Destiny Unknown – 2 – Jilly James

Reading Time:
19 Minutes

Tony didn’t think he’d ever been on a proper vacation, considering how amazing just a few days with Lou was. Or maybe it was the company. He wasn’t sure which. He’d gone on a couple of holidays with his frat brothers after college, but those had mostly been excuses to party. There was something entirely different about choosing their agenda every day with no particular need to be anywhere.

They’d started by heading to New Jersey and done some trash touristy stuff on the boardwalk, including getting an obscene amount of saltwater taffy. They’d hit a couple of other touristy locations and had considered doing some tourist crap in New England but decided not to put off the trip west too long.

One night they hadn’t been able to find a hotel due to some event in town, so they’d stopped at a local sporting goods store, gotten a couple of sleeping mats, some sleeping bags, and slept in the back of the 4Runner. It wasn’t great for either of their height, but doable in an emergency. Better in an emergency would be a tent, but Lou wanted to do some research on an easy-to-set-up tent with adequate space considering how long he was.

They’d been very in each other’s space that one night, but it had been weirdly fine. Tony had never been blind to how incredibly attractive Lou was, but he would never cross the line to hitting on his partner. But he wasn’t sure where they were—or even what they were—now. The decision to leave town together, to make this trip, to head for the same destination, felt somehow inevitable, but he wasn’t sure why.

Part of him acknowledged that it felt couple-y, but even in his own mind, that felt like crossing the line. But he’d also thought Lou was very subtly flirting with him now and then. Perhaps Lou was just relaxing and showing his true personality. Hell, Tony tended to flirt both on and off the job, so he could hardly say anything about someone being a flirt.

Still, this all felt like it was going somewhere. The when and the how and the what was a big mystery, and he was okay with waiting to find out. He’d never really been patient about unraveling a mystery, but he somehow was okay with this one.

They had a whole list of silly things to see on their way across the country, as well as some serious things they both wanted to do. Neither of them had been to several of the big national parks in Arizona, New Mexico, or Utah, so that was a big part of their travel agenda, but large balls of twine wouldn’t be missed.

Nor, apparently, would novelty chocolate.

“I can’t believe you actually bought any of that trash chocolate,” Lou groused in a low voice as they exited the shop.

“Chocolate snob.”

“Yes,” he firmly agreed. “You couldn’t pay me to eat Hershey’s anything.”

Tony laughed. “I just got some of the odd flavors I’ve never seen anywhere else. Pretty sure I’m not going to eat it either. Though I’m curious about hazelnut Hershey’s kisses.”

“Ugh.”

In truth, Fate had been a hard nudge leading to this being one of their stops on their way back through Pennsylvania. And Tony had no idea why. And the timing seemed very specific because when Lou had suggested they make a different stop first, Fate had nearly brought Tony right off the chair in protest. It was so odd.

But Lou had given in gracefully, until Tony had actually dared to purchase overpriced novelty chocolate.

Fate nudged him to go left, which was the opposite direction Lou had turned, and Tony turned, calling back, “Hey Lou, let’s— Oof.” He bumped right into a woman, reaching out to balance her. He realized belatedly that the collision had been at least partly her fault as she’d been looking behind her, calling for someone.

When she looked up at him, they both stopped talking and blinked stupidly.

“Maggie?” The name drifted up from the recesses of his mind, from a single night his junior year. He blanked on the last name.

Her eyes got even bigger. “Oh god. Oh no.”

Lou was at his shoulder. “Everything all right?”

Maggie began flapping her hands like a bird. “I must go. I, um, I just need to…”

“Mom?”

“Evan, go to the car!” Maggie screeched.

“The car? How? I don’t have the keys. Are you okay?”

Tony stared down at a kid. And he got the shock of either of his lives because, other than eye color, the boy looked almost exactly like Tony did when he was a child.

He kept one hand gently on Maggie’s arm and turned more toward the boy. “Hey there. I’m Tony. Evan was it?”

The kid nodded, looking up at Tony curiously.

“And if I’ve got the math right, you’re about eight years old?”

The kid nodded again, then looked confused. “Wait. What math? What does math have to do with it?”

Maggie made a little noise and buried her face in her free hand. “It’s just— It’s not what you think.”

