Wicked Circle (42 page)

And it seemed John Hampton was heading back to Cleveland.

Kurt followed him, wondering if he could even make an arrest based on a warrant for a suspect identified as human. He decided to leave that to someone else to decide. The real question was,
How am I going to stop him while he’s still in my jurisdiction?

Then the fool gave him cause. He did a quick stint of seventy-five in a forty-five.

Kurt rolled down his window, slapped the magnetic base of his police beacon on the roof, and flipped it and his siren on.

“Your grandmother is going to kill me.”

Johnny’s voice grumbled from the radio. Aurelia had been making notes, and perked up.

“What?” the kid said.

Then Aurelia heard the siren.

“Cool!” the kid said.

“Not cool,” Johnny said.

“You’re pulling over? This car could outrun the cop’s car! C’mon! C’mon!”

“No,” Johnny said firmly.

Aurelia picked up her phone.

The Maserati drove onto the shoulder in front of Kurt, who waited. He wasn’t in a uniform, but he had a badge and handcuffs. The warrant for the arrest of John Hampton had been issued years ago, but warrants never expire.

Would he resist? What if he secured him into the cuffs
and
into the back of the car, then he did that at-will transformation thing? Kurt had no other choice.

Kurt Miller got out of his Crown Victoria and, with his hand on his weapon, he approached the car. Two good paces from the driver’s door, he halted, set his feet and drew the gun. “Step out of the car, now!”

Nothing happened, so he repeated himself.

The door opened.

“Keep your hands where I can see them.”

John Newman, or Hampton, eased from the car, with his palms outstretched. “I know I was speeding,” he said. “It was stupid. I was showing off for the kid.”

“Kid?”

John motioned with his head toward the car interior. Kurt peered through the back window and saw Evan worriedly watching him.
Damn it!

“Since you’re not in a cruiser or a uniform, could I see some ID, Officer?”

“I’m a SSTIX investigator.” Kurt tossed his badge wallet to Johnny.

John caught it, examined it. “SSTIX? Since when did they make arrests for traffic violations? And do you always draw your gun on speeders? Or do you enjoy scaring kids?”

“Put your hands on the
roof of the car.”

John did. Kurt put the gun into its holster. As he frisked him, he noticed that John focused on the Crown Victoria. “You were following me earlier.”

Kurt slapped the cuffs onto the tall man’s wrists. “You’re under arrest for an outstanding warrant. Your cooperation won’t be as scary for the kid as your defiance would be.” He then recited the Miranda warning. It surprised him that John didn’t resist at all.

“What warrant? And how do you even know who I am? You haven’t asked me for my name yet, and I don’t even live here.”

Kurt steered him toward the Crown Victoria. “Maybe not anymore, John, but you used to.” Kurt gave John a push to indicate he should go toward the green car.

John proceeded as bidden, silent for the distance.
Maybe he’s stunned.
After shutting the Crown Victoria’s door, Kurt returned to the Maserati. He retrieved his badge wallet from the roof of the car, then opened the door closest to Evan and, crouching down, showed the badge to him. “I’m Kurt Miller, a federal investigator,” he said. “We’ve met before. I’m a friend of your grandmother’s.”

“Are you gonna cuff me too?”

“No. But I do need you to get into my car with your dad so we can go to the station.”

“My dad?” Evan’s mouth hung open.

They haven’t told him. Double damn it.
“Sure. If he’s driving and you’re in the backseat buckled in, that means you’re his son, right?”

Evan’s face hardened and he stared at his shoes. “He was only speedin’ ’cause I begged him to ’cause it’s such a cool car.” He crossed his arms. “It’s not his fault. It’s mine.”

“You need to come with
me. At the police station, we’ll call your gram. She’ll pick you up.”
She may never forgive me for this.

Evan slid out, shut the door.

Kurt offered him his hand.

“I’m not a baby,” Evan said.

They walked toward the Crown Victoria on the side that was furthest from the road. “I’ll move my files and you can sit up front in my car.”

“No. My gram says I always hafta sit in the back.”

“Does your gram tell you to obey officers of the law?”

“Yeah. And she says it’s a law that kids sit in the back.”

