Always a Hero Page 8

  Despite the rain, the usual group was at Dinozzo’s Pizza, sheltered under the striped awning, and she’d had to park a block down. She could have walked instead of driven, she thought wryly, and gotten just about as wet.

  She unlocked the door of her little coupe and set the bread inside, then straightened to get in. Something caught her eye over in front of Dinozzo’s, and for a moment she focused on the group of four at the corner of the building. Max, she saw, and his two buddies, and another guy, a kid really, maybe sixteen. Max made a gesture, and then he and the younger boy disappeared around the building into the alley. That was the second time she’d seen that series of actions, she thought.

  The rain was picking up, and she dived for the shelter of the car. Moments later she was pulling into her small garage in the back of the store. When she’d remodeled the building, she’d had them add that even though it took up some floor space; customer parking was more important. Plus, in the garage was a stairway that led to her apartment, which made days like this easier. And drier.

  She managed to fight off her other thoughts until she had finished her meal. She ate inside tonight, with some plaintive Celtic music that seemed to fit her mood playing softly. Then the scenario from the pizza parlor ran back in her head like the replay of a video.

  And she had to finally admit the nature of what she had seen. The small cluster of people, the quick gesture and the disappearance into a darkened alley despite the rain, and the fact that both Max and the younger boy had been reaching into their pockets as they vanished into the shadows. And most damning, the furtiveness of it all, the glance over the shoulder to see if anyone who could cause trouble was watching, and the watchful stance of Daniel and Brian, the third of the trio.

  An image flashed through her mind, not for the first time, of Max’s wad of cash, mostly small bills. Favors?

  Party favors, maybe.

  It was all painfully familiar.

  She hated the idea that Jordy’s father might have been right. That he might truly have reason to be concerned. Reason to be as suspicious as he was. She hated all of it.

  But she hated what might be going on more. And she couldn’t deny it or ignore it just because Jordy’s father rubbed her the wrong way and she didn’t want to agree with him. Because denial had only one consequence.

  The memory of Kit and his addiction to lethal chemicals was hovering. The media had always phrased it in terms of him losing his battle with drugs. She knew better. Kit had never really battled them at all, in fact he embraced them, savoring the easier availability the further up the success ladder they went.

  He’d teased Kai about her aversion to the stuff, calling her straightlaced and worse. At first it had been a gentle, sort of wistful teasing, as if he admired her steadfastness. But, as everything else, it had gotten worse as his addiction deepened, until it was no longer teasing but a driven, malevolent sniping, as if he were determined to drag her down with him.

  She stood and gathered her dishes with sharp, angry movements. She didn’t want to deal with this. She’d had enough of it. All she wanted to do was focus on her business, and getting her online presence going to supplement the brick and mortar side. She’d meant to have that done long ago, but so far all she’d managed was to have a small but steady flow of orders for her own favorite guitar strings coming in. She needed to make a final choice on suppliers for the rest of the products she envisioned, and at the same time needed a revamp of her now fairly minimalistic website, and she had the time to do neither.

  So quit eating, she told herself. Save the prep, eating and cleanup time.

  She almost smiled at the realization that she would do that before she would cut into her playing time, those times after the store was closed when she would pick whatever guitar she had that struck her fancy and disappear into the back room herself for an hour or two’s indulgence.

  But the reality of what she’d seen tonight quickly made the smile fade.

  She sighed as she slammed the dishwasher shut and dried her hands on the towel that was one of the set her mother had bought for her after she’d visited and seen the results of the remodel. She’d pronounced the final results a great improvement, but Kai knew she was biting back a comment about how it would be even better somewhere in civilization. Her mother was a city girl to the bone, and she often seemed bemused that her daughter had such a preference for something so foreign to her own soul.

  Again the attempt at distraction failed after a few moments. And she finally resigned herself. She would have to talk to Jordy’s father. It wouldn’t be so bad, she told herself. He’d been quite civil this afternoon, and he had changed his mind about letting Jordy play. So obviously he was capable of being, as he’d said, reasonable.

  So she would tell him. But that would be the end of her involvement. Let him handle it. She didn’t want to be the bad guy, warning Jordy off the “friend” he was in a little awe of.

  Besides, she thought wryly, Jordy already hated his dad, how much worse could it get?

  Even as she thought it she felt a nudge of guilt; the guy seemed to care, seemed to be really trying, even if he did come off like an overbearing bully sometimes.

  So she would talk to him. She had to. For Jordy’s sake. And if Jordy felt betrayed, she’d just have to deal with it.

  She went to bed early, the memories hovering, knowing that tonight would be one of those nights when in sleep she would lose the battle to keep them at bay.

  Yes, Jordy might feel she’d betrayed him by talking to his father.

  But at least he’d be alive to feel that way.

  Wyatt sat staring at the screen. He’d done his usual check of Jordan’s personal page. Tonight was the get-together some of his “friends” were pushing him to go to, so he knew he needed to be extra watchful. He had studied the photo of the most vocal of the urgers, a guy who looked to be in his early twenties and went by the initials MM. He wondered, if he printed out that picture and showed it to Kai Reynolds, if she would recognize him. If perhaps this was the very person she’d been talking about.

