"A few more minutes or so." Pete set the oven mitt on the counter even as he leaned back against it. He looked at the woman across from him as she studied him. "A dollar for your thoughts."
Casey rose, walked over to him to lean against the counter next to him. "I'm wondering when you're going to tell me exactly what it is you think about my brother's latest effort to set the world on fire while he sits back to see what comes of it." She turned her head to smile at him. "My description of his writing is tame compared to what my other brothers refer to it as which Mallie invoked earlier to Aunt Charlie's surprise." She then summed up the conversation that took place earlier between her aunt and younger cousin.
"I don't think much of anything surprises your Aunt Charlie," Pete said dryly. "It may have surprised her it came out of Mallie but not much beyond that."
"True," Casey sighed, it wasn't just that he'd already figured her out as if they'd been together forever but he'd figured out her family too.
Pete leaned gently into her. He could read her like a clock, which he also kept an eye on. He didn't mind his chicken a little overcooked but he didn't like it dry. "Is anything else going on with your brother that you know of?"
Casey thought about it, thought about what Mary had said, and looked at the man beside her. Months ago she wouldn't have shared it, would have been wary of sharing anything. But this was Pete. "No. But Mary thinks there might be." She heard the kids come in through the front door. She had learned over the last couple of months that their radar when it came to dinner was more reliable than Big Ben. "Why?"
"Jake Kyle has written numerous articles meant to light a fire under someone or a multitude of someone’s." He nudged her to the side so he could pull dinner out of the oven. "I've read all his stuff. He doesn't ever mince words. And in not doing so often turns someone or something into mincemeat."
Casey cringed at the image but was intrigued by where she thought he might be heading. "Go on."
"I don't know how this rates in the chronicles of your brother's exposés but I can think of at least a couple that in my opinion, uneducated that it is, rate higher in the set the world on fire impact." He looked at her steadily even as he moved to set the hot pan on the table. "He didn't have a problem facing the fire then. As I recall he was right in the middle of it thumbing his nose at them. Kind of like an I can take you on thing."
Casey nodded in agreement. He was right, all the way down the line.
"So you have to wonder what's different about this. Is it the article itself or something entirely different and the article is basically just a matter of bad timing." He stopped his kids at the kitchen door with a look. "The hands had better be clean." He kept his face stern while he smiled inside as all three stumbled over each other as they reversed course to the bathroom sink. He turned back to Casey, wished he could do something about the worry he knew she felt for her brother. It was all over her face. "It's just something to think about. As to the other, I can help out along with Mallie if he wants to stay really low and out of the limelight. But you're right, if your old boss can validate even one of those claims your brother's made the tide will change course." He watched her face change, saw the gleam in her eyes shift. God, how he loved those eyes. "If he can independently prove any of those claims all bets are off. Jake won't be the person of interest but by golly, whoever becomes the target will surely wish he was because the media will be on that person like..." while he searched for the word he was looking for Casey came up with it first.
"Vultures."
"Yep. That works too."
Casey sat on one of the old rocking chairs that were scattered on the front porch of the Marshall Street house. There was a part of her that worried she was calling too late. A very tiny part of her. The bigger part desperately wanted to know what was going on. She let up on the last number she'd been holding depressed on her phone and listened as the connection was made and the ringing on the other end began.
"Terry," she started immediately when the phone was picked up on the other line. "I'm sorry it's so late but I got home later than I expected and just had to call and see if you knew anything else." She rushed it all out without taking a single breath.
"Casey, we've just got to stop meeting like this. What would my lovely wife have to say?"
Casey took a deep breath at the familiar deep voice filled with unfamiliar dry humor. "Mark. Even better. What's going on?"
"And it's good to hear your voice too after all this time."
Casey could hear her college roommate's laughter in the background. No doubt Terry was able to hear both sides of the conversation and could not only hear but understand the frustration she was feeling. "I'd be more than happy to hear your voice tell me what's going on. What are you doing with Terry's phone?" She listened to the sigh on the other end. "Is everything okay?"
"I just got home and since Terry has all the same questions, she tossed me the phone so I could tell you both at one time."
Casey listened to him this time, really listened. Beneath the sarcasm she could hear the irritation and alongside it...the weariness. "Has it been bad?"
"No more so than any of the other times your brother lobs one of his little bombs on the unsuspecting. This one just hit a little closer to home."
"How close?" She had read every story she could find posted on the internet related to the fall out of Jake's latest investigative series. A series of which only one installment had been released so far and already there had been massive fallout. People had lost their jobs and from what she could tell deserved to. But no one was naming names. She listened to Mark name off a couple of names from WNO that she recognized though she hadn't known them personally.
"Have you taken any flack for sending my videos back to me for revisions?" Casey held her breath. They'd not always seen eye to eye but had been friends for far more years than she cared to count.
"I don't think anyone's even thought of them. And by tomorrow morning I'm fairly certain those videos will be a moot point. They only have value as a possible means of locating your brother which may likely not be the prime directive soon. So turn them around in the mail and I'll get them aired before I leave."
