You Don't Know Me (11 page)

He shook the thought away. But he’d keep an eye on the guy, just in case.

Maybe whatever was bothering Annalise would shake loose along the way.

“So are you going to quit the race? Let Seb Brewster beat you?” John ran up beside him.

Nathan broke free of the forest, emerging onto the road, and set a quick pace, John huffing behind him.

If there was anything running taught him, it was endurance. No, he wasn’t going down yet.

Frank could play uncle with very little effort. The kind of uncle who showed up with fabulous Christmas gifts, like fishing poles and bowie knives and a pet Labrador retriever.

This house could use a Lab. A black one, named Winifred.

He’d always liked the name Winifred. It meant “blessed reconciliation” or “peace.” And he wanted to bring peace to the war between Annalise and him.

Even from the early days, Frank had been a guy who liked names. And since he was in the business of helping people reinvent themselves, he took the name game seriously.

Like he had with
Annalise
. It meant “the grace of God.” Receiving something undeserved. Not that Annalise didn’t deserve starting over in Deep Haven. She had testified, lost a friend, had to surrender her entire family for justice. But perhaps the very fact that a person could start over, reinvent herself, had grace attached to it.

If Frank were to start over, it might be here in Deep Haven. Maybe in this very house, surrounded by Annalise’s family. They seemed to like him.

All except Annalise, who looked like she might be ready to take an ax to his head in the middle of the night. Not that he blamed her.

Her expression last night at the dance, when he’d delivered his ultimatum, had dredged up all the old nightmares. How he’d wanted to take back his words, to tell her that she didn’t have to uproot her entire life and remake it somewhere else.

But he had no choice. He’d been there before. Seen the grisly end of the terrible decision to stay and fight.

People didn’t fight Luis Garcia. They ran from him. And Frank
had roughly four more days to keep Annalise safe while she figured that out.

“Your move, Uncle Frank. Be ready to pay up.”

Oh, her son Henry had her sass. He’d already wiped Frank out of Marvin Gardens and Ventnor and Atlantic Avenues, and now owned everything from St. Charles Place to Pennsylvania Avenue, not to mention being a railroad magnate. Frank’s low-rent properties between Go and Jail would fall next. His only hope was to hang on to Boardwalk and Park Place.

Or maybe . . . Frank glanced at the clock. Yes, maybe they’d have to call the game on account of concession duty at the volleyball tournament.

The rest of the afternoon had moved too quickly, despite being trapped in Annalise’s home. Despite the fact that she spent the last hour, after she’d emerged from her room, glaring at him.

He rolled the dice. Moved his Scottie dog to the community chest. Picked up a card. “Are you sure we can’t play Clue? I’m much better at Clue.”

“Read the card, Uncle Frank.”

He cupped his hand over the card. “It says you have to give me all your income from this year. And all your properties.”

“It does not!” Henry reached to swipe the card, but Frank yanked it out of his reach, holding it above his head. “Let me see it!”

Frank got up, danced away from the table, stiff-arming the kid and laughing. “Yes, it says all your money and all your properties, and—oh, wait, I get two hotels, too.”

Henry was jumping now, and Frank turned his back, tucking the card into his pocket.

“That’s cheating!”

Frank turned, grinning at him. The kid resembled Taylor, his
grandson, that year before Margaret died. The year his daughter, Caroline, had come home with the twelve-year-old for Thanksgiving. Frank had played Risk and enough games of Scrabble to make his eyes bleed. Taylor had been the perfect age to not demand anything but a competitor, and Frank could do that. He could thrive on outwitting his opponent, on making sure he won.

As long as he didn’t have to have some sort of deep, soul-baring conversation. And as long as the kid stayed out of trouble.

But Taylor hadn’t. Not with Caroline spending months at a time nursing her mother, commuting from California to Portland. It took a few more years, but Taylor found the wrong crowd, got busted for possession, and of course Caroline looked right at Frank.

