Page 29 of Out of Control

“No saw,” Mom confirmed. “So we had to go to the hospital to get poor Lucas an x-ray and figure out where the key was in his digestive tract!”

“You were stuck to a three-year-old long enough to poop out a key?” she asked me, real amusement in her eyes this time. I could handle that.

“No, when they saw how much farther we had to go, they got us free.” Was I really discussing this with her?

“Surgical saw?”

“No, that would have still left both kids with half a handcuff around each wrist!” Mom said.

“Then what did you do?” Athena looked fully engrossed in the story. I wasn’t sure if she was feigning interest to be polite or if she really wanted to know what happened next, but I was grateful; Mom was finally starting to sound like her old self again.

“One of the nice nurses on duty also had a son who was into magic tricks so she taught us all how to pick a lock with a bobby pin. And no one was ever stuck again after that, but Lukie spent the next six months with bobby pins hidden all over his body.”

Athena giggled again. Great, more ammunition for her to mock me with.

“Don’t get any cute ideas,” I cut in. “Modern handcuffs won’t be undone so easily.”

Her laughter cut off. Why did I get the feeling I ruined one of her plans? At least I got to feel ahead of the game for once.

“That’s true,” Mom said, clearly not aware of the unspoken conversation happening next to her. “You can’t use a bobby pin on real handcuffs unless you’re really experienced because of secondary hidden locking parts, only magic ones. So Lukie spent thenextsix months figuring out how to get out of all sorts of traps: straightjackets, duct-taped hands, police-issue handcuffs. And there was no internet back then, you couldn’t just google it like you can now, so it was even more impressive. Instead of just pins, he was always hiding spare keys, Swiss army knives, shims, everything—all over his body. It was just so adorable. Lukie always made sure he knew the ins and outs of whatever he decided was important to him. He was really thorough.”

The past tense here was very obvious as well. She didn’t understand why I couldn’t secure my promotion yet and thought I wasn’t doing a good enough job. She didn’t understand that wasn’t how things worked now. It wasn’t always about how hard you worked, and especially with the CACHTU. There just hadn’t been any openings in a long time.

“Lukie, can you teach me how to get out of a pair of police-issue handcuffs?” Athena batted her eyelashes at me. Fuck if it wasn’t sexy, even with the obvious sarcasm.

“Not a chance in hell,” I told her. “If I’m wrapping handcuffs around those wrists, they’re going to stay right there until I get my way.”

“Lucas!” Mom gasped. “Manners!”

I couldn’t tell if she was outraged at the breech in etiquette to a guest or if she heard the innuendo, so I just shrugged.

“What? I told you she’s not a girlfriend. She may even be a criminal,” I added, throwing in a wink so my mom wouldn’t get too worried. “I’m not being inappropriate, just telling it like it is.”

Mom scoffed, turning back to her guest. She didn’t believe a word I said. “Are you kids hungry? I could make you some breakfast.”

“I’m starving, Margaret. Can I help you in the kitchen?” Athena smiled graciously at her, playing along with Mom’s little fantasy. I was going to have a hell of a time explaining everything to my mother when all this was put to an end.

twelve

Athena

Margaret Meedes shared the same first name as my mother, but even if she didn’t, it would be hard not to feel for her.

All she wanted was her daughter—safe and sound at home—but judging from the look on Blake’s face Danielle was probably long gone. It wasn’t hard to figure out why Margaret’s plight hit so deep with me when all I wanted wasmymom back.

But people don’t come back from the dead.

As much as I despised Blake and the stick shoved up his ass, I couldn’t tease or taunt him about any of this. Moms and daughters were supposed to have a special bond, and losing that unexpectedly was hard to recover from.

I could pity Margaret, but Blake…It was a bit harder to pinpoint what I felt toward him about this mess.

He lost his sister at some point, but it also seemed like he lost a bit of his mom in the process, too. And even though his expression told me he had no hope, he still took carefulnotes, listened to every detail his mom said. I knew in my bones he’d follow through on her lead, even though he didn’t think it would pan out. What did that say about him?

I spent the remaining time in his mother’s home listening to silly stories about his childhood—it seemed like he wasn’t always a stick in the mud. He used to have fun, bend the rules a little, and havefunif the stories were any indication.

As I helped gather up all the empty breakfast plates, Blake finally had enough. He interrupted Margaret just as she was sharing an embarrassing story about thefriendship braceletshe made for him and his sister out of paracord. Because of course he didn’t just stop at learning to escape various situations, but had to go farther and learn survivalist tricks as well.

Blake must’ve been a cute little kid. For about half a second I wondered what happened, but then realized the answer was probably obvious: Danielle’s disappearance.

---