Housebroken (42 page)

Blake felt a shudder that wouldn’t come out, as if every internal part of him was contracting and trembling, unable to accept the reality this video presented.

Joje was speaking without a speech impediment.

He continued, without the slightest hint of a lisp. “I accept full responsibility for the unfortunate loss of lives over the past few days surrounding the Crochet family. Everything Blake has told you is true, with one exception. I did not kidnap his son. Adam Crochet, now Adam Shepard as of nine a.m. eastern standard time, willingly chose to come with me.”

Blake felt like his ears had been filled with hot wax—the pressure in his head unable to escape.

Adam Shepard.

Joje continued speaking, though to Blake his words were just the monotonous buzz of an angry swarm of bees. Until Adam came on screen.

He looked older. His ears were pierced, both lobes a bright reddish pink, but it was his eyes Blake focused on. Unaware, he wiped at his dripping nose.

“Jenna, Blake,” Adam said, not even giving them the comfort of calling them Mom or Dad, “I want you to know I’m okay. I want to be here with . . . Rory. My brother. I’m happy.”

His eyes
, Blake thought.
He’s scared, not happy.
Jenna’s breaths next to him came in quiet sobs.

Blake found his mind wandering, reliving each decision of the past week.
So many mistakes.
The screen in front of him multiplied into a dozen more, each playing out differently as he consciously made new decisions. Joje played his message for help at the restaurant in English, and this time Blake shouted at the manager to call the cops. After slamming the crystal globe into Joje’s head in his office, he quickly locked the doors, preventing Drew from finding him unprepared. Out on the cliffs while looking for Adam, Blake barreled into Joje, driving him over the edge.

The screens split into a dozen more, each new decision taking him to unforeseen consequences. A massacre at the restaurant, Blake stepping over the body of the manager and server, blood still pumping from their torsos like water from a garden hose. Blake clobbered from behind as he turns from locking the doors, Joje cracking the butt of his gun repeatedly against Blake’s skull until the pounding at the doors grow as distant and soft as the beating of his heart. Joje snagging at Blake as he tumbles off, pulling Blake with him, and in the few seconds before they hit, Blake spots his son clinging to a rock where he will soon drown.

The room became a multiplex of screens, every word, every exchange, playing to an infinite array of possibilities. Blake followed them all, his fractured mind capable of viewing each screen independently, tracking each toward their inevitable and tragic conclusion until they all coalesced into one panoramic screen revealing Blake, sometimes sitting next to Jenna, sometimes alone, in this conference room, watching Joje—Rory—look down from above with a smile on his face.

Distantly he heard people calling his name, tugging against a shoulder or arm, but they were only static, one tiny screen as far away from him as his son. On every screen he heard himself make a promise—an oath—one that breathed new purpose into a life that would otherwise be vacant.

“It’s not the journey,” he muttered, a million screens aligning for a single moment. “It’s the destination.”

And his family had yet to arrive.

Blake’s fingers came to a halt, thoughts fizzling at the slam of the front door. He lowered the screen to his Vaio laptop, peering toward the door from his desk, which occasionally functioned as the small kitchen table it actually was. His work files were spread out like giant-sized crumbs in need of a good sweep.

“Honey? That you?”

The light bleeps of the house alarm went unanswered. If it had been Jenna, she would have disarmed it by now.

Thick arms wrapped around Blake from behind, squeezing his chest and stomach until he had to gasp for air. Six months of psychiatric rehabilitation after his short stint in jail and over a year on meds, and his anxiety still had a better hold on him than he’d ever admit.

He stood, chair squeaking against the linoleum floor. He undid the clasp at his belt, gripping the handle of the sharp hunting knife that never left his side. He even required it for sleep, the hard knot beneath his pillow from the blade’s case better than any sleeping pill.

“Who’s there.”

His voice fell flat, without the confidence he had hoped to project. Another twenty seconds and their security company, Alliance, would be notified of the illicit entry. Five minutes and twenty seconds and three security professionals would surround the home, AK-47s at the ready.

