Tyrrell tightened his arm around Zachary’s shoulders. “It’s okay, big bro. It’s all okay now.”
Zachary nodded, but he didn’t feel okay. Everything was closing in. He wanted to be alone, but was surrounded by people. He felt good about seeing Tyrrell, but that didn’t change the fact that it was Christmas Eve and terrible things happened on Christmas Eve. He didn’t want to bring tragedy down on his family and friends.
Mr. Peterson and Pat brought in the drinks, Pat also carrying a plate of Christmas cookies and treats. Zachary darted a glance at Tyrrell, worried about how he would react to Lorne and Pat’s relationship. Society as a whole had grown more tolerant of gay relationships, but individuals could still be prejudiced and unkind, and he’d run into a lot of intolerant behaviors in the system.
Zachary and Tyrrell took their warm glasses of cider, and Tyrrell touched the glass to his lips and took a sip. “Oh, this is perfect! And I need one of those gingerbread cookies…” Tyrrell took one from Pat’s serving platter. “Did you do all of this yourself?” he asked. “The food and the decor?”
“Mostly,” Pat admitted. “Lorne’s passion is for photography, like Zachary.”
Pat was not the stereotypical gay decorator, with an effeminate voice and manner. Neither of the men fit the stereotypes on TV or in the media. They were just individuals, Zachary’s foster father and his partner.
“You like photography?” Tyrrell turned back to Zachary.
Zachary nodded. He put his cup on a coaster on the coffee table. “Yes… but it’s not my profession. Though I use it at work.”
“Are you really a private investigator? I wasn’t sure, when I was looking for you, if that was you…”
“Yeah. That’s me. Not a lot of Zachary Goldmans around here.”
“That’s so cool. My brother, the private eye!”
Zachary forced a smile. “It’s not glamorous like people make out. Mostly, it’s sitting around watching people and writing reports.”
“Don’t let him play it down!” Kenzie jumped in, pointing her wine glass in Zachary’s direction. “He’s solved several murders in the last year or so. That’s no accident. He knows what he’s doing.”
She and Mr. Peterson proceeded to tell Tyrrell all about Zachary’s biggest cases. Zachary just rolled his eyes and sat back, knowing there was no stopping them.
Kenzie, Mr. Peterson, and Pat had all excused themselves as it got late, heading off to bed. Only Zachary and Tyrrell were left, sitting on the couch and talking quietly as the night drew on.
“You should probably go,” Zachary told him. “You must have places to be tomorrow. You need to get your sleep.”
“No.” Tyrrell shook his head. “I’ll make some calls to my friends with little kids who will be up early, then I’ll have a nap. I don’t have to be anywhere until dinner tomorrow afternoon.”
Zachary looked at Tyrrell’s hands. “You’re not married?”
“Divorced. Two kids. Their mom has them this year. I’ll get them for spring break.”
Tyrrell had also been looking at Zachary’s hands. He reached out and touched the biggest scar on Zachary’s arm, tracing it gently. “Is that from the fire?”
Zachary nodded. He swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat.
“She said you got burned. The social worker. She said it wasn’t bad, that you’d be okay.”
“Yeah. I was in hospital a few weeks… probably longer than they needed to keep me, because they didn’t know where to put me.”
“You don’t have any on your face.” Tyrrell moved back and forth, staring at Zachary. “I can’t see any, if you do.”
“I covered my face. Trying to protect it. Trying to make a pocket of breathable air.” His body remembered being trapped in the inferno, squashing himself under the couch to try to escape the flames. His muscles quivered and his heart raced.
Tyrrell squeezed his arm. “It’s okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Zachary pressed his palms over his eyes briefly. “I screamed at you to get out. All of you. Did you hear me? Did anyone get hurt?”
“I heard you. I woke up and you weren’t there. You were screaming to get out and the room was full of smoke. I tried to go out to the hallway, but it was too hot and smoky. I went back and hid under the bed. Me and Vinny. They said it was good we got down low, where there wasn’t as much smoke. When the fire engines came, the firefighters broke the window. They got us out. They kept asking who else was in the room, and I told them you weren’t there and I couldn’t find you.” He stared at Zachary for a few minutes, and Zachary wondered if he too was trying to make his way through the flashbacks. Then he focused again. “No one else was burned. Just a little smoke inhalation. They got us out through the bedroom windows, then went in looking for you. None of us had to stay at the hospital. Just you.”
“Did you see them all? You saw they were okay?”
Tyrrell nodded. “I don’t remember a lot of the details after the fire. It was all pretty chaotic and I was only six. I remember them splitting us up; there wasn’t any respite home that could take five kids. I was so scared we’d never see each other again. And we didn’t. I’ve talked and video chatted with Joss and Heather, but we haven’t gotten together to meet face-to-face. But me and the little kids stayed together until we were teenagers.”
