Footsteps

by Susan Fanetti

  He gave Elsa a quick ruffle and then left, and Carlo closed the door. He turned to Sabina. “Hi, baby. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “I’d be nowhere else. He is good?” She went to them and put her hand on Trey’s slim back. He was lying with his cheek on his father’s shoulder, his open mouth lax and a little smooshed. She cocked her head and looked more closely. His upmost cheek was mottled with bruising. She looked up and found Carlo watching her, his beautiful brown eyes full of pain. “Carlo?”

  “We’ll talk, but I need to get him down. Uncle Ben is sending his doctor over, and we can expect the cops to show. I need to tell you our story, so you have it straight. And then I’ll tell you about our night—or, our morning, I guess.” He headed toward the staircase, and Sabina followed.

  “You must be exhausted. Can you rest?”

  “I’m not tired. I will be, I’m sure. But my head is too busy.” Trey fussed and stirred as they topped the stairs. “Hey, pal. We’re home.”

  Trey lifted a sad, sleepy face and looked around. “Home?”

  “Yep. All safe.” Elsa licked Trey’s leg, and he looked down at her. Carlo smiled. “See? Elsa’s been waiting for you.” He went into Trey’s room. “And look. Ms. Bina got your bed all ready for you. You think you can sleep more?”

  Trey nodded, and Carlo took off his shoes and socks, his dirty shirt and shorts. While Carlo undressed him, Sabina went to the window and pulled the curtains closed, taking the sunlight out of the room.

  As Carlo tried to tuck him into his sleeping bag, Trey muttered, “Chomp chomp.”

  “You want your shark socks?”

  Trey nodded, and Carlo looked up at Sabina with a real smile. “You did good, Bina.” He grabbed the socks from the top of Trey’s little dresser and slid them on his feet. “How’s that, pal?”

  “Elsie.”

  “She’s right here.” Carlo patted the mattress next to Trey’s head, and Elsa laid her head next to her boy’s. She was so big she didn’t even have to get up from where she’d lain next to the bed. Trey hooked an arm over the dog’s neck and stuck his thumb into his mouth.

  “I’ll be very close, Trey. Right here if you need me. You sleep. Everything’s good now. Okay?”

  Already asleep, Trey didn’t answer. Carlo took Sabina’s elbow and led her from the room.

  When they were in the hallway, Sabina asked, “Was he hurt?”

  Carlo led her into his—their?—bedroom and sat her on the bed. He sat next to her. “Not too much. She hit him, and he has a couple of other bruises, like he got grabbed hard. He hasn’t talked much. We’ll have Dr. Kerr give him a look-over and make sure, but he’ll be okay.”

  Sabina watched his fists clenching and unclenching and wondered how much Carlo believed of what he was saying to her. “And her?”

  “She won’t be a problem ever again. Don’t know about the guy. Know his name, but he bailed before we found ‘em. The Uncles still have people on it, but the important thing is Trey is home. We didn’t lose him.” His voice cracked. “I didn’t lose him.”

  Sabina put her arms around him. “No. He’s here. He’s with you. Where he belongs.” Carlo leaned over then, into her, as if his body had gone boneless. She held him more tightly and tucked his head against her neck. Combing her fingers through his hair, she whispered, “I love you, Carlo. Te amo.”

  All of a sudden, he wasn’t boneless anymore. He was the opposite of boneless. His tense hands came around her and clutched at her clothes, pulling her closer to him. She felt his mouth, his teeth and tongue, on her neck, and she realized what was happening. She was surprised, but if it was what he needed, she was willing.

  More than that—his need of her made her more than willing. When only moments ago she’d felt nothing more than tenderness and devotion, now she felt passion and a need of her own. When he turned and laid her back on the bed, his fingers clutching at the opening of her shorts and his mouth sucking and biting at her throat and shoulders, she helped him get her clothes off and then spread wide beneath him.

  He didn’t undress. He only opened his jeans, and then he was on her, in her, harder and rougher than he’d been before with her, grunting in her ear with every thrust. He slid his hands under her and hooked them over her shoulders, holding her so that every surge into her was as deep and fierce as possible. The bedroom door was open; she hoped that both Trey and Carlo Sr. stayed asleep.

  Beset by a tempest of sensations and emotions, Sabina knew she would not come. The part of her that still remembered her past life, that was trained to respond in certain ways, pushed her to pretend, made her worry that there might be repercussions if she did not appear to have had pleasure.

  But this was not her past life, and Carlo was not Auberon. He was being rough; he was fucking her, not making love, not even really paying attention to her, but he was not Auberon, and this need came from a different place. She knew that she need not pretend.

