Shannon awoke the next morning stiff and sore from sleeping on the couch, but all that aside, she felt rested and ready to charge forward on a new day. She planned to do more work on Cole’s case and the book she hoped to write someday with his blessing. She sat down with her first cup of coffee to read over her writings from yesterday when the doorbell rang. Who could be here on a weekday? Wasn’t everyone she knew working? She combed her fingers through her mussed hair and opened the door to the last person she expected to see there. John. Before she slammed the heavy wooden door in his face, he stuck his foot out and stepped inside uninvited and unwanted. It was then she noticed the worried lines around his mouth and forehead. The dark circles surrounding his eyes casting deep shadows. The anger and hurt from last week melted, and she reached out with her suddenly trembling hand to touch his arm. “John, what’s wrong?”
He folded Shannon into his arms and cried out, “Cameron’s gone. He ran away.”
Shannon choked back a sob, her knees buckled, refusing to carry her weight. Fortunately for her, John supported her and carried her up the stairs to the couch. She clung to him and cried as he told her what he knew, which didn’t amount to a whole hell of a lot.
Cameron sat curled up in the last seat of the bus, hugging his coat close to himself as he tried to sleep. The bus was nearly empty, cold and smelled like exhaust fumes, but he didn’t care. It represented his ride to freedom. He was still too upset at the turn of events of the past twenty-four hours to sleep. His brain buzzed along running a marathon, but his body had been left behind at the starting line. So what if his father caught him getting high in his room, no big deal? But to Lieutenant McKenzie it was a big deal. His Dad, Saint John, like he never got high when he was his age? Please. What did he take him for, an idiot? But that was just the beginning. He tore through his room spilling drawers, emptying the closet until he found his stash.
Okay, so he had some pot, a pipe and some pills in his closet. It wasn’t like he would turn into a drug addict or anything. His father had gone on and on about how he was turning into a derelict and going down the road to Nowhereville. That had stung. Cameron couldn’t ever remember his dad speaking to him so hurtfully before. He had taken his best and favorite guitar and smashed it against his bedpost over and over until it splintered into a thousand pieces. Then Cameron saw the look on his face and was afraid of his father for the first time in his life. He thought for sure he would hit him. His father’s eyes were black and glazed over, his face beet red, and Cameron could see the muscles tensed up in his neck and his veins bulging in his forehead. His hands were fisted tightly at his side and Cameron could tell he struggled for control. Cameron wiped the tears pooling in his eyes as he remembered it.
The only other time he had ever seen his father so upset was during the fight with Cole. He’d never been like that with him before, and he’d never said such hurtful things to him before either, not to mention the fact he ruined his favorite guitar. And that was the problem. His dad didn’t understand him.
Couldn’t understand him.
Didn’t want to understand him.
He shouted at him, asking why he couldn’t be like most sixteen-year-olds, thinking about sports, working a job or planning for college. Why did he just sit in his room writing music and lyrics and playing his guitar? And oh, don’t forget about getting high. His father told him he was throwing his life away. Well, guess what Dad? It was his fucking life to throw away if he wanted to and his father be dammed.
That night he packed his backpack and his old guitar and waited until dawn to sneak out the door. He’d left a note for his father and a message on his mom’s answering machine. He crashed in the woods near the bank, waiting for it to open. He withdrew everything he had. It was quite a bit, he had eighteen-hundred dollars, and it would get him far across the country until he decided what to do from there.
After hitchhiking his way to the Braintree T-station, he took the subway to the bus depot and bought a one-way ticket cross-country to Los Angeles. He figured he’d look Cole up when he got there, and maybe he could live with him for a while. He knew his mom would be really sad. First she lost Cole, then him, but this was something he had to do.
All this thinking caused his chest to ache, but at least it took his mind off his rumbling stomach. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and he hoped the bus stopped at a rest area soon.
