* * * * * * Saturday afternoon, firehouse -
Sam laughed quietly to herself. Organizing excursions was not John’s forte. It was amusing enough watching him when just he and Chloe were preparing to go somewhere. Now that he was having to factor two other children into his plans too, it was obvious that he was in over his head.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” John asked for the fourth time since he’d arrived at the firehouse.
“I’m sure,” she replied once again. “Megan and I will be fine. Go on. Have fun, all of you. Chloe, behave for him.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You, don’t forget where you parked,” she instructed John. He grinned in response to the teasing.
“Yes, ma’am,” he mimicked Chloe.
“And Jamie...” Sam looked at the boy. Despite his carefully schooled indifference, she could see that he was almost as excited as Chloe. “Have a good time.” She was rewarded with a small smile.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered as well. Sam would almost have sworn that there was an impish twinkle in his eyes that looked uncannily similar to the look in John’s. John merely shrugged at her questioning glance and grinned a little more broadly.
“All right,” Sam said briskly. “All of you out now. Megan and I have things to do.”
The girl looked up at her name and studied Sam warily. She had seemed to be warming to John and he’d confirmed that she was finally speaking to him, but she still didn’t look as though she was quite ready to be left alone with yet another stranger. Sam was pleased to see that John noticed his niece’s unease. He fished something out of his pocket and knelt in front of her.
“This is my cell phone number,” he said as he handed the dog-eared business card to Megan. If you need me... or Jamie for anything, you can have Sam call us. Okay?”
Megan examined the card with a serious expression on her small face. Then she looked up at John and nodded solemnly. “Okay.”
“That’s it then,” John said as he rose. “Let’s hit the road before the MARTA station parking lot becomes completely full. Later, Sam.” He kissed her as three children rolled their eyes.
When the elevator doors closed, Sam turned to Megan. “How would you like to come help me pick out a game to play?”
* * * Turner Field –
Whose brilliant idea had this been to begin with, John wondered? Take two children to a baseball game. How hard could it be? What had he been thinking? First Jamie and Chloe had fought over who got to ride in the front seat. He’d given up trying to negotiate a rotation for there and back and had finally just relegated both of them to the back seat for the whole trip. At the MARTA station he’d wished for leashes to keep track of them in the pressing crowd. It had gotten even worse when they reached the stadium. Chloe at least had no problem hanging onto his hand to avoid getting lost, but he’d been reduced to periodically yanking on the back of Jamie’s shirt to keep them together. They’d finally found their seats and gotten settled. Things had almost begun to seem under control for a couple of innings. Now this.
"I'm not a baby," Jamie scowled up at him. "And I'm not gonna run away. I just want to go to the bathroom."
There was a small tug at his other arm. Chloe looked at him apologetically. "Um... I have to go too."
Great.
* * * John paced quickly back and forth, mentally swearing as he tried to keep an eye on both bathroom doors. Of all the times he had taken Chloe places he had never so fervently wished for back-up as much as he had today. He glanced at his watch for the eighth time in two minutes and began to mutter under his breath. This is insane, Johnny, he told himself. How long does it take two children to use the restroom? It was the middle of an inning so there hadn't even been lines. He stopped pacing and stared hard at the entrance to the women's room for a moment as he tried to decide on a course of action. Failing to come to any logical decision he turned quickly back to the men's room. His swearing began in earnest when a rapid search revealed that Jamie was no longer inside. Damn it. He should have known better. He all but sprinted back to the ladies' room.
"Hey! You can't go in there!" a woman told him indignantly. He skidded to a reluctant halt and briefly wished that he'd brought a gun to the game.
"I need to find someone in there," John said. He knew that he sounded odd and desperate, but he was beyond caring. Jamie was missing, probably *had* run off, and Chloe... He checked that thought. There was no way that Jack would try to kidnap her at a baseball game. Right? Of course not. Damn, he wished that he had back-up.
"Girlfriend?" the woman was asking him. He shook his head.
"Girlfriend's daughter. She's nine and I'm dead if I lose her." He tried to put a light tone in his voice to disguise the panic. "Could you look? Her name is Chloe." He stood impatiently beside the door as the woman went inside. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to follow her. He tried to rein in his fears as he waited for her return. Jamie might have tried to dodge him, he thought, but he was a detective. His rational mind started to get a grip again. He was sure that he'd be able to track the boy. All he needed was for Chloe to get out here so that they could go look. He was surprised when the woman suddenly returned alone.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I couldn't find her. Maybe you should just have her paged."
