No One Left To Tell

she dampened a washcloth. 'All these old memories must have stirred it up. Can you remember any of it?'

Raven hurried back to his side. After raising up on one elbow, he gulped at the water, letting it dribble down his chin. She ran the wet cloth down his arms and over his forehead, cooling his skin.

'I've had this one before. When I was younger'—he coughed, then took another gulp of water—'it used to happen all the time.'

'Who is shadow man?'

'What?' By his expression, he was shocked by her words. 'How did you know about—?'

'You cried out the name, like he hurt you. Don't you remember?'

'Oh, God.' He rubbed fingers hard across his forehead, then sat upright, pulling the sheet over his boxers. 'Shadow man. That's what I called him . . . when I didn't understand.'

Raven sat beside him on the couch, waiting for him to remember. With his breathing more stable, he stared ahead, rapt in his memory.

'The shadow man. He was my ... father.' The word 'father' stuck in his throat. In a daze, he continued, 'It took years of therapy for me to understand that. In the dark, all I saw was ... his shadow. And with the confusion that night, I thought he was there to kill me.'

'With such trauma, it's understandable. You were just a child.' She dabbed the cool rag to his temple. But she had the feeling he wasn't aware of her touch. Not anymore.

'After they shot my sister . . . and mother'—a tear rolled down his cheek, his eyes suspended in a blank stare—'he came to my room. He'd been shot, but he fought them off to get to me. The smell of blood was everywhere.'

His face blurred through the tears welling in her eyes. She saw the child he'd been as he struggled to relive his past.

'It wasn't until he hugged me that I recognized his voice. He calmed me down. Then helped me out the window.' He began to rock, back and forth, on the sofa where he sat. His eyes were still clouded by his nightmare. 'I fell to the ground, my ankle on fire. I crawled away, but the darkness seemed to squeeze my chest. It smothered me. I couldn't breathe. I felt so . . . helpless.'

She suddenly understood his obsession to train and fight in the dark. He had to overcome his phobia, regain control of his life. A frightened young boy had found his own road to recovery.

'Then they shot him again . . . and again. I couldn't take my eyes away. His body convulsed until he fell against the window. I knew he was dead. Even in the dark, I pictured his face.' He stopped his rocking, furrowing his brow as if he were confused. 'Then the night sky filled with spiraling lights, red and blue, shrieking and high- pitched sounds.'

She'd read about his past in the newspaper clippings from Father Antonio. His family tragedy was blamed on a bungled police raid. Yet something in his story bothered her; the timing was off.

'But Christian, if the night sky filled with lights of red and blue after your family was already dead, how could the police be responsible?'

For a moment, he fell silent, using the time to replay his own words back. She saw him fight to remember everv last detail.

'But Fiona told me—' His breathing became more rapid and shallow. Closing his eyes tightly, he grappled with his memory. It pained her to watch him go through it. She felt powerless to help.

'If the police weren't responsible, then who killed them?' He raised his voice, pleading for an answer. 'Who killed my family?'

His expression changed, his eyes widening with a realization. As if he'd been struck in the face, he dropped to the floor on his knees. He yanked open the old trunk, throwing its contents on the rug. A child's schoolwork and crayon drawings were strewn at her feet. She joined him, picking up the pieces and taking a closer look. A small curl of dark hair was wrapped in plastic, tied in a pale blue ribbon. She had a similar one from when she was a baby. None of this made sense.

'These are your things, Christian—when you were a child? How did Fiona get a hold of these? I thought she took you in after your family was killed. Did she get these things from the Delacortes?'

He didn't answer. He found an old photograph and stared at it, totally consumed. After a moment, he muttered, 'Look at this. Something bothered me about this old photo.'

He thrust the faded picture into her hand. Christian, as a young boy, stood beside his father in front of a car. Their faces were beaming. He was dressed in a Little League uniform, his hand still in a baseball glove. His father stood behind him, hands on Christian's narrow shoulders. A nice picture, but she couldn't see the significance of it.

'What? I don't see—'

Christian never let her finish. He pointed to the image, his finger directing her to the car behind them.

'See? In the reflection on the windshield? Check out who's taking the picture.'

It took her only a moment to recognize the face behind the camera.

'Fiona,' she whispered. The pieces to his puzzle were falling into place, but things were still cloudy for her.

'When I first went through this, I kept coming back to this photo. I just now realized why.' He reached again into the locker and retrieved a bundle of old letters. 'And earlier I found these.'

All the letters were addressed to Fiona—sent to a post office box. But the return address caught her attention.

'These letters are from the Delacortes. And they go back for years before they were killed. How can that be?' she questioned. 'What connection did they have to Fiona?'

'All the letters are progress reports—on me.' He handed her a folded piece of paper, yellowed with age. Christian stared at it as if it were vile. 'And this is the reason why.'

Raven carefully unfolded the stiff paper. The elaborate blue border registered in her brain. 'Your birth certificate? Christian Evan Fitzgerald, born to Fiona Fitzgerald. No father listed.'

He clenched his jaw. 'All these years, she lied to me. Fiona is my mother. The Delacortes weren't—' He couldn't bring himself to say it aloud. 'How could she watch me go through all that pain and not tell me? Why did she give me away in the first place?'

'And she kept up with you all those years. Only a mother would— It doesn't make any sense, Christian.' Setting the certificate aside, she pulled him to her, closing her eyes as she hugged him.

'And the worst part—' He burrowed his face into her neck. She barely heard the words. 'I remembered something from the dream, the last time I had it. Whoever killed my ... the Delacortes . . . was after me. I was the reason they broke into the house. I remembered them saying they were after the boy—find the boy.'

Eyes wide with her shock, Raven pushed back. Her mind searched for the words to console him. 'How do you know? You can't know that for su re. You were too young.'

'I blocked out so much. I thought it was the trauma I'd gone through, but now, it's all beginning to make a twisted kind of sense.'

'But why? Why would someone want to kill a little boy?'

Slowly, he shook his head. His exhaustion showed. She felt certain he hadn't even heard the question she posed.

'All I know is that it was my fault.' He avoided her eyes and stared into the locker. 'They died because of me.'

She understood survivor's guilt, had seen it before. Nothing she could say would raise him from the depths of his unfounded blame. Raven felt the magnitude of his loss. The death of the Delacortes had forever robbed him of his childhood, his sense of well-being. Just as the death of her father had done to her—magnified tenfold.

Raven pulled him to her, kissing him until he responded. He collapsed in her arms, worn out by his emotional roller coaster. Her comfort didn't last long. He let her go and looked over his shoulder.

'Raven, I need to understand . . .' His voice trailed off as he bowed his head, his eyes drawn once again to the memories strewn along the floor. 'Why is my life so surrounded by death?'

The old trunk embodied Fiona's betrayal and the violent death of the only family he had ever known. Raven just wanted it gone—out of his sight.

'Don't do this to yourself. Someone else is responsible. You were only a ... a scared little boy.' She