2. Ezekiel
2
Ezekiel
C raven finally walks away. This round of drinks is on him apparently. Fucking idiot.
The curtain the girl disappeared behind settles into place. From the look on her face, I guess she heard who I was.
“I take it that’s her,” Jericho says. I feel his eyes on me as he slips his mask to the top of his head. “You okay?”
I swallow whiskey, feeling more okay than I have since receiving the first email months ago. In fact, I feel anger, only anger. I push my mask off and turn to Jericho.
“I’m fine. Good, actually.”
“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”
My brother and I study one another. It’s been three years since I’ve seen him. We’ve talked a handful of times in those years. Business mostly. He looks good. Younger somehow. Happy.
“How is your wife?” I ask, instead of answering his question, because I know she’s one of the reasons he’s happy.
He smiles, warmth blooming in his eyes. Something new for my brother. “Isabelle’s good.”
“Angelique?”
“Getting bigger every day. She misses you, you know.”
“We FaceTime often.” Angelique is my niece. She’s Jericho and Kimberly’s daughter whom Jericho kept hidden from the world for years. Hidden from me, too. I understood his decision. I’d probably have done the same, considering.
“FaceTime is not the same and you know it.”
“Mom and the boys?” My brother adopted Matty Bishop, Isabelle’s nephew, the son of his enemy. He and Isabelle had their first child, a boy named Christian, a year and a half ago and their second son, Adan, a few months ago.
“They’re all good. You should see Angelique with them. Calls them the kids.” He chuckles. It’s a new look for my brother. It’s a good look. “And mom’s doing well. Healthy. Happy.” He pauses. “Isabelle’s pregnant again,” he adds, seeming almost hesitant. Almost as though he is not sure if he should share his news with me. “A happy surprise.”
“Contraception is a thing, brother.”
He shrugs a shoulder.
I smile. I’m happy for him, truly. I want to be, at least. Although there’s something between Jericho and I that has never healed. That I seem to hold on to. Seeing him again after these years just reminds me how powerful that thing is.
Jericho is my big brother and in the years Zo?, mom and I needed him most, he was gone. Traveling to whatever corner of the world he wanted to disappear to while the shitstorm that was our father ripped our home, and what was left of our family, apart. It may be unfair, but I can’t help but wonder if things might have been different if Jericho hadn’t left whenever he could. If he’d just been there with us. He knew what dad was like even if he didn’t know everything he'd done until it was far too late. But, when things got ugly, Jericho vanished without once looking back. I haven’t forgiven him, even if there’s a part of me that wants to. That knows he was dealing with things the only way he knew how.
Jericho’s face darkens. I assume it matches mine because the air between us has shifted palpably.
“Why is your return a secret, Zeke?” he asks.
I asked him to meet me here, only calling him from the airport once I landed in New Orleans. I hadn’t decided up until then if I’d tell him I was back in town. I’m not planning on staying long. Just until I take care of Blue Masterson or whatever the hell her name is. But in order to do that, I need him.
I glance around, making sure we can’t be overheard. We’re sitting in the farthest corner of the club and the others are preoccupied. I reach into my jacket pocket and retrieve my phone. Scrolling down my email, I open the first message I received from Blue Masterson and turn it, so the screen faces him.
Jericho reads it and I watch his face harden. He reaches for the phone, takes it, and opens the attachment which is a newspaper article reporting the deadly crash.
Our father, along with one of his many mistresses, was killed in a car accident in Austria several years ago. For a long time, only I knew it wasn’t an accident. Jericho pieced the puzzle together and confronted me more recently. It was only after that he learned why I did it.
My chest tightens at the thought of why I did what I did. I wonder if this pain is so acute even now, so many years after Zo?’s death, because we were so close once. So close we shared our mother’s womb. We were twins. That bond between us, that connection, it faded as we grew older, but I still remember the feeling of having a second half. A part that was not me but so much a part of me that I still feel the loss of her. I remember the comfort that bond brought me, even when I was too young to put words to it. The pain of losing her, and the way I lost her, it’s a heavy, solid thing that is unchanging. Unending.
It is pain. Just pain.
Jericho looks back at me, a furrow between his brows, his eyes narrowed with fury.
“How long have you been sitting on this?”
“Couple months.”
“Months? And she sent this?” he gestures toward the curtain Blue disappeared behind.
I nod.
“You’re sure?”
“I have a reliable source.” I drink another sip of whiskey and take my phone back.
