Ann Voss Peterson - Vow To Protect

“Mel, please. I know it’s a shock to see me. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t have a damn good reason.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and forced herself to stand her ground. If only she could hop in her car, drive away and avoid this entire reunion. But she couldn’t. Ethan would be getting off the bus any minute.

Ethan.

Her mind stuttered.

This was worse than an uncomfortable reunion. Worse than reliving a broken heart and shattered dreams. Much worse. This was Ethan’s future in jeopardy.

She glanced down the street. A red convertible streaked down the pavement toward them, moving too fast in the residential neighborhood. A squatty white mail truck stopped at the opposite curb. No sign of a bus.

She had time.

She swung her focus back to Cord. If he was still anything like the boy she’d once loved, he wouldn’t leave until he’d said his piece. Her best bet would be to hear him out then cut him off. “Why are you here?”

He cleared his throat as if preparing to launch into a rehearsed speech. “You have to get out of here.”

She didn’t know what she’d expected him to say, but it wasn’t this. “Why?”

“A man is after you. A bad man. You understand what I’m saying?”

She didn’t have a clue. “Who’s after me?”

“Dryden Kane.”

She couldn’t have heard him right. “The serial killer?”

“He escaped this morning.”

“I heard.” In the world of serial killers, Dryden Kane was as infamous in Wisconsin history as Dahmer and Gein. But while Kane was a very dangerous man, especially to women, there were thousands of women in southern Wisconsin. “Why do you think he’s after me?”

“Because he told me.”

Now he was really freaking her out. “What are you up to, Cord? Why are you saying this?”

He raked a hand across short sandy-brown hair. “I don’t know how the hell to explain. I can still hardly believe it myself.”

She fought the urge to grab him, to shake him. “Just say it.”

“Dryden Kane is my father.”

“Your father?” She let her arms fall limp to her sides. It couldn’t be true. Could it? “You always told me you didn’t know who your father was.”

“I didn’t. Not until about two months ago.”

“And it’s Dryden Kane? You’re sure?”

“Have you seen a picture of Kane recently? I look just like him.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“Yes, it does. I had a DNA test done after I found out.”

She felt sick to her stomach.

“You have to come with me. Kane might be on his way right now. Understand what I’m saying?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Mel, you have to.”

“I want you off my property.”

“You’re not listening.”

“I’ve heard enough.” She needed Cord gone. Right now.

“You have to get out of here.”

She intended to. Just not with him. When Ethan got home, she’d whisk her son off to a safe place and hold him tight to her heart. Whether Ethan thought he was too old for hugs or not.

“Kane is dangerous.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Her stomach balled into a hard knot. She’d struggled so hard. To lift herself out of the violent world she’d grown up in. To give Ethan a real future. And now this. “How dare you bring this stuff back into my life? How dare you bring Dryden Kane down on my head?”

“I’m sorry, Mel. I’m so sorry. But right now you have to get out of here. You have to come with me.” He reached out, trying to grasp her arm.

She yanked it away. “If you don’t leave, I’m calling the police.”

“Call them.”

“What?”

“Call the cops. Go with them. I don’t care. You just have to get out of here before Kane shows up.”

“Okay. I’ll call them. Now go.”

“I’ll stay until they get here.”

“Not necessary.” She gave the traffic a quick glance. Something caught her eye beyond the building afternoon glut of panel vans and sports cars. A flash of yellow turning off a side street.

“He might be watching us right now.”

“I don’t want your help. You’ll only make things worse.”

“Listen, I’ve seen what guys like this can do, what they enjoy doing. It ain’t nothing nice.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I’m not leaving until I know you’ll be safe.”

She glanced down the street again. Behind a blue minivan and a white sedan, the bright yellow school bus barreled toward them.

“What are you looking for?”

A thick ache lodged in her throat. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” The school bus rumbled up the street, desperation drilling deeper into her bones the closer it came.

Lines dug into Mel’s smooth forehead as the school bus’s brakes squealed to a stop at the bottom of her driveway.

Cord had expected her to be upset to see him. He’d expected her to be scared. He hadn’t expected her to be more nervous about a damn yellow bus than she was about Dryden Kane.

The red stop sign swung out from the driver’s side, and the door opened. A skinny boy shouldered a backpack far too big for him and clomped down the bus steps. He hopped onto the pavement and started up the drive’s slope. Looking up at Melanie, he offered her a little smile, a playful light twinkling in his ice-blue eyes.

Eyes identical to Cord’s.

Identical to Dryden Kane’s.

Cord jerked back as if he’d been kicked in the grill. He fought to regain breath, to regain thought. “How old is he?”

Melanie tensed beside him, but she didn’t answer.

“How old is he, Mel?”

“Ten.”

Ten years old. He didn’t have to ask if the boy was his son. He knew. Down to the marrow of his bones, he knew.

“I found out the day you killed Snake.”

And she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t come to see him in jail. She hadn’t come to his trial. She hadn’t even answered his phone calls.

The boy ambled up the driveway toward them. Lanky and skinny, he moved as if he was growing too fast for his coordination to catch up. Eight more years, and he’d be eighteen. Legally a man. The age Cord was when the kid had been conceived. When Cord had been thrown in prison.

He tried to speak, to move, to do anything that didn’t involve standing and staring, but he came up empty.

“I had to get him away from the neighborhood. I didn’t want him to live that life, to spend his Sundays in a prison visiting room like I did. I didn’t want him to follow that path. I—”

He held up a hand to cut her off. She didn’t have to explain. “You were right not to tell me. You were right to give him a better life.” The life they’d planned together before he was arrested. The life Melanie had dreamed for them both.

Her gaze burned hot on the side of his face. “Don’t say anything. Please. He doesn’t know you’re his father. I told him his father died.”

Cord had died in prison. He’d died every day since he’d killed Snake. “He won’t learn it from me.”

The boy crested the drive and started up the walk. The afternoon sun slanted down on his face and illuminated the dusting of freckles sprinkling the bridge of his nose, almost invisible under the remnants of his summer tan. His sandy-brown hair fell low on his forehead, straight as straw, refusing to cooperate with its new back-to-school cut. And though not large, his ears perked out from the sides of his head as if on alert.

It was like staring at a photo of himself as a child.

Numbness gave way to heat swirling in his head and burning down the back of his neck. An empty feeling hollowed out under his rib cage.

“Hey, Mom.” The kid gave Melanie another small smile, as if the two of them shared a funny secret, a special joke. Then he looked at Cord, focusing on the tattoos ringing Cord’s biceps and stretching down his arms. Barbed wire. A headless snake. The writhing forms of dragons. The lines thick and chunky, more symbols than art.