Reunion (23 page)

In a way, he was getting ready—ready for the reunion. It was coming soon, he could feel it. He disarmed one gate, then another, then the last one, before standing in the shadows and staring up at the house, trying to see it through Garrett’s eyes.

Would Garrett recognize home if he saw it? Would he remember the first five years of his life, or was his mind too scattered?

Gabriel turned slowly, gazing out across the grounds to the high stone wall that surrounded the estate. Even in the darkness, the roses were beautiful. Like miniature worlds where fairies might dwell.

He stared for a very long while, letting himself remember, letting go of the pain of his loss, preparing himself for a new kind of pain. It was just as he’d told Laura before. He
was
his brother’s keeper. Only this time the resentment was gone. All that was left was resigned acceptance and a sweet excitement—the kind a child has in knowing that Christmas is coming but he still has to wait. Yes, Garrett was coming. For the past two hours, the feeling had been growing stronger and stronger. The question was when.

He gave the place one long, last look, his shoulders slumping with weariness. He’d done everything possible to ensure Garrett’s safe—

Then he froze. The old gate! He hadn’t thought of it in years. It was set in the stone wall at the back of the estate, covered with a thick growth of vines. And it was locked. What if that was the door Garrett remembered? What if that was the only way he knew to get in?

Gabriel started running.

Laura ran through the rooms calling Gabriel’s name, but all she heard was the echo of her own voice. When she discovered that the alarm was off again, she groaned and headed for the door. She had to find him.

The front door was unlocked, but when she ran outside, he was nowhere in sight. She dashed back in the house, calling his name.

He didn’t answer.

To her dismay, every door in the house was unlocked. She called his name again. Again there was no answer. She exited through the kitchen door. The grounds at the back of the house were far larger than those at the front. It was going to take her a while to cover every inch, but she couldn’t rest until she found him. She walked out of the house, her eyes wide and frightened as she started down the steps.

“Please, Gabriel, please be all right.”

Using the security lights to guide her, she started to search, every now and then stopping to call out his name, praying for an answer that never came.

Her heart began to hammer against her rib cage in a hard, uneven rhythm. Her eyes threatened tears, but she kept blinking them furiously, refusing to give in to the fear. Her body was chilled, her hands cold and clammy. She wanted to scream but was afraid to let go of the sound.

Farther and farther she moved toward the back of the grounds, past the place where she’d found Gabriel last time, until she came face-to-face with a vine-covered wall. She thrust her hands into the leaves, feeling the substance of rock beneath. Then she turned and faced the house, peering through the darkness at its great, looming shape.

“Damn it, Gabriel, where are you? This isn’t funny.”

Something rustled in the bushes off to her right. She jumped and spun around, staring into the pitch-black shadows and searching for something she could recognize. Just when she thought it had been her imagination, the sound came again, only closer. Without waiting to see who—or what—it might be, she bolted toward the house, running as if the hounds of hell were at her heels.

Through the open spaces of the grounds.

Past the wishing well where Angela’s roses grew best.

Past the trees surrounding the tennis courts. Afraid to look behind her and afraid to slow down.

Ten feet from the first steps leading up to the patio, he stepped out of the shadows and into the light. Laura was running too fast. In an effort to miss him, she stumbled and fell. Reaching out to brace herself, she instinctively closed her eyes, preparing to give up some of her skin to the gravel beneath her feet.

She never hit ground. First there was a jolt, as if she’d hit something solid in midair. She felt hands clumsily clutching at her neck; then she was jerked to her feet and released, leaving her staggering to regain her own balance.

“You okay?”

She froze. It was Gabriel’s voice and Gabriel’s face, but the man standing before her wasn’t Gabriel. His hair was too long. His clothes were too dirty. And while Gabriel stood with a demeanor that told any onlooker he was very aware of being a man, this one did not. Laura’s heart skipped a beat. He’d had his hands around her neck. But not to kill her, just to catch her from falling. She wanted to laugh from the joy.

“Garrett?” she asked.

He smiled, and the smile broke her heart. It was childlike in delight, and yet a little afraid. And, after what he’d been forced to endure, she could understand why.

“My name is Laura.”

He nodded and then suddenly clutched his bag to his chest, like a child holds a toy.

“Home?” he asked.

She took a deep breath. “Yes, dear, this is home.”

