See Tom Run (17 page)

It was at that moment that he spotted Erin in the
living room—creeping toward the kitchen with the fire poker in her
hand. Donnie’s back was toward her so he was unaware of her
presence.

Ignoring Erin, Tom touched his aching jaw gingerly
and said, “Look Donnie, I’m sorry about all of this—I truly am. But
surely you could have just forgiven Mindy’s infidelity and raised
the child as your own, right?”

Donnie guffawed heartily. “You gotta be shittin’ me!
First of all there was no way I’d do that. I wasn’t gonna live with
no whore and rear some other dude’s kid. Wouldn’t have made no
difference any way, even if I had been foolish enough to do that.
She had a restraining order on me when I got out of the joint and
she’d given the little shit up for adoption. Seems she couldn’t
afford to raise the kid on her own. Serves her right for pressing
charges against me. Nope, screw it all. The only thing that’s gonna
make me feel better is to take this out on your ass since it was
your goddamn fault.”

“What do you mean by that?” Tom asked, trying not to
stare at Erin who was now only a few feet from Donnie, the poker
held high over her head.

“I’m gonna kill you and clean out yer beautiful home,
that’s what I’m gonna do.”

A sickening thought suddenly came to mind. “Do you
know where my family is right now, Donnie?”

The man smiled malevolently. “Wish I could say I do,
but no—the place was empty when I got here. You expecting them
anytime soon?”

Erin was directly behind him now. Tom watched in awe
and relief as she came down hard with the poker and hit Donnie
square in the head with the iron handle. His expression switched
from rage to total shock just before he slumped over the table, out
like a light.

“A direct hit!” Tom shouted, “Great going,
kiddo!”

Erin dropped the poker and ran over to Tom. She
stared at the unconscious man.

“Did I kill him?”

Tom arose, gave her a warm hug and walked over to
Donnie to feel his pulse. “No, he’s still alive, unfortunately. But
he’s going to be out of it for quite some time. How in the hell
were you able to sneak into the house so quietly?”

Erin grinned. “I learned how to sneak around a long
time ago, remember? Who is this man, anyway?”

“Someone from my hometown. He apparently has it out
for me and came all the way up here to rob me blind and murder
me.”

“What did he mean when he said it was your fault that
he was sent to prison? I didn’t catch all of the story.”

Tom hesitated a moment before answering. He didn’t
really want to tell Erin the details of that matter so he was
careful to choose his words carefully. Like she and her own past,
this wasn’t something he was particularly proud of about his.

“It’s sort of hard to explain, really. Basically,
this guy is a lunatic and was accusing me of something I didn’t do.
He got into some trouble and was sent to prison and decided to
blame me since he couldn’t blame anybody else, I guess. Anyway, I
am eternally grateful that you did what you just did. You have in
fact just saved my life!”

“I almost blew it when I saw him whack you with the
beer bottle! I nearly ran into the kitchen at that instant but
realized that I had no weapon. That’s when I picked up the poker
from the fireplace and plotted my move.”

Tom gestured toward the poker lying on the floor.
“Good thing you didn’t hit him with the business end of that—he’d
be dead as a doornail now.”

“I must confess that I was wanting to hit him with
the poker end, but I changed my mind.”

“It wouldn’t have been any great loss but I’m glad
you didn’t. That would have been hard to explain to the cops.”

Erin outstretched her hands and chuckled. “What cops?
Haven’t exactly seen too many of them around lately.”

Tom laughed. “Good point.”

“So what are we going to do with him?” the girl
asked.

Tom stared at the unconscious man and said, “Tie him
up, I guess. I wonder if Kyle left me any duct tape.”

“Looks like there’s still some left,” Erin said,
pointing at the roll still lying on the kitchen counter.

“Why don’t you go ahead and take that hot shower
while I tie him up?” Tom suggested.

“Yes!”
Erin
smiled broadly. “I’ll go out and get my things.”

