and held her to a broad chest. She was moving away from the dead beast at the edge of the cliff and onto solid ground as the man who held her wrapped the edges of his heavy coat around her shaking body.
The man crooned to her over and over, words that had no meaning in the natural sense. They meant safety and love to her, but Katie couldn’t assign any meaning to the actual sounds issuing from his mouth. He smoothed her hair, and she closed her eyes to the night sky that seemed far too bright all of the sudden. He wrapped her in his warmth as he walked, and it seemed that even her frozen feet found comfort in his touch. They walked forever while Katie shivered against his chest. It was warm and safe in the dark with him. More than anything, Katie feared that burning, painful light coming again.
The light did come again—light and noise. Katie was torn from his arms into a circle of squawking nonsense sounds that hurt her ears. The sounds didn’t mean safety like the sounds the man made. These sounds were accompanied by hands that pushed and pulled at her—prodded her, bringing fresh spikes of pain to her face, her feet, her shoulder—
Faces bobbed before her eyes, making Katie dizzy even as they blocked out some of the blinding light. She looked down to try to escape them. There was blood on her hands and on her clothes. She was dirty, and the front of her nightgown was torn at the bodice seam.
A wail tore from her throat as she spotted her savior—her man at the edge of the light, and Katie threw herself back into his arms. She clung to him and cried, afraid to go back into the light again and praying for him to take her back to the safety of the dark, though she had no words to ask him for that. He eased her back into the light, but this time, he stayed with her. No one touched her. No one raised voices to her.
There was only his soothing voice and the circle of his arms, the same voice and arms that chased away the nightmares for years to come. Katie ran her tiny fist over his nametag. Words that made no sense to her then made perfect sense to her in years to come. J. O’Hanlon—Dad. Katie stuffed her thumb in her mouth and curled into his chest, feeling his arms tighten to hold her closer to him.
* * *
Katheryn snapped awake and groaned. She ran her hand over the empty side of the bed that Keith had occupied until late last night. He left to gather the clothing and toiletries necessary to get ready for work the next morning. He would have returned if she hadn’t put her foot down.
Keith leaned over her and nuzzled her neck. “You don’t want me to come back?” he teased. “I don’t believe that.”
She laughed heartily. “I don’t want you to fall asleep at the wheel. It’s late. Besides that, if you come back, you may sleep in from exhaustion and over-exertion.”
He smiled indulgently and agreed, but he left her with a kiss that almost succeeded in getting him dragged back to bed for yet another glorious romp.
Keith needed to get back to work tomorrow. Katie couldn’t let him mess up his job for her, so she let him leave.
Now she wished she had dragged him back to bed. Rolling over into his arms would have been pure Heaven.
They talked a little about Ty, but she had still been piecing the whole thing together when he left, and Katie found explaining the reality of what she believed was happening to Kyle difficult in the extreme. There was no common ground to work from. She begged off on a full description of the night Tiberius died for the time being, and Keith accepted her decision gracefully. Now, if she could just banish the picture from her mind long enough to get some sleep—
She squinted at the bedside clock and groaned again. Six o’clock. What an ungodly hour to be awake. Katie pulled the blanket over her head and sank back into the dark oblivion of safety. A warm feeling washed over her as she thought about Keith, and she wondered yet again why she waited so long to give him another chance.
As sleep pulled her along, Katie smiled at the choice she had made. Telling him she loved him and deciding to chance a baby with him were almost too easy for her. She could almost blame it on his hands on her, but she knew better. All his touch did was convince her to do what he asked, to look into his mind for what he wanted and felt. The fact that Keith wanted what she did with such a passion, that he had wanted it for so long—back to their original encounter in high school, was humbling and powerful. She knew that he wanted forever and all the children she would give him. If Katie had her way, he’d get that wish in spades.
* * *
Keith had enough information to do some investigating. He already knew that Katie’s biological father was a police officer who died in the line of duty when Carol was a newborn. With her birth name in hand, it was no problem researching his death. There was some talk of a careless mistake he made that he was thought unlikely to have ever committed. Other than that, he was the hapless victim of a maniac with a gun. It was strange that he would make such an obvious mistake with such an exemplary record, though—
Tiberius Monroe Matthews was a successful man. In his photos, he was invariably smug looking—a picture of success, but he was cold somehow. He ran his own business, which he bought from his former boss turned partner a mere two months before Katie’s father died. The business was a heating contracting business that had an unusually high percentage of big company contracts and very few complaints.
The old man died in April of 1975. The stories about his death were confusing, and that was the best that Keith could say about them. Everyone agreed that he had a mental breakdown of some sort, and his formerly untarnished name took a nosedive.
Suddenly, everyone around him agreed that he was a manipulative, violent, and unstable man all along. No one was quite sure why he or she stayed near him, but they all did. They all seemed to feel pressured to stay though none could explain how Tiberius could manage such a thing.
“Control,” he could hear Katie say. “They were all under his thumb.”
Keith shuddered as he realized that the facts, the statements given by the adults around him, seemed to bear up that Tiberius was exactly what she accused he was.