Lou looked between the three of them, and he clearly got it. “Wow. Uh, how about we get off the sidewalk? Hey, Evan, I don’t suppose you know of a little café or something around here that’s kind of quiet?”

“Around here? Not really. It’s kind of touristy here. It’s the least quiet part of Hershey. Mom likes the hand cream at this shop, though. Everything is noisy and crowded. The bookshop is the quietest, but I don’t think they’re going to appreciate you going there to talk.”

“Well, why don’t you and I go down a couple doors and have some ice cream while Tony and Maggie catch up.”

“I love ice cream, but why do you call Mom Maggie? I’ve never heard anyone call her that. I guess it’s a nickname for Margaret, but so weird.” His voice faded away, and it struck Tony how odd it was that the kid didn’t even hesitate to go off with a stranger and Maggie—Margaret—didn’t protest her son being taken away by said stranger.

He herded her to the side of the building, out of the relatively light flow of pedestrian traffic. “Something you need to tell me, Maggie?”

“It’s not what you think…”

“Oh? I mean, he looks exactly like I did when I was a kid, so unless you’re going to come up with some bizarre story and force me to get my attorney involved to verify it…?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “No. Please don’t get an attorney involved. He’s yours. There’s just a lot to the situation that—” She took a shuddering breath. “Please, Tony, I can’t open up all of those old wounds.”

“Wounds? It was a one-night stand. What wound are we talking about?”

“I’m not talking about you,” she hissed. “And keep your voice down. I live here.”

“Does your husband know he’s—”

“Yes! Now stop airing our business in front of everyone.” She looked around frantically, which was the most suspicious thing she could do considering no one was paying them a lick of attention.

“There’s almost no one around, and I’m keeping my voice low. Would you stop with the hysteria?”

“We have a reputation to uphold.”

“Uh-huh. So your husband knows Even is mine and he was fine with it.”

She looked away.

“Why didn’t you get in touch with me?” he pressed.

“We wanted to wait and see about some stuff after he was born. If it went a certain way, we were going to keep him; otherwise, we’d put him up for adoption.”

“You were considering putting my kid up for adoption without notifying me?”

She huffed. “There were circumstances.”

“Am I even on his birth certificate?”

She bit her lip.

“I’ll take that as a no. But you knew he was mine? Or did you sleep around so much that it was a mystery?”

“Hush! Oh my god. Yes, I knew who his father was,” she whispered hotly. “By the time we were reconsidering adoption, there were already other reasons it wasn’t viable.”

“Such as loving him?” he asked.

It took her entirely too long to nod.

Tony stood up straight. “I’m going to put it out there so that you understand my position. Lou and I are police officers out of Philadelphia,” which was a stretch of the truth, but whatever. “I have enough money to bury you, and I don’t care about your reputation. So, if you want to keep whatever is going on quiet, you’re going to give me your ID so I know your full legal name and have your address. Then I will be at your house with my partner in one hour to discuss this with you and your husband.”

She had gone incredibly pale. “Philip is still working. He will be until five.” It was just before two now.

“What time does he get home?”

“Five-thirty.”

“Fine. We’ll be there in an hour, as I said. You and I are going to have the full conversation you don’t seem to want to have in public while Lou keeps an eye on your— Christ, my kid. Are we clear?”

“Tony—”

“Are we clear, Maggie? Because I’ll have an entire law firm on your head and an announcement in the town paper by tomorrow if I don’t start getting some straight answers. And I do mean immediately. I’m willing to start without your husband because you have the answers, but his input will obviously be needed for the decisions.”

“Fine. Fine. Whatever. I have to go.”

“ID, Maggie.” He held out his hand, wishing he had a freaking smartphone, but it would be years before they made their appearance.

With obvious reluctance, she turned over her driver’s license, and he jotted down her address and full legal name. “Please be discreet,” she whispered.

He gritted his teeth and handed back her ID.

Lou joined him a few minutes later, saying nothing as they walked back to the 4Runner. Without input from Tony, he started the SUV and headed out. “I got a recommendation for a hotel.”

They’d been planning to put a few more hours on the road tonight. Tony rubbed his hand over his face. “Lou…”

“I put some pieces together; you can tell me whatever you feel comfortable saying.”

