The Tramp (The Bound Chronicles #1) (26 page)

Antonio reemerged from the bathroom in a T-shirt and soccer shorts, ready for practice. “She wanted to check and see I am fine.”

“Isn’t Mieke Walsh the Rotary Club’s vice president?” asked John.

Antonio shrugged and made a face that showed how little he cared about the Rotary Club. He picked up a guitar before plopping down on his unmade bed, and began strumming it.

Candy picked up knick-knacks, and switched table lamps on and off. “I love this place.” The bathroom was all bright white porcelain and shiny golden brass. There was even an antique bathtub.

Antonio shook his head when she came out of the bathroom, “Is femminile—too much for me.”

“Feminine?” offered John.

“Yes, thank you. Feminine.” He played a few chords and fiddled with the tuning knobs.

“Yeah, it is a little girlie, with all the lace and flowers,” agreed Candy, sitting down on a tufted sofa and examining a throw pillow embroidered with roses. “Too much maybe.”

“I think Mrs. Walsh is appealing to antique-trolling tourists,” allowed John. “Still, too bad you’ll have to move to the big house. This looks cozy. And private.”

“Why can’t you stay out here, anyway?” Candy headed over to a miniature refrigerator to investigate.
Empty. Must not be eating out here.

“I am too young.” Antonio smiled at the irony.

“To stay alone out here?” John was incredulous; everyone heard of the PTA uproar about his age. “All the panic about you being nineteen, I don’t get it.”

“Yeah, ‘a grown man.’ My dad said all the parents freaked out when they heard you were of age.”

“Mieke says, ‘you are just boy,’” Antonio scoffed, always eager to prove his manhood to Candy.

“Hey, what did you do for your year of work-study, anyway?” asked John. “Something in music? I heard you’re in a band.”

“No, that is just hobby. I love, but not for career. I work at…veterinario?”

“Veterinarian? An assistant or something?”

“Yes.”

“Cool,” Candy piped up. She came back into the bedroom area and plopped down on a spindly Windsor chair next to the bed. The chair creaked and she knocked another embroidered pillow onto the floor, but she didn’t care. She was finally interested in Antonio di Brigo; Candy loved animals. “So, that’s what you want to be—a vet?”

“Yes,” Antonio cocked his head and leered at her close proximity to the bed.

Ugh! Just when you were coming up in my esteem.
She shook her head at him and narrowed her eyes, but he
was
sort of funny.

“Hangin’ round, downtown by myself,” Antonio began to sing, his thick accent lost entirely, the American English rolling off his tongue. “And I’ve had too much caffeine, and I was thinkin’ ‘bout myself. And then there she was…”

“Ha, I know this song.” Candy chortled; she knew exactly what was coming as Antonio strummed louder and zeroed in on her with his large brown eyes. “Retro—like I’ve never heard it before…”

“Like double cherry pie, and there she was…” John joined in the song and plopped down next to Antonio to serenade her from the bed. “Like disco Superfly.”

“I smell sex and candy here,” the guys sang together. Candy plugged her ears. They brought up the volume, so she could hear anyway, “Who that loungin’ in my chair? Who’s that castin’ deviant stares in my direction?”

“Okay, okay.” She grabbed the guitar, “I know, ‘I surely am a dream.’ Nice guitar, though. Did you bring it from Italy?”

“No, is Mr. Walsh’s. Do you play?”

“A little. Not as well as you.”

“Aw, come on, Candy.” John fell backwards on the bed, his hands knitted behind his head. “You’re too modest. She’s from a whole family of musicians, Antonio. She can play.”

“Really?”

“Play us something, Red Hot.”

Antonio crossed his legs in listening fashion and nodded like a grade-schooler. “Yes, please.”

“Okay…” Candy squinted up towards the ceiling, searching her head for a simple song she could play well, without warming up. John was being way too kind, she thought. She really wasn’t very good. Uncle Pat had shown her to play a couple of songs with simple chord changes, and usually a modified, easy version at that. She chose one that she had always loved and had practiced the most, a short segment since she couldn’t remember all the words. John and Antonio leaned in. She screwed up once or twice, and felt shy when she finished.

