Running Scared (40 page)

“Not if we call my private physician.”

“Dad, give it up,” Collin said, his voice a rasp, his skin the color of chalk.

Kate moved toward the bed. “Let’s see if we can stop the bleeding. I’ll get some towels.” She leveled her gaze at Daegan. “Wait for me and we’ll find Jon!”

VanHorn shouted out the address into the receiver then slammed the phone down. “Okay, the ambulance is on its way. Now, I’m outta here.”

“You’re all staying,” Daegan insisted, then looked at his friend. “Sandy.”

“I’m on it.” Sandy calmly took a gun from his shoulder holster.

Kate hurried back into the room with clean though dingy towels, which she pressed against Collin’s chest. “Hold these,” she instructed VanHorn.

Daegan moved to the window and glanced back at Kate. “After the police arrive, meet me at Robert’s.”

“I said I’m coming with you!”

“For the love of God—”

“Don’t argue with me, Daegan. Jon’s still my son!”

Daegan frowned but eyed his friend. “She’s coming with me. We’ll meet you back at Robert’s town house.”

“Got it,” Sandy agreed.

“I’m not going to go down, O’Rourke! Not like this. Not because of you and your bastard!” Frank glared at his son.

Daegan’s smile was pure venom. “Doesn’t look like you have a choice, now, does it?”

“Give it up, Dad,” Collin croaked. “It’s over.”

“Like hell! I’ll go down fighting, like a man!”

“Jesus!” Collin whispered then shuddered violently on the bed.

“Look at this,” Frank said, motioning to his legitimate son. “This is all your fault. If you would’ve left everything alone—”

“It’s not Daegan’s fault,” Collin whispered.

But Frank had a target in his sights as he rounded on his illegitimate son. Hate and loathing seethed between them and the room was suddenly hot with anger. Frank’s nostrils flared and fury mottled his face. “You should have kept your nose out of this, O’Rourke! It was none of your goddamned business.”

“My son is none of my business? Guess again, Frank. Let’s go, Kate!”

“He wasn’t your son any more than you’re mine.”

Daegan bristled. “That’s where you’re wrong, old man, and where you and I are different, thank God.”

“Daegan—” Collin said weakly from the bed.

“Just take it easy there.”

“Wait! I’m sorry.” Collin was beginning to shake, his teeth chattering.

“Shock,” Kate explained. “Hold on. Don’t talk.”

“No, please, Daegan, you didn’t do it,” Collin admitted, trying to sit up. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Frank’s head snapped as if he suddenly understood what his son was trying to say. “Shut up, Collin!”

“Let him talk,” Daegan said and Frank’s eyes narrowed with a rage that he’d carried since the day of Daegan’s birth.

“You miserable bastard, your mother should have had the abortion like I told her. Then I never would have had to deal with you.” He stepped closer. “You’ve been a burr up my ass for a long time, O’Rourke, and your ma, always trying to trap me. Thinking I’d leave my own wife for her, the foolish woman. Thinking I’d stay with her and her bastard son.” He drew himself up, his chest puffed out proudly over his now prominent belly. “I moved on from Mary Ellen years ago, on to younger fillies.”

“Amazing what you can buy with a little Sullivan cash,” Daegan said, his guts roiling, rage surging through his blood. Still, he held himself back, knowing that there were more urgent matters to pursue. Jon was missing, running scared. Jon was his first priority.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kate said as if sensing a fight of horrific proportions.

“We will.” With all his willpower, Daegan managed to contain his fury. “You’re a pathetic excuse for a man, a father, a son, and a husband, Sullivan. I feel sorry for your kids and wife, the ones who had to see you every day.”

“You ungrateful shit, I’ll kill you with my bare hands,” Frank vowed and lunged, throwing all his weight at Daegan.

But Daegan was ready. He’d been preparing for this all his adult life. Fists curled, he connected hard with Frank’s belly, then snapped his father’s head back with a sharp left cross to the jaw.

With a thud Frank went down. He staggered to his feet, swung wild, and Daegan threw a combination punch that sent him reeling against a bureau. Wood splintered and Frank slid to the dirty tiles.

A bruise darkened his jaw and blood discolored his lips. Daegan, still standing, hands curled into tight fists, loomed over him. “You want more? Huh? I got more.”

“Go to hell.”

“Been there. Now it’s your turn.”

Frank glared up at his bastard son. He tried to stand but his legs wobbled and Daegan towered over him, ready to do more damage.

“I despised you from the day you were born.” Blood stained his teeth.

“Believe me,
Dad
,” Daegan said with a sarcastic sneer, “the feeling’s mutual.”

