Finding Home

  Triton Books

  PO Box 1537

  Burnsville, NC 28714

  www.tritonya.com

  Triton Books is an imprint of Riptide Publishing.

  www.RiptidePublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

  Finding Home

  Copyright © 2017 by Garrett Leigh

  Cover art: Garrett Leigh, blackjazzdesign.com

  Photography: Dan Burgess, danburgessphotography.com & moonstockphotography.com

  Editor: Carole-ann Galloway

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at tritonya.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-601-9

  First edition

  October, 2017

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-602-6

  ABOUT THE EBOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED:

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  How do you find a home when your heart is in ashes?

  With their mum dead and their father on remand for her murder, Leo Hendry and his little sister, Lila, have nothing in the world but each other. Broken and burned, they’re thrust into the foster care system. Leo shields Lila from the fake families and forced affection, until the Poulton household is the only place left to go.

  Charlie de Sousa is used to other kids passing through the Poulton home, but there’s never been anyone like his new foster brother. Leo’s physical injuries are plain to see, but it’s the pain in his eyes that draws Charlie in the most.

  Day by day, they grow closer, but the darkness inside Leo consumes him. He rejects his foster parents, and when Charlie gets into trouble, Leo’s attempt to protect him turns violent. When Leo loses control, no one can reach him—except Charlie. He desperately needs a family—a home—and only Charlie can show him the way.

  For Darcey

  About Finding Home

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Dear Reader

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Garrett Leigh

  About the Author

  More like this

  The old Swindon house had broken doors. They stuck, never closed properly, or opened on the first try. The front door was no exception. Until the fateful morning Dennis Hendry kicked it open with a single blow of his steel-capped boot.

  “Wendy! Where are you?”

  Leo jumped and jostled Lila, who was eating her Shreddies beside him. Milk sloshed onto the table, and their mother froze, dishcloth in hand. “Oh God. It’s your dad. Leo, quick! Get in the cupboard.”

  The front door banged again as Dennis slammed it shut. Leo gathered Lila in his arms and scrambled for the cupboard under the stairs—the dark, cramped place where they’d hidden from Dennis and his rage for as long as Leo could remember.

  A shadow darkened the kitchen doorway as they made it inside. Wendy moved to block the cupboard door and nudged it shut with her foot. Inky blackness swallowed them, save for a crack of light just wide enough for Leo to see his father’s face for the first time in six months.

  Bastard. Weathered, and flushed with booze and rage, Dennis hadn’t changed. He slammed his fist on the kitchen table, and more milk spilled out of Lila’s bowl. “Look at this bloody mess. This how you keep my house, eh?”

  “It’s only milk,” Wendy said. “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think?”

  Dennis towered over Wendy, leering with his flinty gaze. She leaned back, and he caught her by the throat. “Oh, no, you don’t. You stay put and hear how it’s going to be. I’m getting tired of that manky bedsit. I want to sort this nonsense out today.”

  “Dennis—”

  Wendy’s plea was cut off by the squeeze of Dennis’s hand around her neck. He tightened his grip until her face reddened and her eyes bulged. Then he let her go with a sneer. “Clean this mess up, then sit down. We’re going to have a little talk.”

  Wendy didn’t argue. She shot a furtive glance Leo’s way, and set about clearing the detritus of their abandoned breakfast: Lila’s Shreddies, Leo’s toast. She picked up her own teacup, and her hand began to shake.

  Dennis growled. “Get on with it, woman.”

  Woman. A sudden coldness swept over Leo, and the panic in his heart subsided to a steady beat of fear-laced rage. He closed his eyes and imagined bursting out of the cupboard and punching Dennis so hard his teeth shattered, like the plates Dennis threw against the wall when his whiskey ran out. Or grabbing the cricket bat leaning against the door and cracking him over the head with it.

  Instead, he opened his eyes and remembered the instructions left by the kindly policeman who’d accompanied them to court to file the restraining order: “Don’t fight him. Call for help.”

  Leo reached behind him. His mother’s handbag hung open on the hook, like it always did. He felt around and found her phone, swiping at it until the screen flashed to life. Shit. Leo flinched and eyed the gap in the door, but Wendy had Dennis’s attention.

  She set the breadboard on the side as he watched her every move. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  Dennis folded his arms across his broad chest. “Do you think I was stupid enough to listen to them coppers, you daft bitch?”

  “What do you want, Dennis?”

  “I want what’s mine. I got the papers in the post this morning. Divorce, eh? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  Wendy sighed. “We’ve been separated for long enough now. Please, Dennis. You need to go.”

  “It’s my bloody house! My house, my things, my kids.”

