3 Months Ago
Liam
The Tutor Captive Speaks Out For First Time Exclusive!
I admit I’m curious. I’ve heard the news reports. Seen the reporters trying to get the meek redhead to talk to them over the last year. I am waiting in line at the grocery store—a task normally done by my assistant—when I pick up the rag and flip it open to the article. Immediately, nostalgia sucker-punches me. One of the featured pictures shows the redhead, a young girl and... my brother. I slam the magazine shut and slap it on the conveyor belt with my groceries.
Fucking Holden.
When I slip into my car, I yank the magazine out and read the article. Held captive. Cuts. Love. Emotional abuse. Scars. Moving on. Single. Raise awareness about abuse and PTSD. Blah, blah, blah.
“Dammit,” I mutter. Although I don’t recall an awful lot from my childhood, I do remember my mother and her specific brand of abuse and my brother’s. I pull my cell phone from my back pocket and dial my father.
“Liam,” he answers.
“Sir.”
“Burn through the money already?” His voice is rigid. I groan.
“No. Have you seen the latest edition of—” I flip the magazine over “—People Weekly?”
“Why would I have, son? You in it?” His voice grates my nerves. He has two tones of voice, condescending and stern.
“No, but your other son is,” I say. I run a hand through my hair. It’s just long enough to consider scheduling a haircut. My father would prefer it cropped close to the scalp, but I’ve always kept it longer.
“Excuse me?” he barks into my ear.
“Holden Douglas Lockwood, remember him? He’s featured in the magazine.” I wait for his retort. His predictable slew of curses but only silence greets me. “Dad?”
“I’m here. Come to the house now.”
“Yes, sir.” I end the call and toss the magazine on the passenger seat. I start the car while pulling up Carol’s contact to send her a quick text that I won’t need her tonight. She texts me back immediately to let me know she left dinner in the fridge.
The drive to my father’s house isn’t long enough. As I navigate the bends in the road, clips of my former life flick through my mind. Mountain life. Memories of Holden’s screams and my father’s shouts bombard me. Holden coming into our room with blood dripping down his torso, as I cower in the corner. Holden covering my mouth in the middle of the night and drawing thin slices along my scalp. What Ma did to him, he did to me, but less so. And hidden.
When I told Dad what was happening, he snapped. Without warning, he threw me in his truck and drove us away. He told me to never speak of our cabin—to never speak of Holden or baby Laura or Ma again. Nightmares kept me up most nights until Dad started to beat them out of me with his belt.
We started fresh, four hours south of that damned mountain. He created an empire for us. Sent me to the best schools and now I run the business he started. I have wanted for nothing. I had no idea how Holden or Ma or Laura fared. Except now … I do. I know they are all dead, according to that damned article.
I pull into Dad’s gated driveway and leave the car running at the front door. His valet takes my keys as I pass him. I don’t bother knocking on my way inside. The knock would only echo through the enormous house. Dad sits behind his oak desk. He hand-carved it. Sanded it for days. Stained it and had his security detail move the enormous hunk of wood into his office. Two fingers of whiskey reside in a glass to his left, like always.
“Sit,” he says. I do. He doesn't offer me a drink.
“Show me this article.” I lean forward and toss the magazine on his desk. He flips to the article and reads to himself. When he finishes, he grunts and slaps the magazine closed. Is he thinking what I am? That we could be linked to the heinous crimes Holden committed? That the truth about who we are and where we came from could surface? What would that do to our social standing? Our company?
“We don’t have anything to worry about. They got his last name wrong.” He shakes his head, as if that one detail is the most ridiculous error in history.
“But, Dad, what about the cabin? There could be things there that lead back to us. Pictures or … I don’t know?”
“There’s nothing, Liam. Holden’s dead. Laura’s dead and your mother is dead. Good riddance. It sounds like Holden took up her ‘art’. He was destined to get caught.”
“That’s all you have to say? Laura and Holden were your children, too.”
“I let them go a long time ago and so should you.”
“Don’t you care at all?” I ask. This article, the photograph of my brother, has raised old curiosities in me that were best forgotten.
“No. Your mother was bat-shit crazy. Love made me do stupid things for that woman. Move to that damned mountain to commune with nature. Live off the grid to aid her art. I gave her enough years. I have nothing left for her—not even curiosity.”
“But Laura, Holden?” I say.
“I couldn’t care for an infant on my own and Holden was too far gone by then. I could, however, save you. Are you not grateful for that?”
Save me. The words sound sincere rolling off his tongue, but saving me from Ma and my siblings didn’t spare me from his abuse. I can’t say this, however.
“Of course I am. I just ...”
“Don’t overthink it, Liam, and don’t tell anyone about this article. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” I answer.
“Good,” he says, while lifting his glass to his mouth. I watch the amber liquid slosh back and forth and yearn for a glass of my own to staunch the thoughts bleeding from my brain. The first time I’ve heard of—or seen—my brother since we left our home, was in a magazine for being a psychopath and my father wants to simply sweep it under the rug with no explanation. It baffles me and irritates me simultaneously. I say nothing to my father because he’s not the kind of man you push.