Leon sat on the tenth step down from the top of the stairs. With his feet tucked up and a book in his lap, he was protected from the view of the kitchen by a wall. Just one step down and they would be able to see his feet through the banisters.
He was supposed to be in bed. He'd read two chapters of "Bud, Not Buddy," to Grandpa on the couch, and then he'd brushed his teeth and washed his face and Nana had tucked him into bed. It was 8:45 and lights out for him was 8:30, and he never broke the rules, but he was curious tonight.
Usually when Nana and Grandpa watched him, Grandpa would go back to his cabin right after reading with him, but he didn't go tonight. And just last night, while he was in bed and waiting for sleep to come, he heard muffled noises through his bedroom window. Rolling out of his bed and crawling to his desk, he saw them there. Nana's porch light was on, and Grandpa kissed her cheek. She smiled at him.
He hadn't told anyone. It felt like a secret and there were so very few of those in his world that he held onto it. But tonight, when Nana was bringing him upstairs to tuck him in, Grandpa said, "I'll start some water for tea." Nana nodded and smiled softly. And Leon just couldn't go to sleep after that.
He glanced at his book. It was really a very interesting story, but he was mostly sitting there listening to Nana and Grandpa. Nana laughed when Grandpa said, "We could start a game of Scrabble. The boat will see the two of them before we do."
Leon didn't quite understand and he didn't know why Nana laughed like that, but he liked the sound of it.
He glanced at the page in his book, wondering why it had gotten so silent in the kitchen and wanting to go down a step and peek through the banister, but knew he could get caught if he did that. He held still, biting his lower lip and then slowly stood. He was about to take a step down to look into the kitchen when he heard Nana gasp. "Who are you?" she yelled. "Get out of here!"
Leon stood automatically, his book sliding off his lap. He'd never heard his Nana with that voice and it scared him.
A different voice whispered, "Don't make me shoot you."
Leon wasn't sure what happened. He felt goosebumps on his skin and the hair on the back of his neck tickled. He recognized that voice, even though he'd tried to block it all out. It was a voice he'd heard only once before, when he'd been with Adrian for what seemed like forever. Leon was sitting, naked and huddled against the wall of something that looked a lot like a cave. Two men came in to look at Leon and the other children there.
Leon barely looked up, but he glanced and saw them. The one man, the one who looked younger, stepped in front of him and squatted down. He touched Leon's knee. He whispered in the same voice Leon just heard in his kitchen, "If you don't believe it's bad, it won't be."
In the cave, Leon had ventured a glance up at the man. A glance of hope.
In the cave, the man slapped him hard across the cheek, and then both men started laughing as they walked away, down one of the tunnels.
In his home, hearing that voice again, Leon stood frozen on the stairs and didn't understand why his pants felt so wet at first. Then he realized he'd just peed, the lighter blue of his flannel pajamas turning dark in his lap. He felt it dripping down his legs, over his ankles and onto the wooden step.
"Don't even look at the alarm, Old Man," the same voice whispered. "This is going one of two ways. You're going to tie her up, and then I'm going to tie you up, and I'm going to get the kids. Or I'm going to shoot you both, and then I'm going to get the kids."
Leon startled at the word alarm. There was a panel there in the kitchen, but there was another one just ten steps above him, in the hallway outside of his parent's bedroom, but he couldn't make his legs move. All he was thinking about was Rory. There was no way that man was taking Rory. Rory was just a little a baby, his sister. And he wouldn't let anyone touch her, no matter how scared he was.
He heard a grunt. The man yelled out a swear word. Nana screamed. Grandpa yelled, "You aren't touching those babies!"
Those sounds and voices got his legs moving again. He stepped back, skipping the ninth step, which squeaked, his left foot landing on the eight step. He pulled himself up the stairs quickly, but quietly, and looked at the alarm panel. He and Mama and Papa had talked a lot about what to do if he ever felt unsafe, but most of that involved screaming and fighting. They never talked much about what to do when screaming and fighting wouldn't work, but he knew it wouldn't, not like this, with Rory asleep in her crib and a bad man in their house.
He was there and had listened intently the day the alarmed was installed. If he hit the 9-1-1 button, a voice would come over the speaker. But there was a distress code. He knew the word, "distress." He pretending he'd never lived with distress, but he had. And he knew he was back there, being distressed again. His fingers reached out quickly and punched in the buttons. Silent Arm, then 0-9-2-8, then pound. He got no answers from the panel. He wasn't supposed to, but he hoped it had worked.
Then he was moving quickly to Rory's room without making his feet pound on the floor. He couldn't reach her while she was sleeping in her crib, not the way he usually could hold her. The sides of the crib were too high for him. So he reached over and grabbed onto the back of her pajamas, holding tight and pulling her sleeping body up and over the side of the crib.
