Miami. Present day:
"I can't tell you how many times that I wanted to pick up the phone and call you just to hear your voice again." His words were low and soft as he stared at a knot in the wooden table that they were sat at.
"Well you could have," she replied in a surly manner, still angered that he had let her believe that he was dead for so long.
He rubbed a hand over his face. "It wasn't that simple….once I left New York...I knew that I would never be able to come back. It was better that you all thought I was dead so that you could move on with your lives."
"Is that what you told yourself when you were enjoying yourself down here in the sun, with your fancy new job and your nice houses?"
Her anger towards him was understandable, but they would not get anywhere with this conversation if she continued on that way.
"I had to leave everything behind, Lori. The life I once knew….I had to make the people I cared about hate me and then I got dumped in some strange city with nothing!"
He willed himself to control his temper; matching Lori in a battle of anger would not do either of them any good. He took a couple of deep breaths as he looked at her, pleading with his eyes for her to understand what a nightmare his life had become in New York.
"Andy told me that they found you here."
He knew instantly what she meant; the second generation of the Malucci family had managed to track him down to Miami and had meted out their own brand of justice on him. Holding him in some abandoned warehouse for days on end, physically abusing him, making him believe that they had killed his son.
He nodded his head and said nothing.
"I was going to come down here the minute he told me but he said that wouldn't be a good idea. They really hurt you didn't they?" Her voice was softer this time as her earlier anger began to dissipate.
He looked up at her briefly and she was shocked to see the pain in his brilliant blue eyes. "I don't really remember that much of it to be honest," he shrugged.
She might not have seen him for the best part of the last twenty years, but she knew him well enough to know when he was lying. She'd been married to him and she was an expert when it came to reading his body language, she knew he remembered much more than he claimed to.
"Andy said that they used your son against you."
She regretted saying it the moment it fell from her mouth as he looked at her; he visibly flinched at the mention of his son and screwed his eyes shut. Had her comments inadvertently caused a vivid flashback of his abduction to come rushing back to the surface?
He sat frozen in the chair as he willed the images and sounds to leave his overburdened mind, to leave and never come back to haunt him again. Although the dreams had lessened, he still woke up regularly, convinced that the Malucci's had killed his son. The method would change, but the result would always be the same, his son would be dead and the blame would be laid at his door, all because he couldn't give Danny and Gianni the answers that they had wanted from him.
A part of her wanted to make him suffer; to make this as difficult and uncomfortable for him as possible. After all, he had hidden away in Miami for nearly twenty years without bothering to tell her that he was still alive. How dare he keep that from her?
Her hardened stance softened when she saw first-hand the pain and torment that he was still suffering from his ordeal. Damn him, he had always been able to bring out both the best and worst in her. What was it about this man that invoked such strong feelings in her?
Whatever else might have happened, she could not deny that she loved him once and loved him deeply. Perhaps she was not in the right place to reciprocate the depths of the feelings that he clearly had for her, what would have happened if they had met five years later than they really did?
John would be a dirty cop and a criminal, she told herself. It was just the way the fates had aligned themselves, that only one of them had been in the right place at the right time. Her heart wasn't in it as much as his was but she got caught up in his passionate need for her, allowing him to shower her with attention both emotional and physical.
She had tried so hard to be the loving wife that he wanted, yet she yearned to be free too. Maybe she was too young to settle down and marry when they did. It was only after they had divorced, and he had descended into the criminal underworld, that she realised that she was ready to really make a go of things with him.
But he was no longer there, he had disappeared into the night like some ethereal mist and was never seen or head of again until his burnt and charred remains were discovered a short time later.
He was zoning out on her, lost in his own thoughts. She cleared her throat to get his attention. "What's your son's name?"
He blinked at her several times before answering quietly, "Kyle."
"Is Calleigh his mother?"
His head shot up at the question as he shook his head vigorously. "I met his mother a long time ago…..she never told me she was pregnant…..I didn't find out about him until he was 15."
He was expecting her to give him some sort of lecture on abandoning his son as well as the people he cared about in New York. He could have taken the time to sit and explain it to her, but he couldn't seem to muster the energy or the inclination to do so at the moment. He'd heard all of the lectures under the sun, having given them to himself time and again. He knew that he'd betrayed them and that Lori had every right to hate him.
Her next words surprised him.
"Are you and Kyle close?"
A wistful smile crossed his face as he thought of his precious boy and the fine young man he had grown into. He had found it hard to accept Kyle's help at first, he felt ashamed at not being able to take care of himself and believed that he was an embarrassment and a hindrance to his teenage son. Kyle had refused to be intimidated by his father and instead cared for him with tenderness and respect.
