The Christmas Throwaway (10 page)

"I'm going to need that help."

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New Year's Day passed quietly. Ben was back on

duty and Zach spent a long time in his room. Jamie had come over to set up the new TV his mom had bought at the sales and made time to visit with Zach.

"Hey." He knocked on the door to his old room and stepped in without Zach saying anything. Zach scrambled to stand, his hands pushed into his pockets. He felt wary, nervous, and judged the gap between Jamie and the door if he needed to get past him.

"Hi," he finally offered carefully, still very aware that Jamie had said nothing else and was looking at him with a very odd expression on his face.

"You doing okay?" Well, that was an open-ended question if ever he'd heard one.

"Kind of."
Good answer.

"You know where I am if you want to," he waved his hand expansively, "y'know, talk and stuff."

"Thank you." Zach really wasn't sure what he could talk to Jamie about, but at least he wasn't checking Zach's arms for scars and threatening to send him back to the church bench.

"Okay then." Jamie nodded and left the room, 108

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pulling the door shut behind him.

Donna checked in on him as well. He gave the usual reply; that he was fine, that he was reading. In fact, he was hiding, and he was sure from her expression that she knew that. Still, she didn't call him on it, bringing lunch and drinks a few times and, in the main, leaving him alone.

He didn't really know exactly what was wrong until his thoughts turned to his sister and to his dad, and it was only then he ventured downstairs. The house was empty, leaving him alone to his own devices. He crossed to the phone, lifted it from the cradle, and listened to the dial tone.

They wouldn't mind if he made one phone call, would they? Donna had said he should make himself at home when she dropped some clean clothes on the end of his bed.

He could always try and pay them back. He did have three dollars or so in change that he had placed in a small pile on the bedside table.

He dialed the number from memory, not his home,

but the number for his best friend from when he was fourteen, Matthew Givens. Matt's sister answered, but she didn't skip a beat when he identified who he was, simply shouting out for Matt, nearly deafening Zach in the process.

"Yo," Matthew said with a definite smile in his voice.

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"Hey," Zach offered carefully. They hadn't actually seen each other for the four years Zach had been out of the school system, and he thought the conversation would be a difficult one.

"Zee, hey. Where you at? Long time no talk."

Zach's chest tightened. It was impossibly hard to hear that nickname, a fond memory of when Zach and Matt had been best friends at four. Zachary had been too much of a mouthful, and Matt would just use the single letter Z.

"Could you maybe call me back on this number?"

Zach didn't want to push his luck in this house, and Matt phoning him back was the ideal solution.

"Yeah, give me five," Matt instantly said. When the receiver went dead, Zach replaced the handset on the base and waited as patiently as he could for it to ring. When it did, it startled him from a daydream, and when he answered, he knew he sounded breathless. He pushed back the panic rising in him. This was Matt, for God's sake; Matt who was the person who talked him down when he realized he was gay, Matt who had tried to contact him a hundred times after he had been pulled from school. Every time he had come to the door, he had been turned away. Zach knew; he had watched from the upstairs window. His dad was a forceful personality, and Matt was only thirteen.

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What chance did he stand of forcing his way into the house? Especially when his dad moved the whole family thirty miles outside of the city, and well away from all those influences who had "made my son gay
."

"Zee?"

"Thank you for phoning back, Matt."

"No biggie. It is so good to hear your voice, dude!

How long has it been?"

"Four years, I guess," Zach couldn't believe he was even saying those words, four years of almost total isolation.

"I can't believe it's been that long. Shit."

"I'm away from home now."

"Thank fuck for that. Don't guess your dad ever calmed down with all that army stuff and anti-gay shit?"

"No. He never calmed down." Zach closed his eyes tight. Matt had been the first to know about the person Zach was and had listened to him talk for hours at a time. "Came to a head when I refused his latest rehab program and wouldn't complete papers to enlist."

"Shit."

"Look, I need a favor, Matt. I'm sorry I am asking you this, but I don't know who else I can talk to."

"Shoot," Matt said immediately.

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"It's Rebecca."

"What about her?"

* * * *

Ben turned off his computer when his research

began to lead him in circles. It seemed one Samuel Weston, husband to Ruth and father of Zachary Isaiah and Rebecca Mary, was someone who kept his nose clean. There was nothing in the records against him, not even any warnings.

Somehow his brutal hold over his son had completely evaded the authorities. Frustrated, he grabbed the pages off the printer. They held as many details as he could track down, including the most recent address, which according to his calculations, was only sixty-five miles away. It seemed Zach hadn't gotten as far away as he had hoped. He traced the map with his fingers, assuming Zach had bussed from the town where he lived and into the city, then on to where his money had finally run out, Hill Valley.

Ben felt impotent, wanting there to be something

official he could do. Tapping his fingers on his desk, he eyed his phone thoughtfully. Maybe just having a quiet word with the local PD would have an effect. He almost reached to make the call, only pulling his hand back when 112

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he contemplated how that might go down and how much trouble he could cause for Rebecca, Zach's sister.

Rebecca Mary Weston, fourteen, was still at school as far as records showed, indicating that she obviously had not been taken out of circulation as Zach had been.

"You off now, newbie?" Mitchell's voice echoed in the empty room, and he dropped a pile of folders on the corner of their shared desk. Ben looked up at the clock, realizing he had gone way past his five o'clock finish. It wasn't the first time he'd worked late. Living on his own, he had no one to go home to, and his work was so varied he didn't really keep to his hours. It could be an escaped cow, or a broken down truck blocking the traffic lights in the main road. It didn't matter when it happened. As the newest officer he was the one who covered it.