  It wasn’t that she was feeling no pleasure, or that he was hurting her. She felt passion for him; she wanted this. But she was too worried about him, about Trey, about the immediate and distant futures, too heartsick about Joey and even about Rosa, now, to be able to take the deep, rich, overpowering pleasure that sex with Carlo brought her. The pleasure she felt now was from being what he needed, giving him something that he clearly needed, being present for him. Being strong for him.

  He came with a final, powerful thrust and a groan, and then he was quiet. Sabina brought her hands to his head and threaded her fingers into his wild hair again. She held him while he recovered his breath.

  With a deep sigh, he lifted his head and looked down at her. “Fuck. Bina…I…I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was. I’m just…having control problems. I’m sorry.”

  “Shhh. It’s all right. I know. I know what it was, and it’s all right. Are you better?”

  She could see him considering that question. “I am. I feel like I can breathe. He withdrew from her and lay at her side, his hand trailing over her chest and belly. When he cupped her breast and rubbed his thumb over her nipple, she caught his hand to stop him.

  His brow furrowed. “I want to do for you.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I think instead there are things to talk about, yes?”

  He sat up and took a deep breath. “Yeah, there are.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “I really am sorry, Bina. I shouldn’t have gone at you like that.”

  “Hush, Carlo.” She scooted off the bed and found her clothes. “Let’s talk.”

  ~oOo~

  Not even an hour after their talk, they were sitting in the living room with Agents Darby and Kohl, and Carlo was repeating the story he’d shared with Sabina. He’d called them after she had the story down. Trey was still asleep; she had checked on him as Carlo went to answer the agents’ knock.

  “I can’t tell you anything else. We were home. My brother is doing a little better, and we’re doing shifts now at the hospital. Sabina and I were up—we couldn’t sleep. Then she basically did a ring and run. She just dropped him off and left as soon as I opened the door.”

  Darby didn’t look like she believed the story, but she didn’t challenge it. “Did you see what car she left in—if she was still with Mark Rand or the same car, anything?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t care. I had Trey in my arms, and I didn’t go after her. You can’t see the street from the front door, so for all I know, she got sucked up into a spaceship and carted off to her home planet.”

  “And you, Mrs. Auberon?”

  She hated hearing herself referred to in that way. Hated it violently. But she smiled. “I’m sorry, I can’t add more than what Carlo has said. We were here. She came to the door and left Trey. I wasn’t at the door, so I saw less even than Carlo.”

  Kohl asked, “You didn’t look out a window? Anything?”

  “No, I apologize. I was in the hallway.”

  Darby sighed. “We need to talk to Trey, Mr. Pagano.”

  “A
bsolutely not. He was traumatized, but now it’s over. It’s over. For him, it is completely over. No discussion.”

  “You understand that Trey isn’t safe if she’s still out there.” Darby closed her notepad and leaned forward. Sabina noticed that she’d said ‘if’ and not ‘while’; she wondered if that was a telling choice. “She could do it again at any time. This case is not closed just because you have your son back. A crime was committed. A federal crime. We need information to solve it.”

  “I understand. But you are not talking to my son. Ever.”

  “You seem calm for a man whose son was abducted at gunpoint. I’d think you’d want justice and security for your kid.” Kohl was regarding him through eyes narrow with suspicion.

  “I’m not calm. And I do want justice and security. I’m helping every way I can. My first priority is to my son, though, and this ordeal is over for him.”

  Darby stood, and Kohl followed. “All right, then. You have our card. Get in touch if there’s anything else you want to tell us.”

  Carlo showed them out and then came back to sit on the sofa with Sabina. She put her hand on his knee. “Is that it, then?”

  “I doubt it. I’m sure they don’t believe us, and I expect they have pretty accurate suspicions about what really happened. The Uncles are well known to the Feds. But there’s a reason neither of them has ever even been arrested, in maybe fifty years of this work. They’re good. They have a firm grasp on the line between what’s known and what can be proved. We haven’t heard the last of the agents, but eventually they’ll put their resources elsewhere.”

  They sat quietly, for a while, and then Sabina said a thing that had been gnawing at the edges of her mind since she and Carlo had talked earlier. “We both have spouses your Uncle Ben has saved us from, in some way. There is blood on our hands. And we owe your uncles a great deal.”

  “No, Bina. It’s important that you think about this the right way, because ‘owing,’ with the Uncles, means something specific. They deserve our gratitude and respect, and they have it. That’s all. I was willing to owe, but we don’t. Uncle Ben did what he did for you, and for me, out of love and honor. Because we’re family. There’s no debt.” He turned and took her hands. “Do you regret it? Is that why you said we have blood on our hands?”

  “No. Truly, I don’t. But it’s quite a thing, I think, to be responsible, even…sideways? Is that right?...for someone’s life ending. It’s not a thing I thought I’d know. Do you regret?”