Page her? John all but choked on his own startled laughter. Yeah, that would be great, he thought. Page Chloe Waters and James O'Doyle over the PA? Although it was astronomically unlikely that any "interested" parties would be at this game the thought of advertising that these particular children were running around unattended was extraordinarily unappealing.
"Or maybe she just went back to your seats already?" the woman suggested. She was left staring after him as he abruptly sprinted away.
"You two are going to give me a heart attack," he said as he dropped into the plastic seat between the children. His adrenaline rush ebbed as quickly as it had risen and he felt weak. They stared at him.
"You weren't there when I came out," Chloe said defensively.
"Like I was gonna miss more of the game waiting for some girl to finish going to the bathroom," Jamie added.
"I was here before you were."
"I had to show you where the seats were."
"I could have found them myself..."
John leaned back and half-listened to them bicker. He knew that he should probably stop them, but for the moment he was too relieved to interrupt. He felt kind of silly about his earlier panic. Then again, he thought as he watched them, he could never afford to become complacent about Chloe's safety. Baseball game or whatever... Jack was always a very real threat. And Jamie... well, he was an O'Doyle. And John knew from first-hand experience that no O'Doyle who ever left the nest was completely safe. Ought to put both of them on leashes, he thought as their arguing voices were momentarily drowned by the electronic organ.
* * * “That way?” Megan asked tentatively as she lay a domino down on the table.
“Exactly,” Sam smiled. “Good job. You’re very good with numbers.” The little girl ducked her head bashfully at the compliment and began rearranging the dominoes left in her hand. “I’ll bet you do well in school, don’t you?” There was a small shrug.
Sam played her next piece then watched Megan as her face wrinkled in concentration. Although Megan was a pleasant child and seemed happy enough to comply with whatever instructions Sam gave her, answering questions was still not something she would do readily. Yet another trait these children shared with their uncle, Sam thought. From her experience in various cases involving juveniles, she knew that both Jamie and Megan had probably already been subjected to more than a few rounds of questions from social workers, school counselors, and other mental health professionals. Megan had likely learned that most of them would leave her alone sooner rather than later if she spoke to them as little as possible. It had been good to see her playing with Chloe yesterday afternoon. Sam hoped that eventually she would feel comfortable enough with all of them to open up.
Later, as Megan curled up on the sofa to watch one of Chloe’s videos, Sam took out the papers that John had brought. He had asked her to read over them just to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything. She could tell that he was more worried about the upcoming hearing than he wanted to pretend. As Sam read through the documents she was reminded of the pages she’d once seen with her own name and Chloe’s in the proper blanks. Tom’s parents had tried to take Chloe from her once. It had been as much of a shock to her then as all of this was for John now. Hopefully his case would work out as well as hers had.
* * * Jamie kicked at the seat in front of him. The heat was killing him. It was September. It would probably be snowing in Boston soon but here... He was going to die of heat stroke.
"Can I go get a soda?"
"No," John answered immediately. Jerk. Like he wasn't probably roasting too.
"But..."
"No."
"What if I go with him?" Chloe asked. Yeah, like he wanted the girl to come along.
"No."
"But, John..."
"Fine," John stood abruptly. "We'll all go."
Jamie rolled his eyes. Uncle John had been acting more and more spastic all afternoon, especially since the whole bathroom thing.
"Is he always such a control freak?" Jamie muttered out of the corner of his mouth to Chloe as they walked up the steps.
"He's not a control freak," she frowned back at him. "He's just... He worries."
"I'm not going to run away."
Chloe gave him a weird look.
"I don't think it's you that he's worried about." She looked away almost like she felt guilty about something. What would she have to be guilty about, he wondered. And why would John have to worry about *her*? Then he remembered the security guards he'd noticed at Chloe's home. Definitely something strange going on, he decided.
* * * the firehouse –
“How was it?” Sam asked as the tired trio walked into the living room.
“We won!” Chloe and Jamie replied in chorus then frowned at one another. No truce there, Sam thought. Chloe still seemed to think of Jamie as an intruder, and Jamie was simply dissatisfied with his entire current situation. It was going to be a lot for all of them to work through, she mused. And it was going to take time.
“Coffee. I need coffee,” was John’s reply. “Is it possible to Lo-Jack children?" he asked when they were alone in the kitchen. Sam smiled sympathetically as she handed him a mug.
"Rough afternoon?"
"I think I have an ulcer." He slumped into a chair and began spooning sugar into his coffee. "How'd it go with Megan?"
