Crimson Footprints II: New Beginnings (2 page)

C
HAPTER TWO

It took Tony a week to get from Atlanta to Miami. Whole days of walking at a time, interspersed with a few rides. Walking first, then the old man with a lisp who took him from Smyrna to Macon, before letting him know he expected something in return. What he got was a shiner and a pair of busted nuts, free of charge, thank you very much.

After spilling from the old man’s Camaro, Tony footed it all night. Along 75 he went, low and in the brush, too afraid to try another ride, too afraid to sleep. At sunrise he started on the shoulder, a wary eye on the lookout for cops. From there it’d been a series of short hops—Perry to Valdosta with a wannabe rocker, Valdosta to Gainesville on foot, Gainesville to Miami in a car. The last one had been sheer luck. A rowdy group of frat boys from New York had pulled over, half drunk and chanting on their way to a Marlins-Yankee game.

They asked Tony tons of questions and gaped at him as if they might poke him with a stick out of horrified fascination. His age, his ethnicity, whether he’d ever had sex. He’d been honest with them about his age—eleven—which impressed them and made him want to tell more. He admitted he was black and white, that his parents were dead and that the closest he’d ever come to sex was the tits he once saw in anime fashion.

They had a bucket of KFC extra crispy that they passed around, letting Tony get his fill from it and the case of Bud Light wedged between his legs. Pretty soon, his lips were loose, causing him to mouth off all sorts of truths—that he’d run away from a group home in Bismarck, that he was in search of a woman he was convinced was his aunt, and that he had no other prospects should it turn out not to be true. At their prompting, he pulled a newspaper clipping from his pocket and passed it around, yelping when one of them grabbed it harshly.

“Definitely looks like you,” one slurred. “Except the tits. Excellent tits.” The words sloshed roughly.

“I have to find her,” Tony said, ignoring his irritation as he tucked the picture away. “She’s the only family I have. And I know she’s my family.”

“You got an address?” the driver said, a Bud in his grasp as he drove.

“Sure. From the Internet.”

The driver glanced up, unmistakably impressed. “Well, then, little guy, let’s burn it to Miami.”

“To Miami!” one shouted.

“To Miami!” they echoed.

Tony settled in, did a tug on his seat belt, and made up his mind to close his eyes. Gainesville to Miami was three hundred and thirty-eight miles, five hours according to the GPS. Five hours to a house, hope, and the absence of hunger. Five hours more and Tony Hammond would have a home.    

C
HAPTER THREE

Takumi Tanaka grabbed a bag of butter-laden popcorn from the microwave, shut the door, and dumped the contents in a bowl before dousing it in hot sauce. He took it, the salsa and chips he’d uncovered in the cabinet, and carried it all to the coffee table. Absentmindedly, he shoved aside the pristine vegetable platter his wife had made and arranged his findings in their place. Afterward, he moved on to the bar, made himself a rum and Coke—heavy on the rum—and settled down at the flat screen for the game. The Miami Marlins and New York Yankees met momentarily in what he hoped would be a massacre. After all, New Yorkers could be damned annoying.

It was Saturday morning, which meant the girls were gone. After dropping their daughter Mia off at ballet practice, his wife, Deena, usually headed to work for a few hours before picking her up later. Today, the girls had plans for an afternoon of shoe shopping and a trip to the pet store for a replacement goldfish after Pokie, his daughter’s old one, went belly-up a week ago. The game, a few drinks, and an afternoon of food his wife would have a conniption about if she knew he was eating it, were all within sight.

But seconds into the first inning the doorbell rang.

He decided to ignore it.

It rang twice more, the quick and obnoxious ring of a person who’s lost patience, and Tak leaped to his feet with a groan. By the time he crossed the living room and foyer to open the broad double doors, he was muttering to himself about time and the point of having gates.

Tak threw open the door and glared at nothing. After a blink of confusion, he looked down to find a boy, short and golden, with gold-flecked eyes and the thickest brown hair unencumbered in a wavy, shoulder-length afro.

“I don’t want cookies, and I gave to the Boys and Girls Club last week,” Tak blurted.

The boy stared.

“I . . . uh, don’t . . . have anything to sell you.”

It sounded like an apology.

“Oh.”

“I’m looking for Deena Hammond.”

Tak raised a brow. “Why? What do you want with my wife?”

The boy’s eyes widened. Tak somehow encouraged the kid at a moment when his aim had been the opposite. A shout rang out from the next room, and Tak strained to hear vestiges of the game.

