Her heart ached for him. Her big brother. A memory surfaced. Kevin holding on to her pink bicycle as he ran alongside her, then how he shouted with delight when he let go and she pedaled down the street by herself. She’d been six. The same age Ethan was now.
She started toward him, then hesitated. Given the stress he was under, he might make a public display and take all this out on her—his grief, his ineffectualness, his anger toward their mother. So let him, she decided, and continued walking. Let him use her as his whipping post if that was what he needed. His child was missing.
“Hey, Kev.”
He blinked, as though trying to figure out what she was doing there. “Oh. Hey.”
It was not even ten, but she could smell alcohol on his breath. She wasn’t going to judge him if that was what he needed to cope with his son’s disappearance.
He glanced toward his disapproving mother-in-law.
“Do you want to go outside?” Aubrey asked.
“Sure.”
She led him to a terraced area near the pool, where they sat on a couple of square wicker chairs beneath a palm tree. A gardener was trimming the hedges and plants, but there were no hotel guests around.
“Is Kim back in your room?” she asked.
“Yeah. Prudence has her doped up on something. Doctor’s orders, or so she says.” He reached into his pants pocket and took out a miniature bottle of scotch he’d probably gotten out of the minibar. He opened it, then gave her a dare-you look. “Got a problem with this?”
She shook her head and he took a swig.
“I called and texted you a few times,” she said.
He shrugged. “One of Prudence and Ernie’s people has our phones. They’re handling stuff. Works for me.” He took another drink.
It didn’t work for Aubrey. She wished her brother were stronger and could take charge of himself and Kim. “Where’s Bilbo Baggins?” she asked softly.
“I’m no Bilbo Baggins. Never was.”
She took his hand. If he couldn’t be strong, at least she wanted him to know he wasn’t alone.
The gardener clipped off several stray vines of fuchsia bougainvillea, and they dropped to the keystone tiles. One strand fell into the pool and floated on the blue-green water.
“Remember the time you almost drowned?” Kevin asked, pulling his hand away from hers.
“I almost drowned?”
He nodded. “We were at a birthday party for that kid who lived down the street. Matt. Dad took us because Mom was working. It was a pool party with a clown. I guess Dad figured it would be okay to leave us. Maybe he thought the clown was a lifeguard.”
“I don’t remember any of this.”
“You were five, I guess. I remember I was in third grade. We both knew how to swim. There was a slide going into the pool. I went down headfirst. Got a mouthful of water.” He took another slug from the bottle. “Maybe I was embarrassed. I don’t know. You were watching me cough, so I dared you to do it.”
She tried to bring up the memory, but it wasn’t there.
“You went up the slide and lay down headfirst, like I’d done. Except you had one of those plastic swimming rings around your waist.”
“What happened?”
“You slid down and landed upside down in the water, feet kicking up in the air. I realized you were stuck, that you couldn’t right yourself. The swimming ring was too tight for you to slip out of, and it was keeping your head under.”
Something was coming back to her. A sensation of being beneath the water, but she didn’t remember being scared.
“What did you do?” she asked.
He took another drink and stared at the pool. “I watched your feet kicking. I remember thinking what little feet you had.” He rubbed his cheek. His eyes were completely bloodshot.
“Did you jump in after me?”
“I should have, right? I was eight years old. I was a good swimmer. I could have saved you with no problem.”
“But you didn’t.”
He studied the small scotch bottle. “Nope.”
She felt sad for him, not angry. “Do you know why you didn’t?”
“It was like I was paralyzed,” he said. “I kept watching your little feet kick in the air, until somehow you righted yourself.”
“Did Mom and Dad ever find out?”
“Someone told them. I remember Mom yelling at Dad for leaving us unsupervised at the party. I’d never seen her so angry.” He thought for a moment. “That’s when it started with Mom.”
“What started?”
“I wasn’t her little prince after that.”
He rolled the bottle between his fingers. Above his gold watch, his wrist was knobby and red, just like when he was a teenager.
“Mama’s always loved you,” she said.
“Nope.” Kevin took another swig. “She blamed me for everything that went wrong and has been punishing me ever since.”
“But Kev—”
“No. Listen to me. Remember that big fight Mom and Dad had when we were kids? The one that seemed to last forever?”
“You mean when Jimmy Ryce went missing?”
He cocked his head, as though confused. “The kid who was kidnapped, then found dead?” His face sagged.
She never should have mentioned Jimmy Ryce. It would only make Kevin more fearful of what might happen to Ethan.
Kevin let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah. It was right around that time. I was eleven when the War of the Lynds got going.”
War of the Lynds. Aubrey had always thought of those weeks as the nightmarish time between “before” and “after.”
“The war was my fault,” Kevin said. “They were fighting because of me.”
“They were upset about Jimmy Ryce, Kev. Worried that something like that might happen to you and me.” At least, that was how she had classified that memory in her mind.
“No.” He gave his head an emphatic shake. “It was my fault. They hated my friend Jeff. They said he was a bad influence, but I disobeyed them and kept hanging out with him.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”