Confounded: Part II - 9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9 --==Kit’s POV==--

It was just after lunch, about two weeks after Tom had arrived, when I received a panicked call from Taylan on my cell at work. He didn’t even bother saying it was him.

“He’s gone.”

“Tay? What happened!?”

“I thought he was in his room; he was there most of the morning. Called him for lunch, but he didn’t answer. Went to his room; empty. The windows’ opened and I think one of his bags is gone. Not sure. But he’s taken clothes with him; the drawers are open.”
He cursed.
“He could be gone for two or three hours already, I dunno. Could you come home? I need you to stay here, in case he comes back while I go out looking for him.”

“I’m already on my way out,” I assured him, hanging up and grabbing my jacket.

**********

“Tay! Where are you?” I yelled as soon as I came into the kitchen. No answer.

I knew he was still home; his car was in the driveway. Searching the house, I found him in Tom’s room, sitting on the bed and leaning forward, his head down as he softly spoke on the phone. He looked up as I walked in, holding up a finger.

“Alright…yeah…you sure that’s where he went? Mhm…okay, I’ll see if he’s there...don’t worry, Roman…no, I’m sorry. I thought…nonono, you stay home; he might go there. ..you don’t think so?...alright, I’ll call you when I find him… we’ll find him, don’t worry. I just thought I’d let you know….yes, I’ll do that. Okay, I’ll call you in a bit from the car; Kit’s here now.”
He hung up and bit his lower lip.
“So much for a career in jailing.”

“Tay…”

“No Kit… I should’ve checked if he was still in his room. I was doing the laundry and some other stuff; lost track of time…I just thought I wouldn’t have to check like you would on a six-year old.”

“We’ll find him. What did Uncle Roman say? And did you call dad yet?”

“No, I didn’t; I didn’t want him to worry. As for Roman; I didn’t want to call him but I saw no other option. Now he’s worrying too. He gave me some addresses of where Tom’s gone in the past during the day. He might be there; he was pretty sure of at least one where he might’ve gone. Roman’s going to look at a few places too. These are the ones he thinks Tom might’ve gone.”

I looked on the pad where he’d written them down. Most were more than an hour away, at the very least, and not in a good part of town either.

“Maybe I should come with you…that’s a part of town I really don’t think dad would like you going alone.” I grabbed his arm as he made for the door. “Nor do I.”
He smiled and laid his hand on my cheek for a second.

“No. But you’re sweet for offering. I need you to stay here, in case he comes back. And feel free to shackle him, when he does.”

“You got it. I’ll call dad and tell him what’s going on; he’ll also wanna know where you’re going.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” he answered, yanking my phone away as I took it from my pocket.

“Tay! C’mon, if he…when he finds out where you went to look for Tom, he’s gonna tear you a new one. And me, for not stopping you.” I lunged for the phone. “Tay…”

“Promise me you won’t tell him where I’m going and you’ll get it back.”

“Can’t do that, sorry. And I can just use the regular phone.”

“Dammit, Kit; the one time I don’t need you to be a straight arrow…”
I grinned at him.

“Sorry, but if it’s any consolation; you raised me to be this way too, you know.”

“Don’t remind me,” he growled, handing me my phone back. “When I come back with that little shit, we’ll be going on a drinking binge and a general depravity spree. Knock some sense into you.”

“Sure.”
He reached up and ruffled my hair.

“Call me if he turns up here, okay?”
I nodded.
“And tell your dad not to worry. I’ll be fine.”

“You know he will, no matter what I say.”

“So don’t tell him,” Tay grinned, on his way out the room.

“Nuh-uh; doesn’t work that way. The man loves ya.”

“His problem.”
He disappeared into the hallway.

“I’ll tell him you said that!” I yelled after him.

**********

After Taylan had gone, I called dad and told him the gist of what was going on. As predicted, he wasn’t happy. He hung up after saying he was giving Taylan a call. A few minutes later he rang back, fuming; Tay wasn’t answering. Silently I cursed him and then I cursed myself; against better judgment, I’d let him go alone.

Tay knew dad would worry. If anything happened to him, I don’t think dad would even survive; he was nuts about him. They even got married, for god sakes, in the few weeks that it had been allowed in California. I could still see dad blubbering at the altar when Taylan made his vows, in his own unique way, and slid the ring on his finger.

I weathered the instant barrage of questions; why didn’t I stop him? Why hadn’t I called immediately? What were the addresses?

“Dad! Listen for a minute, please?”

