CHAPTER TWELVE #2
She sighed and nodded. "Well, forgive me for being disappointed. I was hoping you were coming to see me.”
Dean sighed, a disapproving sound, but he didn’t get the chance to say anything as Analise added, “Anyway, I'm sure this guy already told you Gerry’s a little busy right now."
I glanced at Dean, who had allowed himself to smile, and I was surprised to find a touch of affection in his eyes as he looked up at Analise. But there was no hunger in the way he stared at her, no desire whatsoever.
No … I realized then that Dean cared about Analise. Deeply. As a friend, I assumed. Maybe even a sister.
He feels for her the way I felt about Anna.
And just like that, I turned toward that elusive woman standing up above and wondered if she could be that girl I’d once known and lost.
But … no, that would be impossible, wouldn’t it? Because Anna—my Anna—was supposed to be in a better place. She was supposed to be okay, and if she was here … well …
I didn’t know much about Seint Manor, but from what I did know, there was nothing okay about it, and I refused to believe Anna could end up here.
"Gerald's not going to be happy if he catches you making friends. You know that," he warned gently, raising a brow.
"Gerald isn't my boss," she fired back, cocking a hip and planting a hand against it.
"No, just your father."
"Stepfather," she corrected him.
Dean shook his head. "Disappear, Lisey. Before someone sees you."
Lisey.
The nickname struck a memory, causing my heart to skip a beat as I kept my unblinking eyes on the woman above.
I had been younger, somewhere in my twenties.
I saw a woman who I thought could be Anna while I was driving—a woman with long black hair—and I ran from the old truck, like a psychopath on a mission, just to catch a glimpse of that woman’s eyes.
They were dark, just like Anna’s—and Analise’s too—but the person she was with had called her by that name.
Lisey.
Was it possible that I had seen this woman before?
What are the chances?
I choked on nothing, remembering that, if this was the same woman I’d run across years ago, she had seen my face.
Would she recognize me if she saw me now? Would it matter if she did?
Dean glanced at me as Analise asked, "Are you okay?"
I cleared my throat, then again, before replying, "I'm fine."
And I would be.
Because I had to remember it had been an insignificant, inconsequential sort of moment. I had hardly recalled it myself until Dean mentioned the nickname, and surely, if she was the same woman, she wouldn’t remember it either.
The muffled sound of a door closing above reverberated through the foyer, and Dean clenched his square jaw and said, "Go."
Analise looked to me, her gaze lingering and expressing a longing I couldn’t make sense of, before she turned without another word and hurried down the same hallway that led to Gerald’s office.
I assumed her bedroom was in that same direction, and I imagined going upstairs, forgetting all about the things I needed to say to my father and instead finding that sacred door.
I imagined slipping inside undetected and locking it behind me, only to discover that she—that otherworldly enigma I had no business wanting—was waiting for me, lying naked on a bed, like a lavish banquet that deserved to be appreciated first by sight before being devoured slowly but deliberately, like the most succulent meal to ever be tasted.
The thoughts were foreign to me, and yet, somehow, they felt right.
"She's off-limits, sir."
Not only was Dean a good little soldier, but a mind reader … apparently.
I turned my attention toward him to find him looking back with a knowing but disapproving expression on his face, but I said nothing in reply.
"You might want to get rid of the hard-on before Mr. Crowley notices," he added, dropping his gaze to my crotch momentarily before looking away.
Asshole, I thought, but I wasn't convinced that the title was fitting. He might've been a hired thug—Gerald's obedient little lacky—but the mean look I saw in the eyes of others was missing from his.
"My boy," Gerald greeted me boisterously as he appeared where Analise had been standing moments before.
He sounded exactly how I’d expected him to.
Like he had been anticipating my arrival.
He was shirtless with a towel around his shoulders. From the waist down, he wore a pair of black sweatpants. His body as an older man was, of course, a far cry from what I remembered of it from when I had been a small child.
He was bulkier now.
Fed.
"Good to see you again," he said, descending the stairs, a smile on his face. "And so soon!”
I sighed, rolling my eyes at the gleeful sound of his voice.
“You're making this a habit, huh?” he continued, reaching the bottom of the staircase. “Careful there, kiddo. You might give people the impression that you actually like me."
He laughed, looking from me to Dean, as if expecting us to join in. But Dean only offered a polite, forced smile, and I did nothing but ball my fists tighter to keep the urge to punch him in the throat at bay.