Erin left and Tom lit up a couple more candles,
grabbed the duct tape and bound Donnie Shortridge securely to the
chair. He heard Erin come back in the front door and make her way
upstairs to the bathroom. When he was finished with Donnie, he went
to the living room fireplace, lit a match, valved in the gas and
watched as the gas logs came to life. With a long yawn, he sat down
on the sofa and leaned his head back.

He heard the faucet squeak and the water running
upstairs as Erin started her shower. He thought of how grateful he
was that the girl had the courage and moxie to do what she had just
done. Most girls her age probably would never have taken the risk
to come to his aid as she had. The more he got to know Erin Myers,
the more he realized what a truly unique individual she was.

His thoughts shifted to Donnie Shortridge and what
had just occurred. A number of questions came to mind as he fought
the fatigue gnawing away at him.

For starters, why had Donnie shown up in the first
place—and why now of all times, when there were only a few people
still existing on earth as far as he knew? Why someone from his
hometown—someone he had never known before yet someone who
apparently knew plenty about him?

And how much of this man’s insane story should he
believe? Yes, he had had a one-night stand with Mindy Conkel twenty
years ago. And yes, it was possible but unlikely that he had gotten
her pregnant. But why had Donnie been so adamant that Tom had been
the father of her child?

And what about Mindy Conkel, who had at first
insisted that Donnie was the father then recanted once it was
discovered that Donnie’s DNA didn’t match the child’s? Why would
she all of a sudden insist it was Tom instead? How could she be so
certain?

Unless, Tom thought, he had actually been the only
one who had slept with Mindy that particular month. There was an
outside possibility, and if it were the case, then she would have
been correct in assuming that Tom was the father.

Tom swallowed hard and stared intently into the fire.
What if he really had been the father of Mindy Conkel’s child? What
if the call she had made to him in New York had been a legitimate
cry for him to take some kind of responsibility for her desperate
situation?

His thoughts flew into a tailspin. He had been so
much in denial of the situation at the time that he had totally
dismissed its seriousness. And this denial was ultimately what had
kept him from accepting responsibility when he should have.

How convenient, he thought.

And the fact that Mindy had called him once and only
once had made it even easier for him to forsake his
responsibility.

Tom leaned back on the sofa. He was so exhausted now
that he could barely keep his eyes open. He yawned and promptly
drifted off to sleep …

* * *

“Tom?” he heard Erin say softly.

He opened his eyes and saw her sitting beside him on
the sofa, her expression apologetic.

“I hate to wake you up but I wasn’t sure if you
wanted me to or not. You had mentioned wanting to take a
shower.”

Tom sat up straight. “Oh, yeah, I’m glad you woke me
up. I guess I just dozed off for a moment there.”

He rubbed his eyes and noticed that Erin was wearing
nothing but a white oversized tee shirt that went down to just
above her knees and that she smelled as sweet as a rose after her
shower. Her hair was still damp, combed out poker straight, falling
onto her shoulders in shiny strands. For the first time, Tom
realized that Erin Myers was attractive in an oddly compelling way
that made her unique—as unique on the outside as she was on the
inside.

“How long have you been sitting here?” he asked.

She giggled. “Would you believe about five minutes?
You were really dead to the world—and you were snoring, too!”

Tom smiled. “Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. I feel
like I could sleep for a week.”

“You’ll feel much better after a shower—I sure did.
But I wouldn’t have any trouble falling asleep now, either.”

“Why don’t you go to sleep, then—I’ll take my shower
and do the same.”

“Okay.”

Tom stood up. “Are there enough blankets for
you?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” Erin replied.

Tom decided to go into the kitchen long enough to
check on Donnie Shortridge, who was still out cold, then returned
to the living room and headed for the staircase.

“Tom? Who is Mindy?” Erin asked suddenly.

Tom halted in his tracks. He turned toward her and
replied, “You mean the Mindy we were discussing in the kitchen? She
was Donnie’s wife. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I just love that name—Mindy. It
was my biological mother’s name, too.”

“Oh, really?” Tom said, intrigued at this revelation.
“You mean you actually know who your real mom is?”