“I think I need to tell you everything I know, which isn’t much.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was going to take point on talking to her and getting the info, but I think you’d better do it. I get the distinct impression she’s…” he trailed off, not sure how to put it into words.

“Tony?”

“I’m seeing a mirror of the neglect my childhood was, and I got that in only a couple of minutes.”

“Your childhood?” Lou echoed. “How bad?”

“Let’s just say my biological father took me with him to Hawaii when I was twelve, forgot I was there, and left without me. That event wound up being defining for the two of us since he blamed me for his absentmindedness and sent me to military academy full time afterward.” Tony rubbed his hand back and forth on the outer seam of his jeans. “I haven’t seen him since.”

There was a long silence. “And you think Evan…?”

“I don’t want to project my situation into the warning signs I picked up. It’d be better if you talked to her and got every dirty detail she’s trying to hide.”

“And you think there are dirty details?”

“Oh, I’m sure of it.” He gave a rundown of his conversation with Margaret.

“I agree no one is that worried unless they’re hiding something. How assertive do you want me to be with her?”

“I just want the answers. She can give it to us, or she can deal with lawyers and publicity.”

Lou made a vague noise. “So you’re willing to go full scorched earth on her?”

“Absolutely.”

A couple of minutes later, Lou pulled into the parking lot of a moderate-sized hotel. He turned in the driver’s seat to look at Tony. “Have you absorbed that one of the likely outcomes of this upcoming conversation is you winding up with custody of a kid?”

Tony blew out a shaky breath. “Right. I hadn’t thought through all the possible…anything, I guess. God, I’m sorry, Lou. We’re supposed to be decompressing and I—”

“Hey, no. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s more a question of whether this changes the end goal for you. I guess you won’t be able to answer immediately, but one option is we have a third for our road trip, yeah? It is summer.”

Tony gave a laugh that felt kind of wobbly. “I’m not staying here, Lou. I still feel like the West Coast is where I need to go. I wasn’t prepared for Maggie— Pardon me…” He pulled the paper from his pocket. “Margaret Evelyn Buckley to drop into my life with something she should have told me about eight years ago.”

Lou gave a little start of surprise. “Margaret who?”

“Buckley. I don’t remember what name she used when she introduced herself as Maggie, but it sure wasn’t that.”

“What was the context of you meeting her?”

“Junior year. It was early in the football season. We’d had a good season my sophomore year and got a lot of attention around every game. She was at a bar the players commonly went to after a game. She picked me up. I was twenty, so not even legal to drink yet. I knew she was older, but she looked maybe mid to late twenties. She was gone by the time I got out of the shower. She’d given me a full name, but since it was only a one-night stand, all I remembered was Maggie.”

“You never saw her at the bars again?”

“No, but I broke my knee during The Game my senior year, so it’s possible she was around the bars after I was out of commission. I never hit the bars around the college during the entirety of my rehab, and then I was too busy while I was getting my master’s for bar hopping.”

“You think she was trying to get pregnant?”

“I have no idea. But she said he could only be mine. Either she was desperately needing to get laid and had an accident, or she wanted to get pregnant. I can’t imagine why in the latter case, when there are easier ways. I wore a condom.”

“Not foolproof, obviously, but it makes the situation more suspicious.” Lou looked thoughtful. “I’ll take the interview with her, but I don’t want you to stress about the effect of the outcome on me.”

Tony huffed. “We started this journey together to decompress and, hell, recover.”

“Hey,” Lou said softly. “I’m in this, okay? We’ll take it as it comes. Maybe it takes longer to get to California. Maybe we wind up in New Mexico instead. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but if you’re right about his circumstances, and if he wants it, maybe there’s a kid involved in the decision-making process. And that’s okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lou assured. “Now, let’s get a room and then go interrogate Margaret fucking Buckley.”

~*~

Tony sat across from Evan—his freaking son—not at all sure what to say. Lou had ushered them both outside with two glasses of tea, firmly closed the sliding glass door, and told them to have fun.

Evan was frowning at the door.

“Something wrong?”

“It’s weird how he’s like…” Evan waved his hand toward the house.