Cole entered the hotel room at midnight after another sold out show in Philadelphia. Pittsburgh had also been a sellout, and he still tingled numb over it all. Tomorrow he flew to California for a parole check, then off to Chicago. He tried not to remember the last time he visited Chicago. The ache in his heart was excruciating. He tried not to think about the deranged killer’s attempt on Shannon’s life but the good things they shared. Shannon, God, how he missed her, missed being with her, missed her laugh, missed her smile and everything else about her. He had spent the last half an hour in the bar downstairs staring at a glass of Jack Daniels while he sipped a soda water with lime.
It had been tempting. Oh, so tempting. He didn’t know what he was trying to prove to himself. That he had restraint and self-control? Or was he trying to slide into self-destruction mode and ruin his life all over again? He finally got up and left disgusted at himself for his self-pity. Enough was enough. He had to stop. So what if he had been dealt more raw deals than most people? Get over it.
He dreamed during the night of the early days with the band, before Lindsey’s affairs, before his self-destruction tendencies. Those had been the days of his innocence and youth. Those were the days of loving Lindsey, his music, AJ, Ted and Brad.
Why and when had things gone so terribly wrong?
AJ awoke to his heart pounding like a runaway freight train heading for derailment. He fought with all his might to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth, hoping to calm his heart rate and bring it under control. After he succeeded, he sat up in bed, turned on the bedside lamp and tried to remember what he dreamed about.
Lindsey. He’d dreamed about Lindsey. But there’d been more. Flashes and bits and pieces of the past. Some of it coincided with his memory, but some of it was strange and foreign to his mind. There was yelling and fighting between him and Lindsey which was odd as he never remembered fighting with her.
Aside from the dream, the most bizarre thing of all was the cryptic message he’d received that morning. Someone accused him of killing Lindsey. The no-name person claimed he was hiding in the Jackson suite at the time and saw him, yes him, stab Lindsey. AJ’s whole body shivered in dread. “Could it be true?” And why after reading the note, which had an unusual odor, did he feel lightheaded and strange?
“Where could he have gone?” Shannon asked as she paced the floor of her living room for the hundredth time since learning of Cameron’s running away. Nobody answered her, which she’d expected, because nobody knew the answer.
Her body twitched and her heart raced from all the caffeine she’d drunk and poisoned her body with. She paused and looked out the windows. Mother Nature was in a rare mood. The clouds hung low, dark and menacing. It would only be a matter of time before the rain pelted them in wind-driven sheets. Gusts howled, and the waves were a surfer’s dream come true. The ocean looked like one large endless white cap after another.
The weather could not have depicted Shannon’s mood any better. As she turned her back on the windows and surveyed the gloomy faces of her family, she wondered what the hell she was doing here. She should be out looking for her son. It had been two days, and they had heard not a single word from him.
When she craved his voice, she listened to his message on her machine. “Mom, I’m sorry but I can’t take Dad anymore. Don’t worry about me. I love you.” She had sat in the dark the first night she’d found out he’d run away and listened to the recording over and over, at least fifty times. She finally had to stop as her grasp on sanity hung tenaciously by a thread. If she hadn’t stopped, she would have lost it and who knew if she would have come out of it.
Shannon had not seen nor spoken to John in two days. Every time she called, Cheryl told her he was locked in Cameron’s bedroom. He wouldn’t come out, nor let anyone in. Jesus John, a fine time to fall apart.
So, to take matters into her own hands, she called anyone Cameron was even remotely friendly with, and unfortunately no one had seen or heard from him. She called the bank and knew he had cleaned out his account. Shannon had felt a small, short-lived relief knowing he at least had money on him. The next thing she did was call her private detective friend, Scott Danvers and hired him to find Cameron. And so far she had heard nothing from him. They couldn’t trace his phone because he’d left his cell at home.