  Dennis took a menacing step forward. Leo instinctively tightened his grip on Lila.

  “The kids aren’t here,” Wendy said, her voice rising in pitch. “Take what you want and leave.”

  “Not here, eh?” Dennis glanced up at the ceiling. “Maybe I should go and check. Is Leo in bed? Maybe I should drag
him out by his poofy hair. Show him my belt again.”

  It was Dennis’s favourite way to break Wendy, certain in the knowledge that she’d do anything—take anything—to protect her children. But this time, she didn’t falter. “Check all you want, then get the hell out.”

  Dennis turned his lips up in a snarl, and his impotent posturing morphed into deadly fury. He lunged for Wendy and grabbed her hair. Her terrified shriek rang out as Leo jammed 999 into the phone.

  “Emergency services operator. Which service do you require?”

  “My dad’s hurting my mum.”

  “Speak up,” the operator said. “I can’t hear you. Can you tell me your name?”

  Dennis threw Wendy against the wall. The impact rattled her bones and snapped her head back.

  “Please,” Leo whispered.

  Dennis seized the abandoned bread knife from the kitchen counter. Leo closed his eyes. Buried his face in Lila’s sweet-scented hair. A dull thud rattled his skull, then another, and another, like the kicks and punches he’d heard so many times before.

  But this wasn’t like the other times. Wendy’s gasp was different, stuttered and strangled. Empty. Hopeless. The phone line buzzed and crackled. Leo counted three heartbeats before the operator took a breath.

  “Hello? Are you still on the line? Which service do you require? Do you need assistance?”

  Leo opened his eyes. Blood oozed across the tiled kitchen floor.

  Wendy’s blood.

  Mum’s blood.

  Dennis was by the stove, bending down with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. A nearby tea towel caught alight. He shoved it aside into the stack of newspapers ready for recycling. They ignited. Leo watched the flames begin their dance, and clutched the phone tighter. “Come quickly. My dad just killed my mum and set the house on fire.”

  Charlie de Sousa made himself comfortable on the bottom of the stairs. The third step up was the best one. The bottom two creaked like crazy, and though he wouldn’t get in real trouble for eavesdropping on his parents, he didn’t want to interrupt their discussion before they got to the juicy bit.

  “It’s a risk, Kate,” Reg said. Charlie could almost see him running his hands through his unruly mop of white hair. “Taking one traumatised child is a challenge in itself, but two? I don’t know. Do we even have room?”

  “Of course we have room.” Charlie heard Kate get up and pace around, like she always did when she was annoyed. “The boy can go in the study. We’ll just have to move the computer downstairs.”

  “It’s not ideal.”

  “‘Ideal’? For God’s sake, Reg. Nothing ever is. If it was, these kids wouldn’t need us in the first place.”

  Silence. Charlie strained his ears and wondered if the conversation was continuing in sign language. Kate was hard of hearing, and could read lips and speak, but she and Reg often continued conversations in sign language if they didn’t want the rest of the house to eavesdrop. Charlie considered creeping to the door and taking a peek, but Reg always caught him when he did that. The bloke had ninja senses.

  Someone in the dining room sighed; Charlie couldn’t tell who. Then Kate spoke again. “Look, I know it’s a big ask, but these kids have been through the mill. They need a safe place to heal, and we can give them that. I know we can.”

  “What about the family we already have?” Reg countered. “It says here that both kids have medical issues from that fire, and the boy was in trouble at school before that . . . fighting and drinking. Truancy. Is it really fair to bring that into our home?”

  “We can help them,” Kate said. “And we should ask the others before we make a decision. It’s how we do things in this house.”

  Reg’s dry laugh told Charlie that Kate had got her way. He tensed, ready to flee upstairs, but the dining room door opened before he could move. Reg fixed him with a stare that said he’d known Charlie was there all along. “Go fetch your sister. I’m going to call Andy. Family meeting as soon as we’re all here.”

  Charlie scrambled upstairs. He found Fliss in her room, headphones on, watching some vampire crap while she talked to her mates on Facebook. She didn’t acknowledge him, even when he blocked her view, but that wasn’t unusual. Charlie had joined the Poulton family when he’d been barely two. Fliss had been six, and the only child in Reg and Kate’s full time care back then. She’d never quite forgiven Charlie for encroaching on her territory, and that suited Charlie fine. Fliss was a stuck-up bitch, and she always used all the hot water.

  He unplugged her headphones.

  She hissed and punched his arm. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Dad wants us. Family meeting.”

  “What for?”

  Charlie shrugged. He wasn’t about to share his stolen knowledge with Fliss. Stuff that. He’d enjoy her being the last to know. “Just come downstairs, yeah?”

