Sins of the Fathers

by S Gepp

  He bit his tongue before he could say a word. The wallpaper in here was a dark maroon with an ugly black swirl pattern that swallowed the light. He kept walking, noting the large staircase leading to the second floor and the smallish door beneath it, probably leading to a cellar. He saw a crack in the wall running from the cellar door to the skirt board, and one of the balusters was missing halfway up. The carpet here was dark red and frayed in places along the wall, the woodwork darkly stained. A huge chandelier caught his attention. Only a few candle flame-shaped bulbs shone. Even if every one of the dozens of light bulbs was lit, Cady thought it would still be gloomy in here.

  Ezzy turned left through a doorway. Cady glanced behind him for Uncle Fritch, but he must have gone into the kitchen. He recognized the inside of the front door, mostly because the stone turret stood beside it. The decorative hinges weren't present on this side. A small, arched opening in the turret revealed the start of the spiral staircase Ezzy had told him about.

  He walked after her and entered an average-looking study, dark wood and deep red leathers, maroon curtains and brass fittings. A small home bar stood on the left side of the room, but books were lined up on top, where there should be bottles. On the right, the twin windows he'd seen from outside. In front of them sat a worn green couch, its color out of place, angled away from the window and out into the room. Behind it, a tall reading lamp spotlighted the end of the couch. A medical journal was tented on a pillow. Uncle Fritch must have been reading when they'd pulled in.

  "This is it," Ezzy said, turning around and leaning against the huge fireplace on the far wall. "Home sweet home."

  "Impressive inside and out," Cady said.

  "I thought you'd like it."

  He took a step toward her, wanting to embrace her just once more before they slipped under Uncle Fritch's more prudish rule, but before he got close, the man cleared his throat from the doorway behind him.

  "Ezzy," Fritch said. "Grace is getting dinner ready. Would you be so kind?"

  "Of course, Uncle."

  Ezzy brushed Cady's shoulder as she headed back the way they'd come. He watched her go, then spotted Fritch watching him, probably convinced he was staring at her ass. He forced a smile for the old man.

  "This'll give us a little time to talk man-to-man," Uncle Fritch said. He glanced into the foyer, then scurried to the bar and reached underneath it. Before Cady could announce that he didn't drink, Uncle Fritch lifted a clear pitcher filled with something pink to the bar.

  "Ezzy told me you don't drink," he said. "So I mixed this old family recipe up just for you. It's iced tea sweetened with watermelon. Sounds like a kid's drink, I know, but I guarantee you've never had anything like it."

  "Sure, I'll try it," he said. Uncle Fritch dumped ice in a highball glass and then filled it with pink. He pushed Cady's drink across the bar, then dumped two ice cubes into another rocks glass and turned to the bookshelf behind him. "Ezzy's a militant teetotaler," he said. He slid a thick volume of poetry aside and pulled out a bottle of Dewar's Scratched Cask Scotch Whiskey. He splashed two fingers into the glass, downed it, and then poured one finger in its place.

  Cady closed his mouth and swallowed.

  Fritch tucked the bottle away and replaced the book in front of it. "Between you and me, okay?"

  Cady nodded and saluted with his glass of watermelon tea. He rested on the arm of the green sofa. The way it was angled made him want to shove it back against the wall. A quick glance revealed substantial water damage to the window behind it. What he could see of the wall was badly discolored, too.

  Fritch settled into the large leather rocking chair across the coffee table from him. He took a deep swallow of his Scotch Whiskey, shut his eyes for a few seconds, and sighed.

  Cady sulked at his glass of pink tea.

  "Ezzy's told me not to lead with subjects that get my dander up," he said. "Doesn't leave us much to talk about, so I guess it's up to you."

  He leveled his gaze directly at Cady and waited. Cady took a slow breath and sipped his drink. The sweetness hit him hard, cloying in its intensity. He swallowed and managed to keep most of the reaction off his face. "This is pretty good, once you get past the sweet," he said.