“Do you still talk to them? Vinny and Mindy?”
Tyrrell nodded. “Not as much as I should, but yeah, we have each other’s numbers.”
Zachary didn’t ask whether any of the others wanted to meet him. He assumed that if they did, Tyrrell would have said so.
“So you’re not going to go home tonight?”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Zachary shook his head.
“Then I’ll stay.” Tyrrell patted Zachary’s leg and gave him another hug, smiling.
Chapter Thirty-One
E
ventually, the sky started to get lighter. Zachary let his breath out.
“It’s morning,” Tyrrell said. “It’s Christmas Day.”
Zachary closed his eyes, feeling the peaceful stillness of the house. No fire. No disaster. Just his family and friends around him, seeing him through the tunnel.
“Merry Christmas, T.”
“Merry Christmas, Zachary.”
They sat in silence for some time, talked out and comfortable with just letting the quiet surround them.
Zachary got up from the couch. His clothes were sweaty and sticking to him. He wasn’t sure when he had last changed. Mr. Peterson and Pat had offered him a change of clothes, but he hadn’t wanted to wear something that wasn’t his. Too many years of hand-me-down clothes shared through dozens of foster children. He only wanted what was his.
He bent over and plugged in the tree.
“You’re sure you’re okay with that?” Tyrrell asked.
“Yeah. If something was going to happen, it would have happened last night.”
Tyrrell grinned. “You know that’s crazy, don’t you?”
“I know.”
“You know what we never did?”
“No. What?”
“We never built that snowman.”
Zachary remembered holding Tyrrell and trying to calm him while their parents raged at each other, yelling and hitting and throwing things around.
“Do you think Santa will come?” Tyrrell had asked.
“No!” Zachary laughed and rubbed Tyrrell’s head. “Santa doesn’t come here, silly.”
“But tomorrow’s Christmas.”
“Yeah. Tomorrow’s Christmas. No school. Maybe we’ll build a snowman.”
Tyrrell snuggled against him. “A snowman? Will you help me?”
“Sure. We’ll all do it.”
“We’ll make it so big. Taller than me.”
Zachary shook his head at the memory. “I can’t believe you remember that.”
“You said we could build a snowman.”
“I do
n’t think I can make one taller than you anymore.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
They got on their coats and shoes and gear and went outside. When Kenzie got up, that’s where she found them, building a snowman.
At breakfast, Pat managed to cajole Zachary into eating a Christmas orange and a few bites of freshly-baked cinnamon rolls. The bun was so sweet it hurt his teeth, and after barely having eaten anything in the days before Christmas, his stomach wasn’t ready for anything so rich.
“It’s really good,” Zachary told Pat. “I just… can’t eat much in the morning.”
“You need to get some weight back on,” Mr. Peterson observed. “You’re skin and bones.”
“It’s not that bad. I’ll bulk back up. Just not all in one day. Next time… I’ll have dinner.”
“You can’t stay today? Pat already has the bird in the oven, and his family is going to be coming over this afternoon. The more the merrier.”
“I need to get home and get showered and changed. I’m not going to make a very good impression on Pat’s family if they think I’m some homeless person you just plucked off the street.”
“They’d like to meet you.”
“Next time.”
“My mother said you’re probably the closest thing to a grandchild she’s going to get,” Pat said, grinning. “I think that means she’s finally accepted that I’m not going to switch teams.”
“What about your sister?”
“She doesn’t want to marry or have kids.”
Zachary couldn’t understand how anyone could not want a family of their own. It was funny to think of Pat’s mother calling Zachary her grandchild. In a tortuous way, she was sort of right. Zachary was the former foster son of her son’s partner. Pat had been more of a parent to Zachary than the former Mrs. Peterson, strange as that seemed.
“Tell your mom I’m looking forward to meeting her, but we have another engagement today.” He looked at Kenzie, who nodded. “We set up a visit with… a friend of mine who is spending his first Christmas without his mother. I don’t want to let him down.”
Finally showered, shaved, and dressed in clean clothes, Zachary answered his door and let Kenzie in. She had done a better job than he of looking after herself when staying over at Mr. Peterson’s, so she really didn’t look that different from what she had when he had dropped her at her house. Different clothes and some makeup were the only changes he could spot.
“You look much better cleaned up,” Kenzie approved. “Some concealer to hide the bags under your eyes wouldn’t be a bad idea…”
“No, thanks.”
She laughed. “I’m driving. I know how little sleep you’ve had lately, you’re a menace on the road.”
“Besides, you want to drive your car.”