If there was one good thing to come out of the nightmare of the last six months, it was that he and Kyle were closer than ever, both men learning that they had to make the most of each and every day together. It was important that they told each other how they really felt; life was too short to hold back on saying the things that mattered.
"Yes, we are," he said after a long pause.
She gave him a small smile this time. "I always knew you'd make a good father."
Flashback. New York 1991:
God it felt good not to have to get up early this morning. He'd been working longer shifts and putting in for overtime these last few months in an effort to give his wife the financial stability that she'd been yearning for since they'd gotten married. Both of them earned a government wage in their respective jobs, and although the work they did was important and helped to keep the citizens of New York City safe, neither of them felt they were paid what they deserved.
The plan had been to both take the same week off work; things had become a little strained between them recently as they came home exhausted from long days at work. They would argue over petty things such as whose turn it was to cook the dinner, it used to be such a fun aspect of their relationship cooking each other meals and taking it in turn. His mind cast back to one night not that long ago when he had got in later than he had intended, Lori walked through the front door in a foul mood and screamed at him when her evening meal wasn't ready the second she had entered the apartment.
He had been in no mood for her histrionics either, as he grabbed his wallet and keys and stormed out of the home they shared together, knowing that if he stayed a minute longer when she was in that kind of mood that the evening would not end well. Lori's moods and temper had worsened recently, and with her fury came a barrage of insults and cruel remarks that were usually directed his way.
No, it was best to leave her be when she was in that kind of mood, let her cool off and calm down in her own time. The trouble was that he was finding himself spending more of his evenings out in local bars than he was at home with his wife as their bickering started to become an almost daily occurrence. What had happened to the carefree relationship they once had, had getting married really changed them that much?
Their constant fighting couldn't continue, that much he knew for sure. They had sat down and tried to talk about things amicably, it was somewhat of a surprise to both of them when they realised that they could hold an adult conversation with each other without it descending into a slanging match between them. As they spoke honestly to each other, they realised that they had both been working too hard and not putting enough effort into their marriage. The house in the suburbs could wait for a while, they decided, as they both made a concerted effort to work less and take care of each other more.
The first few days together had been fantastic, as they lounged around in bed for the first twenty four hours getting rid of a lot of the pent-up frustration that they had felt towards each other. Their sex life had dwindled in those months when their marriage had struggled, to the point where they were hardly sharing the same bed let alone sleeping with each other.
Theirs had always been a highly sexual relationship; they were both young and carefree and knew what the other wanted when it came to matters in the bedroom. Sex had always been a huge part of what made them good together, they were unable to resist one another and had usually resolved any differences they had in the bedroom. When things became strained between them, she would invariably shun his advances towards her and push him away citing the fact that she was tired or not in the mood.
It wasn't the be all and end all of their relationship, but sex had to be a part of any healthy relationship and the fact that they had hardly slept together in the last few months had certainly not helped the level of frustration that he was feeling. How were they ever going to start a family if they were never intimate anymore?
That first day had been exactly what both of them needed, he showed Lori just how much he had missed their physical unions and she reciprocated in kind until both of them fell into an exhausted sleep in the middle of the afternoon, waking up hours later to eat and carry on where they left off.
It almost felt as if they were dating again as they did all the silly things that new couples do, going to restaurants or the movies and giggling like a pair of teenagers as they took little notice of the film and spent most of the time canoodling in the seats in the back row. It was spending time with Lori like this that reminded him why he fell in love with her in the first place. She was a free spirit with a devilishly wild side to her and he found her presence intoxicating, there was just something about her that drew him in. She was always a delight when she was happy and relaxed, it seemed as if the time they had both spent away from the stresses and strains of work had helped to improve her moods immeasurably.
They had planned another lazy day, but it had been curtailed in the early hours of the morning as the phone on the bedside table began ringing incessantly. He'd told her to leave it; she ignored him and picked it up anyway, both of their hopes sinking when it became clear that the call was from her boss.
"Don't go," he told her as he rolled over onto his back and rubbed at his face.
"I have to, it's the Randolph case. It's all hands on deck down in the DA's office at the moment."
"But you're on holiday."
She leant over and planted a tender kiss on his lips, pulling away when he tried to turn it into something more. "I have to go, I'll get back as soon as I can."
He huffed his displeasure as he watched her naked form rise from the bed knowing that it would be pointless trying to reason with her, she always got her way in the end. She would have had a fit if he'd tried to pull the same stunt with her, why was it ok for her to be called into work but not him?