“Daegan,” Collin whispered as sirens wailed through the broken window. “Listen please…” He coughed and choked, fighting to stay conscious. “You have to listen…it was me…fifteen years ago, it was me—”

“Don’t,” Daegan whispered, his right hand aching from the blows he’d landed. He didn’t know what kind of deathbed confessional he was about to hear, but suddenly he didn’t care—didn’t want to know any more family secrets.

Collin was desperate and reached forward, clutching Daegan’s sleeve with long white fingers. “Dad and I,” he said in a deep, rattling breath. “We…we killed Stu.”

“Oh, Christ,” Frank moaned.

“What?” Daegan couldn’t believe his ears.

“It’s true, we saw the whole fight, saw you run off to phone the police…and then we got to him and I wanted to call an ambulance but Dad…Dad kicked him in the head hard enough…Oh, dear Jesus, we killed Stu. Forgive me, Stuart. Please, please…I…Stuart I love…” Tears flooded his eyes and he was shaking.

“You let me take the heat for it,” Daegan said, turning dead eyes on his father.

“You deserved it.”

Daegan’s throat worked. The anguish of fifteen years of not knowing, of doubting himself, welled up inside him. “And you’re gonna pay, you miserable son of a bitch,” he said through lips that barely moved. “You’re gonna pay big-time.”

Run…run…

Feet slipping, Jon sped through narrow alleys and zigzagged across streets that smelled of diesel and sea-water. He needed to find a policeman, but would they believe him? VanHorn said the adoption wasn’t legal, that the police couldn’t help him, and those men were talking about millions of dollars,
millions!
What could they possibly want with him?

Don’t you get it? Someone wants you dead!

His breath was burning in his lungs, his shoulder hurt, and his legs ached, but still he ran, sure that someone was following him.

He charged steadily uphill, his lungs ablaze as the tenements gave way to nice houses and shops and wrought-iron fences. Christmas lights flashed by his eyes and an overwhelming sense of déjà vu washed over him. Somewhere not too far away he heard the melodic strains of a Christmas song.

“…a beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight, walkin’ in a winter wonderland…”

He swallowed back his fear. This was another repeat of his dream, and the footsteps behind him weren’t imagined. Someone very real and evil was chasing him!

Forcing his feet to keep going, his heart pounding furiously, he heard his pursuer and cast a glance behind him. In the thin lamplight and through the shadows, a man was following, running at breakneck speed, catching him.

No! No! No! Don’t stop, keep running!

“In the meadow we can build a snowman…”

Heavy breathing, thudding footsteps, his name called into the night. “Jon! Stop!”

Jon lunged as a huge hand dropped down and clamped over his shoulder.

“Shh. It’s me!” Daegan said.

Jon nearly crumpled in relief. He wasn’t going to be shot! Turning, he saw Daegan’s face in the watery glow of a streetlamp.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I came looking for you.”

Daegen…my father
.

Jon backed up. “You lied to me,” he accused him, still walking backward, his breath fogging in the night.

“I thought I had to. I was wrong.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I know and I can’t make you. But I’m your father and—”

“No!” Jon said, anger spewing from him. “My father wouldn’t have left me, my father would have stuck around while I was growing up, my father is a great guy who…who—”

“Never knew he had a son until a couple of months ago, who couldn’t believe it but, once he met you, found out he loves you. He never realized a child could make such a difference in his pathetic life.”

The words echoed through the night and resonated in Jon’s battered heart.
Daegan was his father! His damned father!
Biting his lip, he silently told himself he wasn’t going to cry, even though Daegan might walk out and leave him again.

“And it’s not just because you’re his son,” Daegan was saying with a sad smile curving his lips, “but because he cares about you, likes to be around you, gets a kick just hanging out with you.”

“Then why did you leave?” Jon demanded, challenging this man he’d once admired. Daegan looked sincere, but Jon didn’t want to trust him. After all, the guy was pretty good at disappearing acts.

“I thought I had to. I thought it would be best if you never knew. I thought your mom and you could go on with your lives and never have to deal with what you’re dealing with now.”

“The Sullivan family,” Jon sneered.

“That’s right.” Daegan shook his head and frustration etched his features. “Unfortunately we’ve got to face them, force them to end this, convince your grandfather that he has no claim to you.”

“He doesn’t.”

Daegan’s smile slashed white. “Okay, so let’s go tell him.”

“I don’t want to see him.”

“You have to, Jon. To end this. Besides, your mother’s going out of her mind with worry. She was with me a minute ago and then I sprinted ahead when I saw you…”

Jon looked over his shoulder and spied Kate, breathing hard, jogging toward them. Tears were running down her face, and when she reached him, she threw her arms around her son and clung to him.