The pictures of a young Katie were heartbreaking. The first pictures were taken when she reached the hospital. A pitiful child wrapped in a blanket stared at the camera with wide, empty eyes. Smudges of blood marked her forehead and cheek and ran down the back of the hand and arm extending from the folds of blanket so she could suck her thumb. Dark curls were tangled around her dirty face where tears had cleaned tracks down the center of her cheeks. She was cradled in the arms of a young police officer that was pushing away the avid reporters with an angry look.
Later pictures of the officer were clearer. When Katie left the hospital, the man, now in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, had her cradled to his shoulder, hiding her from the flashes of the reporters. From the tense jaw, Keith imagined that the rather protective young man was not happy with their interference with the child. Dianna trailed behind, looking grateful for his protection.
When he was awarded the Medal of Valor for saving Katie’s life, he was saluting with his right hand while his left held Katie’s gently. Her face was all but hidden next to his hip, just peeking around him at the people gathered at the stage. It was a private ceremony, and pictures and video had been provided to the press. Keith had no doubts that it was done for Katie’s sake, to minimize the rush of people who would want to get near to her and ask her questions that, by all reports, she wasn’t capable of answering.
Katie lost a grandfather on that plateau, but she gained a father. From the looks of it, O’Hanlon was in it for the long run from that first night when he escorted her into the hospital. That in itself was unusual. Typically, an officer would simply turn her over to the paramedics and walk
away, but Officer O’Hanlon hadn’t done that with Katie.
He recognized O’Hanlon’s partner immediately. He should. The sight of Officer Phillips storming onto school grounds the day after Jordan Roberts had cornered Katie and Sherry and threatened them was still burned into his memory and always would be. He didn’t know what the man said to Jordan, but the loser never darkened the same hallway as the two girls again.
Mama Toni worried about Katie since she was five. Was it any wonder when her first introduction to the kindergartner was her husband returning home covered in the blood of the child’s grandfather?
He shuddered to consider the mental state of both men that night. What toll would hearing her screams as Tiberius threatened her have had on them? How could O’Hanlon find the fortitude to hand her over, even at the hospital? He must have held on much like Katie held onto Kyle on the plateau—until Keith handed Ty back to him. He thought about that. He still didn’t understand how Katie was connecting the toy and her dead grandfather, but he was resolved to figure it out.
Keith took a long lunch and drove out to Mama Toni’s restaurant. To his surprise, the older woman not only recognized him but also greeted him warmly and by name.
“Why are you here, Keith?” Toni asked with a raised eyebrow as she led him through the busy room herself.
“I don’t suppose you’d believe I just want to taste your world-famous fajitas?” He smiled his most winsome smile—or so Katie had dubbed it.
She humphed at him in annoyance and rolled her eyes. “I’ll put in the order to the kitchen so I’m sure that you eat, but then you tell me why you really came.”
Keith was blushing long after she showed him to a quiet back table and disappeared with his order of beef fajitas and a Coke.
He argued with himself while he waited for her and sipped the offered beverage. Research was one thing, but he was prying now. Katie wasn’t one of his patients, and what he was prying into couldn’t even be qualified as legitimate questioning on Kyle’s case. Keith almost ditched the whole idea until Mama Toni came back and set the steaming and sizzling plates before him.
Toni sat across from him in the high-walled booth in a far back corner. She considered him carefully. “Now, tell me why you are really here,” she prodded him gently. When he hesitated, she leaned across to him. “You want to know about Katheryn. You want me to tell you about Katheryn and that crazy old man?” she asked in amusement.
Keith put down the tortilla and chewed the bite of fajita carefully. He stared at her in disbelief as he swallowed slowly. Katie was right, as usual. They were excellent.
“You’d tell me that?” he asked, wondering what the catch was.
“You want to help. I can see that. I think you might be able to.” She paused for a moment. “It almost killed him, you know.”
“Killed who?”
“Jamie.”
Katie’s adoptive father, he reminded himself—O’Hanlon.
“They were at the bottom of the trail when she started screaming. Michael couldn’t keep up with him. Jamie was like a man possessed.”
“What did he do?”
“He tried to get Matthews to give up Katheryn. For a moment, he thought the old man might actually do it.” She sighed and shook her head. “The sight of her sobbing in his hands, held over the edge, was almost more than Jamie could bear.”
“What happened?”
“They don’t know. I mean, they don’t know why he did what he did next. When Michael got to the top, Tiberius panicked or cracked or something. He turned to the edge and tried to throw Katheryn off.”
Keith shuddered at the mental image. “My God,” he breathed. “How did they stop him?”
“They couldn’t.”
He looked at her in confusion.
“Michael and Jamie both fired their weapons. It was a desperate move. Neither of them could ever explain exactly why they chose that option except that Katie would have been at the base of the cliff before they reached him any other way. Michael said that Jamie was screaming as he pulled the trigger, screaming right along with Katheryn. The old man went down, but he wasn’t dead yet.”
