Rock point collection, p.94
Rock Point Collection, page 94
“What do you mean?”
“Liam. Harry and me, we look alike, we look like you: dark hair, dark eyes. Liam doesn’t. He looks like Dad. When he got mad, he started yelling that he doesn’t even belong. That’s when I punched him.”
I sit down, shove my plate with the half-eaten sandwich aside, and drop my head on my arms on the table.
Sweet Jesus…my boy.
Tears burn my eyes. Why would he think that? More importantly, how did I miss that?
Dylan’s hand curves around the back of my neck as I hear him address the kids.
“Right. It’s important you get that what your father did, talk to one of you at school, is against the law. He’s not allowed near the school, or near your house, or anywhere near you guys or your mom. Ever. You get me? The protection order the judge signed is there to do exactly that—protect you—but it’s not gonna work if you don’t tell your mom, or me, or your teachers when your dad breaks the rules.”
“But we didn’t know about that until after,” Theo counters, which doesn’t surprise me.
“Maybe not,” Dylan comes right back. “But don’t tell me you didn’t know keeping that from your mom wasn’t the right play to make, no matter how good your intentions.” I can’t see his face, but I hear my boy’s grunt in response. “Now, why don’t you guys give me a minute with your mom, okay?”
Chairs scrape over the floor and I keep my face hidden, not wanting the kids to see their mom come apart at the seams.
Then I feel arms awkwardly hugging me from behind. “Sorry, Mom,” Harry says, his voice thick, before letting me go.
“Me too.” This time it’s Theo as he presses his head against mine. “Please don’t cry,” he whispers, before he too moves away.
As soon as I hear their feet hit the stairs, a sob rips from my throat and the next second my face is pressed against Dylan’s shirt. His large hand rubs circles on my back as the events of the past day—fuck, of the past years—come pouring out of me.
“Knowledge is power, Sweetheart,” he mumbles when my crying bout subsides.
“What do you mean?” I sniffle, leaving my face buried. I’m not a pretty crier with big crocodile tears rolling down; I blubber, and it gets messy.
“I bet that was hard to hear, but you won’t be blindsided by it again. Always better to see what’s coming.”
I try to resist when he lifts my head away from his shoulder. He persists, leaving his hands to cup my sloppy cheeks, and I blindly grab for a napkin from the table to mop the worst off my face.
“I just don’t know how to fix this.”
“Been brewing for a while. Can’t expect it to be a quick fix, Sweetheart.”
I know that, of course, but the thought my kid feels he doesn’t belong is gut-wrenching.
His thumb strokes my jaw as he presses a soft kiss on my lips.
“Weren’t you supposed to be at the office?” I suddenly realize out loud, jerking my head away.
“Gotta look after my girl first.”
Okay, that’s sweet, even though I left my years as a girl behind me a long time ago.
“I’ll be fine, Dylan. You should go.”
He drops his chin and scrutinizes me closely. “Have you got an extra key?”
“Why?”
“I’m thinking you’ll wanna stay here tonight—stick close to your boys. I’m gonna need a key to get in if I’m late.”
I open my mouth to protest, only to close it again. Truth is, it feels good he wants to check in on me.
So instead of making a fuss, I get up, walk over to the kitchen, and pull the extra key from the magnet behind the fridge.
“Be safe,” I tell him, pressing the key in his hand.
He tucks it in his pocket, hooks his other hand around my neck, and pulls me to his mouth. The moment my lips open his tongue slides in.
The kiss is like a shot of Valium straight to the bloodstream. Slow, thorough, and completely addictive.
I’m still swaying on my feet when he walks out a few moments later.
Dylan
“Marya and the kids okay?”
Damian sticks his head out of his office when I walk in.
“Relatively,” I answer honestly, tossing my jacket over the back of my chair before sitting down. “Discovering the asshole ex showed up at her sons’ school didn’t go over too well.”
“You’re shitting me.” He leans against Jasper’s desk, crossing his arms.
“Nope. Same afternoon we served him with the protective order. Walked right up to Liam.”