“How would she have found out?” The evidence Jericho had to put the pieces together was footage from the hotel I’d stayed in while doing what I needed to do when I was in Austria. There is nothing that puts me at the scene of the crime because as far as the world knows, there was no crime. The car and its occupants were burnt up so badly there was no physical evidence to investigate.
I wonder if he died on impact. It’s how the coroner said it would have happened considering the cliff they drove off. I hope it wasn’t instantaneous. Not for him. I hope he felt fear followed by the pain of a fiery death. I hope it lasted and lasted while he burned and burned.
“Zeke,” Jericho calls me into the present.
I grit my teeth, darkness at the thought of the past settling in my gut. I swallow back the pain, the emotion, the guilt. Not guilt over the murder of my father. No. Guilt for the loss of Zo?. For what she endured. For my being absent to her just as I blame Jericho for being absent from us.
“Yeah?” I ask, eyes narrowed, heart rate settled, any emotion locked back up.
“What does she know exactly and how does she know it?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
“There’s no evidence.”
I raise my eyebrows in question.
Jericho draws a tight breath in. “How are you going to find out?”
“The Bishop house is still empty?” Matty inherited the Bishop house which is part of Jericho’s property now. Once he is of age, he’ll come into his inheritance, which includes the house.
Jericho nods. “It’s closed up. Been that way since Bishop was killed.”
“It’s private then.”
He nods again. “I can have someone go out there. Open it up for you.”
“I don’t want anyone to know I’m here. Not yet.”
He lifts his chin, studies me in that way he has, the silence drawn out just a little longer than necessary. He disagrees with this part.
“If I need to take care of things…” I trail off, unsure myself how far I’m willing to go to keep my secret. To keep Zo?’s. I’ve killed twice. I am capable. Maybe that’s what worries my brother.
He shifts his gaze once more to the curtain from which Blue Masterson has yet to emerge. I watch Jericho. His hands aren’t exactly squeaky clean. His past is possibly more violent than mine. At least up until this point.
“You’re sure it’s her? I mean, before you do anything you need to be sure.”
“I am.”
He studies me for a beat, then nods. “The house is yours to use, you know that.” He digs his phone out, types something and my phone pings. “First one is the code for the gate. Second one will get you into the house.”
“Thank you.”
“What’s your plan exactly?”
“I want to find out what she knows. Who she’s talked to if anyone. I also want to know who the hell she really is because she’s not who she’s pretending to be.” I hear the built-up fury in my voice. Two months of it coming down to this woman, this fucking waitress at a fucking gentlemen’s club, blackmailing me.
My free hand fists as I bring the tumbler to my lips once more, swallow the contents then stand.
“I need to go.”
He stands too, puts his hand on my shoulder, eyes intent on me. “If you need me?—”
“You’ll be there?” I throw out before I can stop myself.
His jaw tightens. “Yes, I will, brother. And you fucking know it.”
“Go home to your wife and kids, Jericho. You don’t want to be involved in this.”
I move away, but he steps in front of me. “I mean it, Zeke. I will be there. Anything you need. Whatever it is.”
I study him. He does mean it, that much I can read on his face. But the truth is, the last three years living in Amsterdam with the excuse of expanding the family business, they’ve brought to the surface just how fresh the wounds of the past are. Just how raw the feeling of being abandoned by my older brother all those years ago when we all needed him most is. In a way, it’s worse now than it was before, when Kimberly died, and Jericho was mourning her while in hiding with his little girl. Is it that I’m not happy for him to have found peace and a life with Isabelle? Am I so vile that I begrudge my brother his happiness when he, too, has suffered?
“Since you’re offering, I’ll hold on to Dex if you don’t mind.” Dex works for Jericho. I don’t know how much he knows about the things Jericho has done or what I’ve done, but I know my brother trusts him. He’s the driver who picked up Blue to bring her to work this evening.
That’s not what he wanted to hear. It’s clear on his face. He sighs. “Done.”
I nod my thanks. “I need to go.” I have preparations to make.
It takes him a moment to step out of the way, but he does.
I walk out of The Cat House and into the pouring rain. I don’t bother with a coat, but let the rain drench me as I head toward my vehicle, the driver, opening the door of the backseat and apologizing for not having driven to meet me. Had he missed the call? I reassure him he’s fine and give him the address to the old Bishop house. The property is adjacent to the St. James mansion, my one-time home, but I’ll use the separate entrance. I lean back in my seat and watch the rain fall on this city I love. The city I miss. The one place I long to be but can never return to.