  He left without waiting for her response. Kate would deal with Fliss if she didn’t show.

  Charlie drifted downstairs and took his place at the dining room table. Kate appeared and set a big bowl of her special houmous in the middle of the table, a sure sign that the discussion might get heavy. In this house, nothing soothed frayed nerves better than Kate’s home cooking.

  She ruffled Charlie’s hair. “Okay, chicken?”

  Charlie scowled and fixed his too-long dark hair, but he didn’t mean it. He enjoyed Kate’s motherly affection far more than he cared to let on. “Did Dad get hold of Andy?”

  “He’s on his way. Have you done your homework?”

  Charlie waited until Kate had finished faffing with the table, then quickly translated what he wanted to say into signs that would make sense—or, at least, quickly for him. Kate switched between signing and English like breathing. For Charlie, it took a little more thought. “Yes. Just art left. Dad will help me.”

  Kate smiled and flitted in and out of the room a dozen more times until Charlie’s burly older brother arrived a little while later.

  Andy Poulton filled the room and lifted Kate off her feet in a bruising bear hug. “All right, Ma?”

  Kate beamed. Andy was Reg’s son from his first marriage, but he’d called Kate Ma since she’d married Reg twenty years ago, and there wasn’t much that made her happier. “How’s the cat?”

  Andy grimaced. “She shredded the couch again.”

  “Maybe you should get another one to keep her company? She’s probably bored while you’re at work all day.”

  “Nah. I think she’s evil.”

  “I don’t believe that, sweetheart. She just needs some love.”

  Andy grunted and swiped a finger through the houmous. “Anyway, why am I here? Dad said it was important. Is something wrong?”

  Kate glanced briefly at Charlie and shook her head. “No, no. It’s nothing like that. Let’s wait for the others, then your dad and I will explain everything.”

  She left the room to fetch drinks. Andy dropped into the chair beside him and ruffled Charlie’s hair.

  “Stop it,” Charlie snapped. What was it with people messing with his bloody hair?

  Andy chuckled. “Got a girlfriend yet?”

  “Piss off.”

  “What? Not even a snog up the cricket pavilion?”

  “Piss off.” Charlie cringed and angled himself away from Andy. Was it too much to ask that his own brother didn’t pester him too?

  Apparently oblivious, Andy laughed again and put a fraternal arm around Charlie’s shoulders. “Easy, mate. Just pulling your leg. Where’s Fliss?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Did you tell her about the meeting?”

  Charlie turned to Reg as he entered the room. “I tried.”

  Reg gave him a patient glance and banged on the ceiling. “Fliss! Downstairs. Now.”

  It took a while for them all to settle at the table. Beside Andy, Charlie waited for Reg and Kate to drop their bomb.

  Reg went first. “We got a call from social services this morning. Though we haven’t taken any new ch
ildren for a while, we’re still, technically, available for emergency foster placements.”

  Here it comes.

  Kate took over. “We’ve been asked to take two siblings, a boy and a girl, with immediate effect.”

  “No way.” Fliss groaned. “I don’t want the house full of screaming kids again. We’ve only just got rid of the one.”

  “Freddie left more than a year ago,” Reg said in the tone he reserved for Fliss when she got bratty. “And they aren’t screaming kids. The boy is fifteen, the same as Charlie, and his sister is profoundly deaf.”

  “Is that why they want you to take them?” Andy asked. “So Ma can help with sign language and stuff?”

  “Partly.” Reg exchanged a look with Kate. “But there’s a little more to it than that. They lost their mother a while ago in quite horrific circumstances, and they’ve both had some trouble, uh, settling since.”

  Reg’s waver didn’t go unnoticed. Fliss sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “Settling how? Are they nutters, or what? I’m not living with a pair of skanky ASBO kids.”

  “Fliss.” Kate’s tone was sharp. “That’s not how we talk about people in this house. Mind your words and think before you speak.”

  Fliss rolled her eyes, but a stern frown from Kate cut off her inevitably spiky retort.

  “What happened to their mum?” Charlie asked.

  Reg shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. If they do come to us, it’ll be up to them if they want to share their story. For now, all we can tell you is that these kids very much need a home, and your mother and I would like to offer them one.”

  Offer. Charlie absorbed the word and turned the prospect over in his head. What if the kids didn’t want to come? Reg and Kate were the best parents in the world, but the kids wouldn’t know that.

  “Where would they sleep?” Andy reached for the snacks Kate had spread on the table. “You’ve only got one spare room.”

  “And it’s all set up and ready to go,” Kate said. “The girl would sleep in there.”

  Of course she would. The room closest to Reg and Kate’s had always been reserved for the newest kids, or the youngest, depending who needed them most.