A great sigh ripped through his body, but within moments, he stiffened, his ear cocked toward the darkness out of which Laura had emerged. Someone was coming.

Laura stiffened. There was only one person it could be, and she had to make sure that his arrival didn’t frighten Garrett away.

She stepped forward, aware that she was putting herself in harm’s way. She took Garrett by the hand and smiled up at him, trying to let him know everything was all right. Then she called out to Gabriel, just loud enough for him to hear.

“Gabriel…we’re here, sweetheart. Over here, near the light.”

Gabriel burst out of the darkness. “Good grief, baby, why were you running like that in the dark? You could have fallen and broken your—”

And then he saw them, standing beneath the glow of the security light, and the words died on his lips. Fear for Laura alternated with shock at the sight of the man whose hand she was holding. All he could think was, My God, no wonder they thought it was me.

“It’s all right,” Laura said, patting Garrett’s hand. “See, it’s only Gabriel.”

Garrett sighed as the tension in his body relaxed. He clutched his bag a little closer to his chest. Gabriel was his brother’s name. Although he had no concept of what the word actually meant, he remembered a time when he’d never been alone, when he’d always had someone who shared his world. When Gabriel started toward him, he didn’t recognize himself in the man. All Garrett knew was that he’d reached his goal.

Gabriel felt as if he were walking on air. He knew he was moving forward, but he never felt his feet hit the ground. Within the space of a heartbeat, he was close enough to touch his brother.

Garrett could see the man clearly now, and he relaxed even more. He knew who this was. He had a picture.

“My brother,” he said, and touched the middle of Gabriel’s chest with his finger, then yanked it away in sudden fear.

“No, it’s okay,” Gabriel said softly, and reached out for Garrett’s hand. “My brother, too.”

The smile on Garrett’s face was angelic. Laura couldn’t look at him without wanting to cry, and she could tell by the look on Gabriel’s face that he was feeling the same way.

“Home?” Garrett asked. “This is home?”

“Yes, Garrett, this is home,” Gabriel repeated, and then suddenly shivered. “Want to come inside?”

Garrett frowned as he turned around to look at the big, dark house, and in that moment Gabriel remembered something…something he hadn’t thought of in over twenty-five years.

“You can turn on the lights.”

Garrett beamed and then nodded. “Okay.”

Like a child waiting to be led, he held out his hand. Gabriel swallowed past the knot in his throat, took his brother by the hand and led him inside, pausing at the doorway and then putting Garrett’s fingers on the switch.

Light flooded the room, as well as Garrett’s heart. There was no danger here. He relaxed even more.

“Mother? Mother’s here?” Garrett asked.

Gabriel groaned. How does one tell a child his parent has died? He would have to call Dr. Wallis to find out what to do. For now, all he could do was put him at ease.

“No, Garrett, Mother’s not here. But I’m here. I will take care of you now.”

Garrett dropped into a kitchen chair and started to cry, huge, quiet tears that made little clean tracks on a very dirty face.

“Let me,” Laura said. “You call, I’ll do what I can to make things better.”

Gabriel frowned. He knew what she meant, but for some strange reason, he was reluctant to make the calls. The moment he did, this precious time with his brother would be lost forever.

Laura sighed. She knew what he was feeling, but right now, Garrett’s well-being had to take precedence over everything else.

“I’ll call Summers,” Gabriel said.

Laura nodded. “Before you do, why don’t you help me get him in a bath?”

Gabriel looked at his brother and then back at Laura. “Are you sure?”

She raised an eyebrow. It was her only comment on the way Garrett smelled. Gabriel rolled his eyes, then turned to his brother and took him by the hand.

“Come with me, Garrett. It’s time for you to get ready for bed.”

Garrett nodded. “Tired.”

“I know, buddy,” Gabriel said softly. “I know.”

“Been lost,” Garrett added.

Impulsively, Gabriel hugged him. “I know that, too. But you found us all by yourself, didn’t you? Mother would be so proud of you.”

Garrett beamed as Gabriel led him away.

This stakeout was worth every minute of Kirby Summers’ lost sleep. The phone call he’d gotten from Gabriel Connor had stunned him. While everyone was out running amuck, trying without any success to find the deadly Prince Charming killer, he’d walked past a succession of unmarked police cars surrounding the Connor residence without being seen.

Kirby had been ready to go get Garrett right there and then, but Gabriel had begged that they wait until morning. Kirby had relented, but only to a point. It would be daylight in a couple of hours. He’d given them until morning, but no longer.

