Innocent Mistakes

by Melissa F. Miller

  She laughs. “Of course, silly. Ruth-Ann Clemson.”

  He chokes back his reaction to the image of Mrs. Clemson and her fluffy white cat managing a campaign for anything. “Uh, sure. After I load the dishwasher can I go online for a while?”

  She twitches her lips. “I suppose, if you want. But wouldn’t you rather hang out with Dad and Uncle Nate?”

  And talk about my feelings? Yeah, no.

  “There’s this live event in one of my games. I’ve really been looking forward to it.”

  “Okay, then. Just remember, don’t talk about the case with your online friends.”

  “Don’t worry,” he promises her. As if he would.

  He rinses the plates and sticks them in the dishwasher, then returns to the dining room to get the glasses. He spots Uncle Nate’s little notebook lying on the floor under the table. He crouches to retrieve it and tilts his head toward the stairs. He can hear the murmur of Mom’s voice as she talks to Mrs. Clemson.

  He knows he should take the notebook straight down to Uncle Nate without looking at it. It’s official FBI business. But he ignores the hammering of his heart and flips the notepad open instead. He scans the notes as fast as he can, his eyes skimming over Uncle Nate’s messy scrawl.

  His interview with Colin. A bunch of teachers who could never believe Colin McCandless could do such a thing. He can almost see Mrs. Plinsky clutching her pearls at the idea. A note to talk to Emmaline Clemson, which is scratched out. Hunter lets out a relieved sigh at that. Nobody in school would want that gossip queen to spill everybody’s secrets to the FBI.

  He flips to another page. There’s Colin’s aunt’s name. He squints to make out Uncle Nate’s chicken scratch. And Mom thinks his handwriting is bad:

  Sasha McCandless-Connelly. Husband, Leo. Something indecipherable … national security … something … gangster father.

  On the next line, there’s a street address with a Pittsburgh zip code.

  Beneath that, Uncle Nate’s written “home, unlisted” and drawn an arrow to the address.

  An idea pops into Hunter’s mind. He pulls out his cell phone, snaps a picture of the page, and then races down the stairs to the basement. Dad’s voice floats up the stairs as he blabs about some SUV he sold for four grand over Blue Book value.

  Hunter bursts into the game room. “Hey, Uncle Nate, you left your notebook in the dining room.”

  Uncle Nate jerks his chin toward Hunter, who tosses the notebook across the room. Uncle Nate catches it one-handed and shoves it into his pocket.

  “Thanks, kid.”

  “Sure.”

  “Hey, Hunter, do you want to play the winner?” Dad gestures toward the pool table with his cue.

  “Uh, thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got an online thing starting in a few minutes.”

  He turns and runs back upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.

  20

  Leo sits on the floor of the playroom with Finn and Fiona, teaching them how to build a house of cards. The deck of cards is brand new, slick and stiff, and the cards slip from the twins’ hands more often than not. They giggle and gasp every time the card structure falls, which it does often, helped along by Java, who swishes his paw at the cards like a gigantic monster in a horror film.

  “When Mommy comes home we’ll have dessert, right?” Fiona asks the question while she places a roof across two card walls. She never moves her eyes from her task.

  “That’s the deal,” Finn assures her before Leo can answer.

  He’s right. That is the deal. They try—hard—to eat dinner together as a family, and they usually succeed. But on the rare evenings when Sasha’s not home in time for dinner, they have dessert together instead. He and the twins ate dinner over an hour ago, but he has chocolate marshmallow brownies cooling in the kitchen for when Sasha returns.

  “We can have chocolate milk,” Fiona declares.

  Leo sweeps his arms wide, knocking over his card tower, and cries, “Brownies and chocolate milk? What? We’re trying to live in a society here!”

  Finn howls with laughter, and Fiona clutches her sides and rolls around on the floor. It’s not that funny, but they’re a warm audience—ready to laugh at just about anything.

  He gathers the cards, planning to make them rain down on the floor, when the loud revving of engines on the street outside fills the room. Mocha, asleep in his dog bed, leaps to his feet, barking wildly. Java bolts from the room, a gray flash of fur streaking down the hallway.

