Travis heard the doorbell ring.
Not going down. Not going down.
He heard faint footsteps on the floor below. His mother heading for the door. He considered shouting down to her to ignore it, but if he did, the man at the door would surely hear him.
Maybe the man was not here to see him. It was possible he had some business with his parents. Maybe this guy was a lawyer or a real estate agent, and his parents were making a will or putting the house up for sale.
This guy did not look like a lawyer or a real estate agent.
But still, it was possible that — “Travis!”
He debated whether to respond. Trick his mother into thinking he’d left the house. The trouble with that was, the only escape route would have been right by the kitchen, where his mother had been for the last hour.
If he didn’t answer her, she’d come upstairs looking for him.
So he called back, “Yes?”
“Someone here to see you!”
He swallowed. “Kind of busy right now.”
What a stupid answer. What could he be so busy with that he couldn’t come downstairs? Could the man come back when I’m done jerking off? No, that wasn’t going to fly.
“Travis!” his mother said sharply.
“Who is it?” he called back.
There was a pause, a murmur of conversation. “A Mr. Cookson!”
Cookson? Who the fuck was Cookson?
“What’s he want?”
This time, his mother did not reply. What he heard, instead, was her stomping up the stairs. Seconds later, she was standing in his doorway, hands on hips.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked. “How can you be so rude? A man is here to see you. Get your ass down there and find out what this is about. And then you can tell me.”
Travis slunk down the stairs behind his mother, who flashed the man an awkward smile and said, “Look who I found!” She slipped into the kitchen while Travis held a position on the bottom step.
“You’re looking for me?”
The man nodded. “Travis, my name is Miles Cookson. I wonder if I might speak to you about something.”
“What?”
Miles hesitated. “An opportunity.”
“What kind of opportunity?”
From the kitchen, his mother snapped, “Just talk to the man!”
“Who are you, exactly?” Travis whispered. “Are you with the police?”
“The police?” he replied, keeping his own voice low. “No. I run a tech company that designs apps. I’m from New Haven. I flew here last night, to see you.”
“To see me?”
“That’s right.”
Travis had his phone in hand and asked, “What’d you say your name was again?”
Miles told him and Travis typed it into his phone, waited for search results to come up. He tapped on Images and compared the headshots that came up to the man standing before him.
“Satisfied?” Miles asked. “What do you say we take a walk?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe just sit on your porch? My legs are a little wobbly today. But I have a story to tell you. It’s going to sound kind of fantastical, but I’m going to ask you to keep an open mind and listen to what I have to say.”
“What do you mean, ‘fantastical’?”
Miles paused. “I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, but it’s possible you could be in some danger, and I want to warn you about it.”
Travis said, “You’re a little late.”
Miles raised his eyebrows. He extended his arm toward the door.
“Okay,” Travis said, and the two of them went out to the porch. Travis closed the door so his mother wouldn’t listen in, and they each settled into a wicker chair.
Before telling his story, Miles was hoping for a sense of whether Travis knew he was the product of an artificial insemination. As he’d discussed with Chloe, it was a real double whammy to find out that (a) your dad’s not your real dad, and (b) someone might be out to get you.
Miles had reviewed the materials Dorian and Heather had compiled, and seen from Facebook postings that Travis did not look much like his father.
Looking at Dorian’s notes, Miles could not stop thinking about what Heather had learned. His assistant had been ripping off the company. He was so consumed with tracking down the remaining men and women on his list that he’d forced himself to push the Dorian issue out of his head. It was an issue he would have to deal with later. The strange thing was, he felt no anger. Just overwhelming disappointment.
But right now, in this moment, he had to focus on Travis Roben.
“What do you know about your history?” Miles asked.
“History?”
“Your background. Your... family background.”
“I don’t know. The usual stuff, I guess.”
“What I’m wondering is, have you ever, for example, used one of those services you see advertised on TV that can shed light on your ancestry? Like WhatsMyStory, which tests—”
“I know what it is. And no.” He squinted at Miles, as if that would help him see the man’s true motives. “I would never do that.”
“Why not?”
“I wouldn’t want to hurt my dad’s feel—”
He cut himself off.
“Why would an ancestry search hurt your dad’s feelings, Travis?” Miles felt a need to go slowly. “Because it would make him think you didn’t view him as your real father?”
Travis glanced back at the door, double-checking it was closed. “My parents, they had some... issues when they wanted to have kids.”
Miles nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“I guess they tried a long time, and didn’t, you know, get anywhere.”
“So your parents decided to explore other ways.”
Travis nodded.
“Your mother, she went to a fertility clinic?”
“You know, this is pretty personal stuff to talk about with someone I don’t know.”
“I get that. But am I right?”
“I guess... she would have had to,” Travis said.
“And this clinic, so far as you know, where was it?”
“Around New York. Where my parents used to live.”
Miles looked satisfied. “I won’t pry anymore. I’m going to tell you my story. Interrupt at any time.”
And Miles laid it out, just as he had with the FBI agent, but without revealing the names of the people who were most likely half siblings to Travis. To Travis’s credit, he let Miles tell all of it and asked only a minimum of questions.
“So you’re not my biological father,” Travis said, when Miles finished.
“No. I mean, I don’t think so. A test would confirm it. But I’m not related to the first person I contacted, and my name was on that file. I’m guessing it’ll be that way with all of them.”
“Did that bum you out?” he asked.
“Yes. So, the first thing you said to me was that I’d gotten here late. What’d you mean by that?”
“These two people, they tried to kill us.”
“‘Us’?”
“Me and my girlfriend, Sandy.”
“They tried to kill you?” Miles was wide-eyed.
Travis told his story, including the part where Sandy whacked that woman in the face with the bat.
Miles said, “You didn’t go to the police?”
“Too scared,” Travis said. “What if they were cops? Like, I don’t know, a couple of sicko cops who are like, thrill killers or something?”
Miles thought about that. “The fact there’s been nothing on the news suggests that whatever they were up to, they didn’t want the authorities finding out about it. What about Sandy?”
“She’s scared shitless, too.”
“Look, Travis, you and Sandy need to come forward. Yesterday I was talking to a woman from the FBI, an agent, and she didn’t feel there was enough here to launch any kind of investigation. But what happened to you two, that’s a whole new ball game. You’ve got a story to tell, suspects you can describe. This could change everything.”