“Jon, oh, baby, Jon, Jon,” she said over and over again.

“Ma—”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed hard. He was
not
going to cry.

“I mean it, Jon,” she said, blinking hard. “Oh, God, I was so scared. I knew you were with that horrible man and then we heard the gunshot and…I’m just glad you’re not hurt.” She buried her face in his neck and sighed with relief.

“I’m really okay,” he assured her.

Stepping back from him, his mom swiped at the tears on her cheeks with her gloved hands. “I’m so glad. I was so worried.”

“You two…” Jon pointed from his mother to Daegan. “You came here together?”

Kate gasped at the sight of his bruised, chafed wrist. “Oh, baby…your arms. You need to see a doctor!”

“No!” Jon yanked his hand back. Right now he needed answers. “I’ll be fine, Mom. Did you come here together?”

Daegan glanced at Kate, then back to Jon. “Not exactly. But we both came here to find you.”

“Because I’m your son,” Jon said, squarely facing Daegan.

“I came because I care about you,” Daegan said. “But yes, I’m your father.”

“Did you know about this?” Jon pressed his mother. “That he’s my father?”

She shook her head. “Not until after you disappeared.” She pressed one gloved fist to her eye. “I’m so sorry about the way this happened, Jon. I had no idea, no idea anyone would ever come after you.”

“How could you?” Jon shrugged, then pointed back down the boulevard, toward the decrepit motel. “But the scary part is those guys aren’t the worst of it. I’ve got this crazy relative, her name is Alicia, and she’s ready to pay a million bucks to get me killed. VanHorn will probably go to jail, but that psycho Alicia is still going to be out there, plotting to bump me off.”

“Don’t worry about Alicia,” Daegan said. “Believe me, I know how to handle her. I’ll take care of her. I say we settle up with Robert, and then we’ll take you home.”

“To Oregon?” Jon asked and saw his mother catch her breath.

“If that’s where you want to go.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “I never thought I’d miss that place,” he admitted, his hands buried deep in his pockets as they dashed through the neighborhood. A band of carolers sang at a doorstep.

“God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay…”

They reached a busy street with stores aglow in Christmas lights and shoppers wandering beneath the streetlamps. Daegan hailed a cab and soon they were in the warm interior, speeding through the city.

So Daegan was his father. Jon glanced at the man who’d sired him. Decent enough looking as far as cowboys went, he imagined. Jesus, he could barely believe it. He had a father, a real father, and the guy was Daegan damned O’Rourke. Now, Todd Neider couldn’t say Jon didn’t know his old man. But then he had the feeling that Daegan wasn’t sticking around. Not that he could see into his mind, not now at any rate, but because Jon couldn’t believe that anything would ever work out.

“Tell me what happened,” Daegan said, and Jon, glancing nervously at the cabby, hesitated.

“Believe me, he’s heard it all,” Daegan added.

So Jon told them. From the moment Todd Neider yelled at him in the hallway and dunked his head in the urinal, until he ended up in the crappy motel room, scared spitless.

“Dear God,” his mother said, twisting her fingers. “If I’d known…oh, dear God.”

By the time the cab slowed, they’d swapped stories and Daegan had frowned when he looked at Jon’s wrists and shoulder. The taxi rolled to a stop on a quiet street with houses facing a manicured park.

“This is it,” Daegan said as he handed the driver a bill and helped Kate from the car. “Come on, Jon, it’s now or never.”

This phony with her fancy fingernails, fake red hair, and bloodshot eyes was his mother? No way.
Jon stared at Bibi Sullivan Porter as if she were some kind of attraction in a freak show.

“Way to go, Daegan,” Bibi said. She was seated in a peach-colored chair in the parlor, smoking a cigarette. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a lousy private detective?”

“She hired you?” Kate whispered, eyeing the woman as if she were a Jezebel. “She was going to
pay
you to find Jon, to return him, to ruin our lives?” She turned tortured eyes on him.

Daegan scowled. “Not exactly. I think she wanted me to kidnap him to Canada.”

Bibi shrugged, as if it didn’t matter.

Jon hated her. She’d abandoned him, given him away, and she was so different from Kate. There was a part of him that wanted to know more about her, about this whole circus of a family, but he didn’t dare ask.

Sitting in the chair, legs crossed as if she was bored, she looked like a rich bitch. How could Daegan have ever slept with…? Sick at the thought, he tried to be practical and supposed he should be thankful that she’d given him up and started the first of a long chain of lies; otherwise he would never have known his mother, Kate. Still, it was easier to hate her, better if he didn’t try and understand why she’d rejected him, safer if he didn’t realize she was only a few years older than he was now when she’d found out she was pregnant with her cousin’s child. He ground his back teeth together and swore under his breath that he’d never call her anything the least bit maternal—not birth mother, not natural mother, not biological mother—and he hoped that he’d never have to see her again, never have to deal with emotions he didn’t even know existed before he’d laid eyes on her.

