by EMILIE ROSE
“Why? Did you have a hot date that night?” He’d been quite the ladies’ man back then. Rick had been amused and maybe a little envious of Brandon’s conquests. “Women fall on him like pine needles fall from the trees,” Rick had said.
“No. We needed to search the entire premise, including the basement. Rick hated rats, and this house had them down there. We flipped for it. I won the toss and took the basement.”
“Because of Rick’s phobia.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes. But I told him it was because the good stuff would be down there.”
The sand beneath her anger shifted. If he’d been protecting Rick’s ego, how could he have been so negligent with his life? “That wasn’t in the report.”
“No reason for it to be.”
“You were supposed to work together. Side by side. A team.”
His gaze returned to hers, and because she knew him so well she saw the pain he tried but failed to mask. He inhaled again, slow and deep, once again drawing her gaze involuntarily to the breadth of his chest.
“Once the house was deemed safe, how we collected the evidence was at our discretion. And splitting it up would move it along faster. We’d been working about forty minutes when I heard a weapon discharge. By the time I reached the bedroom Rick was down and the perp was standing over him.”
The official incident report claimed her husband had been shot execution style in the back of the head while on his knees—probably pulling something from beneath the bed. She’d refused to look at the crime scene photos and had requested a closed casket, but she’d pictured that room and Rick’s injury hundreds of times in her mind and in her nightmares. Brandon had seen it all.
“So you shot him—the bad guy.”
“I had to. He raised his weapon and fired at me. I returned fire. He went down. I called for backup.”
The flat recitation sounded as if he were testifying in court. But the lines etching the corners of his eyes and creasing his forehead said more than his words.
Then what he’d said registered. “Wait a minute. The report said you shot the man from a distance of six feet. If he was that close, how did he miss you?”
“He hit the door frame beside my head.”
Her eyes went to the tiny scar on his left cheekbone. “The cut you had on your face at the funeral...”
“Was from splintering wood.”
Inches. Brandon had been inches from dying with Rick that day. The air left her lungs in a rush.
“And you tried CPR on Rick even though, even though...” She’d been told that from the size of the wound there would have been no chance for survival.
“He was like a brother to me.” The creases in his face and the timbre of his voice deepened. “The medical examiner said there was no sign he heard the perp because he hadn’t turned toward him. He probably never experienced pain and he didn’t suffer. His death was instantaneous.”
She wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince: her or himself. The emptiness in his voice and eyes reflected her emotions. She’d hated Brandon for so long. But hate took too much energy. All she felt now was numb. Because maybe Brandon hadn’t been negligent. No. If they’d been together, Rick wouldn’t have been surprised by the guy.
The air conditioner turned on with a blast of frigid air, making her realize she’d been standing in the threshold keeping him on her front porch for the entire conversation—the same way she’d barred him from their lives since that day.
Politeness decreed she invite him in. But she couldn’t. Not tonight. She needed time to process what she’d learned—that losing Rick had hurt Brandon, maybe as much as it had her. It was written all over him, an indelible memory that had left permanent grooves in his skin.
To add to her confusion, the urge to reach out and comfort him, to tell him she was glad he hadn’t died that day, too, nearly overwhelmed her. She gripped the doorknob tighter and stepped back. “If you still want to work on the treehouse, come back this weekend. We’ll be home.”
Then she shut the door in his face and on the past.
She couldn’t live in there anymore. She had to focus on the present if she wanted her children to have a future, and that meant accepting that Brandon, with his people-reading skills, might be onto something about Mason’s fear of meeting police officers. Her son might have more than behavior issues. He might be in real danger.
* * *
HANNAH KNOCKED ON Mason’s door. She heard him scrambling around the room before he called for her to enter. She pushed open the panel and found him sitting at his desk with a textbook in front of him. He had a finger on the page as if he was marking his place. But like last time, he was breathing too hard to have been sitting and reading.
Déjà vu. Anxiety prickled through her. “How was bowling?”
“Okay.”
“I know how much you love it, and I hate that we don’t go more often. Maybe I should try to find you a junior bowling league.”
“Bowling teams are for dweebs.”
So much for that. “Brandon said you didn’t want to meet his friends tonight.”
He shrugged and kept his eyes on the book. “I wasn’t in the mood for wings.”
“You’ve been begging for wings for a week.”
His face reddened with indignation but the eyes he turned toward her were filled with something resembling fear. “He set me up to play darts on a team without asking. I told him you never let me play with Dad’s dart set, so I was no good. I didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of his friends.”
Relief rolled through her. Brandon was wrong. Mason wasn’t afraid of cops. He was avoiding embarrassment. “Did you tell him that?”
He fiddled with a pencil on the desk surface. “Why should I tell him anything? He didn’t tell me.”
“You should’ve told him how you felt, because your refusal to meet his coworkers a second time has made him think you have something to hide from police officers.”
