Chapter 8

“Well, this is it.” I threw open the door of my little purple house and nodded Richard inside. “It’s not much but…”

“I like it,” he said. He stepped inside the cramped living room and raised his head. It almost looked like he was sniffing the air. Strange memories of myself doing the exact same thing as a child tried to surface, and I pushed them down. That was silly—wasn’t it?

“Um, glad it meets with your approval,” I said, smiling up at him.

“Charles lives here with you?” he asked as I locked the door behind him.

I shook my head. “Heaven forbid. He has a mansion out on Bayshore in South Tampa—a much nicer part of town than this. Your little sister is marrying old money.” I tried to make a joke about it despite the fight Charles and I had just had.

“But he was here tonight.” Richard sniffed the air again.

“Well, yes…right before I got the phone call from Detective Marks telling me to come down to the station.”

He suddenly seemed to realize he was behaving oddly. “Look, I’m sorry about causing a fight between you two.” He shrugged apologetically. “I mean, I have a hotel room I can stay in…”

“No,” I said at once. “No, I want you here. With me.” I didn’t stop to think why this should be so important, I only knew I wanted him near. “I mean,” I tried to smile, “we haven’t seen each other in so long. Now that I’ve found you again, I guess I just don’t want to let you out of my sight.”

“I feel exactly the same way.” He turned and put his arms around me, hugging me tight against him. I hugged him back, feeling that same quickening of my pulse I had when he touched me at the PD. I told myself I was just excited to finally have him near again after so many years.

At last, Richard pulled back and looked down at me. “Sorry, I know I’ve been hanging all over you tonight.”

“That’s okay.” I smiled up at him. “I don’t mind.”

“I guess I just want to keep touching you—it’s like if I let you get away for a second you’ll vanish into thin air.” He grinned sheepishly. “Stupid, huh?”

“Not stupid at all,” I said seriously. “We’re both probably just having some separation anxiety. I mean, I remember the day Mom took me away from you like it was yesterday.”

“Yeah.” His eyes looked haunted. “Me too. I ran all over the house but she’d taken all your things. I remember pressing my face against your pillow, breathing in the scent of your hair and praying you’d come back to me…”

“Oh, Richard…” I disengaged from the hug, feeling like I was going to cry. I’d had enough drama in my life for one night, I needed to get control of myself. “How’s Dad?” I asked, to change the subject. “Are you two still close?”

“He’s…Rachel, I’m sorry but he’s dead.” Richard sank onto the couch and I sat beside him, feeling like I’d been punched in the gut.

“When…when did he die?” I managed to ask. So much for no more drama.

“A few years after Mom took you away,” Richard’s voice was low and troubled. “He, uh…he committed suicide.”

“~No~.” I put a hand over my mouth, my eyes wide.

He nodded. “I’m afraid so. He just, well… he couldn’t live without her.”

“Couldn’t he have found someone else? Someone new?” I still couldn’t believe it. My father, the strong, black-haired man with the deep voice and the warm scent of aftershave and cigars…my father was dead. Dead so many years and I had never known it until now.

“There was no one else for him but her. Just like there’s no one else…” He shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll spare you the trauma and let you know that I know Mom’s gone too.”

“She passed away almost two years ago,” I said dully. “Some kind of fast-acting cancer. It was all through her almost before we knew anything was wrong. She got the diagnosis and a month later…” I shook my head.

Richard looked troubled. “That’s fast, all right. I’m sorry, Rache.”

“It’s okay.” I took a deep breath. “It wasn’t long after that I met Charles. He was very understanding about the whole thing.” I twisted the huge diamond ring on my finger, wondering what was going to happen between me and Charles after tonight. We’d never had such an explosive argument before.

Richard seemed to read the thoughts on my face. “Look, I can go,” he said, half-rising.

I grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down. “Don’t you dare. Charles was just being petty and jealous. He’ll get over it or…”

“Or what?” he asked.

“Or he won’t.” I shrugged and changed the subject. “So anyway, after Dad died—you couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen. Where did you go?”

“Well, there were no more of our kind around to take me in--”

“~Our~ kind?” I interrupted him.

“Yes, our kind. The Amon-kai.” He looked at me closely. “You ~do~ know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

I frowned. “Mostly I remember that Dad used to talk about it a lot. I always thought it was just his way of explaining that we were different.”

“So…Mom never told you anything? She never passed down the teachings before she died?” Richard looked greatly upset.

“Teachings?” I was disturbed by the oddly cultish word. “No, she never said anything about any teachings. I, uh, think she wanted to forget the past as much as she could. She forbade me to talk about you and Dad, wouldn’t let me refer to our old life. It was like she just wanted a fresh start.”

He laughed harshly. “A fresh start? Damn, this is going to be harder than I thought.”