Fatigue began to grip him as he tried to keep awake and watch her shapely body move to and fro as she went about getting dressed and ready to leave. He didn't hear her leave or feel the moist kiss she placed on his slightly parted lips as she picked up her bag and left the apartment quietly.
He'd been pottering around the apartment for the last few hours, making his way down the list of odd jobs and repairs that Lori had told him needed doing. He missed her more than he realised as he tried to keep his mind occupied and away from thoughts of his wife and what she might be doing. In the middle of repairing a wobbly shelf, the phone rang.
"John, its Tori. Is Laura there?"
It was the harried voice of his sister in law, the woman married to Lori's brother, Max.
"No, she…uh….she's at work," he finished lamely.
"I thought she was meant to be taking some time off?"
"Yeah….me too," he replied bitterly, frowning as he heard the commotion going on in the background. "Is everything alright there?" he asked, the ingrained nature of a cop coming to the fore as he heard the obvious stress in her voice.
There was a long pause followed by shouting and banging before she responded. "It's Adam," she sobbed as the noise continued. "He's in one of his bad phases again, Max is away on business and won't be back for days…I'm not sure how much more of this I can handle, John."
He had a lot of time for his extended family, Max had always treated him well from the moment they met and he had obviously passed whatever tests Max had in place when he began dating the man's sister. They had a lot of shared interests and were of a similar age, he was a man that he could count on to talk about guy stuff, things that Lori couldn't or wouldn't understand.
Max had married his childhood sweetheart and they had started a family at a young age, through an unfortunate mix of genetics and a traumatic birth, little Adam was born with a number of health issues and as he grew from a baby to a toddler, a number of behavioural issues too. Max and Tori had been devastated when their beloved son had been diagnosed with autism at the age of three, but took heart in the fact that at least they had some kind of reason for his behavioural issues and his problems with speech and learning. With the right schooling and medical assistance, Adam was making good progress but at the age of seven he still had periods where he would be almost impossible for his parents to handle.
Things were easier when both parents were at home, but it seemed as if today was one of those unfortunate days when Tori had been left on her own. He'd always got on pretty well with Adam, he seemed to be able to connect with the boy on a different level than that of his parents, he treated him like the kid brother he'd never had. Lori was a different story though; she'd never really seemed to have that much time for her nephew and had said he was more trouble than he was worth a number of times. It was as if she didn't want to spend time with the difficult young boy yet didn't realise that Adam could sense her distant nature towards him. There were many things he loved about Lori but her lack of empathy for her nephew was not one of them.
"How about I come over and take him out for the day?" he suggested, knowing that Tori had reached the end of her patience with her son.
"Really, you'd do that?"
He smiled down the phone as he cocked his head to one side and held it to his shoulder. "Sure, Lori's left me high and dry. Besides, it's been ages since I've seen the little man. I'll be over in twenty."
True to his word he arrived at Tori's apartment just under twenty minutes later and found the beleaguered woman almost on the verge of tears as she opened the door shakily.
"You ok?" he asked as he pulled her into a warm embrace, running soothing circles over her back as she sobbed into his chest.
As the tears ran dry she pulled back and gave her visitor a watery smile. "Sorry to bother you, I know it's meant to be your time off from work and stuff like this."
"Don't be silly," he replied as he made his way further into the apartment and winced at the sight of the destruction that marred the kitchen and living area. Sensing that all was quiet for the moment, he turned to look at Tori. "Where's the little man now?"
"He's in his room." She pointed in the direction of the door at the far end which had a large hole in it, obviously caused by Adam in one of his fits of temper.
"Ok. I'm gonna go and have a chat with him and then we'll go out for the day, do you need a hand with the clearing up first?"
Tori wiped at the mascara that had run down her face from her fit of crying and hiccupped slightly as her breathing calmed. "No, I can do that. I just need a bit of time on my own, you know?"
He nodded his head in understanding and gave her a small smile. "You got it."
Knocking on the broken bedroom door heavily, he half expected the unruly young boy to curse at him or scream to be left alone. It was a surprise then that Adam remained quiet and allowed him to enter his private domain.
"Hey, man," he smiled to the boy sitting on the floor his back leant against his bed, arms crossed over his knees as he stared at his visitor.
Sensing no outward hostility, he made his way further into the room and saw the level of destruction that Adam had set forth on his room. Books and toys were strewn all over the floor, many with pages and stuffing ripped out whilst the lamp on the bedside table lay sideways on the carpet. The bedding and furnishings had fared little better, as they too were thrown haphazardly across the room.
He made himself comfortable next to the young boy, adopting the same pose that he was. "You gonna tell me what's going on?"