“Your voice is like angel,” Antonio breathed. She handed him back the guitar with a warning look, but he shook his head, vehement. “Is true, honey.”

“Don’t call me honey,” Candy said. But she smiled anyway.

chapter twenty-nine

John dragged his feet up the porch stairs. He groaned at the ache in his quads, his glutes, his calves.

God, am I gonna be sore tomorrow.

After conditioning drills on the field and then stadiums, they hit the weight room for another grueling hour. And that was after going through plays for the first hour of practice. Shirley County was serious about football. His duffel bag thudded to the floor. He looked down at it with a grimace; the mess would piss off Grandma Pearl, so he lugged it into the hall closet, his biceps whining in objection.

“That you, John?” Grandma called from the kitchen.

He found her sorting through mail in the dining nook, with her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. He slid onto the bench across from her and laid his head on his sore forearms, wincing at the draft from the direction of his armpits. He reeked, too.

“Rough day, dear?”

“Long practice, is all,” John mumbled, his face nestled into his arms. “I could probably fall asleep right here.”

“Oh, no you don’t. We only sleep in beds in this house, John Robinson.”

“I was only kidding, Gram.” He raised his head and beamed a smile up at her, his eyes still closed, then flopped his head back down.

She had been snippy ever since he approached her the previous night, wanting to know about Big Joe’s and ancient Native American mounds. She denied any knowledge of the relationship and strictly forbade John mentioning such a “preposterous” idea to his grandfather. “Helen Collins is a nutcase. That is simply ridiculous. Imagine her. And your grandfather in the state he’s in…” She had ranted for at least twenty minutes before John finally excused himself, claiming he had a mountain of homework to get to.

John rolled his head to the side to watch her ripping open envelops with her fingernail. He wondered how unpleasant the evening would be. “Do you need help with dinner?”

“Now, I’m not going to make everyone dinner every night of the week.” She rose from the table and began filing the opened mail into proper slots and bins, tossing the junk mail into the trash. She bustled around the kitchen cleaning things randomly and griping about there being three grown adults living in the house, and how there was no reason that she had to tend to everyone’s needs. John tuned her out and thought he should probably call the restaurant and warn his dad that Grandma Pearl was in one of her moods. Her voice was still ringing through the house when he quietly made his escape from the kitchen and climbed the stairs.

“John,” she shouted up the stairwell after him. “See if your grandfather wants food with his evening medication. Whenever he is
finished
with his
meeting
.”

“Okay, Grandma,” he answered, sure that he was about to glean a better understanding about the nature of the bee up Grandma Pearl’s skirts. He didn’t realize his grandfather was scheduled to arrive home from the hospital already, but there was no one on earth who could send his wife into frenzy faster than Joe Robinson. Wondering what kind of meeting he could possibly be having in his bedroom, John hobbled down the hallway, quads screaming after the climb upstairs. Muffled giggling and a lower baritone rumble emanated from his grandfather’s room as he approached. He stood outside with an ear to the door for a few seconds, uncertain of what he would be interrupting should he knock.

“Oh Joe, you’re terrible.”

“You have no idea, darlin’. Come over here and I’ll show you.”

“Oh, I have no doubt.”
Tee hee…

“You don’t need to doubt—”

What the hell?
John rapped sharply. When he tried the knob, it was locked. “Grandpa?”

“Yes, who is it?” was the reply, in a woman’s voice.

“This is John.”

A soft, scrambling sound, then a quiet click as the door was unlocked, and Mieke Walsh pulled the door open. A rush of air blew her hair back from her plastered smile. There was annoyance under the mask.

“John, you come over here and give me a hug,” Grandpa Joe bellowed, holding his arms out from a half-seated position, cranked up in a mobile hospital bed. “Damned if it ain’t good to see you, boy.”

