Earthbound Angels Part 1: The Heartthrob Fallen Celestial Stories Collection (16 page)

Kiara had adored her little brother on sight and
quickly took over caring for him. This turned out to be a huge help
to Renee because she was so tired a lot of the time. Kiara never
minded looking after the dark-haired little boy with eyes so like
her own. He was fun-loving, energetic and quite smart. For a time,
the three of them lived a simple but happy life together.

Then, one day, everything changed.

Kiara was 17 and had been begging her mother to
let her get at least a part-time job so she could help out. Even
though she was often told how beautiful she was, Kiara had no
interest in dating. She had her hands full with helping her mother
look after things at their home and she never minded that.

But Renee insisted that Kiara focus on school
and then she could see about getting a part time job after
graduation, if she was still interested. She told Kiara that
college was a must and that she would figure out a way to pay for
it.

Ronan was just 5 years old but turning into
quite a handsome little boy. He loved his mother and his sister
above all other people. His first year in school had been very
exciting for him. Making friends had come easily to him and he was
quite popular. It may have been this trait that made him want to
ride the school bus rather than have his big sister take him to
school and home each day. He begged to do this constantly.

One day-a very fateful day-Kiara needed to meet
with her counselor after school, but Renee would already be at
work. They all agreed that Ronan could ride the bus home from his
school that day. Kiara would use the little car they owned and
would make sure that she was also at home within the time frame of
the bus dropping him off.

As it turned out, Murphy's Law intervened in the
form of Kiara getting caught up in a traffic jam caused by an
accident. For once, the time seemed to be flying past as the line
of cars crawled at a snail's pace. She wasn't sure what to do
because she wasn't in a position to turn around and go another way.
All she could do was pray that things sped up.

When she finally arrived home, it was only ten
minutes late than expected so Kiara figured it could have been much
worse. Assuming that Ronan would be sitting on the front steps
waiting for her, she was more than a little surprised to see the
front door standing open.

She wondered how he had managed to get inside as
she quickly parked her little car and hastily got out of it. Racing
to the open front door, she was calling his name by the time she
reached it.

Getting no answer, she called Ronan's name
again.

That's when she noticed that everything was
unnaturally quiet.

Something told her to stop yelling for her
little brother and to proceed with caution. Walking slowly and
quietly down the small hallway, she approached the living room.

Peering inside, she saw Ronan standing over by
the fireplace. His face was ghostly pale and his eyes stared
blankly.

Taking a huge breath of relief, Kiara started
toward him, asking why he didn't answer her. He didn't appear as if
he even knew she was there. Turning her head, she followed his gaze
and the sight that met her eyes chilled her blood.

Her mother, the lovely Renee, lay on her back on
the floor, eyes open and vacant. A small trickle of blood slid from
the corner of her parted lips and a very large knife protruded from
her chest.

As Kiara was trying very hard to take this in,
she heard the door at the back of the house slam shut. Until that
moment, it hadn't occurred to her that the monster who did this to
her mother just may still be in the house.

Her heart breaking at their loss, she grabbed
Ronan and ran for the front door. She didn't stop until she reached
her car and threw Ronan inside.

Starting up the car, she didn't even worry about
seatbelts even though she was normally very safety conscious,
particularly where her little brother was concerned. She squealed
tires as she took off in a direction that would put distance
between them and the nightmare that waited inside the house.

LATER, SHE WOULDN'T understand why she didn't
simply call the police with her cell phone. Instead, she drove to
the police station.

By the time she got there, she was so hysterical
that she was practically incoherent. Fortunately, the man who spoke
with her could understand most of what she said and dispatched some
officers to her house immediately. Renee's lifeless body was still
lying there right where Kiara and Ronan had last seen it.

Obviously, it was a homicide, but nothing had
been left behind indicating who had committed this horrible act.
Kiara was questioned at length about what she had seen and heard
when she got home. They really wanted to question Ronan but that
turned out to be of little use.

The little boy was in a state of shock and was
finally taken to the hospital for an examination and observation.
Sadly, even though Ronan was fine physically, he had not spoken
another word since that day.

The morning of their mother's murder marked the
last time that Kiara had heard the sweet sound of her brother's
voice.

Finally, the story was pieced together that
explained a lot. According to the estimated time of death and when
the bus had dropped Ronan off, there was an excellent chance that
he had walked in on the murder taking place.

Most likely, he had gotten a good look at the
murderer, which was enough cause for concern since the culprit
hadn't been apprehended. Worse yet, the sound of the slamming door
that Kiara had heard shortly after her arrival had to have been the
murderer.

Kiara was allowed to stay overnight in Ronan's
hospital room because he seemed to be less agitated with her there.
There was an armed policeman outside of the hospital room guarding
them that night. It turned out that Ronan spent a week in the
hospital as various specialists tried to get to the bottom of his
problem. The child psychiatrist on staff was of the opinion that
Ronan was still in shock of some sort and that this was a problem
that would sort itself out in time.

Things got even more complicated at the end of
the week when Ronan was actually fine to be released but no one
knew what to do. Kiara wasn't quite 18 and wasn't legally allowed
to take custody of him. In fact, she, too, was headed for foster
care. The night before they were to be taken, Kiara found out that
she and Ronan would be going to separate homes.

Even though she had tried to reason and,
finally, beg the social worker to not separate them, it did no
good. They were going to be collected at 8AM the next morning and
that was that.

Kiara thought over everything and realized that
she simply couldn't let this happen. She and her little brother
just could not be separated from each other. This was a time that
they needed each other more than ever.