“I just wanted to find my boy,” Daegan said. “I wasn’t running anywhere.”

“Well, come over here,” Bibi said, motioning to Jon. She was frowning slightly, wrinkles showing near her mouth and over her eyes. “Yep, you look like a Sullivan.”

“Indeed he does,” the small man standing near the staircase said. “Indeed he does.” Judging by the way the old goat acted like he owned the place, Jon guessed that this was his grandfather, Robert Sullivan.

Daegan intervened. “You’ve heard the news—that the story’s gonna be in all the papers, that the police were called, and that Collin’s in the hospital, shot by VanHorn?”

“Yes, I know.” Robert’s voice was clipped, his eyes filled with distrust. “But I’d still like to meet my grandson.”

Kate stepped firmly between Jon and the elderly man. “He’s not your—”

“Come, come. Let’s see you, boy.”

Jon didn’t like being called a boy by anyone, but he whispered to Kate, “It’s all right, Ma. I can handle this.” Jaw so tight it ached, he walked up to the old man and stared down at him.

“Big. Strapping. Do you do well in school?”

“Christ,” Bibi said, drawing on her cigarette.

“I hate school.”

Bibi laughed. “Takes after his father.”

Robert wasn’t amused. “Oh, no, no, no.” He wagged a finger at Jon’s nose. “A boy’s lessons are the building blocks of life. They store knowledge and create character.”

Jon zoned out and looked at Kate. He couldn’t believe this old geezer was for real. Eli McIntyre with his moonshine and whittling knife had been more of a grandfather to him than this guy could ever hope to be.

“Sir?” the butler inquired, softly rapping on the door. “There’s a call for Mr. O’Rourke.”

Daegan left the room and Jon felt suddenly adrift in a sea of people he despised, people who all had plans for him, one way or the other. Except for Kate. She was standing next to him, looking as nervous as he felt.

The old man started asking him questions—stupid things like whether he played lacrosse, and what were his scores on the SATs. Near as he could tell, he wasn’t coming up with the right answers because the guy’s smile, so bright when Jon had entered the room, began to fade.

Daegan returned to lean insolently against the corner of a bookcase. “Okay, so let’s figure out where we are. I just talked to a detective friend of mine. The important thing is that Jon is leaving with Kate and the adoption papers are going to be reworked so that there are no complications, that the adoption is legal here in Massachusetts and any damned state in the union.”

“Wait a minute, the boy might want to stay with us and—”

Jon shook his head. “The ‘boy’ wants to go home,” he said. “I didn’t want to come here in the first place and I can’t wait to leave.”

Daegan seemed satisfied. “That’s pretty explicit, I’d say.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” Bibi said, squashing out her smoke and sighing loudly. “Kyle’s already having second thoughts.” She stood and walked up to Jon. “I didn’t mean to foul up your life, okay? I wanted you to be happy and…and I wasn’t cut out to be a mother.”

A muscle bulged in Jon’s jaw and he glared at the woman who bore him, who gave him life, then gave him up. “I didn’t ask for an explanation.”

“No, you didn’t, did you? Hell, I can’t get anything right.” Tears stood in her blue eyes and she forced a smile at Kate. “You’ve got yourself a good boy there. Take care of him.”

“I will,” Kate promised, surprised at the grudging respect she felt for this woman.

“Good.” Bibi dusted her hands on the front of her skirt. A tear slid from her eye as she cast one final look at her son. “You be good,” she said. “If I hear you’re messing up, I’ll swoop down on you like a screaming bat from hell. Believe me, that’s not a pretty sight.”

“Jon,” Robert said. “You must reconsider. I could do so much for you.”

“Leave him alone,” Kate said, placing a supportive hand on Jon’s shoulder.

But Jon wasn’t afraid to face Robert now. “It’s not going to happen,” Jon said. “Look, you paid some loser to kidnap me. Like I’m going to give up my life and the people who care about me because you’ve got money?” Jon shot a look at Bibi Sullivan, and for a moment, he actually felt sorry for her, a grown woman still under her father’s thumb, stuck in an unhappy world.

“We’re not simply about money,” Robert said, his furry eyebrows rising. “We have high standards, a family code.”

“Would that involve killing off family heirs?” Jon said. “Because your niece Alicia was making big plans to do me in.”

Robert shifted uncomfortably and Bibi’s jaw dropped. “That bitch!” she said as her pack of cigarettes fell from her fingers.