“How old was he?”
“No more than eight. You’d think a child that age would be bewildered at being cast aside onto a stranger’s doorstep without notice or explanation, but Devon was sadly quite used to that sort of abandonment. In any case, I went looking for him, reasoning that as I suddenly had a child under my roof, even if only temporarily, I should probably go and have a look at the boy before deciding what to do.
“He wasn’t in the foyer where the housekeeper had left him, so I had to search here and there down the halls, until I heard a spirited conversation in Spanish – and one of the voices was that of a child. I followed the sound to the kitchen, stuck my head in the door, and there was Devon.”
“What was he doing in the kitchen?”
“Being Devon, once he found himself in a new environment, it was his instinct to gravitate to the nearest servant and make friends – when I came upon him, he was helping one of the cook’s assistants wash a sink load of dishes, drying and putting away the freshly rinsed pots and pans for her while they discussed some fascinating topic in rapid-fire Spanish.
“Once he spotted me, he went still as a startled mouse, shrinking up against her side as he slid his eyes past me at the door, already considering possible escape routes. He relaxed a bit when she put a hand on his shoulder and said something to him – I’m afraid my own Spanish is rather fragmentary, but I got the impression she was reassuring him I wasn’t some child-eating ogre. I remember being struck by his delightfully odd blue-violet eyes when he looked up at me and dared to speak.
“ ‘I’m helping Rosa with the dishes, and she says I’m doing a really good job – is it okay if I stay here and help her some more?’
“I said I couldn’t see why not – after all, I had no clue what to do with him – and then I told him he must be a clever boy, since he spoke Spanish so well.
“He seemed quite puzzled by the compliment. ‘Everybody knows Spanish, it’s easy. Don’t you know it?’ He looked at me as if he suspected that I might be mentally impaired.
“Without waiting to hear that I was largely ignorant of Spanish, he asked more questions, firing them off one after the other, with barely a breath in between. ‘Who are you? Do you know my father? Do you know how long I have to stay here? I promise I’ll be good and I won’t bother anybody, so can I eat something later? Where do I sleep tonight? Why don’t you know Spanish? My father has a dog that knows German, do you have a dog? Do you have a cat? I like books, do you have any books I can read?’”
“He was a charmer even as a kid, huh?”
The old man smiled. “Very much so, yes – despite being never having been around children and having little notion of what they were all about, I found myself liking Devon immensely within a few minutes of meeting him.
“Once I could get a word in edgewise, I told him my name was Sheridan Montvale, that I was his father’s uncle, and that if he liked books, he was welcome to visit my library – and that settled it. He promptly called me ‘Uncle Sheridan’ for the first time, he spent the afternoon in the library plowing through my father’s old Civil War books, we talked about this battle and that over dinner, and he has been like a son to me ever since.”
I wanted to hear more. I wanted to while away the rest of the morning and a healthy chunk of the afternoon listening to Uncle Sheridan tell more fascinating, revealing, non-heartwrenching stories about the lonely, brilliant child who’d grown up to become the complicated, impossible, irresistible man that I loved.
That was what I wanted to hear. It was not what I needed to hear – not if I wanted to help Devon.
My honorary uncle accepted the gift of additional containers of fake cream from another McDonald’s employee who’d fallen victim to his suave, elderly charm. He added a dab of cream and a dusting of sugar to his latest fresh coffee, and I dropped the hammer on the whole ‘what I needed to hear’ thing.
“So you met Devon when he was eight, and this was three years after he’d been taken from his mom, right?”
“That is correct.”
“But he wasn’t having panic attacks yet, was he?”
My favorite Jedi sighed like a man who knew the jig was up. “No, he was not. Miss Daniels, Devon has told me many times that you are both smart and persistent, and as always, he speaks the truth tenfold. I could wish that he had met you years ago, but I fear that by the time he reached adulthood, the damage to his soul had long since been done.”
I leaned forward, my forearms on the table, my fingers twining together as I searched for the right words. “Sir, for Devon’s sake, I need to know what the deal is with these panic attacks. If being wrenched out of his mother’s arms and taken away from her forever wasn’t enough to set them off, that means something one hell of a lot worse happened to him later on.
“I need to know what that thing was. I need to know what the Killanes did to him. I need to know just what happened to turn a sweet, bright little five-year-old boy into a thirty-eight-year-old man who’s an emotional train wreck.”
I remembered something Uncle Sheridan had said after that fateful meeting on Saturday morning. “After we put Devon into the limo and watched him take off for home after the meeting Saturday, you said you could never forgive the Killanes for what they’d done to him – sir, what exactly did they do that you’re not able to forgive? I need …” I let out a long breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “I need to know the worst.”
Uncle Sheridan leaned back, looking down at his hands. He tilted his head and examined the way his fingers laced around his plastic container of cheap, mass-produced coffee that probably tasted almost as plastic as the cup.
When he spoke, he measured his words with care. His voice was colorless and precise, like a professor giving a lecture on a distasteful subject.
