Released (Caged #3)(47)

“I’m not throwing it in your face,” Michael said, “but I am reminding you why you need to calm the f*ck down. He’s upstairs, and this isn’t an executive meeting.”

“I know, I know,” Douglass mumbled. “I’m sorry, you’re right.”

They both walked off to the right and out of my view. As much as I knew no good could come of it, I quietly walked the rest of the way down the stairs and toward the entrance to the kitchen. I could hear them both drop down on the stools at the breakfast bar, and my father took several long breaths before he started talking again.

“How does he look?” he asked. “Is he okay? I mean, is he in trouble or anything?”

“He looks…okay,” Michael said.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

I shifted to the other side of the door, and I could see their dim reflections in a large landscape painting in the foyer. Michael’s hands gripped a coffee cup as he spoke.

“He called from the same area where the police picked him up the first time.”

“Shit—at that nasty warehouse? Where they found him with that dead girl?”

A brief flash, a vague memory of police cars, sirens, an ambulance, and the pale, expressionless face of a woman whose name I didn’t know flashed through my head. I blinked rapidly, but there was nothing else to the memory. There was nothing else except mental fog and heroin-induced apathy.

“That place was torn down years ago,” Michael said. “But he wasn’t far from the area.”

“Is he…is he doped up again?”

“No…no,” Michael said quietly. “He said he was tempted, but he wasn’t high when I found him.”

“Jesus Christ,” my father whispered. He gripped at his hair for a moment as he leaned his elbows on the bar. “I thought we were past that. I thought that trainer said she was going to keep him clean.”

“He’s all right, Douglass. He’s safe and he’s here. Be thankful for that.”

“I can’t believe you kept this from me,” Douglass said. “When we agreed you would keep tabs on him, this wasn’t what we discussed. Did your PI even know what was happening?”

“I was planning on telling you over dinner tonight,” Michael said. “The PI’s reports come to me weekly, and the last one informed me he was no longer in his apartment. He lost track of Liam for a couple of days, and by the time he figured it out, Liam was here.”

Another long sigh.

“So why did he call you? Why now?”

“Well, I have to admit it gets a little complicated at this point,” Michael said. The image in the picture frame blurred as a cloud passed over the house and lessened the level of light coming in from the kitchen windows. There was some shuffling around and the sound of more coffee being poured into mugs. “You remember the young lady who attended Ryan’s wedding?”

“Miss Lynn.”

“She’s expecting,” Michael said. “Sometime in November.”

A long pause ensued.

“I don’t know what to think of that,” Douglass said quietly. “I…I’m a little torn here, Michael. You’re the sensible one—what am I supposed to be feeling?”

“I don’t think I can answer that for you,” he said.

Silence.

As much as I wanted to walk around the corner and start throwing things, I didn’t. As much as I wanted to quietly tiptoe out of the house, I didn’t do that, either. I just stayed right there to the side of the kitchen entryway and stared at the landscape artwork, waiting for the sun to come back out.

“I don’t want to f*ck this up again.” I could barely hear my father’s voice. “You have to help me out here.”

“You were overwhelmed before,” Michael said. “You have a chance to think clearly now.”

“I thought I was then,” he said. “How was I supposed to predict what happened? I just didn’t want him throwing his life away, but he did anyway. In the process, I lost the only thing I ever made that meant anything.”

“He’s not lost, Douglass. He’s still here.”

“He’s lost to me. He’s been lost to me for nearly a decade. I nearly lost Julianne, too.”

“Julianne lost herself.”

“Julianne was lost to grief,” my father corrected. “She died inside when she realized he wasn’t coming home.”

My chest clenched.

“It’s all my fault,” he said.

“You can’t change the past,” Michael replied. “You have to find a way to push forward. He’s here now, and I’ll keep talking to him, but you can’t expect him to just turn around in a day and say everything is okay again. There aren’t going to be any miracles here.”

“He’s here,” Douglass said. “He’s here; he didn’t die in the street. That in itself feels like a miracle right now.”

“There’s more you need to know,” my uncle continued. “They were married yesterday.”

“You have to be f*cking kidding me.” There was the sound of the kitchen stool sliding across the floor and a hard, dark laugh. “Do you have any more surprises for me, Michael? Because I think I’ve had enough.”