Kurt ground his teeth. Evan was still a brat. He didn’t think that John had any reason to hurt the kid, but letting Evan sit in the back might give John an opportunity should his cooperation fail out of desperation.

Evan suddenly rushed to the car.

“Hey!”

Before Kurt could get there, Evan had climbed in the front and slammed the door. He sent files skidding to the floor as he twisted and hit buttons, partially lowering windows and successfully locking the doors.

Kurt glowered through the window at him and demanded, “Unlock these doors, now!”

“No!” Evan stuck out his tongue.

J
ohnny sat in the back of the Crown Vic wondering what he’d done to end up with a warrant. It didn’t matter, really. This detective plainly knew something about him, something that could provide information that would lead him to his family. He was willing to go to the station . . . or wherever a SSTIX agent took you . . . to find out. He was confident that the Zvonul could get him out and cover the incident if necessary.

Besides, he didn’t want to give Evan the impression that breaking the law didn’t have consequences.

Suddenly the boy scurried into the car and locked the agent out of his own car.

S
o much for that idea.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Johnny asked.

Evan turned the car off and grappled to get the keys out of the ignition. “I’m helping you.”

Johnny shook his head. “This isn’t helping.”

Evan crawled into the back beside him. “There’s got to be a key to the cuffs on here. Then we can drive away!”

“You’re pretty smart to figure that out.”

Evan beamed.

“But breaking the law and messing with a detective isn’t smart.”

“Not in the least,” the detective confirmed. He stood near the barely open passenger rear window with his arms crossed, obviously pissed
off. His gun was still holstered at his side.

Evan flipped the keys around on the ring.

“Evan,” Johnny said. “Stop.”

Evan blurted, “Are you my dad?”

Johnny felt like he’d been punched in the gut.
I’m sitting here handcuffed. Now is not the ideal time to admit this.
But he couldn’t lie, either. Johnny dropped his head down, ashamed. He’d wanted to tell him in a happy setting, not one that said
Hey, I’m a criminal.
Staring at the seat, he whispered, “Yeah.”

Three heartbeats later, Evan said, “You don’t want me, do you?”

Johnny’s head snapped up. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

“You don’t.” Evan threw the keys into the front, where they skittered across the dash to the windshield. He flopped back in his seat, spilling tears.

“Evan . . . I don’t know you—”

“But you don’t like me!”

Johnny hesitated, shocked at the quick hurt and quicker anger in the boy’s tone. He recalled some of what he’d read online earlier, about fatherless boys feeling unwanted. “Don’t put words in my mouth,” he said firmly. “I didn’t say that. If I don’t know you, how can I know if I like you? You don’t know me, either. Can you say you like me?”

Evan sniffled. “You like cars.”

Johnny was silent as an easy smile claimed his face. “Yeah. Yeah I do. You probably get that from me. And check me out, sitting here in handcuffs. I must’ve done something bad. I did speed . . . I suppose you get your fast thinking from me too.
But getting the cuffs off and driving away from here won’t solve the problem, Evan. It will make it worse.”

Tears rolled from Evan’s eyes. “I don’t want them to take you away! I just . . . I just got you.”

Johnny concentrated, shifting just his forearms, pushing them into slender paws and slipping from the cuffs. He kept this all confined behind him until he was certain that he was completely human again, then he reached over and pulled the crying boy into his arms.

Beyond the window, the detective stooped to get a better view inside the car even as he reached for his gun. Johnny waved him off. “It’s okay,” he said, to Evan and to the officer.

“No, it’s not,” Evan cried.

It hit Johnny that he was holding
his kid
. The tears of
his kid
were wetting his shirt, like a soothing balm and a fierce binding in one. Though he’d never seen Evan as an infant, had never diapered him or fed him or taken him to the school bus, this moment of simple human contact and affection was mightier than hearing the Rege confirm him. “Evan, he says there’s a warrant for my arrest. If I did something bad, the consequences of it are mine.”

“What did you do?”

“I don’t know.”

Evan sat back, sniffling. “How can you not know?”

“I don’t remember anything about my life, except the last eight and a half years. I was . . . I was abducted . . . kidnapped . . . and my memories were wiped away. I don’t remember your mother, and I never knew she was pregnant with you.”