She fussed quietly and moved her body, and Leon righted her, holding her against him like he did sometimes before her nap, when she fell asleep against him. Her thumb went in her mouth and she rested her head on Leon's shoulder. She was just a baby. She didn't know she should be scared, but Leon felt like his heart was going to beat right out of his chest.
Where to hide? Mama and Papa's closet? He made that decision, but then he heard Nana scream and cry out again from downstairs, and all he could think about was getting out of the house with Rory. He wanted to help his Nana and Grandpa, but he was too little and he couldn't. But he could help Rory.
Nana.
He'd thought about it before, surprising her by climbing through his window, jumping between his roof and the roof of the garage, and ending up at her front door. But he hadn't done it yet, too scared it would upset Nana and his parents. He could make the jump on his own, he knew. But he didn't know if he could do it with Rory in his arms. She felt so heavy.
There were noises from downstairs. Grunts and slapping noises and he stopped thinking. He ran to his room with Rory and used one hand to open his window above his desk, almost dropping her while holding her in just one arm.
Both arms around her again, he climbed on his desk chair and then onto his desk. He kicked out his screen. He slid through the small window, nervous now about making the jump, but knowing there was no other way down onto the ground.
Rory raised her head slightly from his shoulder, seeming confused about being outside. "I won't let them hurt you," he whispered to her.
It was cool outside. There was a breeze and his wet pajamas felt cold against his skin. He stood there by his window for a few seconds and then he heard feet pounding up the stairs. He ran. He ran down the slight slope of the roof without thinking about it. He jumped. He landed on the garage roof and almost dropped Rory before righting himself by falling to his knees and then standing up again. She started fussing in his arms and he whispered, "Shhh."
She was so heavy.
He'd never carried her like this for this long, when she was mostly asleep and her full body weight rested on him.
He took the slightly inclined steps up the garage roof carefully, but quickly. Nana's door was right there and he made it, sagging in relief, reaching for the handle. But the door was locked. Desperate, he looked back towards his window. The man was there. He had a mask on, and his gun was held outside the window, pointing at Leon.
Leon forgot how heavy Rory felt. He ran down the steps and the man swore again.
Leon knew if he could just make it to the driveway, he could cut through the trees on the other side of the garage and run to his friend Ainsley's house. But when his foot landed at the bottom of the stairs, the motion sensor light kicked on. There was a van in his driveway. Blue. A dark blue van. And a different man in the driver's seat.
He couldn't make it to Ainsley's house. He heard the faint sounds of sirens that seemed like a very long way away. Rory fussed in his arms.
The man got out of the van, moving towards Leon, and Leon turned towards the backyard. He started running as fast as he could while holding Rory. He heard the man shout, "What the fuck are you doing?"
But he didn't stop running. "Get away. Go fast now. Don't let them hurt us," his mind kept saying. He could hardly feel how heavy Rory was anymore. His running felt strange. He'd never run before when his whole body was trembling.
My heart is thudding so hard, I can feel the pulse in my ears. Emily's chanting something, but I can't make out the words. Her teeth are chattering around her mumbled phrase, a static-filled soundbite on repeat. I've never seen fear grip her so completely, but I can't focus on her face right now. I can only focus on the road in front of me, the few miles from Old Town Alexandria to our house. There were red lights and traffic that held us up at first, but now it's a straight-away. I'm doing eighty in a thirty miles per hour zone, and it's not fast enough.
I bank the car sharply to the left and make the turn onto the road that will lead us straight home, tires screeching on the pavement as I pull in front of two police cars going just as fast as I am, their lights flashing and sirens blaring.
Emily's voice raises slightly when she spots the flashing lights. Too complacent. That's what she's muttering.
I'm living in a dream - a nightmare - as I pull the car in the driveway and miss the mark, driving up partially over our front lawn. This can't be happening to us. That sentence is playing on repeat in my mind.
Emily's out of the car door before I've completely stopped and we see it at the same time, our front door standing wide open.
I'm by her side in an instant in this surreal experience where we're walking into a crime scene in our own home. It's not possible, I think. Just this evening before we left for dinner, I was tossing Rory up in the air and catching her while she laughed. When she tired of the game, I wrestled on the ground with Leon for a few minutes while I waited for Emily to finish dressing for dinner.
Just a little over two hours ago.
And now our house is this. There are drops of blood in the entry way. There's a note on the ground. Time to pay the piper. There's Chris, crumpled and unconscious on the floor near the stairs, the cane he sometimes uses resting right beside him.
And there's silence.
I sense the police officers enter the house as I watch Emily crouch down before her father and feel for a pulse. She nods quickly at me as I race up the stairs. I pass a puddle of wetness on the stairs and Leon's book from school, wondering how both ended up there. I fling open doors and closets and look into bathrooms.