“Not exactly. All I know is that her name was Mindy.
I’ve got a picture of her holding me when I was a baby. I’ve had it
for as long as I can remember. You want to see it?”

“Of course I would.”

Erin opened her backpack. Tom sat down beside her and
waited as she located her billfold and began thumbing through
it.

“Here it is,” she said, taking one
of the photos out of a transparent sleeve. She flipped it over and
showed Tom the back, which had writing in blue ballpoint pen. It
read,
“To my lovely daughter. Please know
that I will always love you.”
At the bottom
it was signed,
“Mindy, your
mommy.”

“See, she even signed it,” Erin said proudly.

She flipped the photo over. “There we are—my mommy
and me.”Tom stared at the photo. It was in color and showed a young
woman about twenty or so holding a tiny baby in her arms—

The woman was Mindy Conkel!

Tom looked closer. No doubt about it, the woman in
the picture was Mindy.

He was dumbfounded. Not sure what to do or say, Tom
struggled for the best way to deal with this.

“She’s very pretty. How in the world did you get this
picture, anyway?”

Erin continued holding on to the picture lovingly. “I
think my first foster parents gave it to children’s services who in
turn gave it to me after I’d been adopted by my second foster
family. Since I had already been told that I was an orphan I guess
they figured I may as well have it.”

“Did you ever want to find her—your biological
mother?” Tom asked curiously.

“Of course! But I haven’t known where to begin. I
heard that you could trace your family tree online so I tried that
once, but had no luck. It really helps when you have a last name to
start with,” she added dismally.

“I wonder if you could post that picture on the
internet. There’s a chance that someone might know who she is,” Tom
suggested, feeling more and more guilty the further he went with
this charade.

“I tried that, too. In fact, Kyle put it online for
me, which is about the only nice thing he’d ever done for me. We
never heard back from anyone. It’s useless. I’ll probably never
know who she is—or was.”

Tom wanted nothing more than tell her who her mother
was. And that he knew who her father was, too. That it just so
happened that her dad was the same man sitting there with her right
now.

But he couldn’t do that. Not yet, anyway. He had to
be certain that he was truly the girl’s father before running the
risk of leading her on with something that might not be true. And
the only way to be absolutely certain would be for them to have
their DNA tested.

Furthermore, he wanted to be sure of Mindy Conkel’s
feelings on this. After all, she had given Erin up for adoption in
the first place. It was really her place to decide if Erin should
know who her biological mother was. Somehow, he was going to have
to track her down and find out what her thoughts would be on seeing
her daughter again after all these years. Perhaps he could find out
Mindy’s whereabouts from Donnie when he came to.

Tom stared thoughtfully at Erin for a moment as she
continued studying the wallet print in her hand. Did she look
anything like him? She did have brown eyes and hair, just as he
did. And her face was rather long and thin like his. And didn’t the
shape of her nose resemble his, or was it just his imagination?

Suddenly, the bizarre nature of this entire situation
hit him straight on. What in the hell were the astronomical odds of
he and Erin and Donnie Shortridge all being together in this house
right now at this very moment? The world was virtually deserted
right now for all he knew, yet here he was with a daughter he never
knew he had and the man who had once been married to her
mother—

There had to be a reason for all of this.

But what was it?

He had no idea.

He would have to think about this.

But first, he was going to have to get some sleep.
His thoughts were so jumbled up now that it was useless to try to
make any sense of anything.

He observed how Erin was looking longingly at the
photo in her hand. His heart bled for her. The girl had had a
miserable life through no fault of her own. Yet she still yearned
to know who her mother was. And no doubt, her father, too.

It was enough to make him want to break down and
cry.

He gently placed his hand on her arm. “Well, you
never know, kiddo. You may still find her some day. I wouldn’t give
up if I were you.”

She smiled as she continued staring at the photo. “I
know I’ll never give up. Even if she doesn’t want me in her life, I
want to know what has happened to her. And why she had to give me
away. This photo proves she loves me. I think she had to do it for
a good reason. And whatever the reason was, I know that I’ll
forgive her. I just want to know her!”