"Can I just run something by you?" Mitchell was an indispensable source of knowledge and experience, and a lump formed in Ben's throat as he realized that after June thirtieth he would be taking the older officer's place on the small team. Who was he going to look to when Mitchell left? He may be a newbie, but Mitchell seemed to listen to him and take his thoughts into consideration, whereas the others, whilst steady officers, liked to make fun of the gay cop.

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"Sure." He poured himself coffee and leaned against the end of the small desk, tilting his head to one side and waiting for Ben to start.

"It's about Zach, the guy who is staying at Mom's."

"Your friend?"

"Well, not exactly. I had a call to the church on Christmas Eve, and I found him on the bench. He's a throwaway."

"Go on." Mitchell didn't display any reaction to what Ben was saying, and finally he relaxed into telling the whole story while Mitchell listened, and every so often, nodded.

"If he's eighteen, then it isn't really a police matter,"

Mitchell started carefully, holding up a hand as Ben opened his mouth to interrupt. "However, I do know some cops who moved into the city. I could get them to ask around, see if we can get some kind of connection in the force to wherever this family is now."

"Zach is worried about his sister. If we can just get a check on them?"

"Zach is worried?" Ben knew what Mitchell was asking. He was clearly not hiding his own fears very well.

"I just have this gut feeling." Ben pulled out the photos from the folder with Zach's name on the side, and 114

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placed them on the desk so that Mitchell could see. "The Doc took these." He didn't need to add any words as Mitchell rifled through the photos thoughtfully.

"He pressing charges?"

"He just wants to make sure his sister is okay, then I think he will make a decision."

Mitchell straightened with a stretch then refilled his mug. "Leave it with me for a couple of days, son. Go home, you've done your day now."

Ben didn't need to be told twice, scooping up the photos and papers and sliding the whole pile into the folder before handing it to Mitchell. "Thank you." It didn't seem enough to just say that when the more experienced officer had said he would help, but Ben knew Mitchell would balk at anything else.

He walked the short distance back to his own house, hesitating at the gate and leaning against the post. It was a small but sturdy two story house with a yard and a garage to one side. It was his, left to him by his nanna. She had given Jamie and Ellie an equal amount of money, but she knew the bricks and mortar would always go to Ben. He was the one who wanted roots in his hometown, who needed community. Jamie wanted the big city, Ellie wanted to work in New York —doing what, she hadn't decided—

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but she had no real desire to stay in Hill Valley.

It was mortgage clear, entirely his, and he loved it.

Despite spending an awful lot of time at his momma's house, he spent time at his own place working on the yard.

He even had food stocked in his cupboards. Admittedly it was store cupboard ingredients with long shelf lives; pasta, rice, canned goods, but if pushed, he could probably make some kind of tomato pasta dish. It was just that his mom was such a good cook, and since Jamie had left home and Ellie was out a lot, it was nice for her to have her son at home.

He opened his front door, picked up the mail and

then placed it in a haphazard pile on the hall table. Tonight he needed to be with his mom, and with Zach.

Zach was so far under his skin it felt way past

wrong, and it wasn't just the worry from the cop's perspective. He had deliberately tried to distance himself a little. The amount of shit he had been through meant that, to a cop's brain, Zach should be off limits. Unfortunately inside his head were images from Christmas and Zach's birthday, and he really wasn't sure how much longer he was going to be able to stop himself from touching.

Decision made —hands off— he closed his front

door and half jogged to his mom's house, hoping he hadn't 116

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missed out on the cold cuts that inevitably made up the evening meal on New Year's Day. Zach had an appetite that even outdid Jamie, and it was seriously important to get to the food first. He passed Ellie on her way out to God knows where, and after a quick exchange of brother/sister abuse, he was finally inside the house, inhaling the scents of potatoes and fresh greens. He was just in time, slotting himself into his usual chair, aware it was only him and his mom at the table.

"Not too late then, Mom?" he asked, frowning.

"Where's Zach?" Unspoken were the words
has he run?

"I called him a while ago, he hasn't come down yet.

Ben, I'm worried about him, he's desperate to check on his sister."

"I'll go see," Ben offered carefully, the cop in him worried and the son in him pissed that Zach hadn't respected his mom enough to come to dinner. Taking the steps two at a time, he skidded to a halt outside his brother's old room, knocking once. Hearing nothing and using cop's privilege mixed in with a healthy dose of man-of-the-house, he opened the door wondering if he would find an empty room.

What he did find was Zach lying face down on the

bed, white buds in his ears and his shoulders shaking. Ben 117

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took a step closer, touching Zach on his shoulder. He stumbled back as Zach scrambled up with a startled shout, half falling off of the bed and ripping out the ear buds. He had clearly been crying, his eyes red rimmed and his face puffy, and in a sudden motion, he thrust the iPod and buds towards Ben.

"Jamie said I could borrow them." He sniffed, gesturing again when Ben didn't immediately take them.

"It's okay. It's dinner time if you want to…" Ben didn't know what to say. All he wanted to know was why Zach was crying and whether he could help.

Zach dropped the player to the bed and stood tall, surreptitiously wiping at his sore eyes and squaring his shoulders. "M'okay."

Ben touched his arm gently, and time froze. They

had been avoiding each other, avoiding contact, so caught up in the drama of how Zach had arrived here and his worries about his sister. Touch had somehow seemed inappropriate. Ben cradled the younger man's face with both hands, using his thumbs to trace the tears on high cheekbones, tears glazing the startling blue of Zach's eyes.

"This is stupid,
I'm
stupid… crying over music."

"Is that what it is that has upset you?"

"Jamie loaned it to me, and…" His voice cracked. "I 118