These Sorrows We See

by Schultz, Tamsen

  “You’re avoiding me.”

  “For the moment,” he responded.

  “Just don’t avoid it,” she said, not needing to clarify what “it” was. “This thing that runs in the family, when it hits, it hits, Dash. There is nothing we can do to avoid it. And believe me, because I am speaking from experience; if you try to ignore it, it will only get worse.”

  “Sounds fun,” he grumbled.

  “It is, once this part is over. Trust me, it can be really fun.”

  Dash knew his sister believed what she was saying. He just wasn’t there yet. He thanked her and made a mental note not to call her again until he’d sorted this all out on his own, because she had done nothing to make him feel better.

  But several hours later, when Dash pulled up to his own house, he felt even worse. He was nowhere near sorting it out on his own. Sure, he’d put in a good day’s work, but every chance he’d gotten, he’d let his mind wander back to Matty and how she was coping with the events of the day.

  His house, steeped in darkness and shadows, did nothing to lift his spirits. Neither did the warm, stuffy air that hit him when he walked through the door. He didn’t tend to keep the air-conditioning on when he left for the day, but the fact that he’d also forgotten to open any windows that morning served to make him even grumpier.

  Stepping out of the shower a few minutes later, he stood naked in his closet staring at his clothes, neatly stacked on a few shelves. He could crawl into bed, he was that tired, or he could pull on a pair of boxers, jeans, and a t-shirt and head out to Anderson’s, the restaurant Matty had said she might walk to for dinner or a late evening drink.

  He didn’t even know if she would be there if he made the trip.

  Which wasn’t all that far.

  He ran a hand over his face and through his damp hair. Letting out a deep breath, he grabbed a pair of boxers. Maybe his sister had a point; maybe he should just stop fighting it.

  Walking into Anderson’s twenty minutes later, his eyes immediately found her sitting at the bar, sipping what looked like whiskey and chatting with the bartender, Amy. He’d only ever seen Matty in shorts and tank tops but tonight she wore a summer dress. A dress that rode up her thigh as she perched on the bar stool.

  “Mind some company?” he asked as he came to her side.

  She looked up with a surprised expression that was followed by a brief furrowing of her brow and a small frown. She seemed a little confused and he couldn’t blame her. But he had to give her credit, the expression was fleeting and she gestured her acceptance with a nod at the stool beside her.

  “I was hoping you’d be here,” he said as he signaled to Amy.

  “Drinking the horrors away?” she said, her tone sardonic.

  “So I could see how you are doing,” he clarified.

  “I’m fine, but if you were that concerned, you could have stopped by the house. Or called.”

  He ignored her very rational response and ordered the same thing she was drinking, which turned out to be Lagavulin with one ice cube. “Have you eaten?” he asked.

  Matty looked at him for a moment then turned her gaze back to the space behind the bar. “I just ordered a burger about five minutes ago. Amy said they were good.”

  “They are,” he confirmed then placed an order for the same thing. “Want to move to a table?”

  Dash knew, by the look on her face, that she was trying to figure him out, but not succeeding. She didn’t look like she was going to tell him to go to hell, but it was a close call.

  “There’s a storm coming in tonight and we’ll have a good view,” he said, picking up her drink and making the decision for her.

  “Are you married?” she asked once they’d sat down. He choked on his drink.

  When his throat cleared, he replied, “No, why would you ask that?”

  “Dating someone?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?” she pressed.

  “Very,” he answered.

  Her light brown eyes searched his for a long moment before she finally seemed to come to some decision and she sat back and took a sip of her drink.

  “Why do you ask?” he asked again.

  “I can’t get a read on you, Dash. It bothers me. One minute you look like you want to kiss me, at the very least, and the next you’re bolting in the opposite direction. I’d say that’s common behavior for someone with commitment issues, but we don’t even know each other well enough to reach that stage, so it doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  She’d certainly called a spade a spade, but he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you about it one day. In the meantime, why don’t you tell me how you went from the Bronx to being Hilde Brooks, bestselling author?”