Casey was speechless. Completely incapable of uttering a word. She wasn't certain which to address first and because of it couldn't seem to get anything out. She heard Terry's laughter on the other end and had no doubt her friend fully understood the quandary she was in. Few knew her better.
"Cat got your tongue?" Came the deep and amused voice over the phone.
"My day's not been a whole lot better than yours." She hated to sound waspish even as she spoke. At least she'd given him a laugh she thought as she listened to the sound vibrate through the phone line. And probably the first time he'd done so all day.
"Okay. Peace." Mark took a healthy sip from the glass of wine his wife handed him before sitting down next to him. "Since your brother's latest bomb had so many legs to it I had a couple of them checked into. Thanks to the due diligence and a driving hunger for recognition of two of my youngest reporters and a couple of our even younger but just as determined interns we'll be airing the results in the morning if their continued efforts through the night provide backup for all their initial findings."
Casey was nodding her head as he spoke, she understood the process. Knew even if she asked he wouldn't go farther than he had. Knew he had given her more than he would have to anyone else under any other conditions. "Okay." She took a breath, asked the question she knew he wouldn't answer unless she did. She could ask Terry and would later, but didn't want to look or feel like a coward. "You're leaving WNO?"
"I am. And because my wife is now grabbing for the phone I'm going to let her fill you in on the rest of it. But before that, I'd like you to relay a message to that brother of yours."
"Which one?" She asked feebly, though she knew full well which one.
"The one who is holed up in that little town of yours with you." Mark smiled at
his wife even as he took her glass out of her hand and downed what was left of it in one sip. It had been a hellacious day. "Tell him to think back to that drunken night in Iraq about twenty or so years ago. What we talked about even when neither of us knew what our names were. Tell him I'm in if he is."
Casey heard him, didn't know what in the world he was talking about. Knew too he wasn't going to elaborate. "What if he doesn't remember?"
"I'll remind him," he said simply. "Here's Terry." He handed off the phone and in the sign language known only between spouses he silently motioned he was taking a shower.
"Casey." Terry took the phone and watched her husband take the stairs with a bounce that had been missing for some time.
"Is your husband okay?" Casey asked immediately then listened and waited as her long time friend fell into peals of laughter. It didn't escape her that in another time of her life she would have taken it much differently. Now she listened to the laughter and was surprisingly pleased that whatever she'd said had given her friend what was likely some much needed relief from the stress she could only guess she'd been under.
"Oh, Casey," Terry couldn't stop the remnant chuckles that continued to spill out sounding suspiciously close to hiccups. "I really needed that."
"Is it that bad?" Casey asked cautiously, not certain she really wanted to know. "I can go wake up my brother and you can ream him if you want." Secretly she'd give anything for a half decent excuse to wake him up just to see for herself he was okay.
"No, no, it's not that at all." Terry took a sip of the tiny drops left in her wine glass. "And to answer your question Mark is fine. Maybe better than that now. And in part I really think we have you to thank for that."
Casey went back over the conversation of earlier that day trying to figure out what she was missing. "Okay, tell me if I've missed something. My brother sets all kinds of things in motion, your husband has to send my video segments back to me on the sly in the event that some enterprising individual at the station figures out where I am and from that where Jake is, which I'm still not certain why that's such a big deal." She paused...took a breath. "Your husband just made it sound like he's leaving the station and you have me to thank for it." She listened to the silence on the other end not completely certain what that meant either. "What exactly am I missing?"
"You gave Mark something to think about." Terry leaned back and thought about her friend's comment about Jake. "Maybe in some ways he and Jake are thinking about the same kinds of things it's just your brother may have gotten to it first. Do you think Casey, that just because they're men they don't get tired of the same old stuff that wore me out? That almost brought you to your knees."
"Terry," Casey began, not certain she wanted to hear the rest. Looking too close at one's self was hard enough, she wasn't certain she wanted to hear her friend's diagnosis of Mark and her brother. Both had always been bigger than life to her for as long as she could remember.
"It could have been me, Case." Terry swallowed her pride and got honest. "If I had hung around as long as you did I would have been a candidate for therapy. As it was I was pretty darn close to needing it as it was. I don't know how you did it. And when you left I didn't need anyone to explain to me why."
"Your husband didn't exactly get it." Casey hated to sound defensive months after the fact.
"He's a man. And to his credit whatever you said to him, whatever your cousin said to him, got him thinking." Terry listened to the water running upstairs. She knew from years of studying the man that the longer the shower was a sure sign of just how bad the day had been. "I sold my condo."
Casey let that whirl around her mind. Wondered if there was anything else out there to bring her nearly speechless. "You loved that place."
"The key word there is loved. I did love that place. I love the house we're in now but we're seriously considering selling it too. We want something different. Mark needs something different." She tilted her head to hold the phone in place against her shoulder as she walked to the kitchen, refilled her glass of wine. "Mark wants me to see your little city by the river. I've been looking at houses there on the real estate sites online. There are some absolutely gorgeous historic homes there. I can see our family in one of those...one with a huge yard for the kids to play in."