Is this my home? Am I living this? I ask myself as I find nothing but emptiness. This can't be real.
I feel a breeze and run back towards Leon's room. His window is open, the blinds rattling against the window pane again with the wind. There's no screen.
There's no screen.
I'm tempted to go right through the window, but I think of Emily in her desperation in the kitchen and run back down the stairs again.
"I think Leon went out his window," I gasp.
There are police officers and they are talking. One is on the floor next to Chris. We're disrupting a crime scene and they can all go straight to hell if they try to stop us now as we take off again out the front door, turn left, and head towards the stairs that lead to my mother's apartment.
We bound the stairs, and I notice the motion sensor lights by the garage flicking on. The door is locked, and Emily is crying out, "Leon! Fran!" as I fumble for my keys.
I'm out of my mind. I'm Derek Morgan. I'm searching for my kids and my mother, and I'm fumbling for keys.
Emily takes the matter out of my hands as she rears back and then barrels her shoulder against the door. It barely gives, but the next time, I participate and the door bursts inward with our impact. We search, quickly and efficiently, but the small space is entirely void of any occupants.
My wife stoops slightly, overwhelmed by grief, but she quickly rights herself and she's out the door and running down the stairs.
Lights flash on as we move, the flood lights on the back of our house flickering on and shining brightly, and then the motion sensor light on Chris's cabin as we approach the porch. I'm vaguely aware of a police officer following us on our jog. He's trying to ask us questions.
"Who are we looking for?"
And the only word I can think in my head as I run beside Emily is, "Everything."
Emily, for all her frantic movement, is the one who's able to speak logically. "One-year-old girl, nine-year-old boy, and a seventy-two year old woman."
Her voice sounds like it's coming through a dispatch speaker. It's heavy and muffled and it doesn't sound like Emily at all.
Chris's door opens up. He rarely locks it. We spread out and search, Emily first running towards the ladder to the loft, where Leon sleeps when he spends the night with Chris.
When she climbs back down and looks in my face, I lose her. She runs outside of the cabin and, illuminated by faint light, she collapses against the back lawn, sinking to her knees. Wailing almost silently. Digging her fingers in the grass and damp earth, digging it up, like she's going to find our lives under there when they seem so lost.
I look at her and find the moment, find the woman I want to protect and love more than anything in the world, and I sink to my knees before her. I wrap her in my arms and we sob for a minute. There are flashlights in the yard. There's the sound of more sirens approaching, reinforcements and an ambulance for Chris. And there's Emily and me, her deep purple dress and her bare knees sinking into the lawn. Her arms are cold. We left her jacket in the restaurant. I can't believe I'm thinking about a a jacket.
We were just out to dinner for her birthday. How could this be?
There's a hole in my chest and it's so deep that I don't know how I'm ever going to climb my way out. Emily's sobbing against me, her arms hanging loosely by her sides, like the effort to lift them is too much in the moment.
A cry wrenches through the wind, piercing us and causing us both to stiffen in disbelief. We wait, our chests leaning against each other for a few rapid heartbeats, and we hear it again. A cry. Rory's cry.
Emily is up, away from my body, and running faster than I've ever seen her run. She's a blur and I can barely keep up. Her heels hit the dock and I can hear them clap against the wood as she makes what should be twenty strides in just about ten.
She jumps onto the boat, and I'm right behind her. She opens the door to the cabin and takes in a shaky gasp. My face is wet with tears and the hole in my heart fills to nearly full, but not quite.
My son is there. I can see him in the faint light and his body faces away from us. He's on his knees on the bed, rocking, his entire body trembling, and he's not like any Leon I've ever seen before. His voice sounds like it's in a trance. He has one hand clutching a knife that came from the drawer in the boat, and the other hand is on Rory's chest. "Shh," he's whispering to her. "I won't let them hurt you, but you have to be quiet, Rory. I'm here. Shhh."
He's completely oblivious to our entrance, so lost in a haze of fear. He stays oblivious as Emily launches herself towards the bed, gathering Rory in her arms. He's oblivious when I step in right after her and join them on the bed. I reach my hand out and pull the knife from his hand. He let's go easily, but he's still not really seeing us. Emily has Rory against her chest and is sobbing. She reaches one hand out towards Leon and grabs his pajama shirt, pulling her towards him.
He snaps out of it then, as he falls against Emily and feels my arms come around his back, covering him and holding them all to me.
"Mama. Papa," he whimpers. "I wouldn't let them take her."
I sob then. It's my turn. My chest heaves and I'm making noises I've never heard before. My breath gasps and hitches and I could cry here on this boat with them in my arms forever from relief.
My children and Emily are here and they're safe.
But my mother is gone.