  She drummed her fingers on her glass, very clearly debating whether or not to answer.

  “I know you have no reason to trust me,” he continued, “but things are a little complicated in my life right now.” Since she came to town, more precisely, but he didn’t say that. “I’m sorting it out, but I can promise you, and you can ask anyone here, I’m not married, never have been, nor am I dating anyone, seriously or otherwise.”

  She actually snorted at that. “Forgive me, but I have a hard time believing that.”

  “Right now,” he clarified. “I’m not seeing anyone seriously or otherwise, right now,” he repeated, feeling his past creeping up on him. He wasn’t a cad by any means, but when he felt the need for female company, he generally hadn’t had a hard time finding it. Not something he thought Matty would appreciate hearing even if she already thought it.

  “And as for wanting to kiss you, at the very least,” he continued, using her words, “I’m not going to deny that, but what I would really like, right now, is to just have some dinner, talk a little, and make sure you actually are okay, rather than you just telling me you are.”

  When he finished talking, her eyes searched his for just a few seconds before she turned her head, and her gaze, toward the window. He studied her profile as the first gusts of wind heralded the coming storm. He knew her to be up-front and figured, given what little he knew of her life, she must be strong. And her personality fit that assumption, too. She was confident, didn’t get easily flustered, but was also quick to laugh and definitely didn’t mince her words. But she had a delicate profile. Her eyes were more oval than round and her nose had a little upward tilt to it. Her lips were full, but not synthetically so, and her chin was in proportion to everything else.

  “So you want to know about Hilde Brooks?” she asked, turning back to him.

  “I’m more interested in how you got to where you are than in hearing about where you are.”

  “The life story.” Her lips tilted up into a small smile.

  “It’s bound to be more interesting than mine,” he offered.

  She inclined her head. “We’ll see, maybe not. But if I share, you have to share, too.”

  His life was an open book; he had no problem sharing and said so. “So, tell me how it all started,” he prompted.

  And for the next thirty minutes, she did. She talked, he asked questions, they laughed, food arrived, they ate, and he asked more questions. He learned from her that her mother had been the housekeeper in Brad’s Greenwich home when she caught the eye of the elder Brooks, a man very much under the thumb of his society wife.

  Carmen, Matty’s mother, was wise enough to know that she and Douglas Brooks weren’t in love, but she wasn’t worldly enough to know how to stop the affair. And when she became pregnant and Sandra Brooks found out, Brad’s mom threatened to have Carmen deported if she told anyone or demanded any support. And again, Carmen wasn’t experienced enough to know if it was even possible for Sandra to follow through on her threats; all she sensed was a threat to her life in the United States and the life of her unborn child. So she’d left the Brooks’ home in the dark of night and went to the only place she could afford, the projects outside Manhattan.

 
“And you were born there?” Dash asked, taking a sip of the beer he’d ordered when the whiskey in his glass had run dry.

  “I was, and my mother’s biggest rebellion against Sandra was to give me the Brooks name.”

  “And how long did you live there? Until you were twelve, right?” he asked, remembering she had mentioned a move to DC when they’d been waiting for Ian.

  She nodded as a crash of thunder rolled by. Both of them turned to see the storm, in all its force, outside their cozy little window.

  “Yes,” she continued, her voice low. “My mother got really sick when I was twelve. She wasn’t sure if she was going to live or not, so she wrote to Douglas, my dad, and asked for help. My grandmother, Douglas’s mom, intercepted the letter and took control of everything.”

  “Meaning?” he prompted, fighting the urge to reach across and run a finger down the bare skin of her arm.

  “Meaning she rode in on her metaphorical white horse and rescued us. The Brooks family is an old family and a loaded one, too. Historically, they’ve always been more aligned with the social democrat types, although Sandra definitely turned Douglas way more conservative than his mother.”

  “Which means?”