“That’s why you haven’t been with me?”

“I didn’t know you existed,
Evan. I swear it. Or I would have been here.”

Evan threw his arms around Johnny’s neck and held him so tight Johnny could scarcely breathe.

Listening to their conversation, Kurt was awed. To an eight-year-old, that almost insignificant connection of “liking cars” was enough. Enough to build on, enough to start a relationship.

He listened as John was firm with the kid and used logic that a youngster could follow, and Evan, potential future hooligan that he was, settled right down, compliant.

Kurt recognized that this kid
wanted
a father,
wanted
to be led and loved.

It was a revelation to him, to find that a brat like Evan yearned for the love of a father.

When John escaped his cuffs, Kurt was ready to draw his gun to maintain control of the situation, but John waved him down. As Kurt observed what was transpiring in the back of his car, the emotion on John Hampton’s face couldn’t be disguised by the tattoos. Kurt had seen all kinds of men as a cop. He recognized responsibility when he saw it.

He realized, too, that John “Newman” could have touted his status as Domn Lup, or even gone into a full-out transformation to avoid being captured. He had done nothing but shun his cuffs to console his crying son.

Minutes later, John had Evan crawl up front and unlock the doors.

Kurt slid into the driver’s seat.

“Evan,” Johnny said, “tell the man that you’re sorry for locking him out of his car.”

“I’m sorry for locking you out of
your car.”

Kurt said sternly, “Don’t ever do that again.”

“I won’t.”

“And I’m sorry for removing your handcuffs. If you need to put them back on me—”

Kurt shook his head. “No. There’s obviously no point. Besides, if you were going to try and flee, you’ve had ample chance.”

“Can you tell me more about the warrant? What am I supposed to have done?”

“You really don’t remember, do you? That bit in Cleveland wasn’t just a cover-up.”

“I don’t remember, but I want to. I don’t even know who my parents were. I just learned last night that my birth name was John Curtis Hampton. And . . . I would be grateful for anything you can tell me.”

Curtis?
Kurt leaned and gathered up the files that Evan had kicked to the floor. He lifted the file marked “Hampton, John C.”
Curtis with a
C
. Damn it, Elena . . . why’d you give him my name?
He’d never before even considered what John’s middle name might be. He flipped through the file; there was no mention of the middle name . . . but the birthday . . . July twenty-fifth.
About nine months after the Hallowe’en party.

Kurt’s hand covered his mouth, rubbed across his whole lower jaw.
He could have been born prematurely. He could be another man’s son.
His gaze shifted up to the rearview mirror. He resembled Elena. But that height, that cleft in his chin . . .
Those could be mine.

This can’t be. It can’t.

If Brenda found out I cheated . . . I can’t lose her.

John was whispering reassuringly to Evan, “It’ll be okay.” He looked askance
at Kurt. “Right? He’ll get back to his grandmother, and you and I will go clear all this up at the station.”

I’m an officer of SSTIX. I let my private pain over Elena’s death feed a hate for wæres, and now . . . now I find the Domn Lup is likely my own son. I can never speak of this, never let it get out. It would ruin my life in every way.

“John Curtis Hampton, you say? I’m very embarrassed to admit this, but I believe I’ve made a terrible mistake. . . .”

A
s Johnny drove into the driveway, Toni rushed onto her stoop, cheeks flushed with anger. “I think we’re over that twenty minutes I promised her,” Johnny murmured to Evan. “Don’t forget our promise.”

“I won’t tell her about the cop, Dad.”

After a high five, they got out of the car.

Arms crossed, Toni said, “You’re late!”

“We . . . got a little carried away.”

“Gram!” Grinning from ear to ear, Evan ran from the car and clasped her in a big hug. “He’s my dad!”

“You told him.”

Johnny nodded. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

Toni assessed Evan’s giant smile. “Yes,” she said. She hugged Evan back. “Yes.”

Kurt Miller parked his Crown Victoria in the garage. Once he’d stuffed the files into his briefcase, he left the car. Inside, he heard the treadmill motor running in the basement. “Honey?” he called.