Gerald cleared his throat and resumed rubbing the towel against his damp hair as he asked, "What can I do for you?"
"We never finished our conversation the other day," I replied.
"Hmm," he murmured, nodding slowly. "No, I suppose we didn't. Come. We'll talk in the library."
He was already leading the way when I said, "I'd rather not," as I remained where I stood at the bottom of the stairs, my back against the wall.
"What?" He turned, a clueless expression on his face.
Then it must've dawned on him, and he laughed, holding a hand over his stomach.
"Is something funny?" I asked, glaring at him through the mask.
"Ah, you're too sentimental, kiddo. You get that from your mother," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "But … fine, fine, we can talk in the dining room … unless you have any traumatic memories tied to that room too?"
I ignored his mockery, ignored his shit-eating grin, and brushed past him, leading the way toward the dining room.
"Will you look at that, Dean? He already knows his way around the place," Gerald mused wistfully from behind me.
"I see that, sir."
They followed close behind as Gerald said, "He'll fit in just fine here, wouldn't you say?"
"I would, sir."
I spun on my heel. "What was that?"
But Gerald held out a hand, gesturing toward the dining room doorway. "Please, take a seat, son. Let's have that conversation."
***
He has to be lying.
The thought had crossed my mind countless times since I’d taken a seat in the dining room, now only holding one table as opposed to the three that had been here the night of Leonard’s murder.
With every question I asked and every answer Gerald provided with ease, my grip on the respect I'd held for my dear old friend slipped a little more until only my smallest finger clung to the ghost of his.
My eyes squeezed shut tightly, and my fist clenched against the armrest of the high-backed dining room chair—the same one Leonard had sat in just days before—as I listened to Gerald recall the night, fourteen years ago, when he'd paid me a visit at the funeral home.
I had demanded that he leave, and he reluctantly listened.
He headed down the hallway toward the main entrance of the funeral home, when I heard a door close, and I thought he’d left.
But as I returned to my work, Leonard went after him, and the two men talked on the porch, unbeknownst to me or my brothers.
They introduced themselves to each other—two very different men from very opposite sides of the tracks. They agreed to meet up, and that was exactly what they did only days later. After a few drinks and a couple of burgers, they found that, though unlikely, they actually got along.
They'd become friends. Buddies with one important common interest—us.
My brother and me.
"Lenny told me to stay away," Gerald said, his hand around a bottle of Bud. "Said that, if you boys had reason to keep me at a distance, then he trusted you. But that didn't stop us from being pals."
"Bullshit," I murmured because I wanted it to be. “There’s absolutely no fucking way—"
"I understand why you're upset," he replied. "It's like, uh … realizing your old man was a loser after you thought he was fuckin' Superman."
"You know, you could've picked an analogy I might be able to relate to," I said, unamused.
He tipped his head, studying me for a beat of my heart before he lifted the beer bottle to his lips and said, "And what makes you think I was talkin’ about me?"
He diverted his eyes as he drank, and I realized something with startling clarity.
"You envied him," I stated, knowing it was true.
With a swallow, he pursed his lips and sucked at his fake white teeth. "He … had something I wanted, yes."
"So, you, what? Faked a friendship with him to—"
He snorted bitterly. "Kiddo, you are giving me way too much credit if you think I've been over here, playin' a long game or some shit to earn your trust. No, believe it or not, Lenny and I were friends.
I liked him, and he liked me. It's as simple as that, despite how far-fetched you seem to think that is. "
Through the lenses of the mask, I watched my father.
Studied his mannerisms. Stared at him as he nursed his beer and scratched an itch on his hairy, round potbelly.
He was unfazed, completely unrattled by my scrutiny, and I found that infuriating.
Because the more I glared at him, the more insistent the little voice in my head was, convincing me that the bastard was telling the truth.
But I’d known him for a long, long time, and what I knew most about Gerald Crowley was that he was incapable of being honest.
"Friends," I muttered with a sneer, finally settling on something from his wild statement. "Sorry. Having a difficult time picturing that one."
"Dean," Gerald said, standing from the table to cross the room, "didn't you say you brought an apple pie from home?"
"I did, sir," Dean replied from the dining room doorway, forever keeping watch. "It's on the counter."
"Excellent."