“What about Katie? You said they couldn’t stop him from throwing her. Where was she?” he asked quietly.
Toni sighed harshly. “When he threw her over, Katheryn grabbed his wrist. When the old man fell, she was left hanging over the edge on his arm. He tried to push her off, and her screaming—” She paled slightly beneath her olive skin and wiped away a single tear. “Michael was still shaking when he got home after hours of being questioned. He’d never heard a child scream that way. It was more than terror, more than pain, more than a plea. It was a scream that seemed to rip your soul from your body.”
Keith pushed away his plate as a sick swirl assaulted him. The mental image of the officers’ terror at losing her chilled him. When he remained mute, Toni continued.
“Jamie dropped his gun where he stood and ran to the edge. Michael grabbed his belt— Jamie was so far over the edge, trying to get a hold on her before she lost her grip against the hand pushing back on her head, that he was sliding over the edge himself. When he finally pulled her up, Jamie was shaking as badly as the child was.”
He buried his face in his hands. Images of Katie shaking with Kyle in her arms danced behind his eyes. Those same wide, empty eyes she had in the hospital pictures.
“Jamie carried her away. Michael got his gun for him. Jamie didn’t stop moving her onto solid ground even that long.” She smiled. “Jamie never had children of his own. Not that he didn’t like them. He just never had much experience with them. You understand?”
Keith nodded uncertainly. “Yes, he was a fair-weather adopt-an-uncle,” he guessed.
Toni laughed. “That was Jamie. Michael was in awe. Jamie cradled Katheryn, soothed her, rocked her, and brushed the dirt from her scraped feet. He was a natural. He carried her to the bridge where they had an ambulance waiting. Jamie handed her over, but he couldn’t walk away.
“Katheryn was frantic. She didn’t seem to know where she was or what was happening to her. She wouldn’t respond to the questions the paramedics were asking, couldn’t answer them. Her eyes locked on Jamie again and she threw herself into his arms. That was when she started crying.
“Jamie couldn’t let her go after that. Michael handed his weapon over to the investigators for him, and Jamie took her to the hospital. The doctors accomplished everything while he held her. Every time they tried to separate Katheryn from Jamie, she screamed and clung to him.
“Finally, she slept. Jamie left, escorted to the investigators because the force psychiatrist was worried about his mental state. The investigators had no problems. The psychiatrist ordered both of them to take a week off. That worked out well for Jamie. He was back at Katheryn’s room the very next day.
“Katheryn was traumatized. She would speak to no one. When Jamie arrived, she was curled into a ball on the bed. Her mother was pleading with her to say or do something, anything. Dianna was in tears.”
“She talked to him?” Keith guessed.
“Not yet. He came into the room and started to introduce himself to Dianna. At the sound of his voice, Katheryn threw herself into his arms and clung to him, shaking silently. Jamie was lost to her then. He stayed for hours, comforting her. When he left—”
“She reverted,” he guessed.
She nodded sadly. “Every moment he was gone, Katheryn was still and cold. No one else in the world existed for her except Jamie. They weren’t even sure if she could understand what he said. His presence seemed to be all the healing she needed. For three days, it went on like that. By the fourth day, she would hold her hands out to him rather than tackling him. She knew he would come pick her up. The doctors were gratified by that much. On the sixth day, she spoke.”
“To O’Hanlon?”
“Yes. When he tried to leave, she locked her arms around his neck and said three words. ‘Don’t leave me.’ He didn’t.”
Keith startled. The same thing she said to him just yesterday, the same way she held to him. He could almost imagine that desperate plea from the child’s mouth instead of the adult.
Toni went on. “Other words followed. For two more days, she spoke only to Jamie. When anyone else tried to speak to her, she hid her face and seemed to startle. Dianna begged him to spend as much time with Katheryn as he could. He did. He couldn’t seem to help himself. When she started talking to others, Jamie called Michael in tears. He was—proud, I think.”
Keith nodded. “He would be.”
“Jamie moved in with the family within a week of Katheryn leaving the hospital. We worried that he was only there for Katheryn, but he and Dianna seemed to form a real love affair as time went on. We never figured Jamie for the type to get attached like that. He was friendly in a loner sort of way. Even with Michael, before—” She shook her head.
“He and Katheryn were kindred spirits? Or maybe he eased both their traumas by staying? Leaving became painful,” he guessed.
“It was more than that. We went to dinner at their house about a year after that night to celebrate the girls’ adoption. We stayed late. All the children were bedded down, and we were laughing and talking.” She met his eyes. “I swear to you there was no sound, no warning.”
“To what?” Keith asked cautiously.
“Jamie startled and ran for the stairs. Of course, Michael and I were confused, but Dianna only shook her head and assured us that Jamie would take care of it.”
“Take care of what?”
“Just as Jamie reached the top of the stairs, the most soul-chilling screaming started. Michael launched to his feet and started shaking. I knew then that I was hearing what they heard that night. Dianna just hung her head sadly and waited for it to end. And it did end, as suddenly as it started. I imagine it ended as soon as Jamie picked her up.”
