Thicker Than Water (15 page)

I look at the date on the postmark. It’s from eight years ago. I pick up another. It’s from nine years ago. Another is almost ten years old.

“Do you recognize the handwriting?” I ask.

Thomas shakes his head.

“So you don’t know if it’s your father’s?”

He laughs shortly, without any humor whatsoever. “My father left before I could read. I have no idea what his handwriting looks like.”

“We should call the police.”

He almost glares at me. “Why? To tell them we found a bunch of letters that are several years old? I bet that’ll crack the case.”

“These letters sound like they came from a stalker.” I glare back at him. “They could investigate whoever sent them.”

He picks up another envelope, and this time he looks at the return address. “Where the hell is Crisfield?”

“Maryland?”

He glances up. “Yeah. Do you know?”

“It’s south of here. It’s a small town. Right on the water.”

He picks up another letter and taps it with his fingers. “I don’t know what these mean.”

I open another and read the first line.

Wait. What? I frown and look at Thomas. “These were written by a kid.”

“What?”

“Well, a teenager. This says ‘I’m graduating from high school today.’”

He moves over to kneel beside me, and we read it together.

I don’t know what to say.

Thomas takes the letter out of my hands. He’s still staring at it. I’m not sure he’s breathing. He’s not making a sound.

I pick up the envelope. The postmark is from five years ago.

“He’s twenty-three,” I say. Ben’s age.

“What?” Thomas croaks.

“Look at the postmark. He’s twenty-three. If he was eighteen then.”

He holds the letter out. “Read that again. Please. Read that again, and tell me it says what I think it’s saying.”

I don’t need to read it again, but I take it from him. “You didn’t know?”

His breathing is shaky now. “No.”

“Is there any chance we’re misunderstanding this?”

He doesn’t move for a moment, then grabs another envelope in a flurry of activity. He pulls the letter free and reads it out loud. “ ‘I broke my leg today in football practice. It was my fault—I misread the call and I got tackled by the defensive lineman. I didn’t think about you the way I did when I was young and I got hurt. I didn’t think about you at all until the nurse in the ER said, ‘Your mom will be here soon.’ And then it hit me all at once how much I wished that was true.”

Thomas looks at me. He takes a long, shuddering breath. “I don’t think there’s any way we’re misunderstanding this.” He flips over the envelope and looks at the return address again. “Can we go there? Can you drive me?”

“Now? I don’t—”

“Please, Charlotte.” I’m ready to refuse, but then his eyes meet mine, and I’m ready to drive him to California if he asks. “
Please
.”

“I’ll drive you,” I say. “But it’s over an hour away, and I’d either have to leave you there or we’d have to turn right around and come back. If I don’t show up on time, my father or my brothers
will
come looking for me.”

I watch as he considers this information.

I bite at my lip. “I could tell them I have another sitting job tomorrow night. We could go then?”

He studies the envelope again. “Maybe that’s better.”

“I don’t think this is the kind of thing you want to rush into,” I say gently. “Maybe . . . maybe we
should
talk to the police—”

“No.” He pulls the letter out of my hands like I’m going to call nine-one-one right this very second. “No.” His breathing accelerates, and he sounds almost panicked. “You can’t tell your family. Not yet. Please.”

“Okay,” I say quietly. “I won’t.”

“Please, Charlotte.” He puts his hands on my arms and looks me straight in the eyes. “Please. I don’t know what they’ll do if they try to track him down. I know how they treated me, and I need—I need—”

“I won’t,” I assure him. “I won’t tell them. I promise.”

“And we can go?” he says. “Tomorrow night?”

I nod. My mom probably won’t bat an eye. “We can go.”

“Thank you,” he says softly. “Thank you for doing this.”

“A road trip to find a long lost brother? You don’t need to thank me.”

“A brother,” he repeats. His voice is hushed, almost reverent. “I have a brother.”

Then he picks up another letter. He reads it quickly.

“I don’t understand,” he says.

“What’s it say?”

