Chapter 2 #2
“That’s a nice tool.” It was the least antagonistic thing Callum had said so far. He peered down at the now-firm tire, not at my face.
“Works well. The first time I was late to a meeting with my captain for a flat tire, I went out and invested.”
“Bet.”
“A couple hundred bucks, though.”
“Yeah? Well shit, no way.”
“Aren’t you a pro player?”
“Not in the millionaires’ league. Yet. Money’s still tight.”
“Well, your grandfather seems to think you’ll be in the NAPH real soon.”
That drew a faint smile from Callum. “He’s always been my biggest fan.” He blinked and his expression closed down. “Anyhow, thanks, but I got it from here. You probably have to head home.”
“Are you coming to the wake?”
“No. No offense. Just, I didn’t know your stepmom well. Grandpa will, though.”
“Okay.” I backed up a couple of steps, reluctant to end the conversation. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Maybe.” He turned back towards the car as if I was dismissed.
Grumpy bastard. What did a guy like that with a pro career and no responsibilities and everything going smoothly have to be pissed about? Not like his whole life just got rearranged in a week.
But I wasn’t going to talk to the back of his head. If he didn’t want my help, fine.
I swung up into my truck and headed out of the lot, although I couldn’t resist a look in my rearview before turning onto the road.
Callum was bent over his phone. Either he got a call, or he was online looking up “How to change a tire.” I knew which bet I was taking, but I left him to his self-sufficiency and drove away.
The drive from the cemetery to the house wasn’t nearly long enough. I parked at the curb down the block and walked back to where the driveway was full of unfamiliar cars. Several were rentals from Krystal’s family.
On the front walk, I stopped to look at the house— once my father’s, then Krystal’s, and now, due to the fact that she’d never updated her will from her and Dad’s matching ones, half mine and half Josiah’s.
There were a lot of memories for me in that place, some good, especially before my mother got tired of Dad and left, and some bad.
We’d moved here when I was a kid, when Dad requested a transfer from Toronto to Vancouver to take care of Grandma.
I’d gone from an apartment in February snow and ice to this neat house with its garden already emerging months early, and an old woman happy to have family around her.
Grandma passed just three years later, but we stayed here, even the year when Dad was deployed overseas.
This three-story wooden home was now in need of painting, and the gardens were down to grass and bushes from the riot of colour of Grandma’s day, but I still felt a little lift at the thought of turning it back into the safe-haven it’d once been for me.
Walking in the door was anything but safe-haven at that moment, though.
Krystal’s oldest cousin spotted me first and grabbed my arm.
“Where have you been?” She waved at the dozen friends and neighbours standing around the living room, drinking from paper cups and speaking in hushed tones.
“We’ve had to entertain all these people without you.
Thoughtless.” She gave me a push toward the kitchen.
“Go bring out some more food and then clear up the empty cups.”
Krystal’s mother was ensconced in the wingback chair that had been Dad’s, accepting condolences from a couple I didn’t recognize, perhaps colleagues of Krystal’s from the office where she’d worked. Mrs. Thompson glanced my way, frowned, then went back to her conversation.
There was no point in arguing. The Ontario contingent had taken over the house the last three days, and I was deeply outnumbered.
I scooped empty paper cups and plates off the sideboard and end tables, carried them to the kitchen trash, and filled in the gaps in the food laid out on the kitchen table.
Krystal’s mother had ordered finger foods, and the small sandwiches looked edible, but I had no appetite.
Krystal’s sister bustled in a moment later. “Oh, there you are. Go find Josiah and fetch him down. It’s very rude, him running off like that.”
“Running off where?”
“To his room, I assume. He vanished as soon as we got home, and his door is locked. I don’t hold with giving children locks on their doors. I understand that he’s sad— we’re all devastated losing Krystal so young— but that doesn’t excuse bad manners.”
“I’ll talk to him,” I said, partly for the excuse to avoid the wake a bit longer. “But if he doesn’t want to come down, he doesn’t have to. He’s twelve and his mother just died—”
“And my sister. We’re all upset.”
“—and,” I continued, “it’s his call what he’s comfortable with. You don’t want a preteen losing his shit in the middle of the living room.” That was unfair to Josiah, but might make an impression.
“Well, if he can’t control himself, maybe he’s better up there. Krystal was never good at discipline.”
I swallowed that down, and said, “I’ll go talk to Josiah. If anyone’s looking for me, let them know.”
The hardwood stairs to the second floor made their familiar, soft creaks under my feet.
Until this week changed everything, I hadn’t been upstairs in this house for a couple years.
After Dad died, I’d tried to be present for Josiah as much as I could, but between my job and Krystal’s hostility, that had petered out.
The last two years, I’d managed occasional days when I showed up and took the kid off on an adventure.
Not even that much, in the last three months of my undercover assignment.
The door at the end of the hall was Krystal’s, and once my father’s. I hadn’t had the strength to open that yet since returning home. Josiah was second on the right. I tapped lightly. “Hey, Josiah? It’s Zeke. Are you okay?”
