“Please,” Grace said and smiled. “I’m too old for drama.”
6
You guys want to come over and finish our game marathon? Johnny asked his friends in a group text when he got home from school the following day. Already did my homework and parents won’t be home for hours.
Darnell texted back a minute later. Thought you were grounded.
Only from sleepovers.
Ty chimed in next. You got off easy. I’m grounded from life until Christmas. I’m lucky they let me keep my phone.
Johnny was surprised. Ty’s parents were usually pretty lax, and it had been his brother that drove them to Charlottesville.
That sucks, Johnny typed. Anyone else?
When no one responded after several minutes, he gave up and went to get a snack. He was relieved to see there were still a few leftovers from Thanksgiving. He didn’t know what his mom was fixing for dinner, but he knew it wouldn’t be near as good as anything Auntie Alec made.
He heaped the food on a plate and maneuvered to the table, wishing he could take the food to his room and eat while he played video games. He reminded himself to talk to his dad about coming up with a way to carry things to his room that couldn’t go in his backpack.
After he wolfed down his food, he carried his game console to the basement to play on his dad’s big-screen TV instead of the small one in his room. It took five grueling trips up and down the stairs, but once he got it set up, the graphics and sound system made the hard work worth it.
He played for half an hour before a message popped up saying his controller batteries were dying. He tossed the controller on the couch and bent down to get his crutches so he could look for batteries in the storage room. He noticed a book sticking out from under the sofa, but all he could see was a picture of a baby in the corner of the cover. He picked up the book, wondering why his dad had a book about a baby in his man-cave.
He studied the cover. A photo of his mom when she was younger stared back at him. The title read, Baby John Doe. his gut tightened, and his heart started to pound. At the bottom of the cover was a blurb that read, “The true story of one woman’s harrowing battle to save a life.” The author, Alexandra Emerson.
Dread crept up Johnny’s spine. Logic told him to shove the book under the sofa, but the temptation to open the book drown out his logic. His hands trembled as he flipped through the pages to the first chapter. The chapter heading said, “Grace Ward – The Beginning.” Johnny skipped past that part to where his story began.
What he read for the following two hours tore what he thought was the truth about his life to shreds. He was kidnapped the day he was born. The kidnappers were never caught. His mother died giving birth to him. His father was alive, living in New Mexico and knew about him. He’d lived with his father for a few months before his father rejected him and gave him up to Grace and Ryan. Worse yet, Ryan and Grace, Alec and Adam, all of them, they’d known the truth all along.
Johnny slammed the book shut and stared at the cover. Alec’s name jumped out at him. How could she keep those dark truths from him? She was always spouting off about the importance of honesty. Nothing about their relationship was honest. And there was Steph, Jen, Mark. These people were nothing to him. They’d pretended to care, to want to be a part of his life, but they’d kept the biggest secret about who he was from him.
His parents must have forced them to lie. No, not his parents. Ryan and Grace Walker, the imposters he’d loved and trusted. They were strangers to him now. They were liars. Grace most of all. Waves of nausea washed over Johnny when the magnitude of her betrayal sank in. He collapsed into the cushions, too numb to cry or scream or flee.
Grace walked into the kitchen through the garage and set her purse on the table. The house was silent and dark. The back of her neck prickled. Johnny usually flipped on every light and had at least two TVs blaring by the time she got home from work.
Grace went through to the hallway and nearly tripped over Johnny’s backpack. She was about to pick it up to take to his room, but she left it where it was. He’d never learn to put his things where they belonged if she always did it for him. She wanted to call him to come get it, but their truce was fragile, and she didn’t want to jeopardize it. There would be time to train him later. Instead, she pasted on a smile and went to ask how his day had gone.
He wasn’t in his room, but it only took seconds to figure out where he was. Perfect outlines of dust rested on the empty shelf where his game console usually sat. Since Ryan had remodeled the basement to create his man-cave, Johnny had spent almost as much time there as his dad. She tossed the wet towel he’d left on the floor after his shower that morning into his clothes hamper and headed for the basement.