“You know that Devon was taken from his mother on that day so long ago, but you may not know that he ran away from his father’s house that same night. He didn’t get far, of course, since he was so young he had no idea of just where he was in the city or where to find his mother – but that didn’t stop him from trying.
“He only made it as far as the nearest street corner that first time, before Kevin Killane himself retrieved him, cursing as he bundled the crying boy under one arm and marched him back to the house. Devon spent that first night under his father’s roof locked alone in a spare room, howling with confusion and fear and loneliness. He tells me he seems to remember his father shouting at him through the door, something about ‘shut up that damn noise’ or some such; knowing Kevin Killane, I would assume he was quite shatteringly drunk at the time.
“Devon kept trying to run away, getting further each time as he grew older and cannier, as he charmed bodyguards and maids into looking the other way, as he came to better understand just what his father had done and why.
“Six months before he arrived on my doorstep, at a mere eight years old, he was told by one of his aunts that his mother had long since been locked away in a madhouse, and that he could stop all this irritating ‘running away’ nonsense immediately. He refused to believe it.
“He believed it when he slipped out of his father’s house a week later, walked five miles, figured out just the right combination of city bus routes that would take him where he most wanted to go, and arrived at the door of his mother’s old apartment, the only real home he’d ever known – to find strangers living there.
“His mother was quite gone. That night his father beat him senseless, and Devon did not speak a word to anyone for the next three weeks.”
“Holy shit.”
I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud until Uncle Sheridan nodded.
“I know no better words for what he went through during those dark days. A weaker child might have been broken by the experience, and many an adult would have given up hope under the circumstances. Some might say any sensible person, young or old, would have surrendered to the cold truth of the matter at that point – but Devon was born with someth
ing in him, some hidden steel or perversity, that refused to give up.
“He said nothing and he waited. Once he found his voice, he did not mention his mother. To the best of my knowledge, he did not speak of her again until he was nine years old, during his fourth visit to my home.”
“So his dad kept bringing him back? Even though you were a nice guy who treated Devon like a human being, with actual feelings and rights and all?”
“I found that a bit startling myself. That first visit ended when Kevin Killane returned a week later to retrieve his son, acting as if he barely remembered where he’d left the boy. He seemed surprised and more than a little suspicious when I told him that Devon had been very well-behaved and was welcome to stay with me at any time – but two months later, he dropped Devon off on my doorstep again, and a third time just before Christmas.
“I imagine he got over his doubts not only because my home was a convenient dumping ground for the boy, but also because leaving his son in my care was an easy way to irritate the other Killanes, who disliked me nearly as much as they despised Devon and his father.
“Be that as it may, the first three times that he visited me, Devon did a dreadful amount of my servants’ work for them, read voraciously, and talked at me nonstop about every subject that crossed his fertile mind – but he said not a word about his mother.
“The fourth time Devon stayed beneath my roof, he was dropped off by a bodyguard; the man explained with every kind of disgust that Kevin Killane was in the middle of yet another epic drinking binge, and the household staff had decided together that it would be for the best if Devon were somewhere else, well out of hitting range.”
“Sir, I have a deep personal need to know, right now, exactly where Kevin “Waste of Skin” Killane is buried, so I can dig him up and light what’s left of his sorry ass on fire. Are you cool with that?”
I expected a sigh, a shrug, well-mannered agreement – what I got was a sad, patient stare.
“Miss Daniels, I fear there was not enough left of Kevin Killane to bury. His death was an ugly business, just like his life – in any case, he was cremated, and his ashes interred in the family crypt.”
“Do I want to know what happened to him?”
“Probably not, but none of this is about what we want, is it? It is instead all about what we need, so that we may protect Devon as best we can.”
While I wondered if I could get away with pulling out my trusty iPhone and googling ‘Kevin Killane death,’ my honorary Jedi uncle got us back to the point.
“A few days into that fourth visit, when he was nine years old and far more insightful than many adults, Devon asked me during dinner if I knew where his mother was.
“The subject came out of the blue. I looked up from my plate to see those strange eyes of his staring at me, his face alight with interest, concern, and a certain dispassionate calculation, as if he’d balanced a difficult math equation whose result told him I could be trusted not to report his question to anyone named Killane.
“I told him, as gently as one can say such a thing, that I’d heard his mother was in a hospital, a special sort of hospital for –
“ ‘For crazy people, right?’ Devon challenged me with his eyes, dared me to say his mother was mad, and of course I could do no such thing, so I just stared back at him.
“He told me she was not crazy and that he needed to know precisely where she was, so he could save her – at all of nine years old, he was determined to save his mother from an entire family of abusive monsters and bring her safely back to a home that no longer existed for either of them.
“I suppose the responsible thing to do would have been to discourage him, to urge this shattered yet unbreakable child to accept that his mother was lost. Instead, I somehow heard myself saying that I would find out where she was and what might be done for her.
