Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4) (14 page)

After being run out of D.C. like we were criminals—which was
just plain weird—I called Mamie to let her know I was coming home for a while.
I didn’t tell her why, though, or who was with me. Just that she should come
back to Billings to visit and to make sure she asked Brent to come home, too.
That raised a little suspicion, especially since I was asking her to cut class,
but I deflected it. Maybe it was wrong for me to do that, but I didn’t think
the news about Dad—existing, being hurt, coming home with me…take your pick—was
something I should share over the phone.

Or maybe I was just a huge chicken.

Eight hours of travel later, including a layover in Denver,
we pulled into my neighborhood just after seven. Will had called Millicent, his
housekeeper, to pick us up, and she fussed most of the way home.

“William, honey, you should’ve called sooner! I would’ve had
cookies ready for the trip home!” She turned to smile at me when we stopped at
a red light. “You and Mr. Matthew look like you lost a few pounds in the last
month.”

“Running all over the desert will do that to you,” I said,
leaning back in my seat and watching the trees whiz by as we drove. Mid-spring
in Montana couldn’t be more different than the Outback. Green aspens, firs and
pines lined the hills and the flowers had started blooming. It wasn’t warm, at
least by a normal person’s standards, but sixty-four felt awesome and the
breeze lacked its typical winter’s edge.

“I wish there was some way I could travel with your teams
and cook for you,” Millicent said. She chuckled. “But I imagine I’d be in the
way. First time I saw one of those creatures, I’d probably hop out in front of
you two, threatening them with a spoon if they tried to hurt my boys.”

Will and I laughed. Yeah, that would be pretty funny…and I
hoped to God she never saw a monster. Not ever.

“Here we are!” Millicent pulled into my driveway and came
around to help Dad out. We’d introduced him as Erik, one of the guys on the
team, but she’d taken one look at him and said, “Mr. Matthew, if that’s not
your father, I’m a spring bonnet. I imagine there’s a story, but you seem
tired, so I’ll ask tomorrow.” She’d offered a cake in exchange, and I told her
I’d be by to take her up on it.

We made it up the driveway somehow and I waited for
Millicent to pull away before unlocking the front door. Like usual, the porch
light greeted me hello and our boxy two-story house looked like a five-star
resort after sleeping in a tent for so long. Coming home was always the best
part of a mission.

Except this time I had a stowaway.

Dad and I exchanged tense looks, then I pushed the door
open. “Hello?”

“Matt!” Mamie shrieked. She came flying around the corner
from the living room into the entry, arms flung wide.

Then stopped short with her eyes popped open.

“You’re…you’re…”

Dad stepped around me and put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Yes. And you’re beautiful. It’s good to see you, sweetheart.”

Mamie didn’t say a word. Instead, she took a step backward
and twirled one of her pigtails around her finger. A true sign of just how
freaked out she was. My sister was the most levelheaded person I knew. Give her
a crisis, and she’d deal with it. Sure, she might wring her hands some, but I’d
never,
ever
, seen her speechless. Until today.

“Mamie, honey, don’t maul the poor guy,” Mom called. From
the sound of things, she was in the kitchen. “Matt? I hope you’re hungry.” She
laughed. “Strike that. I
know
you’re hungry. We’re having chicken pot
pie.”

Mamie and Dad didn’t react. My stomach growled, but it
wasn’t important. Well, not to them anyway, and I had no idea how to move this
party farther into the house.

“What’s going on out there?”

“Come on,” I said, giving them a nudge. “It won’t get easier
if we stand out here all night.”

Mamie started, then wandered toward the living room on
unsteady legs. Dad sighed and limped along behind her, leaving me to bring up
the rear. Not a good place to be, so I passed Dad and made it into the living
room just as Mom came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

“There you are!” she said, smiling. “You could’ve given us
more warning. I had to rearrange my client schedule to make your welcome home
din—”

Her smile faded into an expression of deep shock. Right
before my eyes, all the color drained from her face, and it even looked like
her short, spiky hair wilted, although that was probably because she curled in
on herself.