While she descended the stairs, she rehearsed how she’d deflect him if he asked about the DNA testing. The promise she’d scribbled down to talk to her colleague had been sitting on the end of Johnny’s bed. She pushed the basement door open and found Johnny hunched over on the sofa with his head resting in his hands. The familiar knot of dread tightened in her gut.
As she rushed to his side, her eye caught Alec’s book lying at Johnny’s feet. She froze as the dread of a different sort washed over her. She dropped to her knees and picked up the book. “Johnny,” she whispered, “We were going to tell you. Please, let me explain.”
He looked at her with his face twisted in a pain she’d never seen there before, not even on his worst days. Without speaking, he grabbed his crutches and raised himself off of the sofa. His legs shook, but he managed to hold himself upright.
“Stay away from me! I don’t want any more of your lies. You knew! You knew my mother was dead. You know who my father is and where he lives. You knew I’d been kidnapped. Kidnapped! And the kidnappers weren’t caught.” He lowered his face close to hers and between gasps for air said, “That’s why you were tracking me. That’s why you always kept me on a short leash. You’re afraid they’ll come back for me, and you didn’t even warn me.”
“Johnny, calm down. You shouldn’t get so agitated. It could bring on a seizure. I’ll tell you the whole story but sit down and get control of yourself.”
She put her hand on his arm, but he jerked it away. “Don’t touch me,” he hissed.
“You two down there?” Ryan called from the top of the stairs. “What’s all the shouting?”
“We’re here,” Grace said, just loud enough for Ryan to hear.
He stopped and the smile slid from his face when he saw Grace and Johnny facing each other with Alec’s book on the floor between them. “No,” he whispered.
“Why did you bring that down here? I told you I wanted it locked up in our room. Look at what you’ve done,” Grace said.
“I thought is was hidden under the couch, but don’t hang this on me. I’ve been the one begging you to tell him the truth. This is all on you.” He stepped closer to Johnny. “Take a few breaths and sit down. Let’s talk this out.”
“Shut up!” Johnny screamed. “One of your stupid talks won’t fix this. Nothing will fix this. You’re liars, and you’re not my parents. You’re nothing to me. Stay away from me.” He locked his eyes on Grace. “I hate you. I mean it this time. I never want to see you again, ever!”
He turned on his crutches and started for the stairs.
"Don’t leave like this, please,” Ryan pleaded. “Where will you go?”
Johnny ignored him, and Grace started to follow but Ryan stopped her. She fought like a mad woman to break free, but Ryan held her tighter.
“Let him go, Grace. He needs time to process what’s he’s just learned. Nothing we say now will reach him. Just let him go.”
When Grace stopped struggling, Ryan loosened his grip, and Grace dropped to the floor, too stunned to move. Johnny’s crutches thumped on the floor above their heads until the front door slammed. Then all was quiet, and Grace knew it would be the last she’d ever see of her precious little man.
Mara climbed out of the shrubs where she’d
been crouching near the corner of Grace’s house listening to the argument taking place on the other side of the wall. She grinned as she rubbed the stiffness out of her thighs and walked her dog to the front of the house on his short leash. She waited in the shadows for Johnny to come through the front door. Her patience was rewarded less than a minute later.
“Can you and Jason come get me, Ty?” she heard him say. “I don’t want to talk about why, but it’s pretty bad. I’ll need to stay at your house for a while.” Mara watched Johnny and listened for a few seconds. “None of that matters,” he finally said. “Just come get me now.”
The emotion in his voice was clear. He was losing it. Pay dirt, she thought. The long hours of crouching in the cold, waiting for her ideal moment had paid off. She scanned the street to make sure it was empty before casually stepping onto the sidewalk and heading away from Johnny. She had the urge to run but forced herself to walk like any dog-owner out for a leisurely stroll. Johnny was too distraught to notice a woman walking her dog.