He paled, swallowed and then returned his attention to the page. “That’s crazy! I just don’t want to meet a bunch of old, farty, donut-eating cops.”
She stepped closer to the desk and knelt down so she could see his averted face. “Are you sure that’s all it is, Mason? Because sometimes I feel like I don’t know you anymore, and I’m afraid you’re into something—”
“I’m not! And I wish you’d stop treating me like a baby.”
The attack took her aback. She straightened. “I try to respect your space.”
“No, you don’t. You never let me go anywhere by myself. I’m ten!”
“Exactly. You’re not old enough to go out alone—especially at night, and definitely not to the home of someone I haven’t met. That rule is for your protection.”
“You can’t protect me from everything!” He slammed the book closed. “I need to take my shower since you make me do that, too.”
Bristling with anger, he plowed past her and into the bathroom. The door banged shut. She turned to leave, but then noticed his book bag had overturned and the contents had spilled under the bed. Unlike his sister, Mason never kept his room clean. Huffing with exasperation, Hannah crossed the room and righted the knapsack. Not wanting a crazy last-minute rush to find a lost textbook in the morning, she knelt to retrieve the scattered items.
Once they were all safely back in his bag, she started to rise, but a piece of paper farther under the bed caught her eye. She flattened herself on the floor and stretched to reach it. Her fingers closed around a piece of notebook paper folded into a small triangle similar to the ones boys used to play finger football with when she was in school. She tossed it toward the open backpack and missed. It bounced off the zipper and landed near her foot.
She retrieved it again then hesitated. The paper was worn smooth, the creases frayed as if someone’s sweaty and oily han
ds had folded and unfolded it many times. She glanced toward the door. The shower turned on. Telling herself this would be nothing but a blank page and she was betraying her son’s privacy for no good reason, Hannah nevertheless tucked the triangle into her pocket and headed downstairs.
The credits were rolling on Belle’s movie. Hannah bustled her daughter upstairs and gave her a bath in the tub adjacent to Hannah’s room. All the while her attention remained fixated on the paper in her pocket. By rote, she bundled Belle off to bed then paused outside Mason’s room. No light seeped under the door and she heard no movement. She tapped.
“Good night, Mason. I love you.”
No answer.
She covered the tiny lump in her pocket. Should she confront him and ask him about it? No. Why demonstrate distrust when she didn’t even know if it was anything of consequence? She descended the stairs and ducked into the kitchen. Guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders and dried her mouth as she carefully unfolded the paper. If it was a note to or from a friend she’d have to refold and return it. She hoped she could remember how.
“Do It Or Else,” the messy scrawl said.
It wasn’t Mason’s handwriting.
Adrenaline pumped through her, quickening her heart rate and making her hands shake. Fear squeezed her throat. Do what? Was this a threat? It sounded like one. But from whom? Would Mason tell her if she asked?
No, she couldn’t do that. Picking up his books was one thing. Reading his note was an invasion of privacy. And he’d already threatened to run away tonight. If he felt betrayed by both her and Brandon...the outcome wouldn’t be good.
Spying on her children was something she’d sworn she’d never, ever do. But she couldn’t let this go. Mason’s safety could be at stake.
Brandon. His name flashed into her mind. She immediately rejected it.
Brandon would know what to do, her subconscious whispered again.
Resigned, she pulled out her phone, snapped a picture of the note, then texted it along with an explanation to Brandon.
Found this in Mason’s room.
Seconds later her phone chimed, signaling a reply.
Bag it. I’m on my way.
She didn’t want him storming in and upsetting Mason any more tonight. She texted back.
No. Meet me for lunch tomorrow.
I’ll get a table at Lou’s.
Her pulse quickened again. But this time it was more anticipation than fear. Did she want to meet in public where they might be overheard? No. But she didn’t want to meet in private, either.
How about the park? she typed.
Roger. I’ll bring lunch.
* * *
A KICK OF something Brandon refused to name surged through him when Hannah entered the park. The disturbing feeling propelled him to his feet from the picnic table. He took in her slim shape in lemon-yellow scrubs, then the shadows beneath her eyes registered and awareness turned to concern.
He indicated the bench across from him and opened the paper sack from his favorite deli. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
Hannah shot him a wry, censuring look. “Thank you. You look great, too.”
He grimaced and set a container of salad in front of her. “I’m sorry, but the worry weighing you down is hard to miss. When you get stressed you look...fragile.”
Her eyebrows hiked, making him wish he’d kept his trap shut. That had sounded sentimental—almost as schmaltzy as him remembering which dressing she preferred and that she didn’t like boiled eggs on her salad. Damn. He should have brought burgers.
“Do you have the note?” he asked to change the subject.
“I do. But first, you need to know that Mason wasn’t refusing to meet your team last night. He didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of them by being bad at darts.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
Sounded plausible, and she’d bought it. He didn’t. But there was no reason to raise her defenses. “The note?”