  And that thought had led him to Jordan’s earlier words. Which had led him to YouTube. And the videos that had him mesmerized.

  She had, indeed, as Jordan had said, rocked. Most of them were from what had turned out to be the band’s final tour, about five and a half years ago. They were mostly amateur jobs, with tiny, low-resolution cameras on cell phones, or larger ones apparently smuggled into the venue by members of the obviously enthusiastic crowd. And crowd there was; when that blogger had referred to them as having the potential to be the next big thing, he hadn’t been exaggerating.

  There were a couple of clips that had been done by the venue itself, higher quality and much better sound. So while the others showed the enthusiasm of the crowd, it was these he watched most closely. And repeatedly.

  This was the woman in that photograph. Same guitar. Same wild mane of red hair that flew with her movements. Different outfit, this time a blue, metallic, snug-fitting top that almost matched her guitar, and showed a bit more than a hint of feminine curves. White, skintight jeans that did the same. And an expression on her face that indicated she was only peripherally aware of that packed house of fans, and totally aware of the amazing sounds that were flowing from beneath her fingers.

  Because they were amazing. He was no expert, but the talent there was obvious, in the way she went from loud, powerful solos and jamming windups on upbeat numbers to a whisper delicate accompaniment to a slow, sweet ballad. She sang on that one, on the chorus, and her low husky voice made his stomach knot in a strange way. Hudson might have had more powerful pipes, but Kai’s voice and the way she wrapped it around the plaintive lyrics could make you weep.

  He made himself look at the front man. Kai certainly kept her eyes on him. And he fancied it was more than with the eyes of a lover, although that was certainly there in the way she tracked him. And oddly, although this was dated almost six years ago, she looked younger now. At
the least, less troubled. But maybe he was only imagining the worry, the pain, and as he watched the last video in the series again, the despair.

  But he didn’t think he was.

  She knew.

  With all the certainty of an onlooker helpless to stop an oncoming disaster, she knew what was coming.

  It took him a moment after he shut down the browser and pulled the earphones off for him to realize what that strange tightness in his chest was. He was aching for her, and her loss. She’d been in love with an addict and the end was inevitable, but he was hurting for her anyway, something he didn’t quite understand.

  And he realized this was the first time he’d felt much of anything for anyone outside of his own suddenly overturned life.

  Don’t give fate any levers to use against you.

  He wasn’t sure where the old advice had originated, but he couldn’t argue with its validity, especially now. Because Jordan was definitely a lever, and keeping him safe had trumped all else since the moment he’d read that warning email.

  A sudden memory struck him, of a reputed crime boss who’d been taken into custody in a dramatic gunfight. It had been all over the news, caught by security cameras. In the battle the man’s son had been killed, and the hardened criminal’s agonized response had captured the morbid fascination of the entire country. At the time, and given the fact that the dead son had been a crazed sociopath responsible for more deaths than would probably ever be discovered, Wyatt had thought Phillip Stark’s reaction a bit false and overwrought.

  Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Old friends would laugh at him now, he thought, laugh at the idea of him being in the most permanent, unbreakable relationship there was, that of parent. Girlfriends, wives, might come and go, but nothing could ever change the fact that Jordan was his son.

  Or that being a father was the hardest thing he’d ever tried to do, and given his past, that was saying something. He thrived on difficult challenges everywhere else, but on the personal side, he was miserable at it. The best thing he could do was avoid adding to the lousy track record he’d already compiled.

  Besides, it wasn’t like he had the time or energy for anything else now, not with Jordan. Especially the kind of time and energy somebody like Kai Reynolds would require.

  Uh-oh.

  The internal warning sounded loud and clear. It had been a while since he’d heard it, simply because for the last year he’d been focused on leaving the past behind, and for the last six months it had taken all he had to get used to the idea he was a father.

  That’s what he got for wasting time pondering stupid things. Thinking that way about any woman was idiocy at the moment. Thinking about this one was absurd. He’d have been better off with someone like Jordan’s mother, who, even as the end neared, worried about keeping her promises.

  Melissa’s image came back to him. “You know I never meant this to happen this way,” she’d said yet again as she lay dying. “I never blamed you. I promised you no recriminations, no fallout, and I meant it. I never wanted you to even know. That’s why I gave him my last name.”

  “I know,” he’d said. It was impossible not to when he was reeling from the discovery that she’d kept secret the biggest fallout of their single time together.

  “That’s why I never told you about him. I didn’t want him to come looking for you, when he…grew up.”

  She’d broken down then, at the reminder that she wouldn’t see that happen. Sometimes that particular, vivid, painful memory was the only thing that kept him going, prevented him from throwing up his hands and walking away after a tough day of dealing with the boy who now slept upstairs.

  Or was supposed to be sleeping, he thought suddenly, realizing he’d been held so rapt by those videos that he’d forgotten the reason for watching Jordan closely tonight.