She picked up her pace once she rounded the corner. Her car waited halfway down the block. She got in and tossed the dog into the backseat. She estimated that she had less than a minute to get to Johnny before his friends showed up. She had to time it right or her perfect chance would be wasted.
Johnny faced the direction Ty’s brother would come from, wondering what was taking so long. For a second, he worried that Ty’s mom wouldn’t let them get Johnny since Ty was still grounded. He was also afraid his mom had called to warn them. The thought made him freeze. Grace wasn’t his mom. He didn’t have a mom. His mom was dead.
His legs went weaker than usual, so he transferred his weight on his arms before lowering himself to the top step of the stoop. His body shook uncontrollably. He was afraid he’d pass out before Ty got there to rescue him. He couldn’t let that happen. He steadied his breathing, taking slow even breaths the way Tony had taught him. That helped a little, but he was going to need something much stronger to survive the nightmare he was facing.
He turned to look for Ty just as a blue car slowed and came to a stop near the driveway. A woman Johnny didn’t recognize was driving. She smiled and rolled down the passenger window.
“Johnny?” she asked. When he nodded, she said, “I’m Ty’s aunt, Mara. He said you need a ride.”
Johnny was up and had his backpack over his shoulders before she could escape. He crossed the lawn to her car in record time.
Once they were moving, he said, “Thanks for picking me up. I didn’t know Ty had an aunt around here.”
“I was happy to help. I don’t live in Richmond. I came into town for Thanksgiving. Are you all right? Ty said you sounded upset on the phone.”
There was no way Johnny could explain to this stranger, so he mumbled something about getting in a fight with his parents and looked out the window. He was relieved that she didn’t press him for more.
They rode in silence for a few more blocks, but when Mara passed the turn to Ty’s house, he said, “It’s that way. You missed the street.”
“We’re going to our cousin’s house in the country. They invited us to dinner. Ty said you wouldn’t mind.”
Johnny wondered why Ty hadn’t told him about the cousin on the phone, but he liked the idea of getting as far away from his parents as possible. Thinking of home made him feel sick. He was afraid he’d puke all over the car.
Mara glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “You sure you’re okay?” He wasn’t okay, far from it, but he didn’t answer. Mara took out bottled water from the pocket in her door and held it out to Johnny.
“Drink this. It’ll help. I’m a nurse.”
Johnny took the water and downed it in five gulps. Mara was right. It did help for a minute until his head got a strange heavy feeling. His vision blurred, and the last sight he remembered before everything went black was Mara staring at him with an eerie grin.
Mara was relieved that Johnny went out so quickly. He was such a big boy, her boy, that she hadn’t been sure of the correct dose to put in his water. She worried it would be too much and he’d overdose or not enough so it wouldn’t do the job. His health problems meant she had to be extra cautious.
She alternated between watching Johnny sleep and watching the road. Her plan had worked so smoothly that she wanted to shout for joy. It was just like the first time she’d taken him as her son when he was born. If it hadn’t been for that damned hurricane all those years earlier, she would have been the one to raise Johnny. He never would have gotten hurt, and she wouldn’t have had to give him up to that perfect little Grace Walker.
All of that was behind her. Her next task was convincing Johnny that he belonged to her. Since he’d seen Alec’s book and knew the truth, she’d had to concoct an ironclad story. It had taken time, but she was ready to answer his questions when he woke up and discovered he wasn’t at Ty’s cousin’s house.
Johnny’s text alert buzzed three or four times. It must have been Ty wondering where Johnny had disappeared to, or Grace begging her baby to come home. A minute later, the phone rang. Johnny stirred but didn’t open his eyes. Mara gingerly took the phone from his hand and looked at the caller ID. It was Ty. She wasn’t worried about him. Even if he told Grace that Johnny had asked for a ride but wasn’t there when he showed up, they’d just assume he’d gone with another friend. By the time they realized he was gone, Mara would have him safely settled in his real home.