“A convertible isn’t the most practical thing during Vermont winters, but she’s closed up tight. We’re not going far. We’ll stay warm.”
They did, and before long, they were at the Salters’ home, where Zachary could smell roasted turkey and the fixings before they even opened the door. Vera greeted both of them with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She called Rhys, who must have heard them ring the doorbell anyway and didn’t really need to be told they had arrived.
Kenzie and Zachary sat down, and it was a few minutes before Rhys came into the room.
He was dressed in neatly pressed trousers, a white, collared shirt, and a Christmas sweater that looked both ugly and uncomfortable. He raised a hand in greeting. He was smiling, but his eyes were sad and bloodshot.
“Rhys! Merry Christmas!” Kenzie jumped up to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
Rhys looked flustered and Zachary figured if it weren’t for his dark skin, he would have been blushing furiously. What teenage boy wouldn’t have a crush on Kenzie and get all embarrassed over a kiss?
Rhys reached for Zachary’s hand, and instead of just giving him a polite handshake, he clasped Zachary’s forearm and pulled him to his feet. He kept a strong grip on Zachary’s forearm, a gesture Zachary took to mean brother and stay strong. He hugged Zachary with the other arm, held him for a moment, and then released him.
Rhys nodded and licked his lips. “Merry Christmas.”
Zachary gave him a warm smile. Rhys was going through his own hard time, but he was holding up well. It was good that they had made an effort to be there for him. He would be strong for Zachary, and Zachary would be strong for him.
“Merry Christmas, Rhys.”
Rhys nodded and looked Zachary in the eyes for a few seconds, clearly imparting that he was glad that Zachary was there. Zachary wasn’t just another guest at the table, but someone Rhys needed. He remembered the conversation with Rhys, discussing how they were both broken, and the light that had come into Rhys’s eyes when he understood that he and Zachary were both part of the same special club. Both broken inside, even if they looked normal on the outside. Rhys needed someone from that club there with him for Christmas. Someone who knew what it was like to miss his mother being there on Christmas Day and to mourn the life he might have had, if things had been different.
Zachary rubbed his stinging, gritty eyes.
“Let’s sit down,” he told Rhys. “You can show me what you got.”
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Preview of Gluten-Free Murder
Erin Price pulled up in front of the shop and shut off her loudly-knocking engine. She took a few deep breaths and stared at the street-side view. She hadn’t seen it since her childhood, but it looked just the same as she remembered it. Maybe a little smaller and shabbier, like most of the things from her childhood that she re-encountered, but still the same shop.
Main Street of Bald Eagle Falls was lined with red brick buildings, pasted shoulder-to-shoulder to each other, in varying, incongruous styles. Each one had a roofed-in
front sidewalk to protect shoppers and diners from the blazing Tennessee sun they would face in the coming summer. All different colors. Some of them lined with gingerbread edges or whimsical paint jobs. Or both. Some of the stores appeared to have residences on the second floor, white lacy curtains drawn in windows that looked down at the vehicles, mostly trucks, nose-in in the parking spaces. There was no residence above Clementine’s shop. She had lived in a small house a few blocks away that Erin had no memory of. She had spent most of her time at the shop and did not remember sleeping over at her aunt’s when her parents had brought her for a visit.
A US flag hung proudly on a flagpole in front of the stores, just fluttering slightly in the breeze. It was starting to get dark and she knew she’d have to find the house in the dark if she were going to stop and take the time to explore the shop.
With another calming breath, Erin unbuckled her seatbelt, unlocked the door, and levered herself out of the seat. She felt like she’d been pasted into the bucket seat of the Challenger for three days straight. She had been pasted into the bucket seat for three days straight, other than pit-stops and layovers. She wasn’t tall, so she wasn’t crammed into the small car, but she’d been in there long enough to want to get out and straighten her body and stretch her legs. And to go to bed, but bed was still a long way off.
Erin walked up to the shop and put her key into the lock. It ground a little, like it hadn’t been used for a long time. Maybe it needed a little bit of lubrication to loosen it up.
The air inside the shop was too still and too warm. She remembered when the little shop had been filled with the smells of exotic teas and fresh-baked goods, but Clementine had retired and closed it years ago. It had been a long time since anything had been baked there. It just smelled like dust and stale air. Erin left the front door open to let some fresh air circulate while she took a look around. There wasn’t much space to explore in front of the counter. She would need a couple little tables, with a limited number of chairs, for the few people who wanted to eat in. Most of her business would just be stopping in to pick up their orders. She walked behind the counter. Everything seemed to be in good shape. A good wipe-down and some fresh baked goods in the display case and she’d be ready to go. Maybe a fresh coat of paint on the wall and a chalk board listing the daily specials and prices.
He was Walking Alone Page 26