"There's certainly no shortage of them here."
"Mark just about croaked when he saw my favorite."
"I hate to ask but why?" Casey knew it couldn't be price. She knew that what the condo alone likely sold for, even on a bad day, would buy three houses in Burlington, historic or otherwise.
"It's huge, sits on almost an acre, and it overlooks the river. It is absolutely gorgeous. Or at least the pictures are." Terry paused, watched her husband walk towards her, slightly more relaxed than before. Though anything looked better than how he was looking a week ago. "And I've heard from a little bird that you might know just the person who could show it to us when we visit there in a couple of weeks."
"And what little bird might that be?" Casey had an inkling the little bird was her dear sweet aunt. Then clicked in to the rest of her friend's casual statement. "When are you visiting?"
"In two weeks, maybe three." Terry winked at her husband. "Make sure you remember to give Jake that message from Mark. I can't wait to see you Casey. It's been way too long."
Everything in Casey softened. They had been friends forever. Good friends. The kind you keep no matter what. "Same here." So what if Terry and Aunt Charlie were talking, knowing both as she did they probably got along as if they'd known each other forever as well. "I'll tell Jake." She heard a noise from inside the house just before the porch light came on. "Let me know when you're coming." She ended the call just as Carrie came out on the porch.
"I'm sorry." Carrie pulled her robe together and belted it. "You didn't need to get off because of me. I didn't want to interrupt but Mary called and..."
"Is everything okay?" Casey wasn't certain what time it was but Mary was typically in bed and reading by nine and she knew it was way past that.
"She's fine. Jake's over there. He wants to talk with us. Just you, me, and Mary."
"Let's go." Casey started off the porch, her phone still in her hand, ready to go.
"I'm in my pajamas."
"So what. Your Mama and Mary dragged me down here not all that long ago in mine." She looked at her cousin, wondered if she knew how classy she looked even in her robe. "We're cousins. Jake probably saw you in diapers somewhere along the way. He's not going to care one way or the other."
"Casey, give me five minutes."
Even in the dim light of the porch Casey saw the stubborn tilt of her chin. But she also saw the quiet pride. That she understood well. "Hurry up," she agreed. "I'll wait here."
Mary leaned against the wall where her grandmother's china cabinet once stood. Across from her Jake wandered slowly around the room just as he had in the living room and as she knew he would in the kitchen as well. Of all the cousins he was among the oldest of the grandchildren with memories she and the others wouldn't have. Couldn't have. How much harder, she wondered, would walking through these rooms be for him. As he moved slowly into the hallway from the kitchen and into the bedroom she stayed where she was to put together a pot of coffee. It didn't matter how late it was, she knew the minute Casey walked in the door it would be the first thing she looked for. And if she remembered correctly, Jake was a big coffee drinker too. And while he looked better, more alert than he had earlier, he still had the worn look that had her worried. She pulled a frozen coffee cake out of the freezer and placed it box and all in the microwave. If nothing else it would help to soak up the caffeine.
"You've done something good here, Mary." Jake walked quietly into the kitchen to stand beside her. "It's almost like she never left." He looked at her with slightly sheepish eyes. "I half expected to see her when I walked into her room."
"I still do at times and I've been here for months."
"I wasn't
sure what I thought about all this when I first heard you bought the place." He looked around the kitchen, remembered tugging on his grandmother's apron when he could barely reach the sink let alone the faucet. Most often he was in the kitchen for her chocolate chip cookies and then struggling to reach the running water to wash his hands from the aftermath they left behind. He'd believed in savoring each bite and made a mess in the process. As he looked around he saw what he'd swear was the same cookie jar. Without really realizing what he was doing, he reached for it, caught in a time warp he didn't believe in. He lifted the lid, disbelieving what he saw and struggling to contain what he felt.
"I found it packed up in the basement. Most of what we found down there was furniture, most from the Marshall Street house but some of it was from here."
"The table in the kitchen over at Aunt Charlie's house," he said almost absently realizing his first thought about it had been accurate.
"Yes." Mary watched him pull a cookie from the jar, carefully place the lid back as if it was costly Waterford crystal instead of what had more than likely been bought at a Dime Store half a century or more ago. "I wasn't certain you'd recognize it."
"I knew it." He looked at her. "Just like this," he set the jar back in its place. "It's unbelievable it survived all this time.
"It looked like someone shoved it into a cabinet of one of the big buffets that might have already been down in the basement. Aunt Charlie says that once they got started they just put as much as they could down there with the thought they'd come back sometime soon and get it all. But the house sold pretty quick." She shrugged her shoulders, there was much they still didn't understand about what their mothers were thinking in those weeks and months after their grandmother died.
Retreat to Woodhaven (The Hills of Burlington Book 2) Page 6