Chapter 12
The next morning, Max had just entered the parking lot at the FBI office when his phone rang and Keira’s name popped up on his screen. He cursed. He’d forgotten to reply to her texts yesterday about his other two sisters.
I didn’t forget.
He’d ignored them. Amber and Brittany were a sore spot for him. And usually talking with Keira about it only made it worse. But he knew she’d keep poking at him until she got a response. He parked and bit the bullet.
“Hey, Keira, what’s up?”
“You didn’t return my texts yesterday.” Keira was direct as usual.
“Sorry, busy day.”
“Have you talked to Amber recently?”
“Is that a trick question?” He’d tried for more than ten years to establish a relationship with his other two sisters. The refusal was on their end. And his mother had sided with them.
“I hate that you don’t get along.” Keira’s relationship with the other women in the family was solid.
He bristled. “Not for lack of trying on my part. Why are you calling? I’m about to go into the office.”
“The girls are coming up next weekend, so they’ll be at our usual dinner.”
He and Keira still referred to their younger siblings as “the girls” even though they were now twenty-eight and thirty.
“They’re going to stay with you?” Their sisters lived three hours away.
“Yes. I told them that you would be at dinner, and that was fine with them.”
I seriously doubt that.
Either Keira hadn’t said anything to them, or she didn’t want to repeat their replies to him.
I did nothing wrong.
But his sister Brittany had been emotionally hurt by Max’s actions during his worst day ever on the Medford police force.
Actually, it had been the worst day of his life.
Amber and his mother had also blamed him, making the rift between him and his younger sisters even wider.
Amber and Brittany were much younger than Max because they had been born after his mother remarried.
His stepfather had raised him and Keira all through their teen years, which had not been pleasant.
He and Keira had essentially been the home’s staff.
All the cleaning, babysitting, yard work, and errands had fallen to them.
Not only had he and Keira lost a relationship with their father when their parents split up, but they’d later lost their connection to their mother because of her new husband.
Max had hated the way his stepfather, Oscar Forkner, treated their mother and had told him so when Max had moved out of the house.
Oscar had thrown the first punch, and by the end of the pummeling, eighteen-year-old Max had had two black eyes and a split lip.
He hadn’t landed a blow on the older man.
His mother had screamed for Max to leave her husband alone, and his younger sisters had bawled as the two men fought. Keira, who was sixteen, tried to pull them apart, earning a shove from her stepfather that threw her against the fireplace. She still had the scar on her forehead.
Max never set foot in the home again. He finished college and joined the Medford PD, where he learned that Oscar Forkner was well known to the police force. He’d had numerous drunk and disorderly citations and three domestic violence incidents. His mother had refused to press charges each time.
When Max had tried to talk to her about the abuse, she wouldn’t discuss her husband, claiming that her marriage was the most important thing in her life.
“What about your kids?” he’d asked. “Brittany and Amber deserve to grow up in a better home.”
“They’re the most important thing after my husband.”
She hadn’t mentioned Max or Keira, and he never forgot how abandoned he’d felt at her words.
Oscar had died while driving drunk three years ago and had been lucky he hadn’t killed anyone else.
After his death, Max thought he could heal the rift with his family.
He was wrong. If anything, it was worse.
His mother was bitter and resentful. She never said it out loud, but Max suspected she was angry that he’d been right about the man she’d married.
Will she ever get over that?
Brittany carries Mom’s gene for being unforgiving.
“Check with me later this week,” Max told Keira.
“Which means no.”
“It’s a maybe.”
“There’s something else . . .”
Her voice trailed off, which surprised him because Keira wasn’t hesitant about saying anything. Some would call it having no fear; others would call it having no filter.
“What?” he asked.
“I got a flower delivery last evening. They weren’t from TJ.”
“You have an admirer?” TJ would have strong words with anyone who hit on his wife. After Keira had even stronger words with them.
“I don’t think so.”
The odd tone of her voice put him on edge. “What happened?”
“Max, the note with them reads, ‘Congratulations on having a murderer for a brother.’”
Max froze.
Murderer.
“You should have called me right away,” he finally said.
“I’m telling you now. By the time I got home from work and opened the note, the florist was closed. And I wanted to talk it over with TJ before you.”
“TJ’s name’s not in the message!”
“It feels like some sort of mean prank, Max. I didn’t know if it was worth telling you. Clearly it was just meant to upset you. And me.”
“Did you ask Brittany about it?”
“Jesus, Max! And no, I didn’t. She wouldn’t do this.”
Max didn’t know what Brittany would do. He hadn’t seen her in years.
Oscar—and their mother—had effectively made Max and Keira feel like unwanted strangers in their own home.
“Which florist?”
She told him. Max wanted to turn his vehicle back on and drive directly to the florist, but he needed to work. “Are they black roses?” The joke went sour in his mouth.
“White. I looked it up. They’re appropriate for weddings and funerals.”
Max hadn’t gone to the funeral they were both thinking about, but he’d gone to the interment and watched from afar, knowing his presence could be upsetting.
“I’ll check with the florist later,” he told her. “I need to go.” He wanted off the phone.
“Max, you did nothing wrong.”
“I know.”
But it never felt that way.
“Don’t let this upset you,” said Keira.
“Same with you.”
They ended the call, and Max headed into the office wishing he’d bought an apple fritter with his coffee that morning. Maybe two.
Who would send those flowers to Keira?
Anger shot through him. If someone had a problem with his past actions, they needed to come to him. Not disturb his family.
He didn’t know if he could stomach a dinner with his sisters. Especially after hearing about the flowers.
He hadn’t told Noelle why the relationship with his younger sisters and mother was so bad. She only knew they were estranged.
I haven’t told her a lot of things.
Maybe it was time.
The man watched Max stride across the parking lot. He’d kept an eye on the FBI agent for a few weeks, learning his habits and mulling over what he wanted to do.
He knew messing with the FBI was a dangerous thing, but he believed that Max Rhodes moving to the Bend area had been a sign. It was almost as if Max were being handed to him on a platter. Max was in his territory, his world.
He would have never known if he hadn’t seen the man in a newspaper photo weeks ago and learned that he was a local FBI agent.
All the old hatred had flooded back.
The bitterness had faded over the years, so he’d been surprised at his boiling reaction to the photo. And now he couldn’t get the man out of his head.
But what if I get caught?
He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in a federal prison for murder.
The man put away his binoculars, feeling the anger surge through him as it did every time he spied on the agent. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, willing the anger to dissipate.
There was no reason to rush.
I’ll take my time.