The Good Chase (23 page)

He dragged a palm across his face, and he looked as pumped and ready as if he were about to jog onto the rugby field, but also as worn out as though he'd just played the match of his life.

She sauntered toward him as he slowly pulled away from the wall, arms dropping to his sides.

“What am I doing?” she whispered. “I'm going to show you that I don't care about clothes or money or the fact that you never had any. Just that I care about you. And also, I'm about to get this ugly, expensive shirt really, really wrinkly.”

*   *   *

B
yrne had never loved that Italian shirt, but he'd fallen in love with Shea as she'd worn it.

He didn't tell her, but he gave her his heart as they had sex on the floor of his closet. Later, after they'd moved to his bed and did it again, he could've sworn that he suddenly felt heavier. Like she had given him her heart in return.

The next morning, he cursed the blare of his alarm clock, until he realized that the sound that had awakened him was actually his phone ringing. Naked, he ran for where he'd left it in the kitchen, then padded back to where a sleeping Shea was taking up more than half his bed.

“'Lo?” he said, his mouth dry, voice scratchy.

And then he sank onto the edge of the bed and listened.

What he heard was something that vaguely resembled Caroline's voice, telling him something so awful he only caught key words. As she cried, his bedroom turned into a sea of red, and every muscle in his body bunched so tightly he started to ache from head to foot.

“Okay,” he heard himself say into the phone when she was done. “I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you,” Caroline said between sniffles. “Thank you.”

“What is it?” Shea whispered behind him, after he'd numbly said good-bye and tossed the phone onto the nightstand. It struck the wood and spun to hit the wall.

Shea's hand slid up his spine. Though her palm was warm, it gave him very little comfort.

“What's happened? Where are you going?” she asked, her hand making a slow, light circle around his shoulder blade.

Hands on his knees, his head sagged. “Remember Alex, that brother I told you about? The one we all wanted to believe was better and all that?”

“Oh no.” There came the
shush
of bedsheets as she sat up, her hand dropping away.

It took several tries to tell her, but he finally got it out. “He stole most of my parents' money and disappeared. I'm on the first flight out to South Carolina.”

17

B
y the time Byrne landed in Atlanta and drove halfway across Georgia to just over the border of his home state, he was no longer sad. Just plain angry. He could barely see the lines in the road, he was shaking so badly. Wherever Alex went next, Byrne would follow. And his brother better hope that the police found him first, because Byrne couldn't be sure what he would do when Alex was within arm's reach.

His parents still lived in the one-bedroom apartment above the disgusting pizza place where they'd moved after Byrne left for college. The only thing sadder than the seventies-era strip mall that housed it was the surrounding town that had died since the dog food manufacturing plant had closed over a decade ago.

Byrne parked his rental car, a green something-or-other sedan, on the street opposite the pizza place and apartments. No meters or thirty-dollar-per-hour garages here. He looked up at the too-thin drapes covering his parents' window and recognized Caroline's shape pacing back and forth, holding her fourteen-month-old daughter.

This didn't feel like coming home, not like he knew it should feel, not like he
wanted
it to feel.

The staircase going up to the second-floor apartments was unlocked, and the hallway at the top smelled like garbage. The door to apartment 3 was also unlocked because his parents had been expecting him, and he turned the knob with trepidation.

The kitchen looked exactly the same as it always had, only more worse for wear, the small living room just beyond. Caroline slid Kristin onto the couch, then rushed into Byrne's arms.

She'd always been a rounder woman, but she'd lost a lot of weight, most apparent in the rings beneath her eyes and the feel of the bones in her shoulders as he hugged her.

“How are they?” he whispered into her ear. She answered by pulling away and letting him see the pain on her face. He walked around her and went into the living room.

“Dad,” Byrne said, as his father came down the hall. The two men forgot their usual handshake and went in for a mutual embrace that had Byrne rocking in the smaller man's arms. Then Byrne turned to his mom, who was pushing up from the orange armchair.

“Hi, Mom. Came as soon as I could.”

She tried to hide her wet eyes before she hugged him, but he saw them all too well.

“Sit. Sit,” Mom said. As she patted Byrne's arms and smiled up at him, she successfully evaporated the impending tears. She'd had a lot of practice doing that over the years. “Do you want anything? A sandwich? A soda?”

What was she doing, offering him food at a time like this when they probably couldn't spare any extra? “No, thanks.”