He shakes his head. “Not the letter. I don’t understand . . . her.”

“Your mother?”

“I don’t understand why she kept this hidden.”

“Maybe there are things about your mother you don’t know.”

He picks up the first letter, the one that sounded vaguely threatening out of context. “Maybe.”

“Maybe there are things about your
brother
you don’t know.”

“We need to find out.” I pause. “Tomorrow.”

He nods. “Tomorrow.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A
fter Charlotte goes home, I climb into bed, but I don’t sleep at all.

My brain feels like someone has put a foot on the accelerator and won’t let go. My thoughts keep spinning in so many directions.

My body eventually gives up on me. I fall asleep reading the letters to my mother. The letters from my brother. To
our
mother.

When I wake up, I read them again.

I have a brother.

I have a
brother.

A brother.

I say the word in my head enough times that it starts to sound like a word I made up.

Brother brother brother brother brother.

I have a brother.

I also have fourteen hours to kill. It’s three o’clock in the morning.

Brother!

 

The second time I wake, it’s a more reasonable hour, and my thoughts are more orderly and less like the ravings of someone needing to be institutionalized. Sunlight streams through my windows, and Stan must be puttering around in the kitchen, because I hear dishes clinking together.

I slide the letters between my fingers again, reveling in the smoothness of the paper under my fingertips. My brother never mentions his name, and aside from the return address, there’s no identifying information anywhere. Never the name of a school or a restaurant or anything.

Never any reference to the people he lives with or why he’s there.

The thought hits me like a bucket of cold water. I sit up in bed, my thoughts racing again.

I do the math quickly in my head. My father left when I was five years old. That’s thirteen years ago. My brother—my brother!—would have been ten.

I rack my brain, trying to think. I remember my father. Not many memories but enough that I feel certain he lived with us. I remember being tucked into bed.

I don’t remember a brother.

And wouldn’t he mention a dad? His letters beg for the chance to see her. He didn’t write often—or if he did, she didn’t save them all—but he wrote often enough for me to get a sense of his longing. His loneliness. He missed her terribly, and even when he realized she wasn’t going to let him back into her life, he wasn’t a dick about it. He never says anything about a father, not about missing him, and not about Dad’s presence in his life.

Wait. Maybe we don’t have the same father.

That’s another bucket of water.

I wish I had a cell phone. Only one other person knows about these letters, and I have no way to talk to her.

I imagine telling Stan.

I then imagine him handcuffing me to a radiator while the cops investigate those letters, track down my brother, and put him through what I went through.

No. No way.

But maybe I can get my hands on a phone.

I put all the letters together and slide them between my mattress and the box spring. It’s not the best hiding place, but I don’t plan to leave them there for long. I don’t think Stan would search my room, but I don’t
not
think Stan would search my room either. He’s a cop. I’m still a murder suspect.

And I’m not an idiot.

They’ll be safe enough while I get a cup of coffee.

Stan glances up when I come out of my room. He’s by the stove, stirring eggs in a skillet. “You’re up early,” he says.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“I heard you in there banging around.”

That gets my attention. “Banging around?”

“Yeah.” He pauses. “Nightmares?”

“I don’t . . .” I frown. “I don’t think so.” The images I get during the daytime are bad enough. So far her murder hasn’t haunted my sleep. Maybe I should be counting my blessings.

Then again, I could probably do that on one hand.

“Well, I looked in on you. Certainly seemed restless.”

“You don’t need to look in on me, Stan.” Irritation leaks into my voice before I’m ready for it. I’m unsettled at the thought of Stan coming into my room when I’m asleep. I don’t know why—it’s not like I’m any less vulnerable when he’s out in the hallway. Maybe it’s a residual suspicion after Mom’s death. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s a cop, and I’m hiding a pretty big secret.

He pushes the eggs around the pan. “I know I don’t
need
to.” He pauses. His voice hasn’t changed, but I can tell he’s picked up on my attitude. “You doing all right, Tom?”