  A shiver runs along his spine. Something’s wrong. Really wrong. He scans the room with an urgent, sweeping gaze, and his eyes fall on the closet. Finn and Fiona stare at him, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. He can read the fear in their eyes.

  He squats between them and says in a low, calm voice, “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. But right now, I need you to hide in the closet with Mocha.”

  Finn’s hyperventilating, and fat tears roll down Fiona’s cheeks, but they don’t hesitate. They crawl, fast but silent, across the floor toward the closet. He coaxes Mocha out from behind the couch, then opens the closet door, and situates the three of them in the back of the deep closet, tucking them into the corner behind a spare air mattress. Their eyes shine in the darkness. He leans in and kisses Finn’s mop of curly hair and Fiona’s warm forehead. Then he raises his finger to his lips.

  “Be very quiet. No matter what you hear, don’t come out until I come to get you, okay? And take care of Mocha for me.”

  Mocha whimpers at the sound of his name. He strokes his head. “Take care of my babies.”

  “I love you, Daddy,” Finn squeaks.

  “I love you,” Fiona echoes.

  “And I love you both. Now remember, don’t make a sound.”

  Their heads bob in unison, and he smiles as reassuringly as he can before pulling the door closed with a soft click.

  A moment later, there’s a tremendous crash down in the kitchen. Shouting voices—male, a lot of them—echo through the house. The thud of heavy shoes or boots striking the hardwood floors resounds as the intruders run throughout the first floor.

  Home invasion.

  The thought pulses in his mind, bright and hard and painful. He creeps toward the door as the shouting downstairs intensifies. He just needs to get across the hall to his office to get one of his guns out of the locked gun safe on the top shelf of his closet. Five steps across the darkened hallway, maybe less. He reaches the doorway and pokes his head out toward the stairs. He takes the first step and freezes as a shape materializes on the bottom step. A burly shadow holding an assault rifle.

  Leo’s mouth goes dry. His heart hammers against his rib cage. He drops into a roll and somersaults across the hall, low and fast. He hits the door to his office with a quiet thump. He pauses, listens, then pushes the door open, holding his breath and hoping the hinges don’t squeak and give him away. His Sig Sauer and Glock are mere feet away now.

  The hinges protest with a long, loud shriek.

  Then the screaming starts. Shadowy shapes thunder up the stairs, all shouting “Get down, get down!” as they train their rifles on him.

  He takes in the weapons, the full-body armor, and the helmets. Then the military formation as they pound up the stairs, the way they sweep and clear the hallway. And his brain spits out a message: these people are law enforcement officers.

  He’s already down, but he flings himself into a Superman pose on the floor, his arms locked straight out in front of him, his legs extended behind him, and yells, “I’m a federal agent!”

  He shouts it over and over, hoping the words will penetrate the chaos and the noise. “I’m a federal agent! I’m a federal agent! A federal agent!”

  A loud click sounds, and he squeezes his eyes shut as a blast of halogen light from a tactical flashlight hits him square in the face.

  “Where is he, sir? Where is he?” The lead officer screams.

  “Who?” He squints at the man.

  The officer crouches in front of Leo, tra
ining his weapon on him with his right hand and aiming the flashlight at him with his left.

  “You’re the homeowner?”

  “Yes.”

  “You called in an emergency situation. Armed intruder.”

  Leo raises his head and chest off the floor. “No. I didn’t.”

  “Green, make sure we got the right address,” the officer growls over his shoulder but doesn’t take his eyes off Leo.

  That must be it. They’re in the wrong place.

  The next closest officer—Green—rattles off Leo’s address.

  “That’s my address. That’s where you are. But I didn’t call 9-1-1.”

  “Who else is home?” the leader demands.

  “My wife’s still at work. I’m the only adult here.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.” The flashlight bobs in his face, the man’s gesturing with it for emphasis. Leo’s just glad he’s not using his gun to make his point.

