The Other Brother (19 page)

Chapter 33

C abriel walked out of Sean's house feeling better than he had in days.

He was finally doing something proactive to combat Isaiah's invasion of his family. Instead of mumbling about his gut feelings, he wanted to present undeniable facts that would reveal Isaiah as the viper he really was.

As he approached the Corvette, crossing from the sidewalk to the street, he glimpsed something on the car's front seat. A darkly glimmering, coiled shape.

He leaned closer.

It was a water moccasin. The same one he'd seen last night at Dana's, and, prior to that, at his house.

The snake had gotten into the car. It seemed impossible. But there it was.

His mouth went dry. He kept his distance from the passenger's-side window.

Was this real? Or was he imagining this?

A breeze whisked along the street, pushing the scent of dogwoods, summer flowers in bloom, and exhaust fumes from passing cars. A rusty Oldsmobile rumbled by, music rattling the windows. At a brick house across the street, an elderly woman dug in her flower beds.

If he was hallucinating, how could his senses be so acute?

The snake slithered to the passenger's-side seat. It rose, its face sliding up the window. It watched him with its narrow, evil eyes.

There was no rational explanation for the snake winding up in the car. The only answer was that someone was stalking him, had planted the snake within his vicinity-but that mystery stalker would have had to first enter his house without his knowledge to leave the snake, then get into Dana's condo to deposit the reptile, then break into the Corvette ...

It didn't make any sense.

The water moccasin's forked tongue tasted the air as though salivating at the thought of sinking its fangs into Gabriel.

"It's not real," Gabriel said softly. Then, more firmly, "I'm hallucinating this. There is no snake"

He half expected his declaration to cause the reptile to dissolve, like a figment of a dream. But it didn't fade away, didn't flicker. It remained as realistic looking as the pavement on which Gabriel stood.

He didn't know what to make of that.

He jingled the keys in his hand.

Think.

But he couldn't come up with another plan. Resolving to act, he moved closer to the car, grasped the passenger door handle. He pulled it, opening the door-and swiftly moved away.

The water moccasin poured to the ground like an oil slick. It glared at him, menacingly, and Gabriel jumped away, ready to bolt back to Sean's house if the snake got any closer. The snake drew backward, almost proudly, as though pleased by its intimidation of him. It slipped between the grates of a drainage ditch and disappeared.

Gabriel kicked the door closed. He hurried around the car, careful to avoid the drain, got in, slammed the door.

He'd been lucky that time.

He inhaled deeply. The car's interior smelled of soft leather and scented oils. There was nothing in the warm air to indicate that a snake had occupied the space only seconds ago. Wouldn't it have left behind a noticeable odor, a foul smell?

It would have. If it had been real.

Although common sense and even intuition told him that the snake was an illusion, he was not willing to put himself in harm's way. The evidence of his eyes held more weight than the feelings in his heart.

Faith is the belief in things unseen....

Those words, part of a Biblical scripture, came to mind, and how true they were. He lacked faith. In himself.

Disturbed by those thoughts, he turned on his cell phone. He planned to leave it on in case Sean attempted to call him.

He'd received a voice-mail message from Nicole.

"Hi, it's your sister. I need to talk to you right away. In person, preferably. Give me a call on my cell, okay?"

Gabriel called her back. Nicole wanted to see him ASAP. He suggested they meet at Fellini's Pizza in Buckhead. Since Dana had not returned any of his calls-though she was at work, he knew the real reason why she was avoiding him-he assumed he was flying solo that night.

"Hurry," Nicole said. "I'll be there by nine."

What was so urgent? Curiosity was chewing a hole in his stomach.

"I'm on my way," he said.

Isaiah had been busy sowing discord and, in general, ruining people's lives.

He'd left the office early after wowing his father during the meeting and rubbing little brother's face in his feat. He made plans to meet with Pops for drinks that evening to celebrate the deal. They were going to Club Touch, a strip joint, of course-and that had actually been his father's suggestion.

But before Isaiah did that, he took care of a little business.

He stopped by Home Depot. There, he purchased a couple cans of spray paint.