Her brother Mitch arrived with take out, jarring her out of her thoughts. She’d not had time to speak to him in private about the vice-president lady he was in love with to find out what happened when he went to her home in Texas to fly her back to Boston. Shannon hoped he had something good and juicy to tell her because she needed a break from the constant state of worry and doom her life had become. She knew at some point she needed to confide in her family about the incident in Chicago, but they had enough to worry about with Cameron without adding that to the mix. So once again, she put the danger to herself into the recesses of her mind to be visited later.
Ever since John told her about Cameron, she felt as though something physically squeezed her lungs, choking off her air supply. Add to that the walls were moving in, and she had to constantly stand on her porch gulping air as her pulse raced and her head spun. It was not a pleasant feeling, and she didn’t see things changing anytime in the foreseeable future, unless she heard from Cameron.
She loved her family dearly, but their hushed voices and their eyes constantly following her everywhere, expecting her to breakdown any minute, was not helping her anxiety attacks any.
“Shannon, honey,” said her mom in her placating tone. “Come eat while the food’s hot.”
She walked over to the table, sat down and stared at the food on her plate. Eggplant Parmesan, pasta and garlic bread sticks, her favorite food from her favorite Italian restaurant. If only she could stomach it. Even sitting here smelling the food was too much for her tonight. She went for the wine her brother poured for her instead and downed every last drop. Perhaps if she got good and drunk, she’d pass out.
Glancing around the table, she realized this pictured not your typical Gallagher gathering. No talking, no laughing, no jokes and no wild story telling. The only other time Shannon remembered such a somber dinner happened the day she told her parents she was pregnant. And oh God, what an awful day that had been as her mother cried all day and her father couldn’t look her in the eye as though he were ashamed of her. Ashamed of what she had done with John. She could read her father’s thoughts—How could his little girl have sex?
All she had to say was thank God they’d liked John. It had made it a little easier for them to handle the fact their oldest daughter was pregnant and getting married at seventeen. And now here they were some seventeen years later. Her mother trying hard not to cry and her father once again having a hard time meeting her in the eye, but she knew it was because he felt helpless to solve the crisis. Bridget and Rachel were quiet, not like themselves at all. And not once had Bridget made a comment about Cole. Thank you, God.
Now—Mitch—God love him, sat in his seat and tried his hardest to act normal, but he couldn’t do it alone. He had taken several days off from work and had moved into her guest bedroom while her parents were sleeping at Bridget’s house in her extra bedroom.
She appreciated her family wanting to be close to her, but at this very moment she needed space, she needed air. She heard herself mumble something unintelligible, and then she left the table, grabbed her jacket and ran down to the beach. The rain had finally begun, and in no time her hair stuck plastered to her head and she couldn’t tell whether it was her tears or the rain blocking her vision as she stumbled down toward her favorite jetties. Or what was left of them because the tide had risen so much higher than normal thanks to the storm.
Shannon stood shivering on the rocks, battling the wind and trying to keep her footing on the slippery surface while the spray from the ocean beat against her face. The wind whipped her body from every direction, the waves crashed and churned out in the ocean while the rain flew sideways, pelting her from every conceivable angle.
Everything happening around her was also happening inside her body. Never had her insides hurt so badly.
Before she knew it, she threw her arms out, lifting her face up to the sky and screamed, “Cameron, where are you?” Her screams were swallowed up by storm sounds surrounding her and her heart bottomed out. How would he ever hear her?
“John, you can’t stay in there forever,” he heard his wife say through the closed bedroom door. He could hear the concern laced in her voice, making him feel worse.
“I’m coming in.”
Cheryl opened the door slowly. At least she respected him and didn’t turn on the light, taking away the darkness. He needed the darkness. He belonged in the dark for what he’d done to his son.
“I brought you something to eat.” She placed the tray on the night table then sat down on Cameron’s bed and peered intently at him through the dark.
John sat on the floor, his back up against the wall, his legs out straight, and he held a picture of his son in his quivering hands. His eyes burned dry as he’d already shed all the tears humanly possible for one day. His heart hurt and seemed to hardly beat as he felt scarcely alive. Nothing anyone had ever told him could have prepared him for the emotions churning inside him. Since Cameron ran away, a dark abyss swirled all around him, engulfing him within its obscurity. The bottomless pit built on guilt, anguish and pure, stark terror.