  Leo pushes his palms out in a ‘take it easy’ gesture. “I need you to ask your team to stand down, officer.”

  They stare at each other for a long, endless moment. Leo tastes coppery blood from where he bit his lip when he threw himself to the floor. His pulse is a drumbeat. But he needs to diffuse this situation before he brings out the twins.

  “There’s a child here?” the officer asks, as understanding lights his eyes.

  “Yes. Two. They’re five. They’re hiding in the closet with our dog.”

  “Stand down.” He turns and shouts the order, and his team responds immediately. Rifle barrels lower, point at the floor.

  Leo exhales a shuddering breath. “Thank you.”

  “I’m Captain Stoddard.” He extends a hand and helps Leo to his feet.

  “Leo Connelly.”

  “You said you’re a federal agent?”

  “Yes, captain.”

  “What agency?”

  Leo feels the muscle in his left cheek twitch. “I’m in national security. I’m not at liberty to say anything more than that.”

  “Well, Agent Connelly. You’ve been swatted.”

  The captain removes his helmet and runs a large scarred hand over his close-cropped salt and pepper hair.

  “It seems so. I need to get my kids. Can you take your team downstairs? I’ll be down once I take care of them.”

  “Of course.” He motions for the SWAT team to turn around, and they march down the stairs.

  Leo waits until the last officer vanishes from the landing, then he runs into the playroom. He yanks open the closet door and falls to his knees. Finn and Fiona peer out at him from behind a sleeping bag and the mattress. Wide-eyed, their faces like chalk, their backs pressed up against the wall, and their arms flung around one another’s necks. Mocha stands in front of them, his ears pinned back and his teeth barred. When he sees Leo, he drops into a ball and whines.

  “Good boy.”

  Mocha thumps his tail against the floor, and Leo pushes the bedding aside to pull his children out from behind it and into his arms.

  “I’m so proud of you both. You were so brave.” He strokes their hair and they press their face against his chest. He pulls them tighter and closes his eyes.

  His heart is still pounding out a fast rhythm, and it swirls like a mantra inside his head: They’re okay, they’re okay, they’re okay.

  21

  Colin’s halfheartedly rewatching an old World Series game on the classic sports channel while halfheartedly doing a jigsaw puzzle with Siobhan at the same time. He shuffles through the pieces looking for the right shade of blue.

  “Having no phones really stinks.”

  “Tell me about it. Especially while we’re on house arrest.” She pauses to glare at Mom, who doesn’t look up from her book.

  “How long will Aunt Sasha need to keep our phones for, anyway?”

  Mom turns a page in her book and says, “I’m sure you’ll get them back this weekend. You can power through.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we know. We can do hard things,” he grumbles.

  Mom raises her head and smiles. “That’s right. We can.”

  She goes back to her book, and Colin and Siobhan roll their eyes.

  “I saw that.”

  Colin snorts with laughter and tries to line up his puzzle piece. Siobhan pushes his hand away. “That’s part of the river, not the sky.”

  “Why is this whole stupid puzzle blue?”

  Siobhan shrugs and sifts through the pieces. It’s the bottom of the sixth when Mom gets up to make popcorn, and Dad appears in the doorway.

  “Mallory’s on the phone for you.”

  Siobhan straightens up. “The house phone?”

  “Right. The landline. Remember that?” Dad laughs.

  “How did she know to call you on that number?” Colin wants to know.

  “I emailed her and told her our phones were confiscated,” Siobhan explains as she stands and pushes back her chair.

  “She’s not calling for you,” Dad tells her.

  It take a moment to sink it, and when it does, Colin blinks. “She wants to talk to me?”

  “You’re the only Colin here, aren’t you?” Dad points out with an amused smirk.

  Colin feels Siobhan’s curious gaze on his back as he hurries out of the room. The house phone is affixed to the wall in the little butler’s pantry behind the kitchen. There’s nowhere to sit, so he leans against the counter. There’s also no door between the pantry and the kitchen, so he turns his back to Mom, who’s salting and buttering the popcorn, and bemoans the lack of privacy.

