“Hello.”
“Drew,” I said, breathing a grateful sigh when the policeman answered his phone. He sounded cranky and muffled, but he had answered.
“Who’s this?” he asked.
“It’s me, Beau,” I replied, “Gordon’s boyfriend. Can you meet us, please? I’m so sorry to call you out of bed, but it’s urgent.”
“What’s going on?” he asked, and I heard the rustling of bed sheets. “Is Gordon in some kind of trouble?”
“He might be,” I answered frankly, staring at my boyfriend’s clenched jaw. “Ollie called him some minutes ago, and Gordon is convinced he is in trouble.”
“Where are you now?”
“Gordon’s driving us to Eric’s house. Can you get there soon?”
“Yes, give me a few minutes. Whatever you do, don’t let Gordon confront Eric until I get there.”
“I’ll try,” I told him. “But get there as quickly as possible.”
I hung up the phone and tried to find out what had made Gordon so upset.
“What did Ollie say when he called?” I asked Gordon as soon as I hung up the phone.
He replayed the conversation to me before ending with, “you should have heard him. He sounded awful. Plus, he was crying. I know Ollie, and he’s a tough kid. He doesn’t cry for just anything.”
We continued the drive in silence while I kept hoping Drew would get to the destination before us. He didn’t. Some fifteen minutes later, we drove into the driveway of Eric's home. Thinking about what had happened the first and last time I had been here, still left a bad taste in my mouth. I couldn’t blame Gordon for feeling the way he did. If Eric found out his son was gay, would it help him to change in favor of his son or would he give the boy the same treatment he had given us? Since he had ignored acknowledging the boy was his son for so long, I doubted he would be so generous now.
“Drew thinks we should wait on him before we do anything rash,” I cautioned Gordon as he flung his door open and climbed out of the vehicle.
“You’re free to stay here and wait for him, but I’m going to ensure my son is alright. In fact, this is what I should have done a long time ago. He belongs home with his family. Not here!”
He marched up to the front door of the house, and I followed. While I would have preferred to wait for Drew to arrive, there was no way I would allow Gordon to confront Eric on his own. We climbed the porch together, and I pushed my hands into the front of my pockets while Gordon rang the doorbell. It rang several times, but no one came to the door.
“Maybe nobody’s home,” I said.
“He has to be here,” Gordon insisted. “I’m not leaving until I know for certain. I’ll search the damn house from top to bottom if I have to.”
“What are we going to do? Bust the door open?”
“I know where he keeps the spare key.”
I groaned and followed Gordon around the side of the house where the pool was. Being the voice of reason in this relationship wasn’t going to work when Gordon was adamant about something.
Chapter 37
Gordon
I could sense how worried Beau was, but I didn’t have the time nor the mind to reassure him. With the phone call still fresh in my mind, I just wanted to get Ollie out of this house and back home. At the poolside, I located the rock where Eric always left his spare key. More than once he’d asked me to do things for him when he was out of town, and this was always where he left the spare key.
“This is trespassing,” Beau said behind me. “We could really be locked up for this Gordon, but since I know I can’t get you to change your mind, let’s do this as quickly as possible and go.”
I turned to him then and saw he was as tense as I was. I couldn’t ask him to do this with me. If we were caught, he would face harsher penalties since he was not originally from here. He had just had his contract extended. All that fight would have been for nothing if we got caught doing this.
“I’ll go in alone,” I told him. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
He shook his head. “You go, I go.”
“Beau, that’s risky for you in your situation.”
“It’s risky in any situation. The more time we spend arguing about this Gordon, the more time it gives Eric to return.”
“I don’t like this,” I said with a frown but stopped haranguing him about going in with me. If we stood here arguing all night, we’d never get this done. We returned to the porch, and I unlocked the front door. The house was in darkness, but I could see a faint glimmer of light coming from upstairs.
“The house seems empty,” Beau said in hushed tones.
He was right. The house did seem empty, but the glimmer of light upstairs was odd in the otherwise dark house. The light wasn’t bright, but the house was dark enough for me to notice it.
“Ollie!” I called because I had no desire to be unannounced if someone was in fact here. “Son, are you here?”
The house would have been silent except for Beau’s deep breathing. He rested a nervous hand on my back. The gesture was meant to be comforting, but it was more distressing that I didn’t get a response from my son. Probably Beau was right, and nobody was here. Still, that glimmer of light bothered me.
“Do you want to go check it out?” Beau pointed up the stairs, and I knew he had the same thought I did that the light felt out of place.
I led the way up the stairs, Beau behind me. At the top of the stairs, I paused, the memory of Barbara’s dead body in Charlie’s arms hitting me hard. I was scared of what I would find. Ollie’s words screamed of ending his life. The stillness of the house, the darkness, that one sheen of light played on my emotions.
“Are you okay?” Beau asked when he came up behind me.
“I don’t know what I’ll find,” I whispered back, staring dead ahead at the hall to the door where the light streamed under. Everything was too quiet. Deathly quiet.
“I’ll go ahead of you,” Beau volunteered. I nodded and allowed him to lead the rest of the way. I hung back when he reached the door and knocked. “Is anyone here?” He frowned and glanced at me. “Do you hear that?”