  Carlo was quiet. “I don’t. When I saw Trey’s bruises, I could have killed her with my hands, and I would have, except my hands were full of Trey. There were a few times while she had him when I felt out of control and would happily have bashed her head in. But…I did love her, once. I think I had blinders on, and made excuses or didn’t even notice some of the ways she was…just wrong. Carmen says I have a hero complex and I didn’t see Jenny for who she was because she needed me so much. Carm was worried that I would love you because I had saved you.” He squeezed her hands. “That’s not true. You know that’s not true, right?”

  Sabina lifted one of his hands and kissed it. “It’s a little true. You do want to save and protect. You are a hero, I think. A little. And I think I would be dead now, if you hadn’t been so persistent in helping me. Chasing me down the beach even to help me. But I know you love me for more than that. And I know I love you for more than that, too.”

  Carlo leaned in and kissed her. Just as the kiss was becoming something more, the staircase creaked. They pulled apart. The creak was too heavy to have been Trey, and there was no sound of Elsa coming along, so they knew they’d see Carlo Sr.

  And they did. Standing in the entry to the living room in a pair of white boxers and a white V-neck t-shirt, his short hair wild from sleep, Carlo St. came into the living room.

  “John called. Joe’s awake. He’s awake. I gotta get back there.”

  ~ 25 ~

  Carlo tied Trey’s little Converse sneaker and gave his foot a pat. “Okay, pal. Let’s go down for breakfast. Big day today.”

  Trey hopped off the bed and grabbed his new little shark backpack. Today was his first day of preschool. He was getting a late start; it was the middle of September and almost three weeks since the beginning of the school year, but it had taken him most of that time to come back out of his post-traumatic shell. Those weeks, when his beautiful, boisterous boy had been withdrawn and indolent, had scared Carlo badly. Jenny had managed to do a lot of damage in less than a single day.

  Actually, no. She’d started doing her damage to Trey the day she’d abandoned him. But she could do no more.

  He’d been better, more like himself, for the past few days, and after talking with Bina, Carlo had decided that he’d do well, finish coming back, if he could play with kids his own age. He was ready for school—Natalie had done lots of enrichment as his nanny, so he knew his shapes and colors. He could count and write the numbers to twenty and read a few words. He knew his address. He could write his name, too.

  Well, he could write ‘Trey.’ ‘Carlo Francesco Pagano III’? Not yet.

  “I want waffles. I’m gonna ask Misby for waffles.”

  Carlo stopped in the midst of dropping Trey’s pajamas into his hamper. “Mizbee?”

  “Yeah. It’s like Ms. Bina and Mommy bunched up. She’s like my mommy now but she’s not my mommy.” His little brow wrinkled deeply for a flash, then smoothed. “I like her better. Misby is always nice.”

  He was struggling with the straps of his pack and dropped that bombshell in an almost distracted way, without even looking at his father. Carlo kept his voice level as he answered, “She is always nice, isn’t she?” He helped him settle the straps over his shoulders.

  “Yeah. She gave me shark socks that chomp my feet and she makes me breakfast and she doesn’t ever yell or hit and she smells good and we went to the ‘quarium and she plays cars and makes car sounds.” He stopped and considered. “They’re not good sounds, but I’m showing her to be better.”

  His mind reeling, Carlo took his son’s hand, and they went downstairs, where ‘Misby’ was waiting.

  Bina had moved in. She hadn’t given up her little apartment yet, but she had not spent a night in it since Trey’s birthday. Carlo and Trey both needed her too much. They all needed her too much. With Joey still in the hospital, facing a long recovery even after he was released, and with Trey having been so traumatized, she was indispensible.

  She was still working at Sea Weaver, which she enjoyed, but, with Andi’s blessing, she took Trey with her when there was no one else to watch him. He talked often, and with glee, about his ‘job’ at the shop. In fact, it had been the first thing he’d shown enthusiasm for after Jenny. He was becoming something like a shop mascot, charming all the old ladies. He was right—Bina had become like a mother to him. More than that.

  She had become the woman of this house.

  He and Trey came into the kitchen now. Elsa got up from her place against the island and walked to the back door. Even Elsa had begun to follow Bina around, though she still slept every night with Trey and never shirked her nannying duties. Carlo went to let the dog out as Trey shrugged off his pack and climbed into his seat.

  “What are we having for breakfast this morning, Mr. Trey?” Carlo smiled at Bina’s sweet voice behind him. She had mastered breakfast. Other meals were a bit more hit and miss, but he loved her for trying.

  “Waffles, please. You should call me Trey. Mommies don’t say Mister. And you’re Misby. I decided. Like Mommy Ms. Bina. I already told Daddy.”

  Primed for that by his earlier shock, Carlo turned to see Bina staring dumbly, her mouth open, at Trey, who was concentrating on his milk. She turned and met Carlo’s look. He grinned and winked—they’d talk later, but not in front of the boy, who was, Carlo thought, changing all their lives without even noticing.