  How did generations of teenagers grow up in this house before cell phones were invented? It’s barbaric.

  “What’s up?” he half-whispers, half-hisses into the phone.

  “I know I’m not supposed to call you, but I have to tell you this.”

  Her voice is strained, and it sounds like she might have been crying. His stomach tightens. “What is it?”

  “I was on a Digitalk call with Hunter and he was live-streaming one of his games at the same time.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why were you talking to him while he was streaming? He’s doing, like, three things at once. How can he pay any attention to the conversation?”

  “He can’t,” she says impatiently. “That’s not the point.”

  “Okay, sorry. Go on.”

  “Roshi posted a message in the comments that was something like ‘I got what you wanted’ and Hunter ended the stream, like, real fast, which was weird.”

  “Roshi? Siobhan’s lab partner?”

  “Yeah, that Roshi. Anyway, I think Hunter forgot we were on Digitalk because he quit the game and made a VOIP call.”

  Colin smothers a yawn. The play-by-play of Hunter’s night is the opposite of fascinating. “Okay, so?”

  “So, he called 9-1-1 and said his name was Leo Connelly.”

  He shakes his head, sure he misheard her. “Wait, what?”

  “Right. He said there was an armed intruder in his home and then gave an address. The emergency dispatcher definitely believed him.”

  “He swatted my aunt?”

  “Yeah.”

  His stomach lurches. The twins. Aunt Sasha and Uncle Leo. The dog and cat. What if … he can’t even finish the thought.

  “Colin? You there?”

  He takes great gulps of air. “Yeah, sorry. What happened next?”

  “I disconnected from Digitalk in a hurry before he realized that I was still on the call, you know?”

  “Yeah, that’s smart,” he says distractedly.

  “This is getting out of hand. We have to tell someone. My mom will—”

  “No!” He says it louder than he means to.

  Mom pops her head into the pantry space. “Did you say something, Doodle?”

  “Mom, no. A little privacy?”

  She raises her hands in a conciliatory gesture and leaves.

  He grips the phone so hard his knuckles turn white. “I’ll
take care of it, Mallory. Just promise me you won’t say anything.”

  “Colin—”

  “I just need a little more time. Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she says uncertainly.

  “No, really, thank you. But promise me you won’t tell Siobhan.”

  She sighs.

  He softens his voice. “Mall, please, promise me.”

  “I don’t know. This is spiraling out of control.”

  “Two more days, okay? Just don’t say anything until Monday. After that you can tell your Mom.”

  She sighs, a slow hissing sigh, like a balloon deflating. “Okay, I promise.”

  He hangs up the phone and leans his forehead against the cool tile of the wall. If anything happened to Aunt Sasha or her family … he gags and runs for the hall bathroom.

  22

  Sasha’s halfway through the pile of billing reports and her room-temperature coffee when her cell phone rings. It’s her brother.

  “Sean, hey, I was planning to call you. Thanks for ordering lunch for the office. That was really thoughtful of you.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course. Although to be fair, it was Jordan’s idea.”

  To be fair, she’d assumed as much, but she doesn’t say so.

  “Is everything okay?”

  He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah. I was calling to check on you.”

  “Me?”

  “Colin asked me to call and make sure everyone at your house is okay.”

  He sounds as puzzled as she feels.

  “I assume everyone’s fine. I’m still at the office.”

  “Oh, I hope you’re not burning the midnight oil because of us.”

  Yes, yes, I am, she thinks.

  “Nope. Not to worry,” she says.

  “Anyway, I guess you were just on Colin’s mind.”

  “Well, that’s sweet.”

  “Or his phone was on his mind,” Sean adds as an afterthought.

  “That’s probably more likely,” she laughs. “Tell your kids I’m taking good care of their phones and they’ll get them back as soon as I am finished with them.”

  “Will do. They’ll be thrilled. Colin had to use the landline in the butler’s pantry tonight. Jordan said he was shooting daggers at her because she was in the kitchen and he was talking to his ex-girlfriend.”