“So, she’s your wife?” the boy whispered eagerly.

“Uh, yeah,” Tak said, eyes keen on seeing whether the Yankees would use Villanova or Rousseau as their starting pitcher. He couldn’t tell from where he stood. 

“Her, right?”

The sound of crumpled paper caught Tak’s attention. The kid fumbled in his pocket before coming away with a stack of clippings that shook in his hand. He turned them to face Tak, holding it just below his eyes.

He held an old picture of Tak’s wife from an issue of
Architecture Digest
, her grinning as she held up a plaque. He remembered it from a ceremony in Phoenix where she was honored with the Young Architect of the Year Award. They’d done a full bio spread on her, making a fuss of her difficult upbringing. As his father’s protégé and the principal architect of the single most desirable address in South Florida, the sordid details of Deena’s life—worthy of a full seven pages—and her shy smile on the cover—helped create what would become
Architecture Digest’s
best-selling issue in recent history.

“Yeah, that’s her,” Tak said.

The boy swallowed visibly. “Good.”

He folded the pages neatly and placed them in his pocket.

“Then you must be my uncle.” Tony extended a hand. “I’m Anthony Hammond Jr. Maybe you knew my father.”

C
HAPTER FOUR

Tak opened the cupboard and frowned at the selection of canned goods. He closed it and opened another, filled with his wife’s Raisin Bran, his daughter’s Saturday morning Cocoa Puffs, and the Wheaties he ate by the shovel full. Mrs. Jimenez, his maid since childhood, was out for the weekend, so really, there were few other options.

“Anything’s okay,” the boy mumbled from the table.

But Tak frowned at the loose way fabric hung from limbs on the kid. Nephew or not, he wasn’t feeding a starving child a bowl of cereal.

Remembering the lasagna from the night before, three thick layers of tangy sauce, ground sirloin and blended cheeses, he pulled it out. Tak microwaved a palm-sized square and placed it before Anthony Jr. with a glass of milk before taking a seat across from him.

“Eat as much as you want, OK? The whole pan if you like.”

Tony nodded, cheeks already stuffed with food.

“Thanks,” he said, bits spewing.

Tak glanced at his watch, then the door. Thankfully, his wife wasn’t coming home straightaway. The boy ate in silence, unperturbed by the audience. A lifetime away, an announcer shouted enthusiasm for a wholly inconsequential game.

When Tony finished his plate, he rose and grabbed more from the glass pan on the counter. He warmed it, brought it to the table, and found his seat again.

“Where do you live?” Tak said.

The boy licked sauce from his fingers. “I don’t live anywhere. Used to live in a group home.”

The sound of fork-scrapping-plate filled the silence. He took his milk in big gulps, as if afraid Tak might change his mind and take it.

“So,” Tak chewed on his lip, “you caught the bus over?”

Tony shook his head. “Hitchhiked.”

Tak stared. “You . . .
hitchhiked
?”

“Yeah. From Bismarck.” He smacked his lips in appreciation.

“Bismarck . . .” Tak trailed stupidly.

“North Dakota,” he said. “That’s where my group home was.”

Tak squeezed his eyes shut. A dull throb started at his temples and radiated outward.

“I don’t understand. I thought you said you were from here.” He massaged his temple vigorously.

“Not me. My dad. I’ve never seen the place. Beautiful though. I can see why people make such a fuss about it.”

The boy was twelve, tops, but talked as though he were forty. Lived as though he were forty, too, judging by the offhanded way he’d just hitchhiked from Bismarck.

“So . . . did you grow up in Bismarck?” Tak ventured.

“Yeah. Well, in the Dakotas for a while. I lived in Rapid City, Sioux Falls, and Bismarck for a good long while.”

“But where’s your family?” Tak insisted.

“
You’re
my family.”

The boy scraped up the last of his lasagna and returned to the pan for thirds. Tak followed him with his eyes, unable to keep the skepticism from his voice.

“Besides us. Where’s your mother, for instance?”

“Dead. Died in a three-car pileup when I was seven.”

Something like panic surged in Tak. Not just from the kid’s confidence, but from his appearance—especially his appearance. Bronzed skin, wild brown locks wavy and streaked with auburn—and the molten brown eyes, far too close to his wife’s for comfort. All of that was in addition to the unequivocal evidence that was his name, the same as his wife’s dead brother. 

“Where’s your mother’s family, Tony? Here? In Miami?”

Tony shoved his plate in the microwave and faced him. “Mom was a foster kid, like me. Didn’t have family.”