“I don’t think that coffee will do an ulcer much good,” she observed absently. “But Megan and I had a nice afternoon. We played a few games, watched a video, ate hotdogs while we caught a little bit of the game on television. It went well.”
“Lucky you.”
“Problems?” she asked, concerned at the still aggravated note in his tone.
“Nah, not really,” John shook his head. He took a swallow of his drink and seemed to unwind a little. “Nothing that few books on parenting and a couple of leashes couldn’t fix. Did you get a chance to look at that paperwork?”
“It looks like it’s all in order.”
He nodded as if it had been the answer he was expecting. Sam watched the worry lines crease his forehead again as he stared moodily into his mug. Despite Malcolm’s wishes for his children’s welfare, she knew the courts would not necessarily rule in John’s favor. To be realistic about it, there were many factors that were not to his advantage – the nature of his job, the hours he had to keep, his single status. It was entirely possible that his sister-in-law did indeed have a better case. It was going to be a difficult decision, and Sam didn’t envy the judge in the slightest.
“Maybe you should start looking into getting a lawyer.”
* * * John’s apartment, late evening –
John stared at the telephone beside his bed.
No time like the present, he told himself.
The longer you wait, the harder it’ll be to explain.
Just pick up the damn phone, Johnny.
Finally following his own advice, he lifted the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Nate. It’s me.”
“John? How’s it going, man?” Nathan paused and the enthusiasm in his voice immediately turned to suspicion. “What’s wrong?”
John smiled wryly to himself. He should have known Nathan would see straight through him. Might as well lay it out. “I need a lawyer.” He heard Nathan take a sharp breath.
“What have you done, now?”
“Nothing. Sort of. Well...” Damn, you should have thought this through a little better, Johnny, he told himself.
“John, just spit it out.”
He could sense the edge of fear in Nathan’s words and knew he was probably thinking of the last bombshell that John had dropped on him two years ago. Things hadn’t gone well then and he was expecting this to be just as bad. “Remember when Bihar went digging around in my attic? Well, he didn’t dig up quite everything.” Nathan’s end of the line remained silent. John’s one consolation was that at least he didn’t hang up. “Nate, I’m sorry.”
“Stop being sorry,” Nathan said, “and start explaining.”
“It’s... my family. I didn’t really try to hide it. I just never...”
“The point, Johnny. Why do you need a lawyer?”
The coldness in his voice made John shiver. Nathan was his best friend. At least, he had been.
“My oldest brother wants me to be the guardian of his children while he’s in prison. His sister-in-law is fighting me. She has a better case than I do.” He could hear the desperation in his own voice and it surprised him. “I want to keep these kids, Nate. I need a lawyer who is really on my side. Somebody I can trust...”
“Don’t we all.” Nathan was silent for several minutes. John left him alone, knowing he needed time to absorb it all. Finally, Nathan sighed. “You know I don’t have any training in child custody hearings.”
“Yeah, but I thought... I thought you could just sort of advise me in general?”
There was another pause then a soft chuckle. “I’d nearly forgotten just how convoluted your logic can be. Where is the hearing being held?”
“Boston.”
“I’m not licensed in Massachusetts. Can you get it moved to Georgia?”
“Can’t. Katharine is from Illinois, so they decided that Boston was neutral.”
“So, I’m guessing that Katharine is Malcolm’s sister-in-law?”
“Yeah,” John began then paused. “I never said Malcolm.”
“I know,” Nathan agreed. “But if it were Brandon’s kids, his wife would be suing you for custody, not his sister-in-law.”
John sat in stunned silence. “You... You knew?” he stammered at last. “How? How long?”
Nathan laughed again, but this time there was a more bitter edge to it. “Bihar’s crusade,” he said. “You should have known it would make us curious. After that it was just digging through a few old newspapers. The O’Doyles of Boston aren’t exactly low profile people. You could have told us. You know that, right? You could have told us.”
“I... I just...” John sighed and began again. “I know. I just didn’t want to deal with it. I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. I just didn’t think it was really important.” Nathan snorted. “They weren’t part of my life anymore,” John said defensively.
“Okay,” Nathan said. There was a hint of resignation in his voice, and John knew that he wasn’t entirely satisfied with his answers. But he was a professional. “Fax me the paperwork Monday. Maybe I can at least help you figure out what you’re up against.”
“Thanks, Nate. You’re a real friend.”
“Yeah,” Nathan agreed wearily. “Try to remember that, would you?”
***** *****