t always what they seem,” and with that cryptic comment hanging in the air, he walked into his apartment.
It was no answer. It didn’t even speak to the question. Shannon gazed after him, perplexed and a bit uneasy. Though she defended him to all and sundry, Nate was a man full of secrets.
Where had he been the night of the fire?
He tested the lock as he always did, making certain that the hook and eye held the kid inside. He’d been concerned about her throwing her weight against the door long and hard enough to break the latch, but his worries had proved groundless. She was too much of a wimp to do anything as adventuresome as trying to escape.
Or so it seemed.
He eyed the lock and scowled. It was odd, this kid who had melted into a puddle of fear. From what he’d learned about her while communicating on the Internet, he’d expected a tomboy, a girl who had some gumption and guts. She’d bragged about being able to shoot a gun and boasted of a black belt in some kind of martial arts. She’d claimed to be able to ride a horse bareback at a gallop and pitch her own tent, hunt and fish, compliments of an outdoor education from her father.
So far, none of that had proved true.
Unless she was playacting, pretending to be scared shitless.
He thought hard. Studied the lock with a hard eye.
A lot of people lied on the Internet. All the time. Single people looking for a date lied about their age, or their weight or how much money they made. People inflated their personal stats to satisfy their egos and kids were probably the worst, screwing around in cyberspace pretending to be something they weren’t.
He rubbed his chin, glanced at his watch, knew he didn’t have much time even though it was still late afternoon. He pounded a fist on her door. “I’ll be back soon,” he yelled loudly through the thick panels and the girl actually yelped, as if the sound of his voice terrified and startled her.
That just didn’t seem to fit. His eyes narrowed and for a second he wondered if he was being conned.
On several occasions, he’d caught her staring at him, watching his every move. He’d even observed her eye pressed against the crack between the door and frame, though he was facing away from her. The spotty, cracked mirror hung over the mantel gave him a view of what was going on behind him as he faced it and he’d been able to watch the door to her room while pretending not to notice her silently watching him. So he’d given her more of a show than was his custom. She probably got off seeing a naked man. Well, fine. He made the best of it. Fear was a great motivator, the perfect psychological weapon.
She had to be smart enough to realize that his muscles meant that he was tough and he’d made a big show out of walking around with his knife, heating the blade in the coals, and then popping off a few rounds of difficult exercises just to silently prove to her how strong and deadly he was.
Just in case she got the wrong idea.
Just in case she had the notion to run.
Not yet, Brat, he thought. Not ever.
You don’t know it yet, but you’re doomed.
Just like your mother.
“I’m so sorry about Mary Beth,” Shannon said, seeing her brother Robert for the first time since the tragedy that took his wife’s life.
“Yeah, I know,” he replied and looked away, unable to meet her gaze as they stood in their mother’s tidy kitchen. It smelled of leftover bacon grease and Lysol, just as it had for four decades. The only odor missing was the aroma of her father’s cigars. Though Patrick had been banished to the den near the fire or outside on the porch, the scent of burning tobacco had always lingered in the house, a reminder of who was the patriarch, who ruled the roost.
Thank God he hadn’t witnessed this.
Patrick, like his father before him, had been fascinated with fighting fire, with pitting himself against a raging, living, breathing, crackling beast. It had been in the Flannery family’s blood for generations.
Now, Robert, his wide shoulders sagging, was the last of the Flannery men to actually fight fire. All five brothers had followed in their father and grandfather’s footsteps, but all had either by choice, or stern suggestion, left. Except for Robert.
How ironic that his wife had died during a blaze.
“How’re the kids doing?” Shannon asked as conversation lagged.
“Okay, I guess. Elizabeth has nightmares and RJ doesn’t talk about it, acts like he expects Mary Beth to just magically show up.” Robert’s voice caught and he cleared his throat. “The funeral’s going to be rough.”
“For all of us,” Shannon agreed. “You might consider a counselor for the kids.”
“Yeah, Cynthia thinks it would be a good idea.”
Shannon felt her back stiffen. Though she told herself that she accepted Robert’s relationship—it was his life, after all—it seemed disrespectful and somehow discordant to talk about Cynthia so soon after Mary Beth’s death.