She dug into her tote and extracted a plastic freezer bag containing a sheet of standard, three-hole notebook paper. It had a lot of creases, as if it had been folded into a small package—the kind easily passed off without notice. The black marker used to inscribe the message had a blunted tip, most likely caused by overuse or excessive pressure.
“I found it under his bed folded into one of those triangle football things. It might have spilled out when his backpack tipped over.”
Her words confirmed his suspicions. Without removing the page from the baggie, he flipped it to examine both sides. The lab would have a field day getting DNA off this page—in the unlikely event it came to that. Even though he suspected he knew the answer he asked, “What did Mason say about it?”
“Nothing. I didn’t ask. He’d already threatened to run away once yesterday.”
There was more to Hannah’s fear of confronting her son than she’d revealed. He’d have to go there if he wanted to figure out what made her tick. Buying time to think, he passed out the plastic utensils, napkins and bottled water.
“Other than the night you told me about and last night, has Mason tried or threatened to run away before?”
“No.”
“Then why are you convinced he will?”
“I just am.” She fussed with the plastic wrapper she’d removed from her silverware, folding it in halves then quarters. She didn’t have OCD, so this had to be nervousness more than compulsivity.
He reached across the table and covered her hands to get her attention. The combination of her warmth and soft skin shot a comet of fire through him, but he didn’t withdraw. He knew better than to give up ground during questioning. Her widened eyes found his, and he had to chase down his train of thought.
“My parents would have been in my face if they’d found anything like this note. And I wouldn’t love them any less for it. Hannah, I need you to level with me. Why are you so afraid to be a parent?”
“I’m not. I have rules and I enforce them.”
“You are a good mom, but...” He sought the right words to explain what he meant. “It’s almost as if you’re afraid of pissing off Mason. But that’s part of the parenting job description. Kids do and want stupid stuff and parents must set limits. If he threatens to run away every time you get in his grill, making you back off, then he holds the power in your relationship. Make me understand why you’re so cautious with him.”
She snatched her hands away and ducked her head then grabbed her water bottle and twisted off the top. She stalled even longer by taking a sip. Watching her swallow drew his gaze to the pulse fluttering too fast in her throat.
“My mom ran off when I was sixteen. Because my dad spied on her.” The words rapped out like two separate barrages of gunfire then her eyes narrowed and her lips flattened in regret. She plucked at the bottle’s label.
He wrapped both hands around his cold bottle, trying to extinguish the fire still burning in his palms from touching her. What in the hell was wrong with him? “Rick never mentioned your mom taking off.”
“He didn’t know the details. He only knew she wasn’t part of my life.”
That took him aback. She and Rick had been the perfect couple. He would have sworn they knew everything about each other. “Tell me what happened. Back then.”
She picked her label until it tore free. As she had with the utensil wrapper, she folded it repeatedly. “Dad was deployed a lot. He’d volunteer for missions every chance he could—for combat pay, he’d say. Mom claimed it was because he was an adrenaline junkie. She and I were used to going about our business while he was away. She was only eighteen years older than me. We were close, more like sisters than mother/daughter.
“Whenever Dad came home things were...different. He’d monitor every step we took, every person to whom we spoke. It wasn’t unusual to hear the phon
e click as if someone had picked up the other extension to listen to my conversations. And sometimes my things would be moved around as if my drawers had been searched while I was at school. I always suspected Dad because Mom was at work during the day, and I never believed she would do anything like that.
“At the time I thought it was because I’d discovered boys and Dad wanted to know who the guys were and if I was sexually active. It was...weird, but I didn’t have anything to hide, so I didn’t confront him about it. Plus, Dad had...a bit of a temper.
“One morning I caught him eavesdropping outside their bedroom. I knew Mom was on the phone because I could hear her voice through the closed door. I realized then that he must have been spying on her, too. Before I could ask him why, she opened the door and caught him. They had a huge argument and didn’t even see me standing there. I had to catch the school bus. The last thing I heard her yell before I left that day was, ‘If you loved me, you’d trust me.’ When I came home she wasn’t there. I asked Dad where she was and he said, ‘Gone.’ That’s all I could get out of him. He refused to discuss it. She never came back, and I never heard from her again.”
“Was she cheating on him?”
“Statistically, I know that’s the most likely scenario. But I never saw any sign of another man, and Dad never asked me if I had. She didn’t even leave me a note.”
Poor kid. Pain reverberated in her voice and reflected from her eyes. Even though the incident had occurred more than a decade ago, she was still marked by it. “Did he file a missing person report?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did you?”
“I tried, but we were living in base housing. The people there listened to my concerns but then did nothing.”
“Do you think your father had something to do with her disappearance?”
Her hesitation spoke volumes. “I don’t think so.”