“What did he want?”
“The boy’s not sharing.”
I relay what little I know.
“He’s renting a place in Hermosa, right?” Damian scratches his fingers through his goatee. “I’m thinking maybe I should drop by on my way home. Sounds like he’s not clear on the ramifications should he defy that order, I should make sure he understands.”
“Couldn’t hurt.” I turn to the files on my desk.
“Barnes.” My eyes meet his serious ones. “I briefly spoke with Agent Linden last night and have a call scheduled with Aiken first thing Monday. Giving you a heads-up, because she insists whatever happened between you is a thing of the past and won’t impact work, and I have a gnawing suspicion that’s what Aiken’s line will be too—suck it up.”
“Fuck.”
A call comes in on the office line and Damian leans over to hit the speaker.
“La Plata County FBI, Gomez here.”
“Gomez, it’s Yeager.” The voice on the other end sounds glum.
I shoot up straight in my seat. Yeager is the special agent in charge of the Farmington field office.
“We’ve got another one.”
Damian rounds the desk, grabs a notepad and a pen. “I’ve got you on speaker. Talk to me.”
“I’ve got the distraught parents of one Thomas McKinley in my office. They were brought in by Farmington PD after their son disappeared after a soccer game.”
“This is Dylan Barnes, by chance was this at the Sports Complex?” I ask, a nasty feeling in my gut.
“It was. After their son’s game, the McKinleys were talking to some of the other parents. Thomas said he wanted to catch up with a buddy in the parking lot, and they told him to go ahead and wait by the car. By the time they got to there, the kid was gone. They tried finding him for an hour before they called it in.”
“Jesus, I was just there for my son’s game.”
“Soccer?”
“Yup.”
“Fuck, don’t tell me his team is the Stingers.”
“No, but they were playing them. My boy knew Seth Mayer from soccer as well. They play in the same league.”
“Fuck,” Yeager repeats. “Didn’t want to think the two were connected. Hoping the kid was stupid and took off without telling his parents, but—”
“What do you need?” Damian cuts in.
“An Amber Alert is going out in the next five minutes, that’s what I called to give you a heads-up on. I’ve got my guys and local PD out scouring the fields and the adjoining golf course. The McKinleys are local to you. Work it from that end, I’ll work it from here and we’ll be in touch.”
Twenty minutes later, the entire team is in the conference room, including Agent Linden. Damian shot me an apologetic look when she walked in. I’ll suck it up. Fuck, I’ll do anything to find that boy.
I hand out printouts of everything Yeager sent us, a picture of Thomas on top.
I vaguely recognized the kid: blue-eyed and blond. Just like Seth.
Just like Liam.
“I need to make a quick call,” I mutter, already on my way out to the hallway.
“Dylan?” Marya’s voice is breathless when she answers. “The Amber Alert, it’s one of the kids—”
“I know, Sweetheart. Listen, I don’t have much time. Do me a favor; keep the boys home. If you need to go out for anything, ask your mom to sit with them. Please. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”
“Okay.” I can hear her strangle a sob and it kills me I can’t do anything about it right now. I know I’m probably freaking her out on a day she’s been freaked out enough—and I fucking hate that too—but I need to focus on finding Thomas.
“Gotta let you go, babe.”
“Go. Find him,” she whispers back.
-
“No one is saying it, so I will.” Luna looks around the table. “Anyone else thinking we should have a closer look at Jeremy Berger?”
“Absolutely, I’m on that. Heading up to Hermosa shortly,” Damian answers. “Linden, you’re coming with me,” he says to Toni, who’s been quiet and only nods. “Jas, I want you to dig into the Four Corners League. Pull an address list for every kid on his team; call the parents. Any information that looks interesting, toss it to Luna and Dylan to follow up on. Next look at board, administration, coaches. Anyone even remotely connected to the league; I want it scrutinized front to back. You’ll be in contact with Yeager.” He turns to me. “Dylan, get in touch with Joe Benedetti and get him in the loop. Then you and Luna head over to the McKinley house. The parents are still in Farmington, but the boy’s uncle is coming down from Dolores with a key. Everything and anything we find gets relayed into the office right away. Every fucking minute counts, people.”
