She had believed him. Accepted him. Loved him enough to take all the broken, battered pieces of him. Then she started to put him back together.
It wasn’t until then that he started to understand, that he started to accept. Heal. He hadn’t done a damn thing wrong back then. All the wrongs had been done to him.
Turning away, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Everybody is talking about the … the body they found. Talking like it could be—” He stopped and swallowed, unable to even say the name.
“It could be somebody else entirely,” Tina said, her voice gentle. “You can’t keep letting this haunt you, Hank. It’s not good for you. For us.”
Something that might have been a laugh caught in his throat. He swallowed it back down because if he let it loose he didn’t know if it would be a laugh. It just might be a sob. Maybe one of the screams he’d kept trapped inside him for so long. “I know that, Tina. I know. I just … I need to think. Be alone a bit. I feel like I’m going to come out of my skin. If it’s—” He had to bite his cheek to keep from saying the name. He didn’t want that ugliness inside his home. He’d finally started to heal from all of that and to bring it here, now … no. This wasn’t good. “I worry, you know. If that is who it is, will people find out? What will they think? How will I handle it?”
Tina wrapped her arms around him. “You’re going to be fine,” she murmured against his skin. “You made it this far. No matter what they find out, you’re going to be fine. I’ll be right here.”
He wished he could be as certain as she was.
Pressing his head against her shoulder, he held her close. They stood like that for a minute and then she pulled away, squeezed his shoulder. “If you want to go down to Shakers, go on, sugar. I have a new book I want to read.” She gave him a smile and headed down the hall. Over her shoulder, she called out, “I never could read very well with you here. You’re always trying to distract me anyway.”
* * *
Three amber bottles lined up in front of him.
Hank was tucking away his fourth and battling back the storm of memories.
Travis, you have to understand, your son needs help. Peter’s voice, calm and reassuring. I know what I’m doing.
Hank had listened to the voices, frozen in terror. Travis and Gillian Redding had told their son to remain upstairs, but he’d crept down to the landing, listened.
Hank isn’t doing any better, Pete. You said it would take time and we tried to give it time, but no more, Gillian had said. She’d looked up, then. Looked up, seen Hank. And in the back of her eyes he saw the guilt. The guilt, the fear … the worry. Now, after twenty-some years, he had to admit, he knew what that look in his mother’s eyes had meant—she had been afraid. Had her son been right? Had she refused to see a monster who’d been right in front of her?
Gillian, you have to be firm with children. You’ve let him have his head for too long and now he needs help. Diane—
That’s enough, Gillian had interrupted. You two need to leave. We’ve talked about it and it’s done. Hank isn’t doing therapy anymore and we won’t be returning to your church anymore. He gets too upset around you.
He never did know what his parents had chosen to believe. He didn’t want to know. They’d taken whatever truths they’d consoled themselves with to their graves, but whatever they’d chosen to believe was far, far from the real truth and he knew it.
Even now, after all this time, shame, fear, disgust, slid through his belly.
He felt so dirty, like nothing would ever make him clean again. His hand clenched on the bottle and he took a deep, deep drink.
A hand stroked down his arm, nails painted a screaming, bloody red. A familiar perfume teased his nostrils, and despite himself, he felt his dick twitch. Looking up, he watched as Layla Chalmers sat down on the bar stool next to him. She had her Shakers T-shirt on, tied up in the back to reveal the ring piercing her navel. She looked good, damned good, but then again, Layla had always looked good.
“Hey there, Hank.” She smiled at him, and the glint in her eyes said a hundred, a thousand things. He knew that look, knew it too well.
She had that edgy, angry look in her eyes, a look that said she was feeling a little wild herself and wanted to take it out on something or some body. Hank understood that feeling, and once upon a time he would have been willing to indulge.
But he wasn’t that man anymore.
Looking away from her, he caught Adam’s eye and tapped his bottle. Adam nodded and headed Hank’s way.