She lowered the window and threw Johnny’s phone into the snow pile on the far side of the road. By the time anyone got around to tracing it, the battery would be wet and ruined. She congratulated herself for being clever enough to think of every detail. She had a new phone waiting for him that no one could trace.
She did a U-turn at the next intersection and headed for the city. She was glad she wouldn’t have to plot and plan and stalk anymore. After more than fourteen years of agonized waiting, she was ready to begin the life she deserved as Johnny’s mother.
7
Grace drew a deep breath through the paper bag and held it for a moment before exhaling. She’d resisted when Ryan first thrust the bag at her but breathing into it helped. She took another breath and scanned the room with her eyes. The architecture and furnishings felt foreign even though this had been her home and safe haven for years. The house had become nothing more than an empty shell without Johnny.
She lowered the bag and said, “This has turned out worse than my nightmares.”
Ryan stopped his pacing. “Breathe,” he said and motioned for her to put the bag back to her lips.
Grace threw the bag on the floor and stood to face him with her hands on her hips. “Why did you take that infernal book downstairs? Why couldn’t you have left it alone? You ruined all our plans. You and Alec. Why’d she write that damned thing in the first place?”
“Drop the melodrama, Grace. I’m not in the mood, and I told you I didn’t bring that book down here.”
“Then how did it get here?”
He exhaled and shook his head. “How should I know? Maybe Johnny found it upstairs and brought it down here. Who cares? This isn’t my fault or Alec’s. If you’d told him the truth years ago, we could have avoided this. I’ve hated lying to him. So have Alec, Adam and my kids. You forced us all into this horrible situation, but what matters now is that we’ve got to pull together and do damage control. Call Tony in the morning to see if he’ll help. Johnny respects him, and Tony doesn’t know anything about Johnny’s past. He’s the only person who hasn’t been lying to him.”
Grace dropped her hands to her sides and looked toward the window as if she expected to see Johnny in the darkness beyond. “Don’t keep saying we lied. It wasn’t lying. It was protecting him. We just didn’t tell him the whole story.”
“Rationalize all you want, but telling half-truths is lying. You as much as looked him in the eye and told him his birth parents were dead.”
She slumped onto the sofa and covered her face with her hand
s. As much as she hated to admit it, Ryan was right. They were all at fault, her most of all. She had used the excuse of trying to protect Johnny by not telling him his history, but she was only protecting herself. He’d deserved to know. Now, it was too late. She’d never get the chance to convince him they’d been on the verge of telling him before he saw the book.
“Where do you think he is?” she asked softly. “How long has he been gone?”
“Three hours. I’m sure he’s at Ty’s or Darnell’s.”
“I wonder why their parents haven’t called. They must be dying to know what happened. Should we call them?”
Ryan sat next to her and shook his head. “Let’s give him his space. It’ll take time to recover from this emotional earthquake. Call Jayda and Ashley tomorrow if we haven’t heard from Johnny by then.”
Grace’s phone buzzed in her pocket and made her jump. She tore it out as fast as she could get her hands to work. She looked at the screen and frowned when she saw it was Alec. She let it go to voicemail and tossed her phone on the ottoman.
Ryan peeked at the screen before it went dark. “Why’d you do that?”
“I have nothing to say to Alec. How could she write that book knowing what it would do to me, how it would affect me? Do my feelings mean nothing to her after all these years?”
“She’ll just keep calling until you answer. Her reasons for writing the book are the opposite of what you said. She wrote it because of how much she admires and respects you. The book is good. I hope once we’re through this crisis, you’ll read it. I think it will surprise you.”
Her phone rang again, but she ignored it. She couldn’t believe what Ryan was saying. Did he truly understand her so little after all their years together? She’d spent her adult life burying the horrors of her past. Now, all he and Alec wanted to do was dig them up and expose them to the world. Once again, her past was threatening to destroy the life she’d worked so hard to build. How could they not understand?
The Complete Arms of Grace Series Page 35