His grandfather’s face was ruddy, but his sheets were still tucked, John noticed. “Hey, Grandpa.”

His reply was almost lost, as Grandpa Joe bear-rolled John in a painful squeeze. At least he was feeling more himself. When John righted himself and stood again, though, he could see the man had lost quite a bit of weight. His breathing was labored from the exertion.

Mieke checked her watch, feigning surprise at the time, “Oh my. Antonio must be home already then, too, if football practice is over.”

“I dropped him home.” John repressed his pique; he hadn’t realized how taxing being the guy with the car would be until he’d driven the length of Shirley Valley several times in one day and made side trips into the mountains, as well. He was going to have to come up with a better plan, and fast.

“Thank you, John.” Mieke’s demeanor softened towards him, and she wrung her hands with a thread of guilt. “I should have picked him up, I just didn’t think about that. Motherhood is a lot of work.”

“Motherhood. Girl…” Joe reached out for a tickle, and Mieke jumped back, slapping his hand away and giggling.

“Oh, Joe!”

“It’s no problem, Mrs. Walsh,” John lied, yawning and plopping into the armchair next to the hospital bed. It was still warm.
At least she was sitting here, instead of in there with him.

Mieke petted the top of his head. “I’ll bet you’re tired, huh? You’re such a dear, John.” John took the opportunity to breathe her in, noting her perfume, her hairspray, her body lotion and her probable laundry detergent. He hadn’t smelled the same on his grandfather. “I really must go. Ian will probably be wondering where I am. Aaron’s visiting, too, and I bet they’re waiting on me for dinner.”

“Somebody’s in trouble,” Joe chuckled. “Better get outta here.”

Mieke fluttered her fingers with a mock-frazzled look, already punching in numbers on her cell phone as she ducked out. “Bye, boys.”

John turned back to Grandpa Joe and caught his lecherous gaze, barely disguised, right before his face slid into a benevolent smile more suitable for a grandchild. The old man’s philandering had never been much of a secret. Not to John anyway. Sometimes he thought his grandfather would purposely leave sly clues to the males in his life, to prove his virility. A wink after certain women parted company. An evil look behind Pearl’s back after announcing he’d be home late.

“Grandma wants to know if you want anything to eat with your pills.”

“Now, what do you think, boy?” He patted his still ample belly. “Got to regain m’strength, before the next round.”

Grandpa roared with laughter and John tried to join in. He hoped he was sticking to the special diet the doctors prescribed to help control cholesterol and high blood pressure. The “next round” would be heart surgery. John suspected Grandma Pearl would be only too happy to enforce the joyless diet, and for once her meanness was a comfort.

“I’ll tell her.” He rose to go, but hesitated at the door, “But Grandpa, while I’ve got you alone…”

“What’s up, son?”

“I was just wondering if you were still having those nightmares.”

“Nightmares?” Grandpa Joe’s eyebrows spiked, like he was in shock. But his color bloomed, like he was embarrassed.

John cleared his throat; he was more than embarrassed, but he had to know. “Well, Grandma told me you were having nightmares, or maybe hallucinations, while you were in the hospital. Pretty scary, I guess.” Grandma Pearl warned him not to speak of the drawings, and technically he hadn’t mentioned
them
.

The old man burst into a belly laugh so loud it rattled the metal railings on his bed. He slapped his thighs, his considerable abdomen shaking with mirth. A bowl full of jelly. “The only thing scary about that hospital was the food. The food, and that awful Nurse Ratched—though I did love those sponge baths. Hooey!”

The theatrics carried on for several minutes. Grandpa Joe finally ended in a mute smile, gazing at John and shaking his head with pretended confusion. He wiped his eyes and thanked the Good Lord. It was such a ridiculous subterfuge that John felt prickles on the back of his neck. And he thought the drawings were unsettling. But after such a reaction, he realized the experience must have been worse than he suspected.