The bartender flicked Layla a look. “You’re not working tonight, Layla. You’re not eating. You don’t need to be loitering.”
“I’ll take a beer,” she said, barely sparing Adam a glance.
“Not in my place, you won’t. You aren’t drinking in here until I say it’s cool, and you know when that will happen.”
She shot Adam a dark, ugly look, but instead of storming off, all she did was sidle in closer to Hank. From the corner of his eye Hank could see the way she slicked her tongue over her lips, and when he breathed in, he caught the full, heady scent of her.
Why did she have to stand so close?
Why did she have to be there now when he was already messed up?
It doesn’t matter, he told himself, staring at the bottles lined up behind the bar. You don’t do this anymore. You think about Tina, and just Tina.
Layla leaned in even closer until he could feel her breasts pressed against his arm. Damn him to hell, his body reacted just the way it always had. “I was supposed to work tonight, but Adam and I are having a difference of opinion over that. Maybe you can walk me home … give me something better to do with my time,” Layla murmured.
“Can’t do that,” Hank said. He shifted away and glanced down the bar.
Adam was a few feet away, and although the two of them had never exactly been friendly, the other man leaned an elbow against the gleaming surface of the bar and said, “Saw you and Noah were doing some work over at Louisa’s coffee shop. That’s gotta be fun in this heat.”
Work talk. Not exactly the funnest thing on Hank’s mind, but he knew a life preserver when he saw it. Hoping his gratitude wasn’t written all over his face, he shrugged. “Hey, it’s work, right? Good to have work. Got my wife. My kids. Got responsibilities, you know?”
Adam tucked his head a little, a faint smile on his face. “Well, now. I wouldn’t know about the wife and kids, but yeah. When you have them, you have to do right by them. Decent folks, at least, know how to stand by their families. Ain’t that right, Layla?” He lifted his head and shot a glance over Hank’s shoulder.
“Go fuck yourself, Adam.” She glared past Hank, her gaze zeroing in on Adam. “When in the hell are you going to let me work? I’ll lose my damn car if I don’t get paid next week.”
Adam shrugged. “Maybe you should have thought about that before.”
“What I do in my time is my own fucking business.”
“You really want to talk about this here?” he asked.
“We’ll talk about it any fucking place I want.” She jerked her chin up. “I need to fucking work. Let me clock in.”
“I told you what would have to happen.” Adam wiped his hands on a rag and leaned back against the counter behind him. “You up to it?”
“You fucking ass.”
He shrugged.
She slid a look at Hank, eased in closer. “Come on, Hank. He’s being an ass. Walk me home? I need a favor anyway.”
Hell. Hank focused his eyes on the mirror and the myriad of bottles lined up along it. “I’m not quite ready to head out just yet,” he said. He had a good idea what sort of favor she needed. If she was pushing this hard, she needed money. He’d been down this road with her before and he wasn’t doing it again.
“Oh, come on, sugar.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to his ear. Despite him, he felt heat stirring inside, and he pulled away.
“Layla, enough,” he snapped, sliding off the stool and putting a
couple of feet between them.
“What’s the matter?” She glared at him. “That hag of a wife of yours finally manage to pussy whip you?”
“Shut up about Tina,” Hank warned.
Adam came out from behind the bar, pushing a cold bottle into Hank’s hand. “Here,” he said softly. “This is on me.”
Hank scowled, but before he could say anything Adam rounded on Layla. “Layla, this is the only time I’ll say this, so listen well. You hassle my customers anymore and you won’t have a job to come back to,” he said softly. “Get out and get out now.”
An ugly stream of words escaped her as she came off the bar stool and stomped past them, storming toward the front of the restaurant, flipping off Hannah Graves when she crashed into the other server.
“She’s such a pleasant girl to have around,” Adam said, grimacing.
Hank blew out a breath and then shot Adam a look. “Thanks.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adam said easily.