“ ‘I just need to know where she is, so I can save her.’ Never in all my life, before or since, have I heard such a brave and hopeless announcement. But I did not discourage him, though I did urge caution. I told him that we must both walk with care, and that if either of us breathed a word about his mother where the Killanes could hear, not only would she be moved somewhere far beyond his reach, but he and I would never be allowed to see each other again.
“ ‘I’m not stupid, Uncle Sheridan. I know what they’ll do if they find out, and I really want to keep coming here. I know I’m just a kid, and I know it will be a really long time before I can get Mama out of that hospital – but someday, I will. Please, just find her for me, okay?’ ”
The old man sighed, and looked about twenty years older than he had only a moment before.
“God help me, I did look for her. I looked for her, and I found the hospital where she’d been locked away. I spoke with my own family’s lawyers, people I knew could be trusted to keep the matter quiet, and I directed them to research what might be done to move her to a facility beyond the influence of the Killanes. I further asked them to determine if there was some way she might even be released and reunited with Devon.
“I was advised it was a thorny legal situation, full of dangers and ambiguities, but that with time, many months or years of time, it might be possible to bring that gentle, innocent woman safely home to her son.
“Sadly, time ran out. Less than a year later, Kevin Killane died; shortly thereafter, Devon’s panic attacks began.”
29. Broken
Something major was being skipped over here, and sweet old guy or not, I wasn’t letting Uncle Sheridan get away with it.
“But just how did his dad die, and why would his death spark off the panic attacks? Wouldn’t his kicking the bucket be, I don’t know, more like cause for celebration? And what happened to Devon’s mom, once the bastard was gone? Did the other Killanes figure on just keeping her locked in a padded room forever?”
Uncle Sheridan didn’t answer, not at first. He peered into the depths of his coffee – no answers there, sir – and then he looked up at me, searching my face for … what?
When he spoke, his voice walked a tightrope between what he wanted to tell me and what he knew I needed to hear. Within seconds, I realized I wouldn’t be getting answers about the demise of Kevin Killane – not yet, anyway.
“I know Devon would trust me to tell you the story of his father’s death, but I do not think I am the person from whom you should hear it.”
“Sir, if you mean that Devon should tell me, it’s my humble opinion that he’s already gone way above and beyond in telling me the kind of stories that stab a person right through the heart – I need to know, but I don’t think he needs to soldier through telling me another horrifying emotional hell ride of a story, okay?”
“You fight for him like a pit bull, you know that?”
“Whoa – did you just compare me to a dog, old man?”
He grinned like a fiend. “Not as such, since I’d rather not end the morning as a mauled corpse – but I will say that you are the sort of fierce personal defender that Devon should have had long ago, when it might have made all the difference. As for his father’s death …”
His face turned distant and sad, and his voice softened – as he spoke, I now had to strain to hear him over the dozens of chattering conversations around us.
“Miss Daniels, Devon was there when his father died. He witnessed the nightmare at point-blank range, he watched the man’s life wink out in an instant, and although he has told me about it in heart wrenching, bloody detail, I suspect that he has not told me everything.”
I suspected that the universe had picked Devon out on the day of his birth for one serious fucking over, like a fly getting its wings torn off by some bent, deviant kid.
While I wondered about the possibility of punching the universe right in the face, Uncle Sheridan continued, his voice growing stronger.
“Some stories grow in the telling, but others shrink. I could do my best to give you the entire awful tale just as he told it to me, but it would not be the
same. His father’s death had an enormous impact on Devon and his future, and only Devon himself can tell that story as it should be told – as it needs to be told, and as you need to hear it.”
So not only would he not tell me, but just maybe, Devon hadn’t even told him everything about the moment Kevin Killane kicked off this mortal coil? What could he have refused to tell Uncle Sheridan? What could have been that bad?
I filed those questions away for later worrying, and moved on. “So what happened to Devon’s mom after that? Did the hospital staff just not tell her about his dad’s death? Did the Killanes insist on keeping her a prisoner, even after Kevin Asshole was out of the picture?”
“I suppose you’ll be cross with me, but –”
“But you’re not going to tell me what happened to her, are you?”
“When Devon finds the strength to tell you about his father’s death, I imagine that is also when you will learn what happened to his doomed mother. She and Kevin Killane were as mismatched a pair as you will ever meet, yet in death as in life, their fates were intertwined.”
Way to be cryptic, Uncle Jedi.
He must have used the Force to read my mind, because he smiled like a patient dad riding herd on a grouchy toddler.
“I apologize for not being more forthcoming on this particular subject, but once you’ve heard the details from Devon, I trust you will understand my reasoning. In any case, there is a great deal more that I am able to tell you, though I rather doubt you will enjoy hearing it.”
“Count me as not surprised. So anyway, it was after his dad’s death and whatever happened to his mom that Devon’s panic attacks kicked in?”
His smile turned weary, and when he spoke again, he used that dry, professorial voice that told me more nightmares were on the way.
“Yes – though the groundwork was laid for them long before, it was in the aftermath of Kevin Killane’s nasty end that Devon’s panic attacks first seized hold of him, and he has suffered in their grip ever since.
Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance Page 32