“Acting like he’s in charge?”

“Yeah!” Evan moved a little too assertively and spilled some tea. “Oops.” He looked to Tony like he was worried Tony would say something.

Tony tossed his whole glass in the yard.

Evan’s eyes went wide. “Wha??”

“That’s honestly terrible tea, but I’m not sure why anyone would care if you spilled tea outside.”

“Mom would care.”

“Mm. Would she?”

Evan’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

“I’m Tony.”

“Tony.”

“DiNozzo.”

“Sounds Italian.”

“Is Italian.”

Evan huffed.

“Who do you think I am?”

“I don’t know, but Mom is acting super weird.” He looked towards the house, brow furrowed.

“I met your mom when I was in college. I have some questions for her about when I last saw her.”

Evan gave him a look. “Yeah, I got that you met before. Eight years, right?”

“Closer to nine,” Tony corrected.

Evan’s eyes narrowed, and it was obvious he was thinking. After a long time, he blurted out, “Are you about to tell me you’re my father?”

“I asked her that question, and she said I am. Lou is getting the details.”

Evan sat back hard in his chair. “Wow.” He looked back towards the house. “How come he’s asking and not you?”

“Because I’m kind of pissed.”

“At me?”

Tony raised both brows in surprise. “At her.”

“Oh.” Evan’s brow furrowed again. “I mean, this isn’t the worst thing that could happen.”

“It’s not?” Tony asked carefully.

Evan lifted one shoulder in a gesture that seemed too casual. “They don’t really want me around. Though maybe you don’t want me around either.” He looked out at the yard as if the answer didn’t matter.

“I’ve known you exist for about an hour, but you being happy and well cared for is already important to me. If neither of those conditions are being satisfied by living here, then we’ll have to work out something else.”

Frowning with practically his whole body, Evan finally met Tony’s gaze. “So does that mean living with you or not? Because it’s okay if you don’t want me around. You don’t even know me.”

“You don’t know me either, kiddo. But your preferences matter to me. I don’t know if you’re happy or sad here. If you like your school or hate it. If you have other family you would love to be with. I’m working at an information deficit.”

Looking at his lap, Evan shrugged again. “There’s just Maddie. My sister. She’s ten years older than me. I was happy with her, but she hated it here. She graduated high school in May. Even though college doesn’t start until September, she left right away. She didn’t even stay for my birthday. She said she had to get settled in her school housing and get to know people.” Evan sighed. “I get it.”

“Do you?”

Evan nodded earnestly, then he frowned. “She says it’s not about me. One time she admitted she just needs to get away from Mom.” He sighed heavily. “She’s only been gone six weeks, and it’s already so lonely here.”

“Were you thinking school would make it better?”

Another world-weary shrug. “School is school. I can never do school activities because my parents won’t show up. They just want me to come home and keep my head down. And some of the teachers don’t like me because I’m fidgety.”

“Fidgety,” Tony repeated. “Have your parents had you evaluated by a doctor?”

Evan shook his head.

Tony nodded, not feeling favorably towards any adult in this house. “No other family?”

“No. My grandparents died a couple of years ago. I liked them a lot.”

“Through your mom or…?”

“Not-dad?” Evan supplied.

Tony laughed. “Yeah.”

“Not-dad.” Evan looked like he was mulling something over. “I think they knew. At least knew something. I always thought they were trying to make up for something. But they loved me a lot. It was nice.”

“What about your maternal grandparents?”

Evan shook his head. “Never met them. I think they died before I was born.”

“Is this freaking you out?”

“Maybe, but not really. It’s like you wish you were someone else’s kid and they’d come take you away, but then it sort of happens and just doesn’t feel real.”

“So, if I wanted to take you away, you’d want to go?”

“Yeah.”

“Just yeah? No questions about where I live or what I do?”

“Those are nice things to know, I guess. I’d prefer not to live anywhere colder than here, but I’d just prefer to live where someone cares whether I’m there or not.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Do I see?”

“Do you care?” Evan said baldly.

“Yeah, I do. I’ve cared since I saw you on the street, looking entirely too much like I did when I was your age.”

“Really?”

“Want to see?”

Evan nodded eagerly.

