Wicked Circle

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Toni’s words didn’t sink in at first. When they did, Johnny’s lungs expelled all oxygen, as if he’d just been kicked in the gut and a terrible weight had crashed onto his shoulders. His bones felt too fragile to bear it.

“I remember the first time I ever saw you. You and my daughter were teamed up for a class project. I’d just gotten home from work, and you arrived shortly after. I’d passed you on the road and thought, ‘What’s that kid doing out now?’ It was cold and night was falling. Then you showed up on my porch. My daughter brought you into the kitchen to introduce you, and I thought, ‘That poor kid.’ You’d walked in the snow in your sneakers. Your jeans had holes in them and were wet from the knee down. Your hair was a mess—it still is, I see—and you barely made eye contact. I set out some cans of soda and a bag of chips and started dinner. You finished off the chips and paid very little attention to the project.”

Johnny’s legs had become gelatin. He staggered into the pew and sat.

“It was a subject she struggled with, and she was frustrated with your half-ass effort. I remember her words exactly. ‘Maybe nothing matters to you, but this grade is important to me, so either man up and help or go home.’ You stood up to leave. As she saw you to the door, I heard her tell you that she was going to do something with her life, she was going to college and needed a good high school record. She said she wouldn’t let you ruin her GPA so she’d just do the whole thing and put your name on it, too. You answered with a sarcastic ‘Gee, thanks.’ She said you should thank her, because it’d be the best grade in your whole high school career.” Toni shook her head at the memory. “I didn’t like the idea of you walking home in the snow when you’d barely just arrived, but I was so proud of her, standing up and fighting for something she wanted.

“You see, after her father died . . . she’d been lost for so long. But she’d fought above her sorrow and depression, and she had goals again.

“I told her how proud of her I was. She said you were a loser anyway.” Toni tilted her head. “Then the doorbell rang.”

“I came back?”

“You did. You promised you’d man up. I could have cried, because I knew whatever you had at home, it was worse than the wrath my little girl had just poured on you. The next time you showed up to work on the project, you had nicer jeans on, though still wet to your knees, and your hair had been combed. The time after that I gave you a ride home and was appalled at how far you had to go. You said it was shorter to go through the woods. It explained why your pants were wet up to your knees.”

“What kind of house did I live in?”

“A modest older two-story on the side of a hill. It was an odd little place, kind of in a hairpin curve of the road. There were no houses around it, and the woods stretched right up to the back door.”

She knows where I lived. “What city? What state?”

“Saranac Lake, New York.”

He shook his head. “I don’t remember. Even hearing it, it sounds foreign.” He paused. “What’s your daughter’s name?”

“Francine. Her daddy called her Frankie from day one, and I always said he would have gotten such a kick out of the two of you, Frankie and Johnny.”

“Do you have a picture of her?”

Toni flipped into the book again, offered him another photo. This one was not from school. It was of a girl curled up in a recliner with a book. She was looking into the camera as if to say, You’re interrupting a good part.

Frankie was beautiful. Her light brown hair was straight; it hung to her shoulders, and wisps curled lazily under her chin. Her skin was pale, and her blue eyes were like deep seas. “Where is she now?”

“She’s dead.”

“Dead?” Johnny repeated, head snapping up.

“Three years ago, some of her high school friends had come home from college for the weekend. They were about to graduate and wanted to go out for Cinco de Mayo. Frankie wasn’t going to go—”

“Wait, her friends came home? Wasn’t she in college?”

Toni shook her head. “She didn’t go. She was hired as a cashier at the grocery and stayed home to raise Evan.”

Johnny swallowed hard. Evan. His gaze fell to the picture of the boy. His name is Evan. . . . He’s . . .

“She wasn’t going to go,” Toni said. “You see, she always thought about you on Cinco de Mayo.”

“Why? Am I Mexican?”

Toni almost smiled. “Not that I know of. Eight years ago on Cinco de Mayo I was working late. You weren’t supposed to be at my house, but teenagers don’t listen to those kinds of rules when a school project has blossomed into first love. Shortly before I was expected home, you left . . . your usual route of going down the road then crossing into the woods as always. You were attacked, and somehow, you made it back to the driveway and collapsed. That’s where you were when I pulled in. We called an ambulance. You were in the hospital for three days. Frankie was guilt-ridden because she hadn’t known you’d been lying there in front of our garage—injured. She wouldn’t leave your side. They said it was a wild dog or a wolf. It was too soon to do a check for the virus, but they had you tested for rabies and signed you up to get tested for the wære virus before the next full moon.”

A shadow of painful memory shaded the woman’s face. “So, five years later, when her friends wanted to go out, she was reluctant, and I knew she was thinking of you. I encouraged her to go.” Her expression hardened, fell. Tears welled up. “Four of them went out dancing. Only two of them survived when a drunk driver hit their car on the way home.”

Toni tugged a tissue from her purse.

She shoved the diary at Johnny. “This was her diary. She kept it sporadically during high school. It tells the story of you ‘the loser’ becoming you ‘the boyfriend’ across the spring, and there’s more after . . . after you disappeared.” Toni swallowed and crumpled the damp tissue. “She didn’t know she was pregnant until after you were gone. She was so scared when she told me. Evan was born on Valentine’s Day.” She valiantly met his eyes and said, “He’ll be eight this February. It’s the last birthday of his that I’ll see.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she dabbed the tissue at them again. “Then he’ll have nobody, John. Nobody but you.”

Suddenly the puzzle that was his past had new pieces that changed the picture entirely. With all the instincts he’d been struggling to control, Johnny sat there oddly aware of the absence of them. He was numb.

He made himself think the words: My son.

Was it possible? Comparing his school pictures and this child’s, yes it was. Not just possible, but probable.

So why didn’t an immediate course of action spring into his mind?

I’m not father material.

A wanna-be rock star lived a selfish kind of life. A wærewolf could be dangerous. A political leader lived with constant danger.

I should tell her to put the kid into children’s services. Let a normal family raise him.

His heart skipped a beat at the thought.

He’d only traveled his rock-star path searching for a sense of belonging, and didn’t family provide that? He knew plenty of wæres who were fantastic parents. Who were the political leaders trying to make the world better for if not their own offspring?

All he’d wanted since waking in the park was to know his past and to find his family. This wasn’t a possibility he’d ever considered, but he had some leads now that could help him find his parents.

That was still a goal in his heart.

Recognizing that, he knew that his own need to find that truth would never leave him. He couldn’t leave this kid—his kid—to grow up with the same need to know. He couldn’t let him grow up without real family. He couldn’t cut him off like he’d been cut off.

Johnny stood, and his voice was as unsteady as his legs. “Toni, if you’ll ride back to the den with me, I’ll get my car and drive you home.” He tucked the pictures into the diary and put it in the inside pocket of his sport jacket.

“It’s a very long drive.”

“I want to meet him.”