Cameron was a smart, streetwise kid, but there were always decisions to be made, and it would only take him making one wrong one to cost him his life.
He’d sat for two days in the dark gloom, torturing himself with:
What if I’d done this?
What if I’d said that?
It was not helping the situation, but shit, he just couldn’t move. He kept remembering Shannon’s face when he told her and her collapsing and sobbing in his arms. And for the first time, she hit him and lashed out at him. Oh, he knew it was because of the anguish and heartbreak she felt, but she’d frightened him with the wild and unfocussed look in her eyes.
She had said things to him he would likely never forget, wanted to forget, but probably wouldn’t nonetheless, because it all rang true. He was a control freak and a self-centered bastard. And he didn’t understand Cameron’s need for music.
It was the same with her writing. Shannon always told him it wasn’t what she did. It was who she was. It wasn’t as if she’d chosen to be a writer, it had chosen her with the endless stories running rampart in her brain and needing to be told. It had gotten to where she couldn’t ignore them anymore. He came to understand her need for writing, so why couldn’t he understand Cameron’s need for music and song writing?
Probably because he was terrified he would end up like—all right—like Cole Jackson. Someone so smart and talented that they threw it all away for the lure of drugs, alcohol, fame and sex. How many great ones had self-destructed to the point of death? Great ones like Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin and Kurt Cobain. He realized it was a different time and era, but that didn’t matter. It was what he remembered. Now if he took in the whole picture, there were a tremendous amount of highly talented musicians who led fairly normal lives. So why did he always remember the tragedies instead of the success stories?
A pessimist, never an optimist that was him. Yeah, he was one of those people who saw the half empty glass. Shannon, and Cheryl for the matter, saw the glass half full. So why couldn’t he learn from them?
Glancing at his beautiful, pregnant wife, he actually felt his heart pick up a beat. So he wasn’t dead after all? A damn good thing considering he had four children and another on the way. If only he didn’t feel eighty-years-old instead of thirty-four.
He finally resigned himself to getting up and out of the room, but as he stood he grabbed for the wall to steady himself. Having no food for almost twenty-four hours was not necessarily a wise decision. His body ached as he walked toward Cheryl with a numb butt and legs. Sitting down he held out his arms to her and thank God, she melted into them, laid her head on his chest, and as always, had the patience to stay and give to him her understanding, her love and the comfort of her body.
Burying his face in her hair he breathed in the scent of her shampoo, freesia, her favorite. And since John didn’t care what he smelled like, he used her shampoo. Maybe he did it on purpose so when they were apart, his own scented hair reminded him of her.
John would never forget the first time he set eyes on her. He’d been on routine patrol and had come across a beat-up old Mustang with a flat tire and a young blonde cursing up a blue streak and kicking the tire out of frustration. It was obvious immediately to John that she was having some trouble changing the tire herself.
Now, it was one of those ninety degrees, hot and humid summer days when the last thing he wanted to do was get out of his air-conditioned cruiser. One step out of the car and he knew what waited for him. Instant suffocation would come. The weather reports had said the air quality was poor and would make even the healthiest of people gasp for a decent breath of cool, dry air. And the weather reports were right. The air sucked.
But he climbed out of his cruiser and went to do his civic duty. He fully intended to ask if he could call a service truck for help. But one look at her pretty face, red from the heat, her tank top clinging to her small firm breasts, her barely there jean shorts, frayed at the bottom, showing off incredible legs and pink flip-flops bringing out the pink polish of her toenails, and he’d lost all capability to breathe or speak.
He’d grabbed the tire iron, changed her flat and replaced it with her spare without so much as saying a word. Cheryl had gone on and on, but John did not understand what she said, all he could think about was sex and what a great time to be thinking about sex. What was he, some kind of pervert? He’d come to the aid of a stranger and could think of nothing but doing it with her.