Tony pulled his wallet out, getting out the copy of the photo he carried of him with his mom, taken the year before she died. He was going to hand it to Evan, but Evan was already standing at his side, looking at the photo.

“Is that your mom?”

“Yes. I was seven in this picture. She died a year later.”

Hesitantly, Evan took the picture and brought it closer to his face to look over every inch of it. “We do look a lot alike.” He slowly handed the picture back. “She died when you were eight?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry your mom died when you were young.”

“Thank you.” Tony tucked the photo and his wallet away.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that your mom died when you were eight and I’ll be leaving my mom behind when I’m eight?”

It did feel like some kind of circle, but he wasn’t sure if it was just coincidence or some sort of cycle of fate.

Evan met Tony’s gaze. “I really don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Then we’ll work on that. Together.”

~*~

“You want the short and ugly of it?” Lou asked softly as he tracked Evan kicking a ball on the far side of the yard. Tony hadn’t wanted to send Evan back inside to his mother, but he’d asked Evan to play in his eyeline while he talked to Lou for a minute.

“Yeah, give me the short of it.”

“They had three kids, not the two everyone knows about.”

Tony frowned at that. “Does Evan know he has another sibling?”

“No. Their middle child was two years younger than the oldest, about eight years older than Evan. His name was Daniel. He had leukemia. He got most of his treatment in Harrisburg or Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, but he did do one trial in Ohio. Their marriage was rocky due to stress, and she was looking to get laid. Though she didn’t put it in those terms. It’s weird to me that she picked up someone who looked like her son, because you apparently did look like Daniel, but we won’t get into that dysfunction.”

Tony made a face.

“Right. The pregnancy was an accident, and it caused a lot of tension between her and her husband. They agreed to keep the baby if he was a haploidentical match for Daniel, and put him up for adoption if he wasn’t. Haploidentical isn’t ideal for bone marrow because it increases the risk of graft-versus-host disease, but it was better than nothing because they hadn’t had an identical match for him in the family or a viable match in the registry. And the doctors felt a haploidentical match could perhaps be a last resort.”

“And he was obviously haploidentical because he’s here.”

“Right. They got desperate enough to try the bone marrow donation when Evan was a year old. The cells didn’t graft. Daniel died. But instead of notifying you about Evan, they decided to erase Daniel from existence. Maddie was never allowed to talk about him; they gave away all his stuff, and moved to a whole other town, claiming they only had two children.”

“Who are they trying to make it look like they kept having two children for?”

“Caught that, did you? They still could have given Evan up for adoption, so it occurred to me as well that other than for one year, they continued having two children. Margaret has a minor inheritance from her parents. She gets a stipend for herself and an additional amount monthly for up to two of her children.”

Tony rubbed his forehead. “Do you think they really grieved Daniel?”

“In whatever capacity that woman is capable of love, she seems to be wounded about the loss of her son. I can’t say beyond that. I’d need to talk to Philip Buckley. I think she sees Evan as a necessary evil.”

“Fuck.”

“We’re going to be here for at least a few days while we hammer out the custody issues. They’re not going to want any of this dirty laundry aired, so I don’t think getting custody is going to be a problem.”

“I want to take him with us tonight. He can’t stay in this house anymore. I hate to dump this on you, Lou, but I don’t think I can be rational with those two. If they surrender their rights and sign whatever it takes for me to take him, I won’t put any obstacle in the way of her continuing to collect her stupid stipend. The only way any executor would know Evan is gone is if she says something. Hell, she can say he’s living in a boarding school for all I care, but she lets him go. Physically, she lets him go today. Legally, she lets him go as soon as the attorneys can get the paperwork together?”

“And Philip Buckley?”

“He needs to not make himself my problem.”

Lou smiled, and it was a little bloodthirsty. “It’s kind of hot when you get like this.”

“Now I know you’re flirting with me.”

Lou’s smile gentled. “I’ve always been flirting with you, Tony.”

Tony’s breath caught, and he pointed a finger at his partner. “I’m going to go get my kid so he can pack a bag for tonight. But put a pin in that. We are absolutely circling back to it.”

“Yeah?” Lou asked, tone a little vulnerable.

“Count on it.”