“Mom, uh…” I glanced back at Dad, who was standing up as
straight as his injuries would allow. “I brought a guest for dinner.”

“Dani, you look well,” Dad offered, with a slight, but
hopeful, smile.

Mom stood there staring at him with her mouth hanging open,
just like Mamie had. This went on for a good sixty seconds before she snapped
her jaw closed. The shock turned into anger.

“What are you doing here?” she growled. “You think you can
waltz into my house after seventeen years with just a smile and I’ll feed you
dinner?”

“He’s here because I asked,” I said, stepping into Mom’s
line of sight, hoping she’d direct some of her anger at me. “It’s a really long
story, but he’s hurting pretty bad just standing there, so could we at least
sit down before we start hashing this out?”

Mamie took a step toward Dad and reached out tentatively to
pat his arm. “The recliner’s pretty comfy.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, like that one bit of kindness was
about to undo him. “Thanks, but it might be hard for me to stand up later. Got
a wooden chair handy?”

She nodded and hurried to the kitchen. Mom watched her pass
with narrowed eyes before turning back to Dad. “You don’t actually think you’re
staying
here
, do you?”

“I have the key to Mike’s loft. I wouldn’t dream of
intruding.” He swallowed hard. “I just…wanted to see you.”

“Mike’s loft?” Mom turned the glare back on me. “
He
knows? How long?”

Mamie brought the chair and helped Dad sit. “Mom, maybe we
should—”

“How
long
?”

“Dad showed up the second night of our mission,” I told her,
hands raised. I hadn’t meant to get Mike in trouble too. “The CIA sent him
because he was working on something that could help us, and we couldn’t exactly
talk about it.” Her glare didn’t soften, and I started to get annoyed. “Dad
saved my life. More than once. In fact, he saved a bunch of guys the night of
the eclipse and ended up with a dislocated hip for his trouble, so do you think
you could at least feed him dinner before kicking him out again?”

Mamie let out a squeak as Mom mouthed, “Again?”

Oh, dear God, I was in serious trouble now.

Mom’s face turned bright red and I swore smoke started
coming out of her ears. I’d crossed a mile-wide line, and I knew it, so I
hunkered down for the onslaught.

“Dani,” Dad said softly, before she could start. “You aren’t
mad at him. You’re mad at me, and with good reason. I’ll be gone as soon as I
can get a cab downtown.”

“No, I’ll drive you,” I said. “Just give me a minute to find
my keys upstairs.”

“Wait one minute!” Mom said. “You are not walking out of
here without more of an explanation. I need to know where you’ve been and what
you’ve been doing the last seventeen years that brings you through my door
looking like a refugee from a train derailment.”

“I was off the grid,” Dad said. Mamie handed him a glass of
water. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

“No,” Mom snapped. “You don’t get to call her that.”

Mamie winced. “Mom…”

 “He wasn’t here when you had strep throat and a fever
of a hundred-five and I had to take you to the ER in the middle of the night
when you were seven. He wasn’t here when Brent broke all those football records
in middle school. And he sure as hell wasn’t here when Matt turned ten and
celebrated by starting a grease fire in the kitchen!” Mom was shaking. “When I
asked him to go, I didn’t ask him to disappear, but he did. He did and he left
me alone to raise you. So he can’t call you sweetheart!”

My sister’s eyes filled with tears. I understood why Mom was
mad, I really did. But I couldn’t let her rail on Mamie.

“That’s it. I’m taking Dad to Mike’s loft until you cool
off.” I gave Mom the coldest glare I dared to. “I’ll bring him back tomorrow
and you two can…fight or make up or whatever it is
adults
do to clear
the air.”

Dad pushed himself upright, looking dead tired. “I’m sorry,
Dani. For whatever it’s worth.”

Mom crossed her arms and didn’t answer, but for a second, I
thought I might’ve seen tears in her eyes, too.

I ran upstairs for my keys, grumping the whole way. I was
pissed at how poorly Mom took Dad’s appearance, but I was sorry I’d hurt her
and Mamie.

