Charlie opened Nate Shelby’s door for me, let me inside. The cats rushed to greet us like dogs, purring, Tiger even reaching up for me. I leaned down to get him, righted myself before I toppled over, held on to his furry softness, buried my face in this fur.
“You should get some rest,” said Charlie. “Why don’t you? No one’s going to bother you here.”
He patted his jaw. “And don’t forget the ice.”
After he left, I could barely stand. I stripped off my bloody clothes and let them lay in a pile on the floor. The last thing I should do was sleep, but the body has limits. I fed the cats, cleaned the litter, took a shower. After, I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror and regarded myself. Too thin, scarring on my torso, my arms, the mark of my father’s blade. Face swollen, light purple on the jawline, the hint of a shiner. I tilted my face up to see the scar that ran along the underside of my jaw. They had all faded, just henna lines on my white skin, raised just slightly, dead of feeling.
It had been so long since I looked at myself, really looked. I spent a lot of time dodging my reflection, trying to be invisible. I had become invisible to myself. I looked at the paper-white of my skin, the way my collarbone and ribs pushed at my skin, the tight sinewy muscles of my arms and legs, the strain and fatigue on my face. I was a stranger. A ghost, my not-father had called me.
Then I fell into the white bliss of Nate Shelby’s bed.
“It’s still there in that house,” said my father hovering beside me. “It has been all this time.”
“Who hid it there?” I asked. “Who?”
twenty-four
“Where have you been?” asked Josh.
Mom was still upstairs sleeping; she usually didn’t get up until after eight. She’d been asking for Rhett since last night before bed. And Josh had lied, telling her he was working late on the town house job Josh had accepted. One of the contractors had reached out to him, asking if Josh could do all the floorboards and crown molding, installing and painting. It was an assignment Josh could not have accepted if Rhett had not come on; it was too much work for one person. He’d even thought for a second, happily, that maybe it could be a good thing that Rhett had come back. Now he could take on more. Idiot. Though there had been a moment, a pause, when Josh told Bruce that Rhett was back and working with him. But Josh and Bruce had always been good, so the other man just nodded, handed him the materials list and the corporate credit card.
Josh waited an hour for Rhett, using the time to set up the saw, do the measuring, then he just started the cutting. If there had been two of them, one would cut and the other would install. He started after the crew had left for the day at five because it was awkward work walking through the boxy rooms with the long pieces of wood.
It was 10:30 when Josh realized Rhett just wasn’t going to show. He was about half where he needed to be if he was going to finish the job on time. He’d have to call Todd, see if he would work a double with him on Sunday (and of course he’d have to pay Todd, cutting into their profit). Josh had to laugh at himself as he locked up the site. He should have known. He did know.
“That’s good,” his mom said, when Josh told her he’d left Rhett behind working. “Your dad would be so happy.”
Except no. Josh didn’t think Dad would be happy. Because he knew what Rhett was. He got it toward the end. Rhett was a destroyer. Once upon a time, it had been his dad’s hope that Josh and Rhett would take over his thriving business. And that they’d both have families. And that after church each Sunday everyone would gather around that table he’d made for a big dinner. And the grandkids would run around, laughing and playing.
Not that his eldest son—the killer, the felon—would return after ten years away to destroy what little was left of their father’s paltry, poor-man’s dreams.
“I answer to you now?” Rhett dropped the keys on the table hard. Josh felt himself startle, start to cower inside. He almost backed right down, just plain walked away. But no.
“Yeah,” he said instead. “You kind of do. You wanted work. I gave it to you. You didn’t show, and now I’m behind on the town houses.”
Josh had been to see Lee, his sponsor, about Rhett coming home and the feelings it brought up. Josh hadn’t had a drop of booze—or any other substance—in seven years. Last night, he’d had to white-knuckle it past the wine and beer at the grocery store.
You are not the boy you were, Lee had told him. You are a business owner, a man who takes care of his ailing, elderly mother. You’ve made a life. You are not his kid brother anymore. He can’t bully you and force you to do things you don’t want to do. And with Lee, that sounded right and Josh felt strong. But there was some kind of energy that came off of Rhett, a dark magnetism. It snared him like invisible grappling hooks, and tugged at him.
“Well, well,” said Rhett. “Big boss man.”
“I wouldn’t have taken that job without you,” said Josh. “I have a reputation.”
Rhett let out a whoop at that.
“Shh,” said Josh. “She’s still sleeping.”
“A reputation now,” said Rhett.
“The business,” said Josh. “I’m fair. I’m honest. I finish what I start on time and on budget.”
Rhett lifted his palms. “Okay, okay,” he said.
His brother walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a six-pack he’d stashed in there. No alcohol of any kind in the house, not even cough medicine or mouthwash. That was like AA 101. And beer was Josh’s gateway substance. Once he’d had a few of those, there was nothing else he wouldn’t do. Rhett held out a beer to Josh, who shook his head.
“That’s right,” said Rhett. “Clean and sober. Good for you.”
Rhett cracked open the beer, and just the sound was enough to start that ache for it. He could taste the tingle on his tongue, feel the cold in the back of his throat—the way all the hard edges smoothed right out after that first sip, the warmth in his center. Josh took and released a breath, looked away.
“Aren’t you sick of it all?” asked Rhett. There was some kind of light in his eyes now. Josh recognized it. Damn if it didn’t excite him as much as it scared the hell out of him, that look.
“Working for all of them?” said Rhett. “Doing the shit jobs they offer you?”
Something tickled in the back of his mind. Something ugly. “No,” he said. “I like what I do, the people that I do it for.”
Rhett frowned, shook his head like Josh was the biggest idiot he had ever seen.
“So, if you won the lotto,” he said. “You’d still be doing it?”
Josh pushed out a breath. “I’m not going to win the lotto,” he said. “And neither are you.”
Rhett pulled up a chair and sat across from Josh, leaned extravagantly across the table. He smiled, bright and wolfish.
“Oh no?”
“No.”
“It’s there, Josh,” said Rhett. “It’s been there all this time.”