My wife’s whisper in my ear unnerved me as it always did, but I also felt a pang of warmth go through me. I wasn’t a religious guy by any means, but on the rare occasion that I did hear Revay’s voice calling me on my bullshit, I welcomed it. Because she had always been the only one brave enough to tell me when I was full of it. And while I wasn’t so far gone that I actually believed it was her talking to me, I liked that my subconscious used her voice to remind me when my internal bullshit meter was pinging.
My hope had been to not have to deal with the intriguing Tate Travers or his cute kid again, but I’d suspected even as I’d left his apartment more than a week ago that things wouldn’t be so easy. My desperation to confront Buck and Denny Buckley had led me straight from the run down area of San Francisco that Tate lived in to the dusty, remote town of Lulling, Texas. The underground group I worked for employed a young hacker named Daisy Washburne to gather information on potential marks and I’d called her on the way to Lulling to see what she could dig up on Buck and Denny. In short, she’d found nothing…absolutely nothing. Both men had been living off the grid for some time so I had no address, no recent pictures, no nothing to use to find either man. It was beyond frustrating and I’d known the second I rolled into the tiny, insular town, that I wouldn’t get anywhere by asking the residents questions – all I would do was give the murderers ample warning that I was on their trail. So I’d reluctantly turned around and headed back to San Francisco and the only lead I had to work with.
On the way, I’d asked Daisy for any information she could give me on Tate, but like his father and brother, he didn’t appear to exist because there was no record of him anywhere. Which led me to believe he was still living off the grid for a reason. And after I’d had Daisy check why Tate had submitted his DNA to a private lab for testing, I’d suspected what that reason was.
Several hours passed before the door Tate had disappeared through earlier opened and I stood as Tate walked through it. Myfirst thought was that the stricken look on his face was because of me, but then I noticed that he wasn’t even looking at me. His face had gone deathly pale and each step he took looked wobbly and uneven and I instantly stepped forward so I could catch him and Matty if he lost his footing.
“Let me take him,” I finally said when Tate teetered back and forth as I reached him. He looked at me as if finally seeing me for the first time and then he shook his head weakly.
“Then at least sit down so you don’t fall,” I murmured as I motioned to a chair.
“No,” he whispered. “I…I need to get him home. The doctor said he needs to rest…”
Tate tried to brush past me, but I put my hands on his arms to stop his forward motion. “Tate,” I said as gently as I could. His red rimmed eyes lifted to meet mine and I knew he’d been crying at some point because his eyes hadn’t looked that way when he’d walked away from me. My stomach fell as I realized what that meant. “Let me take him,” I repeated softly as I held him in place. I had no idea why I hated that it was only the fabric of his shirt I was feeling beneath my fingers and not his skin.
“Here, you can hang on to these,” I said as I tugged my car keys from my pocket along with my phone and wallet. I offered him the items and then realized how ridiculous it was to think he’d hand me his child in exchange for them.
Tate shook his head, but after I’d put everything back in my pocket, he studied me for a long time and then said, “Just for a minute.”
It was a testament to how tired the man was. I nodded and carefully took Matty from him. I hadn’t been sure if Matty was asleep or not, but I had my answer as soon as I pulled him against my chest. His eyes were closed and I could tell from how puffy they were that Tate hadn’t been the only one in tears at some point. His warm breath fanned across the skin of my neck and his limp body made carrying him awkward.
“They sedated him,” Tate mumbled as he pulled a blanket from Matty’s backpack and worked it around the boy’s body. FeelingTate’s fingers brush against me as he tucked the blanket in between Matty’s body and mine did strange things to my insides…things I hadn’t felt in a really long time…things I didn’t want to think too much about.
Tate and I began walking towards the exit and I didn’t miss the way he stuck right next to me and kept glancing my way. He also kept his hand on one of Matty’s shoes as if that would somehow deter me from running off with the kid. Even without the burden of carrying Matty, Tate’s pace was still slow and it took us more than ten minutes to finally reach my car in the parking lot next to the hospital. Tate hadn’t even realized our destination until I fished around my pocket for the keys and unlocked the sedan.
“No,” Tate immediately said as he tried to take Matty from me. I used my body to maneuver Tate back against the car and he instantly ceased his struggles – probably so he wouldn’t wake his son up. With Matty’s body blocking him on one side and my free arm caging him against the car on his other side, Tate began breathing erratically as he realized I was once again in control. It was exactly the position I wanted to be in, but seeing Tate’s fear for his child had me second guessing myself and the reason I’d returned to San Francisco.
Don’t.
I closed my eyes as the soft word penetrated my brain. But for once, I ignored the voice and said, “Get in the car, Tate.”