“Go away,” came faintly from inside.
At least he was there and coherent. “If you like, but I wanted to talk for a minute.”
“I’m not going downstairs.”
“Sure. I’m not going to make you.”
After a moment of silence, the lock clicked, and Josiah pulled the door open just enough for me to squeeze through. Once I was inside, he immediately shut it and flipped the latch.
I went over to lean on the wall by the window, to give him as much space as he needed.
He sat on the bed, looking at me. His dark hair was buzzed too short to get messy, but his eyes were shadowed and red, and he’d changed from his funeral suit into slightly-too-small sweats, exposing bony ankles and wrists.
He chewed on his lower lip and said nothing.
After a minute of silence, I tried, “Rough day, huh?”
He nodded.
“Rough week.”
“Yeah.”
“What can I do?”
Josiah twisted his comforter between his fingers. “You said I was staying here with you. Did you mean it?”
“Yes. Of course. Dad and your mom had it in their wills, that if something happened to both of them, this house comes to the two of us equally, and they wanted me to be your primary guardian.” I’d been stunned to find out that was still in effect.
After Dad died, I’d assumed Krystal would run out and change everything to benefit her family.
Perhaps her nearly obsessive devotion to Dad had worked in my favour.
And in Josiah’s, given the attitudes of the Ontario Thompsons downstairs.
“I heard them talking. Grandma and Aunt Heidi and the others. They were arguing about who’d have to take me. They said my share of the house would be worth half a million dollars, but someone would have to raise another teenager. Grandma said she’d done her bit.”
“Oh.” I went and sat beside him, not touching but close enough if he wanted me. “You’re staying with me. That’s final.”
“What if they fight you? They want the money.”
“No worries. It’s not like I’m nineteen and in school, the way I was when Dad died.
I’m twenty-six now, I’ve worked a tough job and I’m earning money, I have a criminal background check already, and the other stuff is in progress.
And you’re old enough to tell a judge what you want.
They can object all they want, but they’ll be out of luck. ”
He turned big eyes on me. “You’re sure?”
“Totally.” I put every ounce of certainty I could into that word.
“Oh.” Suddenly he turned away from me and sobbed.
I wanted to hug him, but he had his arms tightly wrapped around himself. “I’m sorry you were worried.”
“I want to stay here with my school and my friends and my house.”
“You will, I swear.”
Staring at the blank wall, he said, “What if you have to go away on a job again, like last year?”
“I’m not doing that again.” Three months deep undercover had stressed me out in ways I didn’t like to look at too closely.
I had a month of compensatory vacation I was taking now, and I hadn’t even decided if I could go back to the force.
Definitely, I’d never take an assignment like that again, even if I was proud of the outcome.
Mostly. “I promise I’ll be here for you, every day. ”
“But you’re a cop. You could get killed.” He flinched and his fingers dug into his arms.
“I could die falling down the stairs too.”
He scrambled down the bed, glaring at me. “Don’t joke about it!”
“Sorry, but Josiah, you know there are lots more dangerous professions than law enforcement, right? We’re at, like, number twenty-two. Even garbage collectors have more fatal injuries.”
Josiah just shook his head.
“I have three more weeks off, anyhow. We’ll talk about it again.
” The biggest problem, if I went back into uniform, would be shift work.
I wasn’t sure how long a twelve-year-old could be left on their own— and wasn’t about to ask Josiah for his opinion— but overnight was not okay with me. I’d have to figure something out.
Krystal’s mother’s voice carried up the stairs and through the door. “Zeke? Are you up there? Come on down to help and bring Josiah with you.”
I stood. “Do you want to come down and see the neighbours?”
Josiah shook his head and whispered, “I hate this. I hate it all.”
“You don’t have to. Hang out here, and I’ll be back up when the coast is clear.”
“How long until Grandma and Aunt Heidi are gone?”
“Two more days for most of your Ontario relatives. I know your grandmother’s flying out on Sunday. I think your aunt Heidi’s here through Tuesday.”
“I want my house back.” He pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them. “How are they Mom’s relatives? The things they said. I want… I wish—” His voice was lost in a tight cough.
I figured I knew what he wished. I’d been older when Dad died, but I remembered.
Nothing would bring back his mother or his old life, though.
“Your mom loved you. Her relatives are their own people, and we’re not seeing them at their best, but that says nothing about who your mom was.
” Despite her dislike of me, Krystal had always taken good care of Josiah.
“Their grief or attitudes have nothing to do with yours or your mom’s.
You don’t have to go down and you don’t have to hang out with them anymore. ”
“Not even Grandma?”
“Not even. I promise.” I’d run interference now I knew he needed that. When the Thompsons had arrived, I’d hoped that a grandmotherly touch would help Josiah more than I could, but clearly not.
“Okay then.” He set his cheek on his knees and closed his eyes.
I hovered for a moment, but his tightly self-contained posture didn’t suggest he wanted anything from me. So I let myself out, closing the door behind me, and headed downstairs to deal with the tail end of Krystal’s funeral.