“Coffee at least, then. I know it's a long trip to get here. You must be exhausted.”

“Mom, no.” Byrne took her hand, pulled her back around to keep her from going for the kitchen. “Come sit with me. Tell me what happened.”

His parents sat on the couch, one on either side of their only grandchild. Baby K got tired of the toy plastic keys she was holding and started to fuss. Caroline blew a piece of brown hair off her forehead and went for her kid, but Byrne hadn't seen his niece in months and she'd practically doubled in size and adorableness. He got to her before Caroline, knelt down in front of the beautiful little kid, and smiled.

“Hey, cutie. It's your Uncle J.P. You're going to be seeing a lot more of me.”

Kristin smiled back. She already had teeth. Byrne let the kid play with his fingers, not even wincing when she pinched and pulled at the hair on the back of his hand.

The little girl satisfied, he swiveled his head between his parents. “So? Will you tell me what happened?”

“He found where we keep our savings,” Dad said. “In an old Monopoly box in the closet.”

God forbid they trust a bank. Byrne clenched his teeth, making his whole jaw ache.

“He stole our social security numbers, too,” Mom added. “He didn't come home after work one night, and the next morning we realized that he wasn't going to. When your father saw the money was gone, I went to the sock drawer in my bedroom where I keep a notebook with all that important stuff written down. The cards were tucked in there the day before. And then they were gone.”

Byrne blew out a long, forceful breath and hung his head. “The good thing is he can't do anything with those without leaving some kind of trail. Tell me you've at least called the police.”

“Yeah, we have,” said Caroline behind him.

“How much did you have? How much did he take?”

Dad chewed his lip, glanced over at his wife. They both looked twenty years older than their actual ages.

“How much?” Byrne pressed, careful to keep a tight rein on his frustration. It wasn't directed at them, and he didn't want to make them feel worse than they already did.

“Close to a thousand dollars,” Mom finally answered.

A thousand dollars they'd likely been saving for years and years. For an emergency or a better place to live or gifts for their only grandkid or even retirement. And fucking Alex had appealed to their hearts, convinced them he'd changed, and snatched it out from underneath them for . . . what? Another gambling loss? To make another bet? Drugs? Or just to disappear somewhere else?

Out of all those options, Byrne really hoped it was the last.

Alex had to know that this was the final straw. This was the absolute last time their parents would welcome their youngest son back into this family. And maybe that's why he'd done it. Maybe he'd come back after a long time away, guessing that their parents had squirreled away every penny possible and would have a stash worthy of plundering. In all the time he'd been away, he'd lost all sense of family and only saw his parents as a means to an end. But an end to what?

Byrne gently tugged his hand away from his niece, and Caroline came to take over. Byrne stood before his parents. “You know what I'm going to say, right?”

Mom looked to Dad, but Dad just stared at Byrne with hands fisted in his lap.

“Give me your bills,” Byrne said. “Your rent, electric, water, everything, for the next couple of months. Caroline and I are going grocery shopping, filling your fridge and freezer. And I'm getting y'all some gift cards, something generic with a long expiration date, that you can use whenever you need something.”

“J.P. . . .”

“Mom, this is
not
a discussion.” Damn it, he hadn't meant to sound so pissed off. But guess what? He was. “I'm not taking over for you, I'm not supporting you. I'm helping you until you can get back on your feet. Until we find Alex and see if we can get back what he took. If he hasn't thrown it away already.”

His parents threaded their fingers together. Mom nodded. Dad's eyes filled and he turned his face away.

“But if we don't,” Byrne added, “if it's all gone, at least let me put a thousand bucks in a proper bank for you. Please.”

Neither of his parents responded to that.

Byrne turned to Caroline. “You, too. I'm doing the same for you—the shopping, the gift cards—because I'm sure you've dug into your own pockets since this shit's happened, and I want to make sure you and Baby K aren't hurting.”

“Your mouth, J.P.,” his mom said numbly.

When a stab of guilt flashed across Caroline's face, Byrne's stomach dropped.

“No,” he said to Caroline. “No way. You didn't give him any money, did you?”

Caroline looked sheepishly at her baby as she replied. “Paul did. Alex took right to him. You know how Alex is, all charming and smooth when he wants to be. He made Paul think he was this great guy, that he had his act together and that they were these close brothers-in-law or something. Paul hasn't gotten off that couch for me in months, but they were going out all the time. Alex would even pay for the beers. But I guess he pulled some sort of scam and Paul ended up giving him around two hundred bucks over the course of a few days.”