But as he lifted a bottle of water, he tipped it in Hank’s direction. Hank settled back down on his stool, gripping his bottle, and returned the salute.
A few minutes later, Adam ended up back at his end of the bar, muttering under his breath as he made change for a couple sitting a few stools away from Hank. “It’s awful damn busy in here for the middle of the week,” Hank said.
“Yeah.” Adam grunted under his breath. “It’s the mess up at the Frampton place.” He paused, then shrugged. “Guess it’s not really the Frampton place anymore.”
“It will always be the Frampton place.” Hank absently spun his empty bottle around, staring down at it.
The Frampton place. His personal slice of hell on earth.
Although he wasn’t the only one who’d known hell there.
How many others?
Was it that girl, Lana?
The boy, David? His mother?
Peter?
Somebody else entirely?
Lids drooping, Hank thought of the last time he’d stepped foot in that place. The last time, and he’d all but been dragged out.
“You’re probably right there,” Adam said, unaware of Hank’s preoccupation. Adam disappeared for a minute and then took his spot back up by Hank. It seemed to be Adam’s preferred area when he wasn’t pulling beers or mixing up a drink. The other bartender had arrived a few minutes earlier and Adam wasn’t rushing quite as much. A taut look crossed his face as he studied the people in the bar. “There’s a pool running around town—right now, about fifty percent of them are saying it’s Diane.”
“Everybody else guessing David?”
“Leaning toward him and Peter.” Adam grimaced. “Morbid as hell. People are speculating that David and Lana wanted to run away together and Diane found out, so the two kids killed her.”
“That’s a load of horseshit,” Hank muttered, shaking his head.
“Yeah.” Adam seemed to develop a rapt fascination with his boots. “The other guess is that Diane was having an affair and Peter found out—her lover must have killed him and that’s his body they found. Nobody is saying anything about what might have happened to Lana or David.”
“Shit.”
Adam grimaced. “Like I said, morbid.”
“That it is,” Hank murmured, lifting his bottle and draining it. “They all gotta make up some sort of crazy story, don’t they?”
The stories were nowhere as awful as the truth of what had been happening in that place all along.
To think … the old judge had been so paranoid about calling the cops any time somebody stepped a foot on the Frampton property.
* * *
Head muzzy from all the booze he’d put away, Hank stumbled out of Shakers just a little before midnight. The place wouldn’t shut down for a while yet, but he was tired of the noise, tired of fighting his memories. He wanted to go home, wrap his arms around his wife and just try to forget everything but her for a while.
When he was with her, he didn’t feel so dirty and ruined inside.
When he was with her, his mind was quiet and the memories faded away into nothing.
But instead of heading west like he should, he found himself walking east, stumbling across Main Street.
The moonlight gleamed off the river and he followed it like a beacon, keeping to the shadows as he got closer and closer to the house.
It was still as creepy now as it had been back in school. He might be pushing forty, but scary was still scary and that house, perched right on the edge of the hill where it swept down to the river, was scary. A two-story monstrosity, the windows staring back at him like blank eyes, it sat there … waiting.
Hell lingered inside those walls.
“Noah, you make sure you fix it,” Hank mumbled. “Clean it up. Get rid of all the dirt and evil buried inside it.”
Silence wrapped around him and he shook his head, the fog of alcohol hanging around him, clouding his thoughts, muffling the pain but never erasing it. “Which one of you is down there?” he asked, his voice thick and angry.
There was no answer and the house stared back at him, its windows blank, empty eyes.
He slammed his fist against his thigh as anger, shame and misery danced a jagged little two-step inside him.
“You got any more secrets buried inside you?”
Through the drunken haze, he felt the burn, the ache, of all the fury he tried to keep trapped, hidden inside. All of it slipped free from its leash, and with a snarl, he swooped down, nearly falling on his face as his fingers swept out, scrabbling along the ground for something, anything.