Had I made a mistake that I couldn’t fix?

Dad was waiting by the front door when I bounded down the
stairs. “Head to the driveway,” I told him. “I’ll be out with the car in a
sec.”

I hurried through the house, ignoring Mamie’s sniffles and
Mom slamming pots around in the kitchen. Once through the mudroom and into the
garage, I leaned against my car and took a few deep breaths. I missed Uncle
Mike in moments like this. He had a knack for keeping me steady. A tiny ache
began in my heart as I realized I missed Colonel Black, too. In fact, I missed
them all. I felt totally off-balance without the team at my back.

As I drove Dad downtown, the ache got worse, until I
understood something both profound and frightening.

Billings wasn’t home anymore.

Dad limped through Mike’s loft, a faintly baffled expression
on his face. “It’s a little more industrial than I thought it’d be.”

I put his suitcase on the floor near the bathroom. Sure, the
bottom floor was one large, open space with a concrete floor, and the loft was
a floating bedroom surrounded by bare metal rails, complete with diamond-plate
staircase, but I didn’t get his confusion. “Why? It’s totally Mike.”

“Huh.”

“You don’t think so?”

Dad eased himself onto the leather sofa—the sole piece of
living room furniture save the flat screen TV mounted on the wall—and shook his
head. “Mike’s utilitarian, that’s true, but…I don’t know. It just seems
lonely.”

“That’s because it’s been empty a while,” I said. “He said
no one’s rented it for a few months. I don’t know why he hasn’t tried to sell
it, though.”

“Mike always moved around a lot. Maybe he thinks he’ll come
back here.”

I put TV dinners, protein bars, sandwich meat and milk into
the fridge. Pretty pitiful given that I had Mom’s cooking to look forward to.
“Want me to call for a pizza?”

“That’d be great.”

I ordered him a medium sausage, pepperoni and black olive
pizza, made sure he knew how to use the TV remote, and laid out the blankets
we’d picked up at Wal-Mart with the groceries. After that, there wasn’t much
else I could do to stall.

“I, uh, probably better go home.”

He gave me a pained smile. “I’ll be fine. Your mother is
waiting.”

“Yeah. Mamie said Brent will be here tomorrow morning. We’ll
come get you around ten, and maybe Mom will let you stay for lunch.”

“I hope so. I have a lot to apologize for. She’s right about
that.”

I cocked my head to one side. “She asked you to leave. Until
you fill in the blanks on that story, I think there’s room for both of you to
apologize.”

I left him hanging out on the couch watching the Rockies
play the Giants and drove home. On my way, I cruised past Ella’s house. I
wasn’t ready to see her yet; I stank of airports and wasn’t exactly fit to be
good company. Still, just passing by her house settled my nerves. The porch
light was on and her car was in the driveway. I imagined her curled up on her
bed working on her homework. I hadn’t told her I was coming home. Too many
things in the air—I wanted to be sure I was here to stay a while before letting
her know. With the way things stood, I’d likely be here for months, so there
was time. Time to do a lot of things.

It was after nine by the time I pulled into the garage. My
stomach had been lodging protests for the last thirty minutes and I was
exhausted. Sure, my stitches had come out in Australia and my bruises had
faded—I’d still put my body through a lot and I needed time to recover.

Mom met me in the kitchen. Her eyes were puffy and
bloodshot. “You must be starved by now.”

“Yeah.” I followed her to the kitchen table where a lone
plate waited. They must’ve eaten already. Or not been hungry. “Aren’t you going
to ask why I’m home?”

“I called Mike while you were out.”

Of course she did. “To yell at him about Dad?”

Mom snorted. “A little. But also to find out what was going
on.” She patted my hand. “I know you’re disappointed to be assigned here, but I
can’t say I mind.”

A small smile spread across my face. Spending extra time
with my family and Ella did provide a silver lining to being benched. “So
where’s Mamie?”

“In her room. She was pretty shaken up.” Mom sighed. “Why
didn’t you warn us he was coming?”