But a lot could happen in five minutes.

The door to the kitchen swung inward. It began to swing back but was blocked by someone’s hand. Blake was practically chewing on his heart, it had risen so high.

A man’s head peeked out from the doorway, gaunt cheeks hidden by long, bushy sideburns, shaggy hair spilling from the ball cap on his head. “Dad?”

Blake exhaled, letting go of the breath he had been holding for two years. “Adam?”

Adam stepped into the room. He looked like a bum off the street, his clothes worn and tattered, his shuffle the walk of a man who’s been lost so long he’s unsure if there’s even anywhere to go.

He was so much taller. At sixteen he looked like he could be in his midtwenties. His eyes revealed a man who had seen more than any sixteen-year-old boy should.

Blake glanced past him at the door swinging closed.

“It’s just me,” Adam said.

Blake nodded, his eyes welling. “Welcome home.”

He didn’t walk, he ran, wrapping his arms around Adam and lifting him off the ground, damn his lower back and all.

“I’ve dreamed of this day for so long!”

“Me too,” Adam said, his voice choking with emotion. “I didn’t know if . . . if you and Mom would, would want me back.”

Blake accidentally knocked the cap from Adam’s head. His hands ran through his son’s tangled hair. “You’re all we’ve thought of! We spent everything we had trying to find you! Why . . . How? How’d you get away?”

Adam took a step back, pulling himself from his father’s grip. Blake kept his hands on Adam’s shoulders, not ready to let go of his son. “Rory . . . he passed,” Adam said.

Blake saw the grief in his son’s eyes. Like any father, he wanted to console him but couldn’t force an “I’m sorry” from his lips. Not for
Joje
.

“It wasn’t what I thought,” Adam continued.

Blake brought him back in, wondering if somehow this was all a dream. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Before your mom gets home.”

By the time Jenna got back from her run, Adam had showered and dressed, Blake’s clothes still a few sizes too large despite Adam’s physique. They were sitting in the living room across from each other, Adam picking at the sandwich and apple slices Blake had prepared while Adam had been dressing.

In his excitement he had forgotten about the alarm and had to send the three ex-military men away. Still the three-hundred-dollar charge was worth the assurance that no albino delinquent or stuttering psychopath lurked around the premises.

Jenna came in, immediately turning to the side wall and keying in the code for the alarm. She still held the leash for Truce, their Labrador. The dog looked more beat than Jenna, lying against the cool tile floor rather than attempting to greet the new person in the room.

Blake felt Adam’s eyes move to Jenna’s legs as his had at first. The sleek curved carbon fiber attachment to her right leg was something he had now grown used to. He loved the fact that she still ran. She was a fighter until the very end. And there wasn’t a single run in which she wouldn’t take the dog.

She turned around, the leash dropping from her hand to the ground. It retracted, sliding along the tile until reaching Truce. Blake smiled up at her, letting her know it was okay. She quickly wiped at both eyes and carefully stepped down to the carpeted living room. Steps were still a little awkward for her.

Adam stood from the love seat, his eyes moving from Jenna’s face not to the curved blade that was her prosthesis, but the curved belly beneath her running shirt. She was almost eight months, though to look at her she could have been only four or five.

“Come here,” she said, not bothering this time to wipe the tears from her eyes.

Blake laughed as Adam rushed toward her, the two embracing as mother and son.

“Are you really back?” she asked.

Adam nodded, his head nestled against her shoulder. “I had no idea you were pregnant!”

Had either Blake or Jenna seen the smile crawling over Adam’s face, they would have picked up the phone, immediately calling the security team back. They would have been alerted to the fact that something was very, very wrong.

A former child actor turned wannabe rock star, The Behrg has written everything from screenplays to to-do lists. He has two upcoming works that will be released in 2015, including a ghost story and the first part of a series entitled
The Creation
. His to-do list should be finished by 2016 . . .

Stalk him at
www.thebehrg.com
.

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—The Behrg