After I talk with Benedetti, our local chief of police who promises any and all support, Luna and I meet up with a very distraught Michael McKinley—Thomas’ uncle—outside a nice house in a middle-class neighborhood near the college.
The McKinleys aren’t hurting for money. Parked in the driveway is a fairly new Subaru Ascent, and I know from the reports the vehicle the family is currently driving is a Porsche Cayenne. I’m guessing the Subaru is mom’s ride.
Thomas is the only child and it’s easy to see which bedroom is his. Looks like a boy’s dream; posters of superheroes and famous soccer players on the wall, a nice computer on his desk, a forty-inch flat-screen mounted across from one of those gaming chairs, and a PlayStation on the floor beside it.
“Big gamer? Your nephew?” I ask Michael, who follows us around.
“Yeah. Aside from the soccer, it’s all he does these days.”
“These days?” Luna, always perceptive, picks up on it as well.
“Well…” The man darts assessing glances between Luna and me before he appears to come to a decision. “My brother and his wife are going through a tough time,” he says reluctantly. That explains why not only the master, but also the spare bedroom, look to be occupied. “The atmosphere in the house hasn’t exactly been healthy, so I guess these past few months he mostly sticks to his room.”
“I see.” I send Luna a meaningful look. “Would you excuse me for a minute?” I announce, already pulling my phone from my pocket as I walk out of the room and down the stairs.
“Talk to me,” Jasper answers.
“Get on the horn with Yeager. If he doesn’t know it yet, the McKinleys are having marital issues. The kind that has them sleep in separate bedrooms and is bad enough the boy hides out in his room all the time.”
“Gotcha.”
“And, Jas? There’s one other thing; Thomas has a PS4 sitting on the floor next to a state-of-the-art gaming chair, complete with headset and mic.”
“Is that right?”
“Age, looks, soccer, and now PlayStation. If it was just the gaming, I wouldn’t even consider it significant, but add it to the other similarities, it could well be. Want me to bring in the system?”
“You bet. I’ll get hold of the Farmington office, see what they found on Seth’s.”
“Right.” All this is hitting way too close to home. “What about that group that Max—”
“Already thinking of that, brother. Not taking any chances, but just to say; Max is not blond and blue-eyed.”
Max may not be, but I know another boy who hits those marks perfectly.
EIGHTEEN
Marya
I wake up at a gentle touch to my face.
“Why aren’t you in bed?”
I blink my eyes open to find Dylan leaning over the back of the couch. From the TV the late-night sounds of Saturday Night Live filter through. It’s been years since I watched it and decided to while waiting for word from Dylan.
“I’m watching SNL.”
“With your eyes closed?”
I decide the best way to handle this is to ignore it.
I scoot my legs over the side of the couch, sit up, grab the remote, and mute the sound. “How are you? Do you need something to eat? A beer?” I turn around to face him and see the sign of fatigue mar his features. I badly want to ask if there’s any news on the missing boy, but I’m pretty sure if he’d been found he would’ve told me.
“I had something at the office earlier, but I wouldn’t mind a kiss.”
I put my knee in the couch and reach my arms around his neck, lifting my face. “I can do that.”
I’m surprised when his mouth is infinitely gentle on mine. Not sure what I was expecting—hunger, or frustration, or maybe both—but not the tenderness he is showing me. His eyes are haunted when he lifts his head and kisses the tip of my nose.
“Come sit down,” I invite him, but he shakes his head.
“I don’t want to sit down. What I want to do is take you to bed and make love to you,” he says, his eyes filled with regret. “But with just a few hours to get some sleep before getting back to the search, I wouldn’t be doing our first time together justice. I’ll need time for that and I’m dead on my feet.” He winces at his own choice of words. “I should go.”
