Earthbound Angels Part 1 (15 page)

Kiara nodded slowly. This was it. She was finally going to tell someone what had happened to her and Ronan.

It had been frightening to even think about in the past because she was quite sure that it would have put Ronan and her in danger.

But now, with Graeme here to look after them, she no longer felt afraid. She would tell him everything.

Kiara took a deep breath and looked down at the folded hands in her lap. Everyone else waited for her to speak. They didn’t rush her or press her to start talking. All of them seemed perfectly content to wait until she was ready; a fact for which she was most grateful.

When she did start talking, her voice was rather faint and quiet, but the longer she spoke, the stronger her voice became. By the end of her story, she had become very confident and she was talking in a strong and unwavering voice.

The rest of them were feeling sick at heart for what she and Ronan had gone through.

For a long time, it had just been Kiara and her mother. She never knew who her father was. Renee had taken care of the two of them through working as a bartender. She was pretty and the customers liked her so she made pretty good money.

Kiara wasn’t sure who it was, but at some point Renee had started to see someone. Since Renee never brought him home, Kiara never saw him and she never heard his name mentioned. All she knew is that when she was 12, her mother had become pregnant. Nine months later, she gave birth to Ronan.

Kiara had adored her little brother on sight and quickly took over caring for him. This turned out to be a huge help to Renee because she was so tired a lot of the time. Kiara never minded looking after the dark-haired little boy with eyes so like her own. He was fun-loving, energetic and quite smart. For a time, the three of them lived a simple but happy life together.

Then, one day, everything changed.

Kiara was 17 and had been begging her mother to let her get at least a part-time job so she could help out. Even though she was often told how beautiful she was, Kiara had no interest in dating. She had her hands full with helping her mother look after things at their home and she never minded that.

But Renee insisted that Kiara focus on school and then she could see about getting a part time job after graduation, if she was still interested. She told Kiara that college was a must and that she would figure out a way to pay for it.

Ronan was just 5 years old but turning into quite a handsome little boy. He loved his mother and his sister above all other people. His first year in school had been very exciting for him. Making friends had come easily to him and he was quite popular. It may have been this trait that made him want to ride the school bus rather than have his big sister take him to school and home each day. He begged to do this constantly.

One day—a very fateful day—Kiara needed to meet with her counselor after school, but Renee would already be at work. They all agreed that Ronan could ride the bus home from his school that day. Kiara would use the little car they owned and would make sure that she was also at home within the time frame of the bus dropping him off.

As it turned out, Murphy’s Law intervened in the form of Kiara getting caught up in a traffic jam caused by an accident. For once, the time seemed to be flying past as the line of cars crawled at a snail’s pace. She wasn’t sure what to do because she wasn’t in a position to turn around and go another way. All she could do was pray that things sped up.

When she finally arrived home, it was only ten minutes late than expected so Kiara figured it could have been much worse. Assuming that Ronan would be sitting on the front steps waiting for her, she was more than a little surprised to see the front door standing open.

She wondered how he had managed to get inside as she quickly parked her little car and hastily got out of it. Racing to the open front door, she was calling his name by the time she reached it.

Getting no answer, she called Ronan’s name again.

That’s when she noticed that everything was unnaturally quiet.

Something told her to stop yelling for her little brother and to proceed with caution. Walking slowly and quietly down the small hallway, she approached the living room.

Peering inside, she saw Ronan standing over by the fireplace. His face was ghostly pale and his eyes stared blankly.

Taking a huge breath of relief, Kiara started toward him, asking why he didn’t answer her. He didn’t appear as if he even knew she was there. Turning her head, she followed his gaze and the sight that met her eyes chilled her blood.

Her mother, the lovely Renee, lay on her back on the floor, eyes open and vacant. A small trickle of blood slid from the corner of her parted lips and a very large knife protruded from her chest.

As Kiara was trying very hard to take this in, she heard the door at the back of the house slam shut. Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to her that the monster who did this to her mother just may still be in the house.

Her heart breaking at their loss, she grabbed Ronan and ran for the front door. She didn’t stop until she reached her car and threw Ronan inside.

Starting up the car, she didn’t even worry about seatbelts even though she was normally very safety conscious, particularly where her little brother was concerned. She squealed tires as she took off in a direction that would put distance between them and the nightmare that waited inside the house.

LATER, SHE WOULDN’T understand why she didn’t simply call the police with her cell phone. Instead, she drove to the police station.

By the time she got there, she was so hysterical that she was practically incoherent. Fortunately, the man who spoke with her could understand most of what she said and dispatched some officers to her house immediately. Renee’s lifeless body was still lying there right where Kiara and Ronan had last seen it.

Obviously, it was a homicide, but nothing had been left behind indicating who had committed this horrible act. Kiara was questioned at length about what she had seen and heard when she got home. They really wanted to question Ronan but that turned out to be of little use.

The little boy was in a state of shock and was finally taken to the hospital for an examination and observation. Sadly, even though Ronan was fine physically, he had not spoken another word since that day.

The morning of their mother’s murder marked the last time that Kiara had heard the sweet sound of her brother’s voice.

Finally, the story was pieced together that explained a lot. According to the estimated time of death and when the bus had dropped Ronan off, there was an excellent chance that he had walked in on the murder taking place.

Most likely, he had gotten a good look at the murderer, which was enough cause for concern since the culprit hadn’t been apprehended. Worse yet, the sound of the slamming door that Kiara had heard shortly after her arrival had to have been the murderer.

