Skygods (Hydraulic #2) (48 page)

“Fear?”

“Fear of hurting me like his mother hurt him. That’s why he left, the first time.”

“Kid never did do things half-assed, did he?” She studied her chipped nails with sober, pain-heavy eyes. She took another sip then tossed the rest of the contents in the garbage. “Well, I guess it’s useless to sit around and try to make sense of an illness that doesn’t make sense.” She tightened the bandana over her hair. “We should start looking.”

“How hard can it be to find a manic man trying to dump his cremated mom beneath the Green Monster?” I grumbled.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, causing me to jump. “Excuse me. I’m sorry to eavesdrop. Did you say you’re looking for a man with a cremation urn?”

My breath caught in my throat. I looked up at the portly man and then beyond him, saw a tableful of off-duty security guards in bright red polos, walkie-talkies at their hips.

Mom winked at me and tugged me toward the table. “Yeah. Seen one of those around, lately?”

One of the guards chuckled. “You’d be surprised how many fans try to dump ashes on the field. Just heard some buzz over the radio, though. Security’s bringing out a guy right now who jumped the barrier. Crowd went nuts over it.”

“Young guy, dark brown hair, lots of hum about being famous. Didn’t you say that, Wayne?”

“Yup. Was lugging around a backpack and an urn. Security tackled him because he smuggled in that bag—bomb scare and all, but it was just filled with papers. They’ve called for police backup to arrest him for trespassing and disorderly conduct.”

“Samuel,” I breathed. He was okay. On his way to jail, most likely, but okay. Oh, thank God, thank God. I pressed my hands over my heart and felt it race. My mother squeezed my shoulder.

“That was his name, yeah.” Wayne gave me a curious once-over. “Last I heard, security was trying to get in touch with someone who knew the guy. They called the phone number on record and didn’t get a response.” I dug into my purse and pulled out his phone. Sure enough, there were missed calls from an unknown number. “Then they tried his emergency contact—Caroline something—but the number was disconnected.”

“Caroline Ortega.” She’d still be on record, wouldn’t she?

“I assume they’ll take him to lockup?” my mother asked. I widened my eyes; she watched too many
Law & Order
marathons.

“Yeah, D-4. That’s next to the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, can’t miss it,” the first man said, jabbing a thumb behind him.

“Thanks so much for your help.” I actually hugged the security guard. He politely patted me on the back as my mother rolled her eyes.

I grabbed my purse and Mom slung her bag over her shoulder. We pushed through the crowds around Fenway Park, much lighter now that the game had started. Organ music pumped over the brick walls and along Yawkey Street, gearing the fans up for what sounded like a Sox up-to-bat.

We’ll go to a game sometime, Samuel
, I silently promised.

I heard his impassioned shouts mingling with the crowd noise, though I couldn’t see him. My mother grabbed my elbow and we sprinted toward a cluster of security guards leaving Fenway Park. A small gathering had begun to form around the scene, several taking pictures with camera phones. Crap, this mess would be on the Internet in two minutes flat—Samuel Caulfield Cabral, arrested in Boston.

“Fucking fat-asses, let go of me,” he bellowed. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Samuel!” I pushed through the crowd.

“Kaye? Kaye!” he screamed. His head strained above the security guards, his unmistakable mess of hair matted from a hat that was now long gone. There was no sign of his laptop, either, but one of the guards carried his backpack and the urn. Every inch of him pulsed with manic energy, from his feral eyes to his wrenching limbs. I insinuated myself in the huddle and placed a hand on Samuel’s chest. A guard shouldered me out of the way.

“Ma’am, step back, please.”

“Kaye!” Frenzied ice eyes swept over me. “Oh fuck, I can’t believe you’re here. Tell them to stop taking my goddamned picture. Tell them who I am, Kaye, tell them I’m fucking famous. You know who I am.
Tell
them.”

A guard snorted. “Sure you are. We’ll just let you go then, Mr. Pitt.”