And so he sat outside the gates of the Connor estate, waiting for sunrise and for the weight to be lifted off his shoulders. Getting this man off the streets was the most important move of his career.

Inside the mansion, Laura sat beside Gabriel’s bed, watching them sleep. At first they’d been uncertain as to how to make sure Garrett didn’t wake up and wander off. Oddly enough, it was Garrett himself who came up with the solution.

Clean and dry and wearing a pair of his brother’s pajamas, Garrett was all smiles as he came out of the bathroom. Gabriel was lying on his bed, waiting for his brother to emerge.

“Did that bath make you feel better?” Gabriel asked.

Garrett nodded. “Feel better,” he said, and crawled right in beside Gabriel, bending his body to conform to the way Gabriel was lying. He snuggled in beneath the shelter of Gabriel’s arm and closed his eyes, hugging his brother as if he were a stuffed toy.

“Say my prayers,” Garrett murmured, already more than half asleep.

Gabriel was so stunned by his brother’s innocence, and by the flood of his own emotions, it was all he could do to respond.

“Yes, buddy, we’ll say your prayers,” he said, swallowing back tears.

Garrett started them. “‘Now I lay me down to sleep…”’

Gabriel picked up the refrain. “‘I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”’

Garrett’s words were slurring. “‘If I should die before I wake…”’

“‘I pray the Lord my soul to take.”’

Garrett sighed as Gabriel ended the prayer. Within moments, he was asleep.

A short while later he turned over, and when he did, Gabriel turned with him, hugging him as tightly as Garrett had held him before.

Laura sat at their bedside, her eyes wide and burning with unshed tears. Garrett was home, but for how long? It broke her heart to see the brothers like this. And then there was the matter of the authorities. Too much tragedy to just ignore. Only God knew where Garrett Connor was going to wind up. But it was for certain he couldn’t stay here.

She stood up to pull the covers up over their legs, and then sat down at her vigil again, trying not to think of the dozens of police cars that were even now surrounding the estate. Trying not to think of the look on Garrett’s face when they took him away. He wasn’t going to understand. He would never understand.

M
atty knew when she arrived for work that the day wasn’t going to be normal. Two uniformed officers refused to let her pass, and the neighbors across the street were camped out on their porch in lawn chairs, watching the proceedings through binoculars. At that point she panicked.

“What’s going on? That’s my family in there! I have a right to know.”

“Look, lady, I have my orders,” the officer said. “All I know is, no one goes in until the killer comes out.”

She gasped. That could only mean one thing. Garrett was inside. She dropped down on the curb with a thump, buried her face in her hands and began to pray.

Inside the house, a different kind of morning was taking place. Garrett was sitting in the kitchen with a tablecloth tied around his neck. Laura was giving him a much needed haircut, while Gabriel was poking spoonfuls of Cheerios in his mouth. Between every other bite, Gabriel had to keep promising that, as soon as they were through, they would go out to the garden and pick some roses.

Roses for going away.

“Go see Dr. Wallis?” Garrett asked, talking around a mouthful of cereal.

Gabriel’s heart tugged. “I don’t know for sure, maybe later,” he said cautiously.

Garrett frowned as he chewed. He didn’t like maybes. “You come with me,” he announced, and then opened his mouth for another bite.

Gabriel smiled while the crack in his heart continued to widen.

“You bet I will. I’ll be with you all the way.”

Garrett nodded just as Laura snipped. She groaned, holding up the hunk of hair she’d unwittingly cut. Gabriel grinned.

“Looking good, buddy, looking good. Now, sit real still for Laura, will you? She’s trying to cut your hair.”

A short while later, just as they were cleaning up the haircutting mess, the phone rang. It was just a small sound, but it was enough to make Garrett wince. Gabriel grabbed it on the first ring.

“I’m sorry, Garrett, I’m sorry,” he said quickly, nervously eyeing the wild look on his brother’s face. “See, I stopped the noise. It’s all better now, okay?”

Laura leaned down and kissed the side of Garrett’s cheek, unaware that it was something Angela Connor had always done.

Garrett turned. “Mother!”

Laura smiled. “No, sweetheart, it’s just me. It’s Laura, remember?”

He shook his head. “No, my mother,” he repeated, and pointed over her shoulder.