I looked at him sharply. “What are you talking about? What’s going to be harder than you thought?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s really complicated. Maybe... maybe we should leave it for later. It’s just... I guess I assumed you’d know why I was looking for you.”

“Because we’re family and we missed each other,” I said immediately. “You’re my brother and I love you. And don’t remind me again that we’re not really related by blood. That doesn’t matter to me—doesn’t change how I feel about you at all.”

He smiled wearily. “I love you too. More than I can say.”

We were definitely in danger of having another mushy emotional moment. I thought he was going to hug me again and my heart started pounding in my chest. But instead, he stood and began pacing the small area of my living room, much as Charles had been doing earlier that evening. He still looked upset.

“I think we got off the subject somehow,” I said, wanting to get the conversation back on track. “What happened to you after Dad died?”

He shrugged. “I bounced around from foster home to foster home.”

“That’s terrible,” I said. “If only child services could have located Mom—“

“They did.” He stopped pacing to look at me. “She... told them to place me elsewhere.”

“What?” I could scarcely believe it. “You’re kidding me! I just don’t understand why she--”

“To keep us apart.” He looked at me for a long moment and then picked up the tarnished silver frame with his graduation picture in it. “I see she got this, anyway,” he murmured. “The best I could do was send it to her last known address and hope they forwarded it.”

“Richard, I’m so sorry.” I felt my eyes filling up with tears for the umpteenth time that night. “If only I had known, maybe I could have talked to her. I never understood why she took me away in the first place. I never understood why she wouldn’t let me talk about you, ask about you…”

“Of course you didn’t.” He crossed the room swiftly to where I was sitting and sank to the floor on one knee in front of me. He cupped my cheek in one large warm hand, brushing away my tears with his thumb. “You were only seven, Rachel. We were kids—there was nothing we could do.”

“But... but I should’ve been trying to find you.” I was suddenly consumed by guilt. “Mom’s been dead for almost two years—there was no one to stop me. Even before she passed I should have been looking. I just…” I looked at him. “I guess I waited for you for so long, hoping that you’d find me. And after a while it began to seem like a dream—like a fairy tale that could never come true no matter how much I wished. I... I think I made myself forget you as much as I could because it hurt too much to hope any more.”

“Oh, Rachel,” he whispered. “We’re together now—that’s all that matters.”

“You’re right.” I stood up abruptly, brushing the wrinkles out of my skirt, trying to get control of myself. “I swear I haven’t cried so much since the night Mom died. I’m sorry I can’t seem to shut off the waterworks.”

He sighed and stood up. “That’s okay. It’s been a really long day and I think I heard you telling the detective you had to be in court tomorrow?”

“Well, yeah. Yes, I do.” I looked at him quizzically, wondering how he could have heard my soft conversation with Genevieve through the thick, supposedly soundproofed interrogation room door. “But how did you hear…?”

“Eyes that pierce the night. Ears that can hear the snow fall. A nose that can scent the wind’s least turning. The speed of the cheetah, the strength of the bull. By these things shall you know your brethren, the Amon-kai.” He sounded like he was quoting from some obscure biblical text.

“Richard,” I said, shaking my head. “I... I don’t know what you’re talking about. And frankly, you’re beginning to scare me a little bit.”

“I’m sorry.” He looked abashed. “That wasn’t my intention. I was just... trying to jog your memory.”

“Well,” I said briskly, “we’ll have lots of time to talk about the past. But for right now I think it’s time to settle down for the night. I’m beat and I bet you are too.”

He looked suddenly weary beyond words. “You’re right, Rache, I could really use some sleep.”

“Let’s see,” I said, looking around to see where I could put him. “I think the best thing would be if you took the bedroom and I can sleep on the couch.”

“No way,” he said instantly. “I’m not going to kick you out of your own bedroom. ~I’ll~ take the couch.”

“You can’t,” I protested, looking at the short lumpy love seat. “You’re much too tall—you won’t fit. Look, I have an idea. Come with me.” I led him through the tiny but functional kitchen and into my bedroom which was located at the back of the house.

He stopped in the doorway again, lifting his head and sniffing as he had when he entered the house earlier. “Charles hasn’t been in here,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Well... no,” I said. It was hard enough to keep my amorous fiancé in line when he wasn’t in view of an inviting bed, so I made sure to stay out of the bedroom whenever he came over.

Richard looked vastly relieved. “Well that’s good anyway,” he said. “I’m sorry-- you were saying you had an idea?”

“Uh, yeah.” I decided to pass over his odd statements. We were both tired and it was late. “I know it’s here somewhere,” I muttered, going to my small walk-in closet and beginning to dig.

“What are you looking for?” Richard squeezed in beside me to help.

“I have this... oof... rollaway cot,” I said, shifting things out of the way to get to the back of the closet. “I used it that last month when Mom was so sick. I moved her into the house with me and we had a Hospice nurse... Here it is.” I dragged at the heavy old iron cot, trying to budge it past the shoes and suitcases that littered the bottom of my closet.