  “Gran was horrified when she heard the story, and so embarrassed by her son’s behavior, by his disregard for his child—that would be me,” she added, pointing to herself with a smile, trying to make light of what couldn’t have been a very good period in her life, “that she swept us off to her DC estate where I was properly schooled, dressed, fed, and very much loved. She also took care of my mother, who recovered from what ended up being a form of thyroid cancer.”

  “And Brad’s family, his mom and dad, what did they do?”

  Matty laughed. “I knew of them, of course. And I’d even seen pictures of them, but Sandra and Gran feuded over the incident for years, and I’m pretty sure they all actually stopped talking for a long time. I don’t really know what went on. To be honest, all I cared about was that my mom didn’t have to work so hard, or at all, and that she wasn’t going to die. It was icing on the cake when Gran hired my mom’s best friend Nanette to come be her cook so that Nanette and her daughter, my best friend Charlotte, could both move into the carriage house and be nearby.”

  “She sounds like a force of nature, your grandmother.”

  Matty smiled again. “She was.” She paused and looked away again. Given her use of the past tense, Dash figured the woman must have died. And that Matty was still dealing with the loss.

  “When did she pass away?” he asked.

  “Believe it or not, five years ago.” She gave a small shrug. “She was such an amazing person that both my mom and I still miss her. And it wasn’t just the money. Yes, she completely changed our lives in that respect, but more to the point, she was just a woman who loved life. She was kind and funny and always, always game for something new. She showed us kindness, and in doing so, she let us see kindness in the world in a way we hadn’t been able to before. She was a remarkable woman.”

  Not unlike her granddaughter, Dash thought to himself.

  She gave him a smile, the kind that said it was time to change the subject. “So, enough about me, what about—” she cut herself off as her eyes went over his shoulder. Her smile widened and she waved. He turned in the same direction to see Carly and Marcus walking in, out of uniform and looking off duty.

  “Deputy Chief Brown, Officer Drummond,” Matty said as the two approached the table. “How did the rest of your day go? Join us for a drink?”

  Marcus cast Carly a look and she responded with a small nod. “Please, call us Marcus and Carly. You don’t mind?” Marcus asked, looking more at Dash than Matty. In truth, Dash was kind of glad to have the distraction. Not because he wanted to avoid talking about himself, he didn’t have much to hide, but because he was still processing what Matty had just told him. And what she hadn’t. A little buffer between him and what she was making him think and feel might not be such a bad thing.

  “Please,” he said, gesturing with his hand for them to sit. Amy came over and the two placed their drink orders.

  “So, what can you tell us?” Matty asked, not needing to elaborate further.

  “Not much,” Carly answered. “Vivi took the body up to the state lab in Albany and I’m not sure when they scheduled the autopsy. But the good news is I think they processed most of the truck this afternoon—Ian thinks you might have it back by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I don’t really need it but that’s good to know,” Matty said then hesitated before continuing. “But I was sort of wondering about the cleaning part of it. I mean, I’m not all that squeamish or anything, as I’m sure you could tell this afternoon, but cleaning human remains out of a truck bed might be a bit much for me.”

  Marcus and Carly laughed. Dash tried to join in but couldn’t quite bring himself to. Matty had glossed over her years in the projects saying nothing more than that they’d been violent. He didn’t like the idea of her having to come face-to-face with even more violence now.

  “I can clean it,” he offered.

  “There’s no need,” Marcus said. “Even if Ian were inclined to let it come back to you in the state it was in this afternoon, Vivi would never let him. Don’t worry about it, I promise you Ian will have it clean as a whistle when the tow truck drops it tomorrow.”

  Matty smiled. “I don’t know them at all, but they seem like good people.”

  “Yeah, they are,” Carly smiled. “Between the two of them, they have more experience in our line of work than probably everyone else in the county put together. But they like it here. Even though we don’t usually keep Vivi that busy, the state lab is close, and she still consults with the FBI. We’re lucky they stayed.”