And now I’m seeing half-animal creatures in my own dreams and the family enterprise is sitting on top of dead Indians.
All manner of interrogation techniques and their probable success rates raced through John’s brain. He pushed them aside with an effort.
Well, Grandpa’s a dead end. Time to branch out on my own.

“Nevermind, I must have misunderstood. I’ll tell Grandma you’re hungry.”

chapter thirty

Candy saw John’s yellow Mustang through the open hangar doors of her dad’s shop. She parked out back and jumped off her bike, heading into the garage with a smile. “There you are, I was hoping to find you here.”

“Hey, Candy,” came his muffled greeting. One arm was deep under the hood of his elevated car and the other was covered with grease almost up to his elbow. He leaned his head out and smiled from ear to ear, knowing how funny she would think it was to see him working on an engine.

“I have it, man.” Antonio rolled out from under the car and took over whatever John was assisting with under the hood. His gaze roamed over Candy’s body as he strode past, before he went back to what was clearly not women’s work.

No more sweet Veterinarian music lover, and back to the macho dickwad. I could show that little Italian boy a thing or two about American cars.
Candy was unperturbed in her security of over a decade helping her dad in the shop.

“Not really my thing, to be honest,” admitted John. He wiped his blackened hands on an old T-shirt-turned-rag. No use. The oily smudges were like glue. John frowned at his hands and Candy hid her smile behind hers.

“You’ll need some mineral spirits to get that off,” she said. “Maybe some Lava soap. What happened, did it break down?”

“No. Tune-up, remember? Your dad’s loving it,” and waving a hand towards Antonio, he added, “and his new assistant, apparently. Antonio’s quite the
Renaissance
man.”

“You must have been talking with Dad, if you think working on an engine is like making art.”

“A ‘65 Ford Mustang
is
art, honey,” Antonio said, smacking her rear as he strolled by. He banged through the door to the shop like he owned the place.

“Never heard that one before, Michelangelo,” she hollered after him, bristling over the unwanted contact. “Anyway,” Candy grabbed John’s arm as soon as they were alone. “I know where the eyes come from.”

“The eyes?”

“My eyes. Remember? ‘Selkie’ eyes?”

“Oh, right.”

“Well, I found the line through the McBrides—on my grandpa’s side. It was his mother. That’s why I never saw them. She died way young.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” said John, noncommittal. He looked past her through the door to the shop.

“No, you’re not listening. One of the women in the oldest pictures looked totally Sendalee—you know, like there’s an Indian line running through. But where, right?”

“I don’t know, where?”

“Well, Ms. Collins gave me a book on the history of the families here—”

“There’s a book on that?”

“Her daughter wrote her graduate dissertation on it.”

“Ms. Collins has a daughter?”

“Yeah, adopted.”

“Really?”

“Pay attention, why are you so distracted?” Candy couldn’t get the story out fast enough, and John wasn’t keeping up. “There’s this painting of a Sendalee woman—really old, from like the 1700s—the book has a picture of it and snippets of Faith Fairbrother’s diary. You know, Fairbrother Field, right by school?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I guess this Sendalee woman was some kind of mistress. Apparently Faith Fairbrother was okay with it, because she was the artist who painted her. Anyway, the mistress—the Ahnaanvwodi—died in childbirth and the Fairbrother’s raised her daughter as one of their own.”

“Was she?”

“Yeah, I think so. She took the Fairbrother name. But anyway, guess who her great-great granddaughter was?”

“The Collins’s keep tabs that far back?”

Candy nodded. “I know, mildly disturbing. But, guess who she was?”

John had started pacing, and he kept looking back through the shop like he was anxious they would be disturbed. “I don’t know, who?”

“She was Maeve Boyd, who married to become Maeve McBride. My great-grandmother!”

“So, mystery solved.”

Candy’s valorous shoulders crumpled into a slump. It was a big deal to her and she thought he’d be as ecstatic as she was. “Aren’t you proud of me?”

“We should call you Fair Feather,” John mumbled.

“What? Why are you acting so weird, John?”

His eyes snapped to hers.