After completing the tire change, they went their separate ways. However, two days later, while sitting at his desk, working on his never-ending paperwork pile, he glanced up to the sound of a woman’s voice, a voice that sounded vaguely familiar, and he stared into the prettiest amber eyes he’d ever seen. The voice and the amber eyes belonged to the pretty blonde whose flat tire he had changed.
Today she wore a sleeveless, short sundress and instantly his stomach tightened and his blood pumped in a southerly direction. Damn, she made him think of sex. Christ John, think of something else and quick before you have to stand up and shake her hand, her small hands full of something wrapped in tinfoil.
“May I help you?” he said in his calm, patrolman’s voice, though he felt anything but calm.
“Yes, I...my name is Cheryl Bradford, and I wanted to stop by and thank you for changing my tire the other day.” She paused, held out her hands and blushed. “I brought you something I baked.”
John took the foil-wrapped package from her, his fingers lightly brushing her soft delicate ones. “Thank you. What is it?”
She smiled, bringing John’s attention to her full, pink and kissable lips, and he again thought of sex. Oh Boy! He was in trouble.
“It’s blueberry bread. I made it for you and picked the berries myself.” She paused and suddenly looked uncertain. “I hope you’re not allergic to berries?”
John barely comprehended what she said as his focus centered solely on her mouth and what pleasure it could bring him.
“Are you allergic?”
John coughed and averted his eyes from her lips to the bread he carried. “Um, no and thank you. I love blueberry bread.”
She shifted on her feet, suddenly seeming at a loss for words. “Well, I better be going. I don’t want to keep you from your work.”
Think John? And think fast. Don’t let this incredible woman slip away because if you do, you may never see her again.
“I was just leaving. I’ll escort you to your car,” he lied. He wasn’t going anywhere until his paperwork pile disappeared.
There was a moment or two of awkward silence when they reached her Mustang. And to John’s surprise, she reached inside her car and handed him a business card. “Bradford’s Bakery.” He stared at the card, bewildered. Was there a business purpose to this? Or could he hope it was personal and he hadn’t misinterpreted the silent interested looks she’d thrown his way—still throwing his way now.
“You’re a baker?” How stupid of him, of course she was, the card said so.
Her laughter was light and nervous. “Yes, but it’s not why I gave it to you.”
John raised his brows in silent hope. “It’s not?”
She blushed, and it made her look about sixteen, not that she was probably much older than twenty, anyway. Hell, he’d only just turned twenty-five himself.
“No,” she replied and vanished inside her car. He continued standing there staring at her car like an idiot as she exited the parking lot. Why hadn’t he asked her out? She all but told him she was interested. He knew why though. He was out of practice. Way out of practice.
John spent the rest of the day struggling with his feelings. He had been divorced from Shannon now for two years. There should be no guilt in wanting to date another woman. Just because he hadn’t yet, didn’t mean he couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
However, until this point, he’d yet to meet a woman who interested him. Someone who intrigued him to the point he wanted to pursue her. A woman who attracted him physically, sent his libido into overdrive and made him realize how long it had been. Made him yearn for the intimacy two people shared. Shit! Cheryl did it all. Made him want all and believe he could have all.
He had tried his hardest with Shannon. He had loved her beyond reason at seventeen. Had done right by her and married her when she became pregnant. He loved his son, but unfortunately, their marriage never progressed forward. They’d been too young, but nothing and he meant nothing, would ever make him regret what happened. He had a beautiful seven-year-old son and an ex-wife he still loved as a friend. Yet, there was something missing, the emotional and physical attachment with another human being.
His fingers absentmindedly toyed with the card. Maybe it was time to move forward in his life. That evening he called her because if he didn’t do it then, he would lose his nerve, never call and always wonder what if? And what ifs were never good.
They met the following night for dinner and eight months later—they married. That had happened nine years ago, and she still made him ache for her constantly. His body, heart and soul needed her, loved her.