Byrne couldn't speak. Couldn't think. Didn't even want to move for fear of what his body might do. That wall above the couch would look pretty good with his fist going through it. But he'd never been violent like that, not even when it came to Alex, so he swallowed it all down and stared at the stained and nappy rug, hands on his hips.

“Then I'll put two hundred dollars in Baby K's college fund,” he said quietly. “All right?”

“Thank you,” Caroline said.

The four of them just looked at one another. Kristin flopped onto her belly, then scooted awkwardly off the sofa to immediately plop on the floor and play with a spongy yellow ball. It was a strange and awful thing to realize, but at that very moment, he'd never felt closer to his family.

“So.” Byrne clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Can you tell me where the stores are? I'll start with the house stuff and go grocery shopping closer to dinner.”

“I'll go with you,” Caroline offered, standing.

“Why don't you stay with them for now?” he countered. “Since I just got here?”

Their parents looked grateful. He loved those expressions. Wanted to see more of that. Wanted to
do
more. Maybe this was finally the thing that would allow him to do it. It sucked that it had finally come to this.

He whipped out his phone and wandered through the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, tapping notes about everyday items they needed. Not extraneous, frivolous things, but things like new toothbrushes, and pillowcases without stains or holes, and forks with straight tines.

A couple of hours later he felt like Santa Claus, hauling in giant bags of bed linens and towels, soap, and kitchen gadgets. Mom looked at him for a heartbreaking moment, her hand on her chest, and he hated the shame he saw there. Hated her embarrassment. It reminded him of when he'd had to go pick up donations from the church when he was younger. When she came forward to help him put everything away, she thanked him in a small voice. He let her boss him around about where everything went, and she was smiling again.

Dad made coffee and Byrne told them about rugby, how he'd been playing in Scottish fest tournaments all over the northeast. As Caroline put Baby K down for a nap, he told his parents a story about trying to find a good hamburger in Switzerland that had both of them laughing without having to think about his reasons for being in that country. After Caroline came out, holding a finger to her lips for quiet, he ushered her out the door, and the two of them raided the grocery store.

An hour and a half later, he was once again heading down the garbage-smelling hallway. His hands were full of plastic grocery bags, his fingers close to being sawed off by the handles, when his phone rang in his back pocket. He hadn't had a chance to tell all his contacts overseas that he would be out of the office. If he had to be honest, it wouldn't have mattered, since he was technically available 24-7 anyway, and it was early morning in many areas in which he had client money.

“Crap. Caroline, can you grab my phone? See who it is?”

They were halfway down the awful hallway, and Caroline was carrying only a giant package of toilet paper. She dropped it in front of apartment 3 and made a face as she pulled out his phone.

“Weird, going into your big brother's back pocket. Okay, the name on the screen says . . . who's Shea Montgomery?”

If Byrne's heart wasn't already pounding from the hike up the stairs, carrying his weight in food and sundries, it pretty much jumped out of his chest at the sound of his sister saying Shea's name. Of course a plastic bag strap chose that moment to break, and cans of green beans and soup rolled down the sloping hall.

“Oooo, she's pretty,” Caroline crooned, dangling the phone in front of her face. It was the old Caroline, the happy one he remembered from their nights lying awake in the train car, making each other laugh away the teasing they'd both gotten at school that day. “You take photos of all your clients looking all come-hither?”

“Caroline!” He couldn't drop the rest of the bags. Had to stumble, drunk-like, the rest of the way. He tapped the door with the toe of his shoe.

As he strained, his biceps muscles two seconds away from popping off his bones, Caroline peered harder at the phone. “Not just pretty. Gorgeous. This the woman Erik was talking about? Is she your girlfriend now?”

He'd taken that photo of Shea the morning after the first time she'd come to his place. From the neck up, you couldn't tell that she only wore a bedsheet. Her pale hair was messy and wild and all around her face, down in the way he loved it. Her mouth was lipstick-free and her eyes these deep pools of blue. The morning sun was coming through his bedroom windows, and he'd wanted to capture the moment.

She didn't look come-hither, just . . . stunning.

The phone stopped ringing.

Mom finally opened up the door and he waddled in, dropping the bags onto the linoleum, hoping he hadn't cracked the eggs.