  "It was Ezzy's favorite growing up."

  Cady swirled his drink, surprised there were no bits of fruit in it. He took another sip, and this time, prepared for the onslaught, he liked it even more.

  "So what do you do with yourself, Cady," Uncle Fritch asked.

  "Between jobs, currently, the economy trashed as it is."

  Fritch smiled. "The state of the economy is one of those things Ezzy won't let me talk about." The man took a slow swig, as if to rinse away his opinions, then returned his attention to Cady. "What would you be doing if the economy hadn't left you jobless?"

  "Retail work, I suppose. Salesman-type stuff. Not that I'm very good at it."

  Fritch creased his brow. "If you're not good at it, why would you choose it?"

  "It's easy to do, and it brings in enough money to get by so I can concentrate on my real work, which is playwriting."

  Fritch's eyebrows went up. "Playwriting? Unusual. Most people would just say 'writing' and leave it at that."

  Cady nodded. "I've done that in the past, but the word encompasses so much it's always followed by the question 'What kind of writing?' which drags a conversation out."

  "You don't like long conversations?"

  Cady shrugged. "A playwright will live or die by the strength of his dialogue. How could I convince you I was any good if my answer prompted a usual or predictable response?"

  Fritch thought for a moment. "What am I going to say next?"

  "You're going to ask me if I've written anything you've heard of."

  "Exactly what I was thinking."

  "I've haven't had anything produced, yet, no."

  "Interesting phrasing," Fritch said.

  Cady took another sip of his drink. If he wasn't careful, Fritch could start asking about his past, which would not do at all.

  "Are you close to your family? Do they live around here?"

  "Not especially. I betrayed their expectation that I follow in the family business."

  "What business?"

  Cady swallowed. Was it his imagination, or was something squiggling beneath Uncle Fritch's collar?

  "Furniture," Cady said. "Unfinished."

  Fritch downed the last of his drink and stood. He wandered behind the bar again, pausing to run a finger along the spine of the poetry book, and then dumped his ice into the sink with a clunk. He reached under the bar and stood with a can of diet soda.

  "You shunned your family's retail business so you could work in other people's retail shops?"

  "Thus, the nature of their annoyance with me."

  Cady downed his own drink and stepped toward the bar. Kid's drink or not, he'd acclimated quickly. His mouth watered while Fritch refilled his glass. When he took it back, it was all he could do not to gulp it down like a man wandering out of the desert.

  "Ah, Grace," Fritch said.

  Cady turned to see the older woman from the kitchen standing in the doorway. She wrung her hands together just beneath her breasts. Her skin was so pale her hands almost disappeared in front of her white apron.

  "Pardon, sir," she said. "Dinner is served."

  "Beautiful," Uncle Fritch said. He poured his soda into a glass, then gestured to Cady's drink. "Refill?"

  Cady gaped at the empty glass in his hand. It had just been full. When had he done that? In a daze, he handed the glass to Uncle Fritch. His gaze locked onto the edge of the big man's collar. He could have sworn something moved under there.

  "I killed my parents when I was thirteen years old."

  And now, with the murder of Missy Blake twenty-two years later, it's time for Jack Greene to finish what he started.

  When the co-ed's mutilated body is found, the police are clueless, but Jack knows what killed the pretty college student; he's been hunting it for y
ears. The hunt has been going on for too long, though, and Jack wants to end it, but he can't do it alone. The local police aren't equipped to handle the monster in their midst, so Jack recruits Major Kelly Langston, and together they set out to rid the world of this murdering creature once and for all.

  A lost child.

  A marriage shattered beyond repair?

  John Baxter doesn't think so, which is why he has planned this weekend getaway with his wife. He expected a lot of shouting, a lot of tears, but in the end, he hoped to have a stronger foundation upon which they could start rebuilding what they had once had.

  What he wasn't expecting was the home invasion…and the hell that awaited them beneath the rented cabin.