The betrayal in Tate’s eyes was instant and sharp and bothered me more than I wanted to admit. But I shoved away the urge to gentle my stance and stepped back enough to allow Tate to open the door. He glanced around the empty parking lot and then at me before finally closing his eyes and reaching behind him to grab the door handle. The second he was in the back seat, I handed Matty to him and closed the door. I was glad when Tate didn’t try to get back out as I climbed into the front seat. Instead, he worked to get Matty buckled in and then he sat next to him and drew him protectively against his side.
We didn’t speak as I pulled the car into traffic and to my complete surprise, Tate fell asleep within ten minutes of leaving thehospital. But his arm never left Matty’s small shoulders as he kept him close. I used the time to study Tate with quick glances in the rearview mirror. Although it had only been a little over a week since I’d last seen him, he looked even worse than he had when I’d confronted him that first night. His face had a gauntness to it that made me wonder if he was steadily losing weight and there were dark smudges under his eyes suggesting he hadn’t been sleeping well. Even in sleep, his entire countenance was drawn up tight with tension and I doubted that it was only because of my presence.
Another wave of guilt went through me as I forced my attention back to the road. Tate didn’t stir even after I pulled the car to a stop in front of his apartment building. It wasn’t until I opened the door and gently shook him awake that he reacted like a startled animal and immediately wrapped his arms tighter around Matty and used his body to cover the still sleeping boy. I swallowed hard as the memory of trying to wrap myself up like that washed over me. I’d been considerably younger, but age wasn’t a factor when your self-preservation instincts kicked in. As afraid of me as Tate was, I suspected his reaction in that moment hadn’t been about me at all.
“Tate, we’re here,” I said quietly, but I didn’t put my hands back on him.
Tate didn’t move for several long seconds and I didn’t rush him because I knew he needed to get control of himself; never an easy task when you were scared shitless about where the next blow would hit you. It was several long seconds before Tate finally looked over his shoulder at me and I could see the remnants of sleep still held him because he blinked his eyes rapidly as if trying to bring me into focus. Then he checked to make sure Matty was okay before finally looking around at our surroundings.
“What…what are we doing here?” he asked as he began the process of unbuckling Matty. As he climbed out of the car, Matty in his arms, he said, “We…we don’t live here anymore.”
“I know,” was all I said as I went to the trunk of the car. I kept my eyes on Tate as I pulled both his duffle bag and mine from it. His eyes fell on his bag as I came back around the car.
“You were in our motel room?” he managed to get out.
“That place was a shit hole,” I said as I once again put my hand on Tate’s arm to get him moving. “Makes this place look like the fucking Ritz,” I added as we walked up the walkway towards the apartment building.
Tate didn’t say anything even once we were inside his apartment. He just carried Matty to the little boy’s room and then shut the door. I didn’t follow him because I knew there was no place for him to go in the windowless room. I used the time to search out the contents of Tate’s kitchen and shook my head at the nearly bare cabinets. The fridge had a few items in it, but since I knew Tate had likely left the apartment within minutes of my leaving the week before, I didn’t trust that the food was any good. I searched out my phone to find the closest pizza delivery place and ordered some food. I gave Tate a few more minutes and then went to Matty’s room to find him. The door wasn’t locked so I quietly pushed it open.
The first thing I heard was crying - no, not crying – sobbing. Big, heart wrenching, bone deep sobs…the kind that made it hard to breathe. I didn’t see Tate as I pushed the door further open, but I saw that Matty was asleep under the covers. I had to open the door all the way to find Tate. He was sitting on the floor near his son’s bed, his back against the wall. His legs were drawn up and he was resting his elbows on his knees as he wept into his hands. I hated that I wanted to go to him, to sit down next to him and pull him against me and tell him it would be okay…whateveritwas. At that exact moment, Tate looked up at me and even in the dim light I saw it. His naked need for me to do exactly that. But then his eyes shuttered and he leaned his head back against the wall and turned his face away from me.
My chest felt tight as I closed the door and I actually found myself rubbing my fingers over the middle of it as if that would somehow stem the discomfort. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there for, but it wasn’t until I heard a sharp rap on the front door that I remembered where I was and why I was there. As I went to the door, I kept glancing over my shoulder as if half expecting Tate to come running out of the room seeking help from whoever was atthe door. I had already pulled my gun from the back of my pants when I remembered the pizza I’d ordered. After giving the pimply faced delivery guy a generous tip, I took the pizza into the kitchen and put it on the small table. But my appetite was gone and when I didn’t hear Matty’s door open, I pushed the pizza away and leaned back in the kitchen chair and studied my surroundings.
Everything about this job was going to shit. I was no closer to finding the men who’d killed my wife despite having more information than I ever had before - information that should have been enough to lead me to them and take them out. Yet all I had was a guy who was clearly struggling to be a good father to a kid that wasn’t his. And the kid - a fucking cute little kid who was sick…very sick if the look on Tate’s face at the hospital had been anything to go by.
And none of it mattered.