  “Were they thinking about leaving?” Dash found himself asking. He and Ian had known each other in high school and were pretty close then. But they’d both headed off to college then joined different branches of the military. Dash had been back in the area for five years, but Ian had just come back a little less than a year ago and they hadn’t really reconnected much except over Ian’s dog, Rooster.

  Marcus gave them a “who-knows?” look before speaking. “I don’t think they really considered it, but given what happened earlier this summer, and then Ian and Vic not getting along, it wouldn’t have surprised me.”

  “Vic?” Matty asked.

  “Our chief of police. He’s not a bad guy, but he and Ian never got along. I think he felt threatened by Ian, especially when Ian stepped right into the deputy chief position. It was touch and go for a while.”

  “But now he’s the sheriff, right?” she asked.

  Marcus and Carly nodded.

  “And you’re the new deputy chief?”

  Carly gave a little knowing laugh and Marcus rolled his eyes upward. “Apparently.”

  “I’d say congratulations, but somehow it doesn’t seem you’re all that excited about it?” Matty prompted.

  “Vic convinced me, as did the mayor. It wasn’t something I was looking for or even something I think I’m ready for, but they don’t want to bring in anyone new. Still, it feels a little sleazy,” Marcus said.

  “Sleazy?” Matty asked.

  “Yeah.” His shrug was nonchalant, but even Dash could tell Marcus was uncomfortable. “We had a killer up here,” Marcus continued then paused to share a look with Carly. Dash knew all about the killer, everyone did. It had been the talk of the county, of the state, for a good long while.

  “He came after Vivi and it was ugly,” Carly picked up where Marcus had stopped. “You might have read about it in the news, but the long and short of it is he’d killed twenty-one women before we tracked him down here in Windsor, and then he killed himself.”

  For a moment, Dash’s mind flashed back to earlier in the summer. Everyone had known about the two bodies Vivi and Ian had found and the subsequent attack on the young owner of the ice cream store in town. And though the attack on Meghan, the store owner, was
later found to be unrelated, the violence and the presence of a killer in their midst had shaken the small community. He glanced at Matty and wondered how Ian had coped with knowing the killer was ultimately after Vivi. He thought about the violence that had touched Matty’s life as a young girl and the violence she’d seen today. It was more than a person should experience in one lifetime as far as he was concerned. He took another sip of his beer and remained quiet as Matty continued her conversation with Marcus and Carly.

  “And that has to do with your promotion how?” she pressed Marcus as she picked up the last French fry on her plate and popped it into her mouth. Dash watched as Carly leaned forward and answered.

  “Well, Ian became sheriff, Wyatt, one of our other officers, was recommended by Vivi to participate in a highly competitive one-year training program with the FBI, and Marcus was promoted to deputy chief.”

  “And it feels like people ended up benefiting from a horrible tragedy,” Matty finished. Both Marcus and Carly nodded.

  “Well, not to point out the obvious,” Matty started, “but no one asked for such a publicized case to land on your doorstep and it sounds like no one really sought to use it to their advantage. It sounds like stuff just happened—new jobs, new relationships—and you had to learn to take the good with the bad. If you like your job, and you’re good at it, no one can blame you for trying to branch out and do more. I’m sure you’ll be a great deputy chief, Marcus,” she added.

  “He’ll be fine, it’s just something he has to get used to,” Carly answered.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Marcus said, raising his glass. They clinked and drank and though Dash joined in, he was thinking of Matty as a little girl in the projects, what it must have been like to have been uprooted to DC so suddenly, and the path she took to being here now, in Windsor—taking care of animals she’d never been around before, chatting easily with the locals, even cheering them on. There was no doubt she was a remarkable woman and he didn’t want to do a thing to change that.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” Matty said, rising from the table and gesturing toward the restrooms in the back. Dash watched her walk away and wondered if she would want to uproot again. Her friends and what family she had were in DC. The ties to her grandmother were in DC. Would she ever consider moving? If not, did that mean he would have to move if the family curse proved to be real?