The thought of him driving home to an empty house doesn’t sit well. “Stay here,” I offer, getting up off the couch. “Head on upstairs, I’m just going to lock up and take care of the lights.” I don’t wait for an answer and head for the kitchen to put the last few things in the dishwasher before turning it on. By the time I turn around, he’s no longer there.
I can’t even imagine dealing with the most depraved aspects of society every day then coming home to try and instill morals and values in a child you’re raising on your own. So many things I’ve come to learn about Dylan, in the past few months, have not only made the eight-year gap disappear, but have slowly eroded any misgivings I’ve had about letting another man in.
My judgment hasn’t exactly been the greatest, but I don’t think I’m making a mistake letting Dylan in.
Throwing the deadbolt on the front door and turning off the hall light, I head upstairs.
He’s already in bed, just the light on the nightstand left on. His clothes are tossed on the ladder-back chair, in front of the antique dressing table I bought at a garage sale and fixed up; the only nice piece of furniture in my bedroom. The rest is functional at best; an old dresser with half the handles missing off the drawers, a box spring and mattress on the floor serve as my bed, and a cheap metal Walmart side table is my nightstand.
I pull one of my nightshirts from the dresser and slip into the bathroom where I quickly change, brush my teeth, and wash my face, before walking out.
Dylan hasn’t moved, he looks asleep, but when I turn off the lamp and slip under the covers, he immediately turns toward me. A strong arm snakes around my middle and pulls me snug with my back to his front. He tangles his legs with mine and pins my body to the mattress. His face burrows in my hair and I hear him let out a deep sigh. “Thank you,” he mumbles, and within seconds his breathing deepens.
The hard body pressed against me is causing a hot ache between my legs, so it takes me a little longer to drift off.
-
I wake up when Dylan leaves the bed.
A quick glance at the alarm clock tells me it’s just after four. A little over three and a half hours of sleep. Ugh.
I hear the toilet flush and then the shower turn on.
Dylan, naked in my shower.
My thighs rub together restlessly before I finally throw back the covers and swing my legs over the side. I should probably get some coffee going, toast him a bagel, so he doesn’t have to start what’s probably going to be another tough day on an empty stomach.
I get up, aiming for the door when I sneak a glance at the bathroom. The door is left open a crack, and I can see his vague outline behind the condensed glass shower doors.
So fucking tempting.
Making a split-second decision, I head downstairs. I get a pot of coffee going, pull a couple of bagels from the freezer—leaving them to defrost—before rushing back up.
“Oomph…”
I’m lifted off my feet the moment I enter the bedroom and tossed unceremoniously on the bed. Dylan’s still wet body lands on mine.
“Where’d you go?” he rumbles, running his nose along mine.
“Jesus, you scared me.” I’m still catching my breath, but my hands are already exploring the damp skin of his back. “I have coffee started, was going to toast some bagels.”
He brushes impatiently at the wet hair dropping over his eyes. “You didn’t have to do that.” The hand that was at his hair now cups my face, his eyes on my mouth, thumb stroking along my bottom lip.
“Can’t let you go on an empty stomach,” I share, voice hoarse with arousal at that simple touch.
His hand travels down, over my throat brushing down between my breasts. My heart is racing against his palm.
“I was going for a different kind of breakfast.” His eyes follow his hand trailing down to the hem of my nightshirt.
“Dylan…”
“Off, Sweetheart.”
He tugs the material from under my hips and works it up over my breasts. I’ve barely lifted my arms when the shirt is whipped off and tossed blindly next to the bed. His mouth latches onto my nipple as his hands go to work on my panties.
“I was going to wait for a perfect time,” he mumbles, his lips brushing my skin. “With our lives, perfect times don’t exist, only opportunities. I’m taking it.”
My panties go the route of my shirt and he uses his knees to spread my legs, dropping his pelvis in the V they create. His rigid cock is hot against me, and I instinctively pull a knee up to his hip, hooking my heel around the back of his leg. My hands slide down over the taut muscle of his ass, holding him in place as I tilt my hips.