“No, you listen! If something happens to him, Kit…by god, I’ll…”

“Dad,” I tried again, softer this time, when he went quiet, “he’ll be fine. I wish I had gone with him, and I’m sorry I didn’t but…you know how he is…”

“Yeah,” came the croaked answer. “I know. Sorry, it’s just…”

“I know dad. I’ll keep you updated; he’ll call me every half hour.”

“Good. Every half hour I also want an update, and Kit?”

“Yeah?”

“Have him call me.”

“I’ll try.”

“No! You’ll have him call me! If he doesn’t, I’m calling the police and have him picked up for reckless endangerment of our relationship. Or something. You tell him that!”

I couldn’t help but grin at that one, but made sure it didn’t travel through the connection as I promised dad I would, calling Taylan right after.

“He’s such a drama queen,” he huffed as I relayed all that was said. “I should file for a divorce.”

“Yeah, you do that; see how far you get. I, for one, will be dragging you straight back here. What do you think dad’d do?”

“Not fair, two against one.”

“Live with it,” I snickered. “So you’ll call him?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll call.”

“Promise?”

“Duh! If I don’t, I’ll be sorry and you know it.”
Yes he would. Very sorry. The Alpha male would rear its head, when dad got into a mood.

“Alright; I’ll go look here, maybe I’ll find a clue or something.”

“Good idea; let me know if you find anything.”

I promised and hung up and began a search around Tom’s room. He’d ransacked the drawers alright; clothes had been hurriedly taken out, the drawers themselves drawn halfway from the cabinet. The book he’d been reading, Ulysses, was also gone.
Then my eye fell on his laptop, a corner of which was sticking out from under his bed; he’d left it?

I sat on his bed and pulled it from under there and opened the lid; it whirred to life, showing an account-selection screen. Clicking the one account on there, I hoped it wasn’t passworded. It wasn’t.

His desktop was a complete nightmare of icons. Textfiles, musicfiles, links; the whole screen was littered with it. Clicking a few, I imagined myself in an episode of Discovery’s Brainiac. Mathematics, physics, lit; if he understood just half of what I flipped though in a few seconds, the guy was as smart as they said he was. Then, by accident, I clicked a link to a folder and found a complete treasure-trove of all sorts of images. In here, though, everything was neatly arranged according to date and sorted in appropriate folders.

Clicking the most recent one, I found myself looking at literally dozens of thumbnails; clicking one, they revealed pictures of a guy of what looked like our own age, maybe a little older. In most pictures, he wore sunglasses and a leather jacket; obviously one of his biker friends. Not that bad looking, either. Black hair, but shaggy; the guy had a lean face, was a bit on the wiry side of things and seemed quite tall.

Scrolling down a few times, the pictures then changed. Some of them were named, too, as well as dated. Several appeared of the guy without sunglasses, and then a whole series of him relaxing on a large boulder. A bike was parked close by. He had brown eyes and he smiled. According to the name of the picture, I was looking at Miguel.

In the distance of the pictures I could see a spire and, closer, rows upon rows of gravestones. So they were taken at a cemetery; it even seemed vaguely familiar. Then, as I scrolled down towards the bottom, I saw a sight I’d never seen before; I even had to check twice before I knew it was actually him. It was Tom.

Laughing.

Clicking the thumbnail, it blew up to full screen, and there he was, his face completely relaxed and thrown back, his eyes squinting at the sky. I could practically hear the sound of laughing, it just spat from the screen.

Obviously, the picture had been taken by the other guy, Miguel; there were no other pictures in the folder except of him and Tom, as I found. There were several others of Tom, some laughing, some just sitting there, posing on the same boulder. All of them relaxed pictures. There were some shots of them together, with Miguel sitting behind Tom, his arms wrapped loosely around him; those were from a different angle, like they’d set the camera to auto. One of Miguel nuzzling Tom’s neck.

One of them engaged in a kiss.

It wasn’t so much the fact that Tom was gay that struck me; it was the clarity with which it was obvious, from the pictures, that they were in love. Deeply. Completely…

And then my blood ran cold. The very last one. It was a gravestone. The date on it was, to the date, today a year ago.

The name on it was Miguel Alessandro Rodriguez.

Swallowing a lump that had formed in my throat, I suddenly realized where Tom had gone. The date, the gravestone…he was there. I knew it.

Going back through the pictures, I tried to look for signs to where the cemetery might be; then I thought of the pictures with the spire in them. Quickly scrolling up, I found the first few with it hazily in the background. But there was one…there. There it was.
Clicking it, I made it full screen and saw a small figurine on top of it. A soldier.

It took some time to actually find it but Google was my friend; Evergreen Cemetery. The spire was the Korean War Memorial. That was where Miguel’s grave was. And I was almost 100% positive that it would be where I’d find Tom.