His hand closed around a rock, jagged and hard, not even big enough to fill his hand, but it was better than nothing. Surging upright, he hurled it, and it only made him madder when the rock bounced off the fresh new siding along the front of the house. Half-wild, he searched the ground for more and this time he managed to get a rock almost as wide as a tennis ball, flat and smooth. He hurled it and grinned with savage glee as it hit a window. Glass shattered.
He grabbed another, but before he could throw it a shadow separated itself from the house, barreling toward him.
Startled, clutching the rock like a weapon, Hank tried to brace himself, but his legs felt rubbery and his head spun round and round.
Before the shadow could make impact with him, though, it … no, he veered to the right. Hank gaped at him as recognition hit, a few seconds later than it should have.
Through the haze of alcohol and fury and misery, Hank stared.
Spinning around, he watched as the man hurtled down the road, oblivious to anything and everything around him. Hank had to coax his numb legs into moving.
Up ahead, Lee Brevard started to cross the road.
Even though Hank was drunk off his ass, he heard the engine. “Damn it, Lee, be careful!”
Seconds later, Hank spun away and doubled over, emptying his stomach.
But that image was going to be imprinted, forever, on his mind. The sight of his friend, shooting a look back over his shoulder, just before a car hit Lee.
CHAPTER TEN
“Wow.”
Trinity looked up as Noah came to a stop in the door.
He held a white bag in one hand and a drink tray in the other and there was a look in his eyes that made her heart skip just a few too many beats. That wasn’t good for a woman, she knew. It just couldn’t be. The heart shouldn’t stop beating like that and then start racing all because a good-looking man had a certain expression in his eyes when he looked at her.
Then he blinked and the moment was gone.
“Wow what?” she asked, trying to pretend she wasn’t suddenly feeling self-conscious. She’d debated for a good twenty minutes on what to wear to her first really official day at work.
She had a very small selection to choose from, considering she’d just crammed stuff in a suitcase and she hadn’t been thinking of career wear while she did it.
The black capris were a little too casual for
anything she might have worn back in New York, but they worked well here. She’d thrown a light jacket over the teal shirt, but since she was still straightening up the disaster that was Noah’s office she’d already shed the jacket.
Looking down, she checked her clothes and then looked up. “Is something wrong? We didn’t really talk about what I’d be wearing or—”
“You can wear a ball gown, baseball uniform or bathing suit … doesn’t matter to me.” Then he frowned and shook his head. “Scratch the bathing suit. It might be a little too distracting for some people. But you look fine. It’s just a … well. A change, I guess.”
She arched a brow, but he didn’t elaborate. All he did was come farther into the office and put the drinks and the little white sack on the table. There were two coffee cups and a small plastic container of milk. “I brought coffee and donuts, and milk for Micah,” he said. “Thought you might need the caffeine considering all the mess I have in here.”
“One cup won’t do it,” she said.
He laughed. “Probably not, but I couldn’t carry much more and the coffee shop wasn’t about to send the carafe.” His phone chimed and he looked down. “I’ll be in the back.”
* * *
Noah had woken up thinking about one thing and one thing only … well, two things, but they were kind of a team. One came with the other. Trinity and Micah. Noah would be seeing them today and he couldn’t wait. Never mind the this is a bad idea feeling that had dominated his thoughts while she’d been standing in his workshop yesterday.
He’d be seeing her and he couldn’t wait.…
But that lighthearted feeling was now gone.
He should have realized something was wrong earlier, just because of the way people had been talking in hushed tones in the coffee shop. He would have known, too, if he hadn’t been on the phone, finalizing plans for the work he planned on doing that evening over at Trinity’s.
Gut in a knot, he listened as the recorded message from his church finished the announcement.
Please keep the Brevard family in your prayers. Lee Brevard died early this morning.
Mouthy Lee, with a knack for saying the wrong thing, with a knack for getting into trouble and making people laugh.
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