I have a brother.
It takes everything I have not to shout it at him. Throw furniture. Run out the door and track the guy down on foot. “I’m great.”

He turns and looks at me. “Great?”

This conversation isn’t going anywhere I want it to. “I need my phone back.”

He shakes his head. “It’s going to be a while. Just like your mother’s car.”

I don’t know what they’re still doing with her car. Investigating each individual fabric fiber? There was no evidence her car was ever touched.

I fidget for a moment, wondering how this next question is going to go over. Hating that I have to ask it. “Could I borrow yours?”

“Sure, the phone is right there.”

Like I would do anything important on a cop’s phone. “I meant your car.”

“Why?”

“So I can go get a new phone.”

“Why do you need a phone so badly all of a sudden?”

“It’s not
all of a sudden
.”

I sound surly, but it matches my mood. He turns, looking startled at the attitude.

“I don’t want to be grilled about it,” I say. “If you don’t want to let me borrow your car, fine. But I’ve been trapped here for weeks. The only place I can go is the library. I’ve already been thrown out of the grocery store, and the Dunkin’ Donuts is practically a landing zone for cops. I’m stuck here all day long, and I have no one to talk to and nothing to do. If everyone in town hates me,
fine
. But I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not in jail yet, and I’m sick of being treated like I am.”

Stan raises an eyebrow, then turns back to the stove and resumes stirring his eggs. He doesn’t say a word.

After a long moment, I’m convinced he’s not going to say anything.

“Whatever,” I finally say. I don’t wait for coffee. I just walk out the back door and drop into a chair on the porch.

I would have kept walking, but I’m still in the threadbare sweats and T-shirt that I wore to bed.

Even this early, the heat climbs on my back and wraps itself around my shoulders. I could swim through this humidity. The backyard smells like cut grass, and I wonder if Stan has already been out on his mower. It looks like it. Mom would be disappointed that I didn’t offer to do it first.

I should be disappointed in myself, but I’m not. I can’t shake this surly, trapped feeling. I have places I need to go and no way to get there. Stan can mow his own fucking lawn.

Crickets kick up a racket in the woods around the house. I expected Stan to come after me, but he doesn’t. It takes a few minutes, but my anger begins to fade. Anger won’t gain me anything.

My thoughts are still tangled up with the mystery of my brother. He played football—does that mean he’s a jock? I’ll throw a ball around for fun with anyone who asks, but I’m not big on organized sports. I barely know who played in the Super Bowl. Will we even get along?

He’s well-spoken, too. Even in the earlier letters, when he was young, he sounds composed. A little desperate and emotional, but he was a kid. I think back to myself at ten, eleven, twelve, the years when Mom began to loosen up and give me a little freedom.

If she had another son, why didn’t she want to see him?

Why did she keep him a secret from me?

She read the letters. They were open before I read them and worn enough that I could tell they’d been read more than once.

When I hurt myself, she bandaged my scrapes or put ice on my bruises. She sang songs to me and hung my early artwork on the refrigerator. She took me for ice cream and left me alone when I needed solitude. She took her friends out to lunch when they were upset. She made soup for the elderly woman who lived downstairs from us. Mom was kind. She was good.

We didn’t always get along, but she
loved
me. I know she did.

Why didn’t she love him?

The back door opens, and Stan comes out on the porch. My eyes refuse to leave the tree line. I don’t say anything to him.

He sits down at the table. “I’m not used to having a kid here, Tom.”

I bristle at the word
kid,
but I don’t want to pick a fight over semantics.

“I forgot that you’re not a puppy,” he adds.

I look at him, incredulous. “A
puppy
?”

“I didn’t consider you being stuck here.” He sounds abashed. “You don’t say much. You walk to the library. I thought . . . it didn’t occur to me.”

Oh.

“You can’t take the car,” he says.

I scowl. Of course not.

“It’s a police department vehicle,” he continues. “That’s just policy.” He pauses. “If you want to go get a phone, I can drive you.”