I shoveled a forkful of chicken pot pie into my mouth. It
was lukewarm and tasted like sawdust, despite the delicious scents of sage and
butter. “Because you would’ve said no.”

“With good reason.”

I dropped my fork on my plate with a clatter. “What good
reason? You told us you asked him to leave to keep us safe. We all assumed it
was to keep us safe from any enemies he made. He told me something different.”

Mom tensed up. “What did he tell you?”

“That he left to protect us from
him
. What’s so
dangerous about my father that he believes he’s beyond redemption and you don’t
want him in your house?” I was so sick of the secrets and the lies. “For once,
could someone tell me the truth?”

She stared into space. “It’s not my truth to tell.”

I shoved my plate away. “Think I’ll go to bed.”

“Matt—”

Ignoring the plea in her voice was hard, but this day had
gone on long enough. I went upstairs, took a really hot shower, then went to my
room and closed my door on everyone. My phone beeped on the nightstand. A
message from Will popped up:

“How’d it go?”

I wrote back:
“About as bad as expected. We still on
tomorrow?”

“Hell, yeah. See you at my place.
”

Good enough. Tomorrow would a better day, if for no other
reason than having plans that had nothing to do with my royally screwed up
family.

* * *

Brent’s flight came in at nine-thirty. Mamie and I waited
outside the terminal in her car. When he appeared, she murmured, “Goodness, he
fills up the whole doorframe.”

It was true. Brent’s shoulders had grown so broad that they
nearly brushed the sides of the door. “Wonder what they’re feeding him at
Washington State.”

“A quarter side of beef?”

“That’s breakfast.” I grinned at her. “For dinner, it’s an
entire roast pig.”

The car bounced as Brent slammed the trunk shut and Mamie
groaned. “He probably left a dent.”

“All right,” my brother grumbled, opening my car door.
“Shotgun.”

“Hell no, dude.”

“I can’t possibly get in that backseat.”

I looked down at myself. “Last time I checked I was more
than an inch taller than you with longer legs. How the hell do you expect me to
get back there any easier?”

“Oh, for goodness sake!” Mamie unbuckled her seatbelt and
pointed at me. “You drive, and I’ll sit back there.”

I hopped out and brushed past Brent. “See what you did? You
put your sister in the backseat of her own car.”

He flexed his chest muscles, looking more like a gorilla
than ever before. “I’ve been up since four this morning, asswipe. Might not be
a good idea to harsh on me.”

Telling him I hardly slept for forty-eight hours at a time
while on missions would only make things worse, so I went around and got into
the driver’s seat without antagonizing him more.

When I took the exit to head downtown, Brent asked, “So you
dragged me all the way here. What gives?”

“We’ll be there soon. It’ll be easier to show you than tell
you.”

We pulled into the apartment building’s lot and got out.
“What, are Mike and Julie visiting?” Brent paused and really looked at me.
“Wait…why are you home?”

“I was wondering that too,” Mamie said. “But that question
can wait. This can’t.”

Brent gave us both a weird look. “Okay.”

I knocked on the door to the loft and a soft “clank, thump,
clank, thump” of a cane announced Dad’s arrival before he answered. I stepped
back so Brent would be able to see him.

The door swung open. Brent frowned at the man standing there
and I watched as recognition lit up his eyes. “Dad?”

His voice was choked, and he sounded much younger than
twenty. Dad smiled. “Hey, Buddy.”

“Dad!” Brent threw himself into his arms, nearly toppling
the poor guy over.

“Take it easy on the old man, son. I’m a little banged up.”
But he was laughing.

A twinge of jealousy squirmed in my gut. Brent
knew
Dad. He’d been around until Brent was almost four, had even given him a
nickname. The only old history I had was a single picture of Dad holding me in
the hospital after I’d been born. Not the same thing at all.

We filed inside the loft, Mamie and me shunted to the back
by our hulk of a brother.

“How? Where?” The questions tumbled from Brent’s mouth like
oranges from an overfull produce bin.