  He shut down the computer, and when the screen went dark so did the room, except for the angled shafts of silver light coming through the windows from the gibbous moon that had broken through the scattering rain clouds. He’d grown up in this house, and needed no extra lighting to find his way around. He sat there, in the dark silence, telling himself to get up and check on his son. But the images he’d just seen and the music he’d just heard kept playing back in his head.

  He glanced at his watch. The numbers glowed clearly; it was ten minutes before the prescribed meet-up time. On the thought, he heard a sound from upstairs. With a sigh, he got up and went to the back of the house, still without turning a light on. He unlocked and slipped out the back door silently. He moved with an easy stealth toward the big oak tree. He stood in its dark shadow, waiting.

  He held his breath as he watched Jordan stretch to make it from his bedroom window to the still-wet tree branch. He moved a little closer; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to catch a falling child. He was angry with himself that it was even a possibility. If he hadn’t been so lost in idiotic meanderings, he would have been upstairs in time to stop him from getting this far. But by the time he’d heard the window slide open, it was too late, and besides, his instinct was to cut off, not chase.

  Jordan made it, and worked his way down the big tree.

  “Going somewhere?”

  Jordan gasped as he dropped the last three feet and he stumbled and sprawled literally at his father’s feet. The boy stared up at him, his eyes wide. Even with only the moonlight, Wyatt could see his expression was a mix of anger and confusion and resignation.

  “Yeah, you’re busted,” he said.

  Jordan said nothing as he slowly got to his feet. For an instant something else flickered across his face, and Wyatt knew he was thinking about running.

  “You know I’ll catch you,” he said quietly, startling Jordan further. “The only difference is I’ll be madder.”

  They’d been through a chase once before, and Wyatt had been glad he’d kept in shape; running the three miles to work and back three or four times a week had been worth it. He was going to have to do something else now, though, because he didn’t dare be unable to respond quickly for the twenty minutes or so the run took.

  He saw the moment when Jordan gave up. The boy’s shoulders sagged and his head lowered as he trudged back into the house. Back in his room, Wyatt picked up the discarded pajamas from the floor and tossed them at the boy.

  “In case you’re thinking about trying again, I’ll be up.”

  Jordan muttered something as he got ready for bed the second time tonight.

  “You’re lucky. If I was really mad, you’d be sleeping downstairs, literally under my nose.”

  “Yeah, like you’re not really mad,” Jordan said, disbelief clear in his tone.

  Wyatt shrugged. “Annoyed, but not furious. You have to test the limits, I guess.”

  Jordan looked startled.

  “And this,” Wyatt added, “is an immovable one.”

  It wasn’t until Jordan was back in bed that he spoke again. “How did you know?”

  Wyatt wasn’t about to divulge his source, Jordan’s own social page, so he purposely answered as if the boy had meant something else.

  “Because that tree’s how I would have gotten out, if it was me.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jordan muttered.

  Wyatt walked to the door. Then turned back. “It’s how I did sneak out, when I was a kid. That’s how I knew.”

  Jordan, who had just laid down, sat back up. “This was your room?”

  “Yes.” He gestured at the doorknob. “That’s why it locks from the outside. And why there’s a keyed lock on that window.”

  “You used to sneak out that window?”

  Wyatt leaned against the doorjamb. “A couple of times. And I regretted it. It’s a lot harder to sneak in than out. My father always knew.”

  Jordan eyed him warily. “What did he do?”

  “He put that lock on it. And made my life a living hell for the next month,” Wyatt said.

  The boy grimaced. “Mine couldn’t get much worse.”


  “Oh, trust me, it could,” Wyatt said, remembering the days of exhaustion as his father gave him long lists of chores that had to be finished after school, along with his homework, and if they weren’t done when the old man got home he had to stay up until they were, no matter how long it took. After a couple of days of just a few hours of sleep, he was too tired to even think about anything else. Which was, of course, the plan.

  Jordan was looking at him with anger, distrust, suspicion. Wyatt sighed inwardly. He didn’t want this. He felt like he was floundering helplessly, in way over his head.

  “You get a pass this once,” he told his son. “But don’t try it again. And this door stays open.”

  “You gonna stay up all night and watch me?” A trace of a sneer had slipped into the boy’s voice, and Wyatt pushed away from the doorjamb and told himself not to react to the tone.

  “If necessary. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  He felt Jordan’s gaze on him as he flipped out the light and headed down the hall.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 10

  Kai locked up the front door of Play On and stuffed the keys into her pocket. No rain today, it had stopped last evening and this morning had been brisk and smelled wonderful in the way only a rain-washed world can.

  She’d had a fairly busy day, with the first delivery of band instruments arriving, and kids and parents trickling in all day to pick them up, some happy about it, some resentful, clearly being forced into it. Many of those talked to her about how they’d much rather play a guitar than a clarinet.

  She always leaned in then and whispered to the reluctant child, “If you show your folks you’re willing to work at this, I bet they’ll let you do the guitar later.”

  The older kids tended to roll their eyes but smile, the younger ones took her words to heart, and the parents were happy with her. She supposed they’d expected her to side with the guitar-leaning kids, given her own history.