My eyes flick up. The offer makes me feel like I’m twelve, but Stan sounds genuinely contrite.

“Thanks,” I say.

“We can go in an hour or so if that works for you. Give me a chance to get a shower.”

“I’ll be ready.”

Stan takes less than an hour. He smells like aftershave, and I want to ask if he expects me to put out later, but I don’t think that will go over well. The last time I rode in a car, it was a trip home from the police station, and it doesn’t feel any less awkward now.

We drive in complete silence for a while. Stan wasn’t kidding when he said he forgot that I wasn’t a puppy. I’m tempted to hang my head out the window to see if he gets the point.

Eventually, he clears his throat. “Did you move your mother’s things?”

My heart stutters, but I don’t let it show. “No.”

“It looked like someone cut her boxes open and then taped them back up.”

“When?”

“I just noticed when I was pulling out of the garage.”

I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say. I want to lie, but I don’t want to put him on the track of investigating something that will only lead back to me. I wasn’t precise about re-taping the boxes, but they were just old boxes that I’d taken from Best Buy. It’s not like Mom’s packing tape was the first to ever touch the cardboard.

It never occurred to me that Stan would notice.

He glances my way. “Want to try a different answer?”

His voice is mild, and I can’t tell if he’s angry or not.

“I’m just looking for anything that could help,” I finally say.

“What did you find?”

A brother.
“A lot of old receipts and pocket lint.”

For a while, I think he’s going to accept that, but then he says, “You could have asked me to help you.”

“I didn’t want you to think I was crazy.”

“You’re not crazy, Tom.” He pats me on the shoulder. “I want to know who did it, too.”

The physical contact throws me. It’s so . . . accepting. I almost spill everything, just to have someone to talk to.

Then my eyes fall on his radio, the strobe lights mounted on the dash of his unmarked car. I remember the way they dragged me out of the house to be interrogated. I remember the altercation at the funeral.

I keep my mouth shut.

We have to drive for a half hour, and when we get there, the mall is packed. I’d thought we would go to some stand-alone wireless store close to home, but Stan said this echoing marble-and-brick monstrosity was all we had locally. The whole place looks dated and depressed. The food court offers restaurants that no one has ever heard of, and my feet stick to the tile floor very slightly with each step.

I hate this place. I miss the city.

We’re closer to Salisbury University here, so the shops are crowded with college kids looking to kill time for the weekend. The wireless store has a line of people waiting for a representative.

I sigh and put myself at the end of it.

Stan stands close to me. “I don’t mean to pry, but . . . do you have money for this, Tom?”

“I don’t need money. I was planning to wait until the sales guy was distracted, then run.”

He gives me a look.

“I have money,” I say, and I do. Not a lot, but I can afford a phone on what I’m making at the library.

“Are you sure? Because I can help you out if you need it.”

I blink at him, surprised. “I’m all right.”

He nods, then claps me on the shoulder again. “Good. Good for you.” A pause. “I’m going to get a soda across the way while we’re waiting. Do you want anything?”

“I’m good.”

Then he’s gone, and I’m left in this line of harried people who all look pissed off that we’re here. At least we’re far enough from Garretts Mill that no one seems to recognize me. I wore my ball cap just in case, but there are enough people here who are my age that I won’t stand out. Somewhere on the other side of the store, a child is wailing. The woman behind me keeps making this
tsk-
ing huffing sound, as if that’s going to make the store process things more quickly.

Some little girls dart between customers, playing a game that seems to be a combination of hide-and-seek and tag. Their mother is sitting on one of the few chairs in the store, breastfeeding a baby. There’s a blanket over her shoulder, but it’s pretty obvious. She calls out to the girls every now and again, asking them to settle down before their father gets here, but they obviously don’t give a crap.

They begin weaving among the people in the line, sliding between people as if they don’t have the slightest hesitation about getting up close and personal with strangers.
Tsk-
huff behind me does it louder. The man in front of me sighs and clears his throat significantly. I ignore them all and remind myself to always wear a condom.