Laura spun, her heart suddenly pounding. There was no one there. There was nothing…nothing but the smile on Garrett’s face.

“Okay,” Laura said softly. “Okay.”

Gabriel hung up the phone. “It’s time,” he said, and reached for Garrett’s hand. “Come on, buddy. It’s time to go.”

Still smiling, Garrett let himself be led away. With Laura holding one hand and Gabriel the other, he emerged from the house to the bright light of a new day. He didn’t seem to notice the array of police cars visible through the gates, or the car coming down the drive. His gaze was locked on the sky and the trees and then on a pair of butterflies flirting with the deep purple hyacinth blooms surrounding a large marble fountain.

He didn’t know there were guns trained on them from every corner of the wall, or that the car coming toward them held people who would take him away. His hair was cut, his belly was full, and he had his brother at his side.

Because the scene was so idyllic, Gabriel let his guard fall. And the moment he lifted his hand to wave at the men getting out of the car, Garrett suddenly jerked free. His demeanor quickly changed from quiet to tense. He muttered a phrase beneath his breath that only Laura and Gabriel heard.

“My roses…my roses…my roses for going away.”

He spun sharply and started to run. Although his gait was awkward, his long legs quickly carried him out of sight of the people out front.

Gabriel saw it happening and still couldn’t make them stop. The SWAT team spilled over the walls like black flies on new carrion, ordering Garrett to halt.

“Call them off!” Gabriel shouted, grabbing Kirby by the collar. “I promised him roses. Roses for going away. He’s not trying to escape, he’s just going to get his roses.”

Kirby turned and began waving his hands, calling out for the attack to cease. But even as he was shouting, he knew he was too late.

“Ah, God,” Gabriel groaned, and started to run, leaving Laura quickly behind.

He turned the corner just as Garrett disappeared behind a shed.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” he screamed, waving at the SWAT team, who were descending on them.

But they didn’t respond; they just kept coming. Garrett appeared moments later, running as hard as he could toward the back of the garden. Gabriel panicked. The red ones. He was going all the way to the end for the red ones.

He extended his stride, feeling the hard jolt of the ground beneath his feet, of bone against bone, of a teeth-jarring race that was impossible to win.

“Garrett! Come back. Wait for me. Wait for me.”

And then, to his relief, Garrett seemed to respond. He was slowing down on his own and had turned to look back when the first shot rang out.

“No, damn you, no!” Gabriel screamed, and ran headlong into the line of fire without thought for his own safety.

Garrett staggered backward from the bullet’s impact, looking down at his clean shirt in blank confusion. He grabbed at his chest, trying to stop the spill of blood with both hands. His face crumpled in disbelief as he fell to his knees.

Gabriel caught him as he rocked back on his heels, and laid him down beneath the bushes his mother had nurtured as dearly as the children to whom she’d given birth.

“My shirt. Spilled somethin’ on my shirt,” Garrett mumbled.

Gabriel was blind with a rage and pain he couldn’t define. In that moment between his life and his brother’s last breaths, he knew what it felt like to slip over the line of sanity.

“It’s okay,” he said, choking back tears. “We’ll get you another.”

“Hurt,” Garrett whispered, moving his hand through the puddling blood.

Gabriel lowered his head, his chin dropping to his chest. “I know, buddy, and I’m sorry, so sorry.”

Garrett’s eyes slowly closed, and Gabriel’s tears began to fall. Moments later Garrett suddenly looked up, his eyes two orbs of clear green, slightly out of focus and staring at the bush near his head and the blooms just out of his reach.

“Roses,” he whispered, pointing at the flowers between him and the sky. “Roses for going away.”

Gabriel reached out blindly, breaking one stem after another in random haste, desperate to give Garrett his flowers before it was too late. Thorns ripped his palms and then stuck in the pads of his thumbs. Soon blood was dripping from Gabriel’s hands and onto the stems, but he kept on picking.

Laura’s heart was in her throat as she reached Gabriel’s side. She dropped to her knees. One look was all it took to know that this time Cheerios and kisses wouldn’t be enough.

“Oh, Gabriel, oh no.” She started to cry.

“Hurt,” Garrett mumbled. He reached for Laura’s hand and placed it in the center of his chest. “Feel my hurt?”

She could barely feel a heartbeat. She looked up, her eyes wild with fright, and focused on some of the officers who were standing nearby. It was obvious to Laura that they, too, realized a great wrong had been done.