“What’s going on?” Candy demanded. Butterflies were swirling in her stomach—John was waiting to tell a story of his own.

“Alright, look.” John sat down on an abandoned mechanics creeper. He rolled back and forth with his heels, hesitant and anxious at the same time. “I found out something, too.”

“What?”

“I dug up some troubling information about another one of,” he waved a hand towards the door where Antonio had disappeared, “your guys.”

“Well, Antonio isn’t ‘my guy,’ John” she said, with air quotes. “As you know very well. Get to the point.”

“Fine. I’m talking about Sam Castle. Or whatever he calls himself these days.” John stopped rolling, came to stillness with his eyes locked on hers, as if needing her full attention before he went on.

“I imagine he calls himself by his name.” There was enough question in her tone to tell him he had her attention. All of it.

John cocked his head to the side, considering how much to reveal. “I noticed the irony in his expression, when he introduced himself to me in the hall the other day.”

“Irony?”

“As if he were saying another name in his head. Mentally correcting himself when he said ‘Sam.’”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“What’s ridiculous is not being able to find one shred of information on a person—anywhere—in the information age.”

“Some people are more private than others—”

“So, I decided to check out that tattoo on the inside of his wrist.”

“The mermaid?”

“Not just a generic mermaid. Stylized and detailed, encircled in type. And so small, it’s more like a crest. A stamp.”

“Yeah…so?”

“And why would a person put a stamp like that on the inside of his right hand wrist?” John stood up and extended his right hand to Candy in the gesture of offering a handshake. When she didn’t accept, he seized her hand and turned it over, exposing her wrist. “So certain people know who you are. And you know them. The stamp is the crest of an old neighborhood up north. A rough neighborhood. It’s a gang crest.”

Her heart was hammering, her mind buzzing with Sam’s half-understood idiosyncrasies. She had no idea where he came from. Candy waited, ready to listen.

John was ready to tell; he dropped her hand and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why is the neighborhood important? Because, when I found ‘Sam’ there, he finally appeared on the grid. Only, his name isn’t really Sam Castle.”

“What is it?”

“That depends on how far you want to trace it. Which city. In that one he was Stan King.”

“He told me his mom has moved them around a lot, and he’s from nowhere. That’s not his fault.”

“No. He grew up in New York City,” John challenged, daring her to disagree.

Sam wouldn’t just out and out lie, would he? Candy was starting to realize that she didn’t know the answer to that question. “Well…I know he’s had an unconventional upbringing.”

“He’s done some time in juvenile detention centers, too. But that was when he was Shawn Kent. Luckily, they take mug shots for juvie.”

Candy tried to swallow, but her throat felt dry. What could she say?

John went on, “Once I had a few points on the map—to triangulate the data, if you will—all sorts of interesting information came into focus. The guy sure tries to keep a low profile, but his girlfriends don’t. And he’s had a lot of those. They sure like taking pictures with him, too. Whatever his name is.”

Candy remembered how Sam dodged Erica’s request for a picture at the music show. “Well, that’s not so unusual.”

John rounded on her. “The name swapping, or the girl swapping?”

“Now you’re just being mean, John. I’m sure he’s met plenty of chickadees throughout his life. Like I don’t know that.” She didn’t know if she was defending Sam, or herself, but she knew her hands were shaking. “Look, I’m not his girlfriend.”

“Yeah? Good, because he’s dangerous, Candy.”

“Dangerous—don’t be so dramatic.”

“He’s got a rap sheet that you can check yourself.” John shrugged, moving away from her as Antonio returned, chatting with her father about hoses and belts. Candy looked at them, stricken, and John finally registered the anguish in her eyes. He sighed and grabbed her hand to pull her outside into privacy. “I’m only telling you this because I care about you.”

“I
will
ask him,” she said, yanking her hand out of his. She didn’t believe a word.

“Do. Just be sure to use his real name. You know, the one he was born with?”

John was baiting her, and he knew she couldn’t resist. She tried to, she really did. “Okay. What is it?”