“Don’t antagonize him,” I sobbed. “Please, please let me touch him.”

“She’s family,” my mother explained.

The guards silently conferred, then nodded, keeping Samuel’s hands firmly trapped behind his back.

I stepped up to him and pressed a cautious palm to his face, feeling its flush.

“Hey, Sky Eyes,” Samuel slurred, gazing down at me. “That’s what she called me, you know? Sky Eyes. She said I was a fucking disgrace. She didn’t want to see my goddamned sky eyes staring at her. Fuck her. I don’t know why I even bothered, but here I am, at Fenway, and she can smack her own ugly face and keep her foam fingers and Wade Boggs posters. I can buy my own shit.”

My fingers trailed his jawbone. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

“They’re going to let me go, right? So I can go back in there? I have to take care of this, Kaye; that’s what she wanted me to do. She’ll never leave me alone until I do it.”

“Try to calm him down,” my mom hissed. “If he assaults a cop when they get here, that’s a felony.”

I nodded. “I love you, Samuel, so much. But you need to calm down, okay? Go with the officers when they get here. Don’t fight them.” I reached up on tip-toes and placed a soft kiss on his chin.

“I love you,” he mumbled. “I’ll try to be a better person. I swear I’ll be so good for you.”

“You
are
good for me.”

Samuel began to settle down, just as sirens grew louder and two police cars arrived.

“They’ll take me into Fenway, Kaye? Tell them, tell them,
tell
them they need to take me back in there.”

“We’ll go back in some day,” I soothed. God help me, I would not lie to him, not again.

My mother pulled me from the scene, but I couldn’t look away. Two cops forced him to the ground and cuffed him. Another read him his rights. Jerking him to his feet, they guided him toward the squad cars. His eyes went wild as realization painted him red, and he tried to twist out of their grip.

“You fucking tricked me! You’re
helping
her, Kaye! You lied to me! Kaye!” The police shoved him into the back of the car and closed the door, but I could still hear his fury.

He doesn’t mean it. He’s not well.
Tears dripped from my chin and coated my neck. Mom handed me a tissue. I took it and scrubbed my face, then returned it, vaguely aware of her stuffing it into her pocket.

We stood there, somberly watching Samuel struggle and flail, hitting the reinforced car window with his shoulder. At last, the squad car flipped its lights and sirens, and pulled away.

“I don’t think I’m strong enough for him, Mom,” I whispered.

“Whoever ends up with that man will need the patience of a saint, that’s for sure.” My mother sighed. “Your father’s going to tell you to race the other way and don’t look back.”

“What do you think?”

She pressed her lips together. “Are you willing to fight this thing he has?”

“I’d like to try. You probably think I’m being foolish, don’t you?”

Capable arms turned me around. She tilted up my chin and solemn hazel eyes fixed on mine. “You are one of the strongest people I know, Kaye Trilby. You’ll get through this, one way or the other.”

I placed my hand over hers and squeezed her rough fingers. “If I’m strong, it’s because I take after my mother.”

Mom winced, and I could see her own ghosts stir in her head. “Here’s what I think—you better get him back to Lyons. That way, if this happens again, you can call in a favor to the sheriff and he’ll put him in lockup till he’s sorted out.”

I never understood my mother’s love for cop shows. Dramas, docu-dramas, those Friday-night spotlights on killer wives and man-of-God con artists that made you question everyone within a one-mile radius. Winter was the worst, when Mom was out of the field and freak snowstorms made travel treacherous.

But now, I’d never been more grateful than this moment for my mother’s vice. Mom spoke cop.

“Trying to locate Samuel Cabral—white male, DOB six, twenty-three, seventy-nine. Picked up on DOC and CTTP, detained half an hour ago.” She leaned into the counter at the police station’s receiving area, cool and commanding as she stared down the rookie officer and ignored his glance down her camisole. “We’ll post bond when it’s set.”

“Oh yeah, the D&D. Looks like the guy’s already got a rap sheet, huh?”