Tak pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. It was then that Tony looked past him and into the hall just beyond the kitchen. There were pictures there, and he ventured toward them, wide-eyed, enamored. Tak followed him and together, they stared at a family portrait. Deena on the left, Tak on the right, baby Mia in the middle, gurgling between the two.

Tony brought a hand to the picture and touched Deena’s face, eyes unblinking, entranced.

What was he thinking? Feeling? Wanting? Whatever it was, did they have it to give?

A jingle of keys at the door interrupted Tak’s thoughts. The sound made him freeze, breath stolen as he waited.

His daughter Mia spilled in first, dashing at the sight of him, a tangle of jet-black mane at her back. Behind her, Deena fumbled, fussing with the lock, a Macy’s bag in one hand, a fish bowl in the other.

“Hey, let me help you with that,” Tak said, rushing to her side.

It was his hope to cut off her view, prep her for what was to come, but as it turned out, he never got the chance.

“Oh, Mommy, look! There’s a boy in the hall!”

Deena lifted her head, confused, before her gaze settled on Tony. Her lips parted, a myriad of emotions overwhelming her face, before the fishbowl ended up crashing to the floor.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Have you eaten, yet?” Deena whispered, hands clasped beneath the kitchen table. She clenched them to stave off the shaking and reminded herself periodically to breathe.

“Yeah. Your husband gave me some leftover lasagna. It was really good. Thanks.”

They were alone, Deena and Tony, as Tak had put on a cup of coffee, flushed another in a long line of dead goldfish, and whisked Mia away next door.

Tony went silent for a moment, gaze lowered thoughtfully before returning to her face. “Did you make it?” he asked conversationally. “The lasagna?”

“What? Oh. Yeah.” Deena shifted.

“Then you’re a good cook.”

He stood, unfolded really, his long narrow frame like that of the brother she once had.

“You want me to make you a cup of coffee?” he asked.

“Make what?” she said, certain she’d misheard.

“Coffee. Do you want me to pour you a cup of coffee?” He nodded toward the already-filled pot. “Seems like you need it.”

Deena sat up straighter. She was used to taking extra precautions with Mia, a boisterous and inquisitive kindergartner, and would’ve never let her pour coffee. But he was no five-year-old.

“How old
are
you?” Deena whispered.

He was opening cabinets now in search of cups. “Eleven,” he said. “Eleven and a half, really.”

She did the math quickly. Her brother had been dead for ten years, nearly ten and a half. She couldn’t imagine him having a child and not telling her, even if he had been a child himself.

“My brother never had a baby,” she announced. “He would have said so.”

Tony looked at her, staring with eyes that were hers—wide and bronze and tapering up like a smile.

“He didn’t want me,” he said and turned back to the cupboard. “You can understand that. Too young to be a dad.”

Deena sputtered at his obscene maturity.

“Want you or not, he would’ve said something! He wouldn’t have—left you.”

Deena and her siblings had been raised without parents and knew the heartache of it. They could never do that to another.

Right?

Tony pulled a white coffee cup from the cabinet and filled it with dark brew.

“Try not to be angry,” he said. “He didn’t know the whole story. Mom was a foster kid, living with a foster family. But they kicked her out once they found out she was pregnant—bad influence on the other children or something. Anyway, she went from home to home, getting kicked out or running away, or whatever was going on, you know? And all the while waiting on public assistance, an apartment, all that. When Housing gave her a place, she started looking for my dad again, so she could tell him about me. But by then, this was the only trace of him.”

He set the mug before Deena and dug in his pockets, coming away with a sheet of newspaper. She took it, unraveling with shaking fingers, not wanting to see, but wanting.

Her brother, sixteen and smiling in a picture taken months before death. Above him was the headline seared to her memories with grief:
Liberty City Teen Found Slain
. Beneath him were the details of his murder and discovery atop a heap of garbage.

“Why do you keep this?” Deena whispered.

“It’s the only picture I have of him.”

Sniffling, Deena smoothed out the clip purposefully, set it on the table, and rose. She hesitated only a moment before grabbing her purse and keys and brushing past Tak on the way out. She hadn’t noticed when he’d returned.

“Dee? Where’re you going?”

She turned on him, their space in the hall narrow as they stared at each other. “There’s only one person I can think of who would know whether this is true or not. One person still alive, anyway.”

He glanced past her to the kitchen where Tony sat.

“Let me go with you,” he said.

Deena started for the door again.

“Stay with Tony. I’ll be back.”