“Let me.” Richard reached past me. Grasping the iron frame of the cot with one hand, he lifted it easily out of the closet.

“Wow.” I sat back on my heels, staring at him. “I guess I forgot, but you were always strong as a kid too, weren’t you?” I was a little afraid he might start quoting from the ‘teachings’ again but he didn’t.

“I guess so. Where do you want this?” He patted the iron cot which looked like a fat gray metal sandwich turned on its side.

“Well, I don’t really have a guest room,” I said. “But, I thought if you don’t mind roughing it a little, we could set it up in the Florida room.”

“The what?”

“It’s what the real estate agents call a sun room down here,” I explained. “Basically it’s a closed-in back porch with lots of windows. I don’t really use mine for much of anything and it’s not air conditioned but seeing that it’s a cool night…” I shrugged.

“It sounds great.” Richard lifted the cot one-handed again, like someone carrying an oversized suitcase. “Where is it?”

“Right through there.” I nodded at the sliding glass doors at one end of my bedroom that led out to the porch. The Florida room was located off of the living room in most houses, but whoever had designed my little bungalow had obviously decided to flout convention.

“Great.” Richard led the way onto the small porch and unfolded the cot. “This is perfect for tonight,” he said. “And if you want, I can go back to the hotel tomorrow.”

“No, no,” I said hastily. “You can go back, but only to get your things.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.” He sighed and sat down on the cot which was already made up with sheets and a thin blanket. “I’ll take a cab tomorrow to pick up my suitcases and get my rental car. But look, the minute you want me out, just say so. I didn’t come here to disrupt your life.”

“You’re not,” I protested. “I want you here, Richard. Really.”

He smiled tiredly. “Good, I want to be here. Look, it’s been kind of a long night. Do you mind if I take a shower?”

“Not at all. The bathroom’s through there.” I pointed through my bedroom to the open door of my bathroom. “Towels on the rack, everything else in the shower. Help yourself.”

“Thanks.” He disappeared into the bathroom and after a minute I heard the shower running.

I got into a comfortable sleep shirt and climbed into bed. My room was dark, lit by the diffuse light from the full moon behind the curtains and the soft yellow glow coming from under the bathroom door. Despite the dim light, I could see every detail of the room clearly—I’ve always had excellent night vision. When I was younger I had thought it was because I was special—that I was ~Amon-kai~, as Richard had called it.

I remembered now how my father had made up that story about us being able to see in the dark, probably as a way to explain our slanting pale green eyes and make us feel better for being different from the rest of the kids. I didn’t know where Richard was getting all this stuff about the ‘teachings’—maybe he’d gotten some weird ideas from my father before he died. Or maybe it was a fantasy that he had built into a personal reality while he was in all those foster homes over the years. I knew from experience that kids can make themselves believe almost anything to lessen the pain of a bad situation.

Just thinking of Richard spending so much of his younger life being moved from home to home made me both hurt and angry. My mother had been a hard woman, difficult to get along with in many ways, but I had never suspected her of being so deliberately cruel as to refuse to take her adopted son back when my father died.

Mom had been dead almost two years now. I thought about it as I stared at the shadowy corners of my ceiling. That coming Friday it would be two years exactly. And with her dying breath she had warned me never to see my brother again. I hadn’t told Richard that because I was pretty sure he’d had enough pain and rejection from our mother to last him a lifetime.

I flipped my pillow to the cool side and rolled over in bed restlessly. Why had my mother been so set against Richard and me ever seeing each other again? Why had she taken me away and spent most of the rest of her life running, moving us from place to place and covering our tracks to keep my adopted brother or my father from ever finding us?

My musings were interrupted when Richard emerged from the bathroom in a puff of steam. A towel was draped around his lean hips and stray drops of water were beaded on his muscular torso. His arms, I noticed, were also heavily muscled, as though he worked out on a regular basis, and his skin was still the same natural dark tan it had always been. His dark hair was damp and rumpled as though he’d been drying it with a towel, and he was carrying his bundle of clothes under one arm. I wondered if he was planning on sleeping in the nude and hoped that my nosy elderly neighbors didn’t decide to come next door and have a look at my night-blooming jasmine bushes around my Florida room as they sometimes did. They would certainly be getting an eyeful if they came tonight.

For a moment, he stood at the foot of my bed, outlined faintly by the dim light from the full moon outside. I felt like he was studying me, waiting for something. My heart was pounding, but I didn’t know why. He was a man now—not the boy I’d grown up with, the boy I had trusted and loved above everyone else in my young life. Had I been wrong to rely on that trust and invite him into my home?

“Good night, Rachel.” His voice was deep and gentle, carrying well in the dark room.

“Good night, Richard,” I said.

It was a long time before I got to sleep, and then I had the dream...