He couldn’t bear it, so he stopped coming around. Just like he’d stayed away after Margaret’s diagnosis. He couldn’t watch his wife suffer. It just felt easier to treat his family like he did the witnesses in his job. Don’t get attached, because that way, a guy could get hurt.

Really hurt.

Yes, Frank could play this game and be Henry’s fake uncle until the end of time. As long as he didn’t really care.

But he had to admit, it felt good—fake as it was—to be a part of something, a family. To listen to Helen humming in the kitchen, to smell the cinnamon and nutmeg from whatever delicious apple dessert she concocted.

How convenient that she lived across the street. And that she’d been outside this morning, cleaning up her apple tree—a ready excuse for him to go out and keep an eye on Annalise and Nathan as they tromped through the neighborhood stumping for votes.

He was ready to jump in his rental car when he saw them disappear down the street, headed for town. He’d followed them,
but they’d disappeared. By the time he returned to the house, he spotted them on their way home, Annalise with her hands balled in her pockets, looking a little like she had that day he busted her out of lockup with the offer to help her get off the streets.

Yes, her husband had made her mad—Frank deduced that much from the way she folded her arms across her chest and wouldn’t look at him as they marched home.

Nathan had stormed out of the house an hour later in his running gear. Frank tried not to hear the pleading in Annalise’s voice as she asked him to attend the game.
We’re a family; we have to stick together.

He hoped Nathan took her words to heart.

“Fine. Okay. The card actually says . . .” He pulled it out. “State tax of 10 percent. I think you’re going to wipe me out, kid.”

Henry grinned, sat down, and held out his hand. “Hand it over to the bank.”

Frank rolled the dice, then peeled off the right amount of hundreds while Helen chuckled from the kitchen.

“He’ll grow up to be a Wall Street tycoon,” Frank said to her.

“No, I’m staying in Deep Haven forever,” Henry said, piling the money in the bank. “I’m going to be mayor like my dad.”

Hmm.

“Then running the concession stand will give you good practice,” Annalise said, breezing down the hallway. She wore a blue sweatshirt emblazoned with
Husky Volleyball Conference Champs
, and volleyball earrings dangled from her ears. She didn’t look at Frank as she kissed Helen. “See you at the game.”

“Mom, I want to finish Monopoly.”

“He’ll find a way to win, Henry. Better to quit now while you’re ahead.”

Hey, now.
Frank frowned, then caught her arm as she walked by. “You can’t go up there by yourself. I’ll be right behind you.”

Annalise jerked away and rubbed her wrist. “I’m selling hot dogs and Snickers bars, Frank. I’m in no danger.”

He shot a glance toward the kitchen. Helen had disappeared behind the counter, rummaging through pots and pans.

“Still—”

“Can you leave me alone for one hour?” Annalise hissed.

Uh, no. But she was probably right. And she would be surrounded by people.

Although—

“Frank, can you get that popcorn popper down for me?” Helen was pointing to a stovetop popper on the top shelf of the cupboard. She glanced at Annalise. “You moved it.”

“You’re the only one who uses it, Helen. No one makes popcorn like you.”

“Make us peanut butter popcorn!” Henry said as he pulled on his skater shoes by the door. He stood and grabbed his jacket.

“Only for you, Henry.” Helen winked at him. “But Frank will have to help me. I can’t stir and pour at the same time.”

Annalise raised an eyebrow. “Behave yourself.”

He had no words for that. “One hour. Don’t go anywhere else.”

She rolled her eyes. “Where do I have to go? C’mon, Henry.” She grabbed her keys from the hook by the door and stepped into the garage, closing the door behind her.

Frank barely restrained himself from running after her, his best judgment screaming at him. But she was right.

Hopefully.

Either he could follow her out and raise questions or . . . Or
stay here with Helen. Maybe convince her that he could be trusted. So when he suggested that she leave with Annalise . . .

He pulled down the popper. “How do you make peanut butter popcorn?”