By the time her 18th birthday rolled around,
Kiara wasn't sure she would be given custody of Ronan.

No, she couldn't take any chances. She had to
take care of this now.

During the night, she slipped out of the room,
telling the officer on guard that she was going to the vending
machine on the floor under them. Since this was something she often
did, the officer didn't think anything of it.

Only this time, she rode the elevator down to
the lobby where she darted through the double doors and headed to
the parking lot for patients. Hopping into her little car, she
raced home as fast as she dared.

Once there, she took a flashlight from her glove
box and carefully entered the house. The yellow crime scene tape
was still there and gave her just a second's pause. She honestly
didn't believe that anyone would be watching the house all the time
in case she and her brother returned, but it still didn't help her
to feel safe here.

When she got inside, she didn't even go past the
living room where her mother's body had been found. Instead, she
went straight upstairs and got a suitcase down.

Throwing in as many clothes as she could manage,
she then included some special things to her like photo albums. She
went into Ronan's room and repeated her actions. Last of all, she
went into her mother's room.

There was a place in the back of Renee's closet
where the floor lifted up and there was a small compartment that
you had to know about in order to find. This was where Renee had
stashed part of her tip money from work. Not that long ago, she had
shown it to Kiara telling her that she wanted her to know where it
was in case she ever needed it.

At the time, Kiara didn't understand what she
meant. Now she had to consider the fact that maybe Renee had known
someone was after her.

At any rate, Kiara directed her flashlight into
the space and found it packed with bills. At first glance, it
seemed that they were mostly one dollar bills, but after she
started sifting through them, she found plenty of higher
denominations.

Not taking the time to count it, she quickly
stuffed a duffle bag with the money and climbed out of the closet.
For a minute, she allowed herself to gaze around her mother's room
one last time. She crossed over to Renee's dresser and lifted a
small framed picture of the three of them. It had been taken a
scant few months ago when they had actually taken a small vacation.
All three of them were smiling broadly and looked so happy.

Picking up the photo, she put it in the duffle
bag. She took a few more things of her mother's before leaving.

One last stop was in her mother's bathroom.
Looking through the medicine cabinet, Kiara found what she was
looking for and then started her way back downstairs.

The entire trip hadn't taken her longer than
about 15 minutes, but she knew she had to have an excuse ready for
what took her so long to visit the vending machine.

It turned out to be easier than she imagined.
She stopped on the way at an all-night coffee shop and bought the
police officer guarding Ronan's door a cup of his favorite
coffee.

When she pulled back into the hospital parking
lot, she opened the cup and added the contents of what she had
pulled from the medicine cabinet. She knew he would be happy to get
this cup of coffee and wouldn't scold her too badly when he saw
it.

And that's just what happened.

Kiara planned everything around the morning
shift change at the hospital. Things always got a little crazy then
and she would have a better chance of her plan working. By then,
the guard was snoozing peacefully in his chair and people were
coming and going.

Wrapping Ronan up in a blanket, she put him the
wheel chair she had snagged earlier and down the hall they
went.

In the end, it turned out to be much easier than
she had ever thought it would be to get him out of the hospital. No
one even looked twice at them. It was still a little dark when they
reached the car, which made things even simpler. She settled Ronan
in the back seat and they took off.

Kiara really didn't have a plan beyond getting
them away from Social Services so she kind of played it by ear. She
drove for twelve hours, stopping only for gas when she needed it
and food that she and Ronan ate on the road.

It was impossible to say when they would have
been discovered missing, but she had to assume that it would have
been shortly after the shift change had gone into effect. That's
why she had put as many miles as possible between them and her old
home town.

Finally, she couldn't stay awake any longer.
Taking some of the money she had found in Renee's closet, she
pulled into a small roadside motel. It turned out to be almost too
easy to get a room. No one asked her any questions because she was
paying in cash. It quickly occurred to her that they simply didn't
care who she was or why she was there. She was paying and that was
all that really mattered.

Kiara got Ronan settled into one of the beds in
the motel room, and took a quick shower. While she was towel drying
her hair, she turned on the television hoping not to see herself
and Ronan on the news. It turned out that there seemed to be other
important things going on in the world currently that over shadowed
the disappearance of a 17 year old girl and her 5 year old brother.
She finally felt it was safe for her to get some sleep.

Thus started their cross country adventure.

This worked out pretty well for them until the
money started running low. They traveled from town to town, never
staying very long in one place. Kiara kept up with Ronan's school
work by teaching him herself. In spite of the fact that he still
wasn't speaking, he did quite well because he was such a bright
little boy.

He learned everything she taught him from the
second-hand books that she found in used bookstores and thrift
stores. Even now, at 14, he was more advanced than a lot of seniors
in high school.

But he still didn't speak.

THEIR MONEY RAN out eventually, and that's when
Kiara had come to the Moon Bay area and sold her car.

It didn't take them long to become a part of the
homeless population on the street. Kiara had discovered the
abandoned building quickly enough and found out where the local
soup kitchens were located as well as the times they operated.

They didn't actually go hungry, but Ronan was a
growing boy and seemed to be hungry more and more. That's why he
had tried to take the food from the convenience store.

"Then you walked in and found us," Kiara said,
looking at Graeme. "That sort of brings us to here."

Dreama and Hollianne both had tears in their
eyes along with looks of horror on their faces. Graeme continued to
look at Kiara intently as if he were pondering all that she had
just told them.

Everything she said rang true, but it seemed so
impossible for a 17 year old girl to pull off everything she had on
her own. He sort of wished he had Simon here. Simon could have
simply shaken hands with Kiara and cleared the whole thing up.