Then he drove to Dana's condo. He had copied her address out of Gabriel's address book, which he'd found in his desk at the office.

People tended to leave such valuable information out in the open.

He was counting on Dana, a big-shot physician, being at work. Her condo was on the sixth floor at the end of the corridor, the door nestled within a recessed doorway. How fortunate; it would give him privacy.

A rap on the door confirmed that she was out, or sleeping, or otherwise not answering. He heard a small dog yapping, little paws scratching against the door.

"Shut the fuck up," he said to the dog. "Or I'll bust in there and kick your guts out"

The dog whimpered, fell silent.

He went to work. It didn't take long. A few minutes later he was back in his car.

Taking it all away, little brother. Piece by piece.

Chapter 3 4

round nine o'clock Gabriel arrived at Fellini's Pizza on the corner of Peachtree Street and Rumson Road in Buckhead. Buckhead, known as Atlanta's upscale party district, was congested with creeping Friday-night traffic, people in shiny cars cruising Peachtree to see and be seen, and herds of revelers jamming the sidewalks, ambling from one bar and restaurant to another. By midnight, when the scene hit its peak, it would take a half hour to crawl just a mile down the street.

Gabriel half wished he'd agreed to meet Nicole on another side of town, but she lived in the area, not far from the restaurant. Still, because parking in Buckhead was at a premium, he had to park two blocks away.

The pizzeria was located in a converted gas station, dipped in bright colors, and boasted an immense patio illuminated by strings of white Christmas lights. A multicultural crowd, lured outdoors by the warm summer evening, filled the patio to near capacity

Gabriel found Nicole at a corner table, trying to give the brush-off to a young brother who wore a long white tee and had a mouth gleaming with an undoubtedly fake platinum grill.

"Excuse me" Gabriel cleared his throat. "This is my seat, man"

"Oh, you her man? All right, then" The guy winked at Nicole. "You got my number, shorty, a'ight?"

Nicole gave him an artificial smile, sending him away, and then she turned to Gabriel. "Thank God, Gabe. You were right on time."

"The challenges of life as a diva."

"Whatever. Where's Dana? I know you guys usually spend Friday nights together."

"She's working late." He hoped his tone did not betray the truth. He glanced at the Corona sitting in front of Nicole and, to change the subject, said, "You had a beer the other night, too. Have martinis become passe?"

"Seems like it, doesn't it?" She offered a weak smile. "You want something to eat? I ate at Mom's."

"I'll eat after we talk," he said. "So what's up, sis? I know you didn't invite me here for chitchat."

She took a sip of her beer. "You know how much I hate to admit I'm wrong, right? Especially to you"

"True. Actually, you don't like to admit you're wrong to anyone"

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes. Then she grew serious. "I was wrong about Isaiah, Gabe"

Gabriel's heartbeat stuttered. "What do you mean?"

"You know that bad gut feeling you have about him? Well, I have one, too"

"Did something happen?"

"I think so. I don't know." She twisted her fingers through her hair, laughed nervously. "Okay, that sounded stupid."

"You said it, not me"

"He gives me a nasty feeling," she said. "When I think about him, I feel nauseous. The weird thing is that I didn't feel that way when I first met him. But after Mom and Daddy said he could stay with them, I showed him to your old room... "

"He's staying in my old bedroom?"

"And I don't know what happened-I don't remember anything out of the ordinary-but by the time I finished showing him to your room and then giving him a tour of the rest of the house, I couldn't get away from him fast enough"

"Really? Did he do something that bothered you? Or say something nasty?"

"Not that I can remember. But I had a dream about him last night, Gabe. A really, really sick dream. I don't even want to tell you about it."

"Good, because I don't want to ask"

"Anyway, I went to the house for dinner tonight, right? Isaiah and Daddy had gone out for drinks to celebrate him helping to close a deal or whatever. Anyway, Mom and I were the only ones at the house. So I had a chance to look through Isaiah's stuff."

"You went through Isaiah's things?" he asked.

Her face reddened. "I know, it was a terrible thing to do, but I wanted to find something that might explain why I have these creepy feelings about him."