“It’s popcorn with a peanut butter–honey sauce poured over it. But the sauce cools quickly, so you need two people—one to pour, one to stir. It’s a little like caramel popcorn but sweeter.” She set the popper on the stove. It had a handle like an old-fashioned ice cream churner.

Helen lit the stove, then took oil from the cupboard and poured some into the pot. “I started making popcorn for Nathan when he was little. He and I would sit and watch movies together on Friday night. Our town doesn’t have a theater, so it was the best we could do. We did it all the way through . . . Well, it was what held me together during my cancer treatments.”

Frank stilled at her words. Tried not to be jerky as she handed him oven mitts and said, “You get to turn the handle.”

She dropped a couple kernels of popcorn into the oil and closed the lid, seemingly oblivious to the way he had stopped breathing as she measured out a half cup of unpopped kernels into a glass. “It was such terrible timing for Nathan. He had a partial cross-country running scholarship from Winona State and wanted to become a lawyer. Instead, he turned it down to stay here and take care of me. He saved my life by donating his blood marrow. Then he drove me back and forth to Duluth for my treatments, made sure I ate, took care of paying the bills. That’s when he got his real estate license and discovered he had a knack for it.”

The kernels popped and she opened the lid, pouring in more kernels. “Stir.”

Frank obeyed, turning the handle.

“He met Annalise about a year after I went into remission. She’d only just moved into town, was living at the old Sjoderberg place on Fifth Avenue . . .”

Frank remembered it well. A yellow bungalow with black shutters, a rose garden in front. The agency had purchased it under an assumed name, knowing that someday they’d need it.

“She was looking for a church and came in the front doors one Sunday. Nathan was greeting.”

Frank had told her to do that. To go to church. He’d meant it as a way to change her life, to establish her new identity.

Apparently it worked.

“Nathan seemed happy enough. He’s never mentioned wanting to leave.” The popcorn began to burst in the pan. “I wonder sometimes, though, how his life might have been different if I hadn’t gotten sick.” She retrieved a jar of peanut butter from the pantry. “Or if I hadn’t told him.”

The popcorn burst like gunfire in the pot. Frank stirred with fury. “Is there somewhere to pour this?”

Helen slapped a giant plastic bowl on the counter.

He took the popcorn off the heat and dumped it in. It sizzled and glistened.

“Now the sauce.”

But instead he put the popper back on the stove and grabbed Helen’s wrist through his pot-holder hands. “You did the right thing.”

She glanced at him.

“Would it have been better if he’d just come home one weekend and discovered that you were dying? That he’d missed his chance to fix anything, make things right, say the words he needed to say? Maybe by then you would have been too far gone for him to make amends or become the man he needed to be.”

She swallowed, frowned at him.

He looked away. “My wife didn’t tell me she had cancer until she was in stage IV. Didn’t want me to worry about her.”

Sometimes, the old anger could tighten his chest.

He nearly jumped when Helen put her hand on his, over the oven mitt. Her voice softened so much it hurt. “I’m sorry about your wife, Frank. But if she decided not to tell you, you can’t blame yourself.”

Oh, but he could. He’d been afraid of her pain—or maybe his pain. He’d spent all his time fighting emotions; it had terrified him how much losing Margaret tore at him. “I don’t know, Helen. I shut her out, so afraid of losing her. I lost her before the cancer ever took her.”

But if he’d allowed himself into the pain, he might not have lost her with so much regret that he couldn’t look at Caroline. Couldn’t call her. Couldn’t write to Taylor in jail.

“I do blame myself.”

He hadn’t realized he’d said that out loud until he felt Helen’s hand on his cheek. Until she met his eyes with so much compassion that it burned inside him. Until she rose up and kissed him softly on the cheek.

“You’re a good man, Frank Harrison. Your wife was lucky to have you. And Annalise is lucky to have you.” She patted his cheek again. “Now, if you’ll hand me the honey, we’ll make some treats for the grandkids.”