“I’m sorry I shut you out.”
“John...”
“No, let me finish.” He looked at her, and she was still as pretty as ever. The years had been kind to her. She still looked twenty-three, the age she had been when they met.
“I don’t know what I would do without you in my life. You are everything to me.” His trembling hand slid gently over her belly. “Our children are my life. And I know you love Cameron, even though he’s not biologically your son, and you’re hurting and frightened for him.” John sniffed and wiped the tears from his eyes.
“I shouldn’t have shut you out, but I had to be alone. To think...hell,” he snorted, “I wanted to sink into the dark underground of blame and shame knowing he ran away because of me.”
“Oh honey,” Cheryl said as she placed her soft, warm hand on his cheek.
“I’m okay now. I’m ready to go downstairs, join the world and fight for Cameron.” He squeezed Cheryl as tight as her expanding belly allowed. “Fight for all our children. I’ll never let you down again. Or shut you out. I promise.”
After John spent the day with his wife and three small children, he drove to Shannon’s house, ready to face the consequences for everything that happened. He was ready to face Shannon and apologize for his behavior of late. But before he left, his son, Matt needed to go number two, and for some reason he always wanted his dad to wipe him. Matt said Mom was a girl and boys went to the bathroom with boys.
As John stood outside the bathroom waiting for the words, “I’m done,” from his son, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment. Damn he was asleep on his feet. The first stop, once he left his house, would be Dunkin Donuts for a large black hazelnut coffee.
John stood, and stood, and stood, waiting for Matt who could take ten minutes or longer to go. Today, however, John had neither the patience nor the time and he barged through the door. His feet froze in place as he looked at his son. John didn’t know whether to laugh or whether to yell at him.
There was his son sitting on the toilet seat, his pants down around his ankles, oblivious to John’s presence as he plunged his face with the red rubber toilet plunger.
“Matt,” John yelled, struggling to stay in control.
Matt dropped the plunger and John swallowed a laugh. A bright red circle outlined his son’s face from where the plunger had sucked on it for quite some time.
John fought disgust and laughter at the same time. It had to be the most disgusting thing John could think of to put on your face. Christ, didn’t Matt know what they used it for? After John scrubbed his face three times with anti-bacterial soap, he left his noisy house and was now alone in his car driving down Route 139 toward Brant Rock, laughing his ass off so hard his eyes watered. Matt was a nut. What the hell would possess someone to plunge his face?
God, it was disgusting when you thought about where the plunger had been. But putting all grown up thoughts aside, to an almost three-year-old, it probably looked like a fun way to kill time while he waited for his shit to come out. Well, no more toilet plungers inside the bathroom. Matt needed toys to play with to occupy his toilet time, or a book. Yeah, a book would be good. Anything would be better than a plunger. What a story to tell Matt when he grew older, and they both could have a good laugh. John could also bribe him, but good, with threats of divulging the details to his friends, or worse, a girlfriend. John laughed again, wondering if Matt would ever remember doing it.
A short time later he pulled up to Shannon’s house, turned off his ignition and counted the cars in her driveway. Shit! The whole Gallagher family appeared present and accounted for. Just what he needed, the ex-in-laws giving him the evil eye and judging him.
The Gallaghers wove a tight group. One he had been part of once. He’d had no complaints about his in-laws, they were great. They had always been good to him, but because of his own insecurities about knocking up their teenage daughter, he’d never felt comfortable around them. He knew he probably read things into it that didn’t exist. He also knew there would be no evil eyes or accusations, but he just couldn’t help feeling like he deserved them.
His heart hammered around inside his chest as he waited for his knock to be answered. It was finally by Mitch, who immediately let him in and shook his hand.
“Where’s Shannon?” John asked nervously as he listened for voices.
“Asleep in her room. She hasn’t slept in days, and it finally caught up with her.”
“Is everyone here?” As if he needed to ask.
“Yeah,” answered a solemn Mitch.