"Actually, I wish I'd thought of that," he said. "But, sorryplease go on"

"He keeps his bags under the bed, which is kinda weird. I pulled out his suitcase and started to unzip it-and I suddenly felt dizzy. And then ... this is where it gets really strange"

She fiddled with the beer bottle. He waited for her to continue.

"I had a vision or a flashback-I don't know what you would call it, maybe a dream while I was awake-of being in the bedroom with Isaiah. And he was making me do stuff. Sick stuff."

Gabriel's stomach performed a slow flip-flop.

"He was ordering me around as if I were a robot, and even though I didn't want to do any of the things he told me to do, I had to obey him. It was as though he had hypnotized me. I was ... powerless. I've never felt like that in my life, ever. He could have told me to jump out a window and I would have done it."

"But you said this was a dream," Gabriel said.

"I don't know what it was," she said. "But I know he did something to me. I've never felt so violated. It made me sick."

Gabriel was glad he hadn't ordered any food. He was feeling nauseous, too.

"Anyway, because you don't like Isaiah either, you're the only one I could tell about this," she said. "What do you think? Do you think I'm crazy?"

He almost laughed. He was seeing snakes and visions in mirrors-how could he possibly have the nerve to call her crazy?

"No, I don't think you're crazy," he said.

She sighed with obvious relief. "Then what do you think happened? What did he do to me?"

"I don't know, sis. I'm clueless. Does Mom have any idea that you were looking through his things?"

"Are you kidding? She would've cried bloody murder. You better not tell her."

"I'd never do that. I don't think we should tell anyone about this yet"

"I'm really worried. I don't like him staying there with Mom and Daddy. I don't trust him"

Gabriel resisted the urge to gloat and declare, "I told you so" It would have been a childish thing to say, and he wasn't in a joking mood.

"What should we do, Gabe?"

"Honestly, I don't think there's anything we can do yet to get rid of him, because of Pops. Pops wants him here, and you know he runs that house"

"But you and I are having these terrible feelings."

"That won't hold any water with Pops, you know that. He deals in facts"

"Yeah" She gazed at her beer, suddenly grabbed it, and drained the rest of the bottle.

His sister didn't scare easily. For all her little-princess ways, she was a tough girl at heart with a lot of spunk. It disturbed him to see her like this.

"I want you to stay away from Isaiah," he said. "He's dangerous. From now on, let me do the investigating, okay?"

She nodded. "God, I hope he doesn't know someone was rummaging in his stuff. I tried to put everything back exactly as I'd found it, but what if he's like you? When you were a kid, if I came into your bathroom and moved the toothpaste one inch, you'd know."

"Let's hope he's not like me. In the meantime I have someone doing a background check on Isaiah."

"That's a really good idea," she said with a rare touch of admiration.

"I want hard facts that Isaiah is up to no good. That's all that will convince Pops-irrefutable proof."

"You're exactly right," she said.

A waitress walked past with a steaming pan of thin-crust pizza. Although he had been hungry only ten minutes ago, he no longer had an appetite. His nerves were taut, and food was a distraction.

What had Isaiah done to his sister?

She made it sound as though he had hypnotized her, taken control of her with some kind of mind-control technique. But was Isaiah capable of something like that? Where would he have learned how to do such a thing?

And did Nicole's experience with Isaiah have anything to do with his own schizophrenic-type issues as of late?

It seemed that there had to be a connection. But he wasn't ready to discuss it with her. She was already frightened enough. He had to get more information first.

"What're you thinking about?" she said.

"I'm thinking about how little we really know about Isaiah," he said. "But we've thrown open the doors and let this guy into our lives, and I know that he's going to keep stirring up trouble. Makes me wish for the good old days when it was just you, Mom, Pops, and me. One big, happy family."

"But no family is perfect," she said. "Everybody has skeletons in the closet, as we've unfortunately learned."

"It seemed perfect, though, for a while, didn't it?"

"It did." She looked at him, and her youthful face was weary, like the countenance of a much older, embittered woman. "But we were living a lie."