“Long story,” Dad said. He waved Mamie forward and planted a
kiss on top of her head. “Good to see you, sweetheart.”

Guess I was forgotten. I went into the kitchen and poured
myself a glass of water while Brent peppered Dad with questions.

“We were worried when we didn’t hear from you after my
seventeenth birthday,” Brent was saying. “Did you get hurt on a mission?”

Now Dad caught my eye. I leveled a cool gaze back at him and
he looked away. “I got called in to help Matt’s team. It was a bit of a
surprise for both of us when I arrived. But when I was injured, he graciously
offered to bring me home.”

“Good of him.”

I looked up to find Brent staring at me. We’d always had
this weird tension between us, but right now, his eyes were full of something
unusual.

Gratitude.

“Thanks for bringing him home.” Brent turned his attention
back to Dad and I let them chat a while before saying, “We should go home.”

“But I just got here!” Brent said.

“I meant all of us, bonehead,” I said wearily. “You’re not
the only person he came to see. He needs to go grovel with Mom for a while.”

Mamie followed me to the door and Dad slowly rose. Brent
jumped up to help him.

The car ride—Brent insisted on driving and letting Dad ride
up front—was awkward, knowing we were heading home to see Mom. Mamie kept
opening her mouth, like she wanted to start a conversation to break the
tension, then shutting it before finally staring out the window with her
shoulders slumped. I patted her arm, but all I got in return was a wan smile.

Mom was waiting to greet us with grilled cheese sandwiches
and tomato soup. An ache socked me out of nowhere. That was the meal she made
me when I came home after Schmitz died. Maybe she thought we needed soothing
now, too.

She was right.

She gave Brent a long hug, exclaiming over how much muscle
he’d put on. Then she took a deep breath and faced Dad. “I’m sorry for my
behavior last night. I just needed to adequately convey how utterly…” She
fished around for a word. I expected something like enraged or irate, but she
went with, “pissed off I was—and still am—with you. But Matt was right. You’re
injured and need a place to call home for a while. You’re welcome to come visit
the kids, or have them come visit you, as much as you’d like.”

Dad’s smile was wry when he asked, “And what if I wanted to
visit you?”

Mom crossed her arms. “I’ll endure it for their sake, but
that’s it.”

The smile fell off his face with a clatter. “I…understand.”

Lunch was a lesson in dysfunctional family behavior. Mom
didn’t address Dad directly again, but always made offers for more food or
coffee through one of us. Brent hung on every word Dad said, and Mamie stirred
her soup, looking too miserable to eat.

Despite complimenting her cooking and keeping a warm smile
plastered on his face, Dad wasn’t able to get Mom to engage with him. In a
small way, I felt bad because he was trying.

And because I had a feeling that Mom cared more than she let
on.

It was there in the way she sneaked looks at him when he
exchanged old jokes with Brent. Or when he gravely told Mamie that if she got
married before age thirty, he’d refuse to give her away. And especially when he
absentmindedly pulled the compass out of his pocket, shined it up on the leg of
his jeans, then put it back. An old habit for sure, and I don’t think he did it
on purpose to get her attention. Still, Mom stopped in the middle of pouring
herself coffee, watching every small move.

Hungry and tired of the bullshit, I just ate. Besides, I
needed to store up my strength for later. I figured I’d need it, and a tiny
smile kept threatening to break loose.

“Matt, you look like a guy who got away with highway
robbery,” Mom said, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Something you want to tell
me?”

“Nope.” I took my plate to the sink and checked the time.
One-thirty. “I’m going out for a while. Not sure if I’ll be back for dinner.
I’ll text you and let you know.”

“Remember, you still have a curfew, army-life aside,” Mom
warned.

“When you get back, I want all the details about your trip,”
Mamie said.

“Bye, butthead,” Brent said.

As I headed to the garage, Dad called, “Tell her the medal
worked.”

I turned back to give him a quick nod, knowing he was the
only person at the table who really understood why I’d leave so abruptly.

Someone too important to me was waiting.