Kiara was allowed to stay overnight in Ronan’s hospital room because he seemed to be less agitated with her there. There was an armed policeman outside of the hospital room guarding them that night. It turned out that Ronan spent a week in the hospital as various specialists tried to get to the bottom of his problem. The child psychiatrist on staff was of the opinion that Ronan was still in shock of some sort and that this was a problem that would sort itself out in time.

Things got even more complicated at the end of the week when Ronan was actually fine to be released but no one knew what to do. Kiara wasn’t quite 18 and wasn’t legally allowed to take custody of him. In fact, she, too, was headed for foster care. The night before they were to be taken, Kiara found out that she and Ronan would be going to separate homes.

Even though she had tried to reason and, finally, beg the social worker to not separate them, it did no good. They were going to be collected at 8AM the next morning and that was that.

Kiara thought over everything and realized that she simply couldn’t let this happen. She and her little brother just could not be separated from each other. This was a time that they needed each other more than ever.

By the time her 18th birthday rolled around, Kiara wasn’t sure she would be given custody of Ronan.

No, she couldn’t take any chances. She had to take care of this now.

During the night, she slipped out of the room, telling the officer on guard that she was going to the vending machine on the floor under them. Since this was something she often did, the officer didn’t think anything of it.

Only this time, she rode the elevator down to the lobby where she darted through the double doors and headed to the parking lot for patients. Hopping into her little car, she raced home as fast as she dared.

Once there, she took a flashlight from her glove box and carefully entered the house. The yellow crime scene tape was still there and gave her just a second’s pause. She honestly didn’t believe that anyone would be watching the house all the time in case she and her brother returned, but it still didn’t help her to feel safe here.

When she got inside, she didn’t even go past the living room where her mother’s body had been found. Instead, she went straight upstairs and got a suitcase down.

Throwing in as many clothes as she could manage, she then included some special things to her like photo albums. She went into Ronan’s room and repeated her actions. Last of all, she went into her mother’s room.

There was a place in the back of Renee’s closet where the floor lifted up and there was a small compartment that you had to know about in order to find. This was where Renee had stashed part of her tip money from work. Not that long ago, she had shown it to Kiara telling her that she wanted her to know where it was in case she ever needed it.

At the time, Kiara didn’t understand what she meant. Now she had to consider the fact that maybe Renee had known someone was after her.

At any rate, Kiara directed her flashlight into the space and found it packed with bills. At first glance, it seemed that they were mostly one dollar bills, but after she started sifting through them, she found plenty of higher denominations.

Not taking the time to count it, she quickly stuffed a duffle bag with the money and climbed out of the closet. For a minute, she allowed herself to gaze around her mother’s room one last time. She crossed over to Renee’s dresser and lifted a small framed picture of the three of them. It had been taken a scant few months ago when they had actually taken a small vacation. All three of them were smiling broadly and looked so happy.

Picking up the photo, she put it in the duffle bag. She took a few more things of her mother’s before leaving.

One last stop was in her mother’s bathroom. Looking through the medicine cabinet, Kiara found what she was looking for and then started her way back downstairs.

The entire trip hadn’t taken her longer than about 15 minutes, but she knew she had to have an excuse ready for what took her so long to visit the vending machine.

It turned out to be easier than she imagined. She stopped on the way at an all-night coffee shop and bought the police officer guarding Ronan’s door a cup of his favorite coffee.

When she pulled back into the hospital parking lot, she opened the cup and added the contents of what she had pulled from the medicine cabinet. She knew he would be happy to get this cup of coffee and wouldn’t scold her too badly when he saw it.

And that’s just what happened.

Kiara planned everything around the morning shift change at the hospital. Things always got a little crazy then and she would have a better chance of her plan working. By then, the guard was snoozing peacefully in his chair and people were coming and going.

Wrapping Ronan up in a blanket, she put him the wheel chair she had snagged earlier and down the hall they went.

In the end, it turned out to be much easier than she had ever thought it would be to get him out of the hospital. No one even looked twice at them. It was still a little dark when they reached the car, which made things even simpler. She settled Ronan in the back seat and they took off.

Kiara really didn’t have a plan beyond getting them away from Social Services so she kind of played it by ear. She drove for twelve hours, stopping only for gas when she needed it and food that she and Ronan ate on the road.

It was impossible to say when they would have been discovered missing, but she had to assume that it would have been shortly after the shift change had gone into effect. That’s why she had put as many miles as possible between them and her old home town.

Finally, she couldn’t stay awake any longer. Taking some of the money she had found in Renee’s closet, she pulled into a small roadside motel. It turned out to be almost too easy to get a room. No one asked her any questions because she was paying in cash. It quickly occurred to her that they simply didn’t care who she was or why she was there. She was paying and that was all that really mattered.

Kiara got Ronan settled into one of the beds in the motel room, and took a quick shower. While she was towel drying her hair, she turned on the television hoping not to see herself and Ronan on the news. It turned out that there seemed to be other important things going on in the world currently that over shadowed the disappearance of a 17 year old girl and her 5 year old brother. She finally felt it was safe for her to get some sleep.

Thus started their cross country adventure.

This worked out pretty well for them until the money started running low. They traveled from town to town, never staying very long in one place. Kiara kept up with Ronan’s school work by teaching him herself. In spite of the fact that he still wasn’t speaking, he did quite well because he was such a bright little boy.

He learned everything she taught him from the second-hand books that she found in used bookstores and thrift stores. Even now, at 14, he was more advanced than a lot of seniors in high school.