“Call an ambulance,” she cried. “Somebody call an ambulance.”

“One’s already on the way, miss.”

She looked back at Garrett. It would get there too late.

Gabriel’s hands were full of blooms as he rocked back on his heels, laying the flowers down between them. His hands were shaking, his cheeks covered with tears, as he began stripping the stems of their thorns. But the task was too slow, and Garrett was running out of time.

In a blind, choking rage, Gabriel grabbed the top of one stem, then closed his fist and yanked downward, instantly stripping it of both leaves and thorns, and shredding his hand as well. Immune to the pain, he opened Garrett’s hand and placed the first flower in it.

“Here you go, buddy. Roses for going away.”

A faint smile broke across Garrett’s face as his fingers closed around the stem.

One after the other, Gabriel stripped off the thorns until Garrett’s hands were full to over-flowing and the aroma of roses was almost enough to mask the coppery smell of the brothers’ blood.

Kirby Summers stood with the others, watching from a distance because privacy was all he had left to give.

In the background of noise surrounding them, an ambulance siren could now be heard, and even though Garrett was barely conscious, there was enough of him left to react. His eyes began to widen, his muscles tensing, as he unconsciously prepared for the onset of pain.

But Gabriel wasn’t having it. Still down on his knees, he leaned forward. Pressing his raw and shredded palms over Garrett’s ears, he took Garrett’s pain for his own.

A minute or so later, the siren stopped. Gabriel straightened. Either someone had finally had the sense to tell them to turn the damned thing off, or they had arrived at the gate. He shuddered on a sigh and looked down.

Although Garrett’s eyes were still open, he was lying so still. Too still. Gabriel’s heart jerked painfully.

Their reunion had ended too soon.

Silent tears began to spill from the corners of Garrett’s eyes as he looked up toward the sky.

“Goin’ to sleep now.”

Gabriel winced. There was only one more thing to do. He leaned forward until he could feel Garrett’s breath on his cheek. Then he took a deep breath and started to speak.

“‘Now I lay me down to sleep…”’

Garrett’s pupils dilated momentarily. It was proof enough to Gabriel that his brother still heard.

“‘I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”’

Garrett’s fingers tightened around the roses, as if he were afraid they would all fly away. His eyes closed, but his head was turned toward the sound of his brother’s voice.

“‘If I should die before I wake…”’

Garrett inhaled, slow and deep.

“‘I pray the Lord my soul to take.”’

Garrett exhaled slowly.

Gabriel waited for the next breath. It never came.

He was gone.

Gabriel leaned back, focusing on a button on Garrett’s shirt instead of his face. He was vaguely aware of Laura sobbing beside him. He leaned into her strength, but there were no more tears left in him to cry.

He looked up at the sky. It was the same soft blue it had been when they’d walked out the door. It didn’t make sense. How dare life go on when his kept crashing down around him? And then he felt Laura’s hand on his brow, heard her voice against his ear, smelled the scent of her shampoo, and knew one day this, too, would pass.

He pulled her into his arms and closed his eyes, focusing on nothing but the life pulsing beneath his touch. Her life…his life…they were both intertwined. He shuddered and then sighed, letting go of the pain and accepting the grief.

Laura’s heart was breaking, and she didn’t know how to stop it. Garrett was dead, and Gabriel was coming apart. It was all such a waste.

“The ambulance is here,” Kirby said.

“Too late. Everything is too late,” Gabriel mumbled without looking up.

Kirby looked down at the man on the ground, then cursed beneath his breath and walked away.

A short while later, after the body had been removed, Laura felt the brush of air against her face, as if someone had just passed by. She turned to look, but there was no one close. Gabriel had moved a short distance away and was talking to Kirby Summers. Laura stood. Again she felt movement against her cheek.

Something made her look up, past the uniformed officers clumped together in quiet groups to the lushness of the grounds beyond. That was when she saw them in the distance…walking hand in hand and laughing as if they’d just shared a wonderful joke.

Her breath caught. All she could think was, Thank God!

It was Angela, and she was wearing something long, something light, something that drifted about her feet like a bride’s fragile veil. What was even more wonderful was Garrett beside her, walking tall and proud, with a lift to his step and a smile on his face that was pure and strong. And in Angela’s arms, cradled as if she were carrying a child, was a large bouquet of fresh roses.

Garrett’s roses.

Roses for going away.