Khan (Bowen Boys, #2)(14)
His head pounded when she yelled at him like this. He put the phone on the bed and began beating his fists against his forehead to make her stop. Over and over she yelled at him, and he couldn’t take it any longer. He didn’t even know why she thought she had any say in what he did any longer. She and his father were divorced and had been for nearly three years.
Picking up the phone again, he tried for calmness. “Mother, I want you to stop calling me if you don’t have anything good to say. I love this one, and I’m going to make it work this time. You’ll see. Once she learns her place, we’ll be able to live happily ever after, and you’ll come to love her as I do.”
When she started talking again, he leaned over and hung up the phone. When it rang almost immediately, he put a pillow over his head and tried to block it out. When that didn’t work, he got up and left his room. She had done this. Driven a stake through his relationship with his mother. Now he had to go home and fix this.
He drove all night, only stopping for gas. Tony was near her home nearly thirty hours later and pulled into the next street to wait. He knew that on Wednesdays his father came to visit her and he wondered what day of the week it was. Pulling out his cell phone, he realized it was Wednesday and was excited. He was going to get to see them both and have a little talk with them. Closing his eyes, he leaned back on the seat and waited.
He woke around dusk and drove to his mother’s home. He didn’t see his father’s car in the drive and thought he’d missed him. Just as he was about to turn the corner to simply go in and have a little talk with mother dear, he saw his dad pull in. He completed the circle and came back around to park across the street from them.
He walked up the sidewalk and knew just how this conversation was going to go. She was going to yell and his dad was going to tell her to calm down. After a few tears, they would try to tell him that this girl was like the others and that they didn’t want to have to take care of another family. He would tell them she had none, that he’d already thought of that. He slipped his key in the door and tried to turn it.
She’d changed the locks on him. Tony stepped back and tried to see in the windows, but all he was able to see was a distorted view of the furniture he knew lay beyond. Instead of knocking, because he knew where they’d be, he went around the back of the house and walked up to the glass doors that led into the summer room. Pulling out his knife, he slit the screen, then punched a hole in the glass. Reaching in, he unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The stereo was on full blast with music that made his head pound. Going through the house, he picked up two things from the kitchen and made his way to the living room where they both were. His mom was sitting with her back to him, and his father was sitting in the chair to her left. They were both holding a glass of wine. There was a tray of cheese and crackers and a bowl of fruit.
As a child, he’d wanted to eat in front of the fireplace, but they’d never let him. He’d tried once to have a cookout in here, roasting marshmallows in the fireplace until he’d gotten tired, but someone hadn’t come to check on him soon enough and the carpet had caught fire. When he’d gotten burned, a scar he held today, he had hated any sort of fire near him. He glanced down at the quarter-sized scar and sneered at it.
Walking up behind his mother, he yanked back her head and sliced open her throat with the knife he’d picked up in the kitchen. When she made a noise, his father jumped up from his chair and started for him. Tony stabbed him in the chest with the corkscrew.
Dropping the knife he’d used on his mother, he went around the couch and toward his father. Reaching blindly for the things on the fireplace, he grabbed up the poker there and hit his father in the head. Liking the sound it made, he continued hitting him until his arm hurt. Dropping it on the floor, he sat down in his father’s chair. Taking the cheese and crackers, he tossed off the ones covered in blood and finished off the food. He didn’t care for the fruit, but ate what was blood free and then sat back in the chair.
“I tried to tell you. I did. I said if you didn’t let me have my way, I would make you pay. Both of you.” He kicked out at his father. “And what are you doing here in the first place? I’ve told you several times that I didn’t want you seeing her, that she was bad for me, and here you are.” He laughed.
Yes, he thought, here they were. Both of them paid for making him upset. Tony realized he was getting the chair dirty and stood up. He knew that the cleaning person would be upset with him so he took off his shoes and carried them up to the bathroom.
He had clothes here, he was sure. What kind of mother would toss them out because her only son had moved on? Besides, he’d told he not to do it, and most of the time, she listened. This time, he was glad that she had.
Getting out of the shower, he dried off and put on the clean clothes. Putting his dirty ones in the hamper, he wondered if they would ever be clean again. He went down the hall to his mother’s room and looked for anything of value. He took all her jewelry, as well as the three grand he’d found in her purse. Tony didn’t take the card because the last time he’d done that, she’d simply canceled them. It had been embarrassing and a waste of her time.
His father had a room here too, but he didn’t find anything much worth his effort. There was about three hundred dollars in his wallet, and Tony took his car keys as well. He’d never been able to drive it and had decided that he’d take it out for a spin before he left.