At first I didn’t, but then I moved closer to the door and heard muffled sounds, like a moan.
Beau turned the knob and pushed the door open. Light spilled out into the hall. “Oh my God!” My heart fell at Beau’s horrified outburst. I dreaded what he saw. “Gordon.” He strangled out my name.
I rushed by him to enter the room. I stopped short, drawing a painful breath. Ollie was lying on the floor. Naked. Bruises and blood covered his body in several places. He was curled up in a fetal position, his hands over his head as though still warding off another attack. I couldn’t move. It hurt to breathe. I didn’t know if he was breathing or not.
“Ollie!” I rushed over to my son, dropping to my knees beside him. Up close the damage was even worse. I had to pry his hands away from the defensive stance over his head. It hadn’t helped him much it seemed. His face was busted up and swollen with purple bruises. His lip and nose were still bleeding which meant the wound hadn’t been inflicted very long ago.
I tenderly touched his face. “Ollie, son, I’m here.” I knew now why he had called me. Why he had sounded so awful and in pain on the call. Why hadn’t he told me what Eric had done to him?
His eyes were swollen but the eyelids shifted. “Da-ad?” His bloody lips barely moved with the word. He sucked in a deep breath that caught on a sob. “Da-ad?”
“Yes, son. It’s me. It’s me.”
I had forgotten about Beau until he approached us, bearing a large towel he must have retrieved from the closet. “Here. Cover him.” I glanced up at him and saw tears were streaming down his cheeks. It was exactly how I felt except my hurt was also tainted with anger and the need to avenge my son.
“Everything hurts,” Ollie sobbed, burying his face in my thigh. “It hurts to breathe.”
I blinked away the tears. “I know. I know. We’ll get you to the hospital s
o it can stop hurting, and I swear I’ll make him pay for this if it’s the last thing I do.”
“I’ll drive,” Beau volunteered.
“Okay.”
I couldn’t let my rage take over although I wanted to let out my frustration and anger. I had to take care of Ollie first and ensure he was okay. The towel secured around his waist, I lifted him, and he cried out from the pain of it. His arms went around my neck, reminding me of how he would hang from around my neck when he was a little boy. My hands secured around his thighs to keep him from jerking too much, I got to my feet and nearly dropped him when I saw the evidence on the floor of what Eric had done to my boy.
My legs went weak, and my knees buckled. When Ollie emitted a painful groan, I barely straightened, so the both of us didn’t end up on the floor. Beau, who stood at the door holding it open for us, didn’t quite stifle his own sob. His face went pale, and for a minute he looked like he was going to throw up.
I shook my head at Beau for him not to say anything. I couldn’t take the comforting words right now. I didn’t want anyone to tell me how much better this would get with time. Nothing could ever erase this from my mind. Nothing could have ever made right the injustice my son had faced tonight. At the hands of the man who was convinced he was Ollie’s birth father. What kind of sick person would do this? If he was right about Ollie’s parentage, what sort of demented father could do this to his own son?
Chapter 38
Beau
“This is so fucked up!” Drew swore as he paced back and forth in the waiting room of the hospital. He was making my head hurt, trudging in and out of my line of vision the way he was, but I understood how keyed up he was. We were all keyed up, and I was worried as hell about Gordon and Ollie. Gordon had opted to be in surgery with the boy because Ollie had asked him to. Drew, who had arrived at Eric’s house just as we were leaving, had escorted us to the hospital with his siren blaring.
He had taken one look at Ollie’s naked and bruised body and understood the gravity of the situation.
“What monster would do such a thing?” I had been asking this question over and over. As someone who had been on the other end of Ian’s wrath one time too often, I knew this would be devastating to Ollie. It was a shame that never entirely went away, but one that you always had to live with. It was the fear and anxiety that went with it every time something triggered the memory.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I told Drew and jumped to my feet. I hurried to the visitor’s bathroom just down the corridor off the waiting area on this block. I had barely gotten into the cubicle when the first bout of nausea hit me. When I finished, I dry-heaved a few times before flushing the toilet. Bracing against the wall with my arms, I let the scalding tears run down my face. For those who knew how badly Ian had beaten me the last time, I’d never given them the full extent of it. Of what he had done to my unconscious body. I barely remembered it since the moment had been locked away in my mind, but seeing Ollie, everything had returned full force.
I doubted I would ever get over it. Worse, it was someone who I had loved and cared for. The same with Ollie. He had grown up with Eric all his life. If he had run to the other man when he argued with Gordon, it only showed the level of respect and trust he had placed in Eric. And he had that trust yanked from under his feet. He would lose his equilibrium for a very long time, but I would help him as much as I could to live through it. I knew there were days he would not want to open his eyes to see another day, and that would be the hardest part of his recovery. Not giving in to those feelings.
When I had my feelings back under control, I washed my hands and my face, wiping them before I went back into the waiting room. Ollie had already been in surgery for an hour. It had to be terrible for Gordon being with him and watching the procedure, but Ollie had begged him not to leave him.
“Anything new?” I asked Drew, reclaiming my seat.