“He’s not a D&D,” she said firmly, “he’s sick. Didn’t they catch that in booking?”

We claimed a couple of straight-back chairs in the lobby and waited. Samuel’s nonsensical, rage-filled shouts ricocheted down the corridors. I flinched at each, a physical wound. Finally, after an hour, it was obvious to everybody at the D-4 police station—officers and inmates alike—that Samuel Cabral was
not
drunk or high, and needed immediate psychiatric attention.

It didn’t take long for Ace Caulfield to arrive (I hadn’t even needed to call him, which wasn’t a good sign), chat with a magistrate, and arrange to have him transferred to Massachusetts General—just north of Beacon Hill and the Caulfield ancestral home. Once a medical team arrived, they administered some sort of injection and he calmed considerably.

“Security found his laptop outside Fenway Park,” said an officer, breaking me from my stupor. Two sturdy-looking boots stepped into my line of vision. I blinked up at his badge, wondering if I’d actually slept with my eyes open. “He probably ditched it to get through the gate.” He handed me the laptop and I hugged it to me, along with his backpack.

“Thanks.”

Honestly, the cops were glad to wash their hands of the whole thing. Public intox arrests filtered in as the baseball game finished and drunken fans hit the streets to numb the loss. When we left, the police station resembled a rowdy sports bar.

Later that afternoon, Mom and I twiddled our thumbs in yet another waiting room—the hospital’s. Ace paced the floor, quietly arguing with someone over the phone.

“I was hoping WBZ wouldn’t run it. We gotta get those charges dropped.” He pocketed his phone and turned to me. “I’m going to head out, pay a visit to a judge friend. You’ll be okay here?”

I nodded.

He paused, gaze scouring my hunched body and haunted demeanor. Scratching the back of his neck, he sighed.

“Kaye, I don’t know what to say. With his parents’ tragedies, I always kind of wondered. Look. He’s a good guy. Our family should be damned proud of him, you know? They’re idiots.”

“I suppose none of them will be dropping in for a visit, huh?”

“Just me and my wife.”

“If they don’t want anything to do with Samuel, why does Caulfield Law Firm represent him?” I fired back. Lord, I was on edge.

He searched my face. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

“No.”

“That’s understandable. The truth is, we originally sought him out as a client to make sure the family remained unsullied. Once he began to make a name for himself, they sent me to feel him out, befriend him. But I could see right away he’d never blab their family secrets—he’s not the type, even if he has every right to retaliate against us. I have a lot of respect for my cousin.” Ace loosed a humorless laugh. “The first time I met him, he told me to go to hell. But I was persistent and he finally agreed to let me work for him. I think, deep down, he wanted some sort of family connection.”

“Well, I’m glad he was raised by the Cabrals instead of the Caulfields. No offense to you, but I can’t imagine being part of such a horrible, cold family. They only fight for him if his interests are Caulfield interests.”

“I can’t argue with that. I wish things had been different…”

“And so I have to ask you, Ace. If Samuel’s personal life, his past, his illness blows up in the media like it very well might—something I know your family won’t be happy about—whose interest will you be championing? His or theirs?”

“If he’s doing the right thing, I’ll be behind him one hundred percent,” he said firmly.

“That’s all we can ask, I guess.”

Ace awkwardly patted my shoulder and retreated.

During the entire exchange, my mother flipped through local television channels without a word. The TV quietly aired an afternoon talk show—Samuel was supposed to appear on that very program next week.

The area was blessedly empty. Windows overlooked the tar-patched roof of a hospital wing, and beyond that, the skyscraper forest of downtown Boston. More steel. More clouds. A fake plant in the corner was the only spot of green. Some previous waiting room occupant had left a pile of snack bags on the table, and I realized how hungry I was…but not hungry enough to eat mysterious food in a psych ward.

I juggled my phone between my hands, counting the missed calls piling up. The longer I waited to do damage control, the worse the situation would get. When my voice mails hit double digits, I decided it was time to quit being a pussy and re-enter the PR world.