He sat beside me. “Eric is supposed to be on duty tonight, but he never showed up.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “A team of investigators is now at the house taking a sample of everything. There’s no escaping this for him. He’ll spend a long time in prison for this."
I shook my head. “I’m confused. If he’s so anti-gay as he portrays why’d he…” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
“I’ve no idea, Beau. Only he can answer that one.”
It didn’t make sense to me at all. If Eric had just beaten up the boy, I would have understood. But what he did next just didn’t add up.
“What do you suppose happened?” the policeman asked me.
I shrugged. “He obviously learned Ollie was gay. Maybe the boy told him. Knowing what we do about Eric that would be big enough to send him over the edge.”
“I can’t help feeling responsible,” he told me. “I should have known how far he would go after what he did to you and Beau. We shouldn’t have that nutcase wearing our uniform. If I had reported what he did then, he would have been exposed and wouldn’t have had the chance to hurt anyone else.”
“I could say the same. If I’d not been too much of a coward about losing my contract, I would have pressed charges for being wrongfully detained and assaulted.”
“Did he try it with you that night I found him punching you?”
I shook my head. “No. No, he didn’t. Maybe you interrupted it right on time.”
We fell silent then and waited. I was grateful for him being here with us even though he didn’t have to. He could have gone home after calling the police to the site of Eric’s home. Instead, he had chosen to stick around and offer his support.
“Beau.” Since I was staring down at my feet, I didn’t see Gordon enter the waiting room. Drew squeezed my knee to get my attention and I glanced up. I got to my feet immediately upon seeing Gordon. He looked defeated. At that point, looking at him, the age gap between us showed more than ever. I opened my arms to him, not giving a damn if the few people in the waiting area saw.
Gordon walked right into them, and I held him tightly to me. He started shuddering and couldn’t stop. I held him and rubbed his back, not saying anything because there were no words of comfort I had to offer. I knew what he wanted was to confront Eric.
“How is he?” I finally asked, loosening my hold on him.
“The surgery went okay,” he answered. “It was tough to watch, but I had to be strong for him. I wanted to leave, but I promised him I would stay.”
“You’re a strong dad,” I said in encouragement.
Drew’s phone rang, and he excused himself to take the call.
“I want to kill him, Beau,” Gordon gritted out. “I want him to feel everything my kid had to go through because of him, and then I want to end his miserable life, so he can’t do that to anyone else.”
“The law will take care of it,” I assured him. “Right now, Ollie needs you, and Charlie needs you. I need you."
He groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I need to call my mom and let her know. I haven’t called her yet. I don’t know what to say. What do I tell Charlie?”
“We have to tell her the truth,” I answered. “We don’t have to go into details, but those who are close to Ollie should know how they’ll have to deal with this situation in a fragile manner.”
“What time is it?”
I checked the phone in my pocket. “It’s some minutes after three.”
He grimaced. “Still too soon to call. We’ll give it a couple of hours when they’re awake. No sense calling them at this time. There’s nothing they can do anyway.”
I squeezed his hand and pulled him into the chair beside me to sit. “You look worn. Sit for a minute.”
“I keep thinking that I brought this monster into their lives.”
I squeezed his thigh closest to me. “What I’ve heard tonight is everyone taking the blame for what happened. But the truth is that it’s not our fault. The one responsible must be fully accountable for this, Gordon. That’s not you, me nor Drew over there.
Yes, maybe if we had done things differently, he would not have had the opportunity to hurt someone else, but the sole blame is Eric’s. He did this, and he deserves every punishment thrown at him by the law.”
“Guys!” Drew announced, walking up to us.
We both turned to acknowledge him, and I knew from the look on his face, he had relevant news.
“They’ve got him,” he said. “They’re taking him to the police station for questioning.”
“Questioning?” Gordon fumed. “What kind of questioning? He should be locked up behind bars.”
“He will be, but we have to make a formal case.”
Gordon rose to his feet. “I want to be there.”
Drew frowned at him. “You’re not in a rational state to be allowed to confront him now, Gordon. I promise he’s not getting off this case.”
“I’m not asking you, Drew. There are only two options. Either I ride with you, or I’ll drive my car.”
“I’ll drive you,” I answered. “I’m not letting you drive yourself in this state.”
“No,” Gordon said. “I need you to stay here with Ollie. He’ll be taken to his room to recover, and I want you to sit with him until I get back.”
“Your son needs you more than you need to confront Eric right now,” Drew stated.
Apparently, he didn’t know Gordon as I did. Nothing on earth, short of his kids being in trouble, could prevent him from confronting Eric. He knew I would do anything to keep his kids safe if he wasn’t around.
“I guess I’ll be driving then,” Gordon declared.
I groaned, holding onto the car keys tightly. “Please take him,” I begged Drew. “I can’t have him driving himself there while he’s this upset.”
Drew sighed. “Okay, but we have a strict protocol to follow, Gordon, and if there’s any disturbance, I’ll have to get you out of there.”
“Fine.”
Gordon turned to me. “I’ve listed you as an emergency contact on Ollie’s file, so you should be able to see him without any trouble. If anything changes, call me.”
Easy Does It Twice Page 27
