Blood Brothers (15 page)

“You should have done a lot of things
different, Michael.” Even as she spoke she was still moving away.
Toward the desk, the computer. The email.

Michael saw this little game ending with him
coming up just a wee bit short.

“I’m retiring,” he said. Two words that
carried the weight of the world.

Stephanie twirled on her heel as if he’d just
said he was Jesus Christ reincarnate. “What did you just say?”

“I said I’m retiring. Finally, I figure
enough is enough.”

Whatever lie Stephanie had been expecting
from him, it was evident this wasn’t it. His work life had caused
such strife between them, hell, between all three of them, that
even if this was just another fabrication she was biting, as
witnessed by her taking baby steps back toward him.

“Really?” She spoke like a child afraid of
gunfire erupting close by.

“Yeah. It won’t be tomorrow or next week,” he
started. The cloud was passing over her again. He acted quickly
because all he could think of was the email awaiting her.
Obviously, she had not read it yet. If she had, this wouldn’t
simply be going bad. It would be devastating. There was little
doubt in his wife’s mind or anyone else’s, truth be told, that
Michael was not the most faithful of men. However, he had very deep
pockets and the local judges, while paid a healthy salary, didn’t
make exactly what they thought of as proper. So Stephanie, as well
as Michael himself, knew that without hard evidence of his being an
abusive or adulterous husband, she wouldn’t get a nickel in a
divorce settlement. But, with a video… While digital images can be
doctored, created, and fudged, they went a long way in convincing
someone already teetering on the fence.

“But it will be soon,” he said.

“You’re lying.” There it was. A full out
accusation.

“No, I’m not.”

Stephanie met his gaze, and neither of them
faltered for what must’ve been nothing more than a heartbeat, but
felt like a thousand years.

Then, she grinned, just a little. “Well, I
guess I’d better be getting ready.” Stephanie winked at him,
actually winked. “Now don’t go changing your mind about this.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You start getting ready
and I’ll go tell Christal.”

Michael touched her softly on the shoulder,
but didn’t push her, not even lightly. But when she moved, he made
sure to reaffirm her forward momentum.

Outside the office he thought about kissing
her cheek, but then decided that would almost certainly be the
straw that broke the camel’s back. He watched her mount the stairs,
heading to her room.

When she was out of sight he darted back into
the room. Taking soft steps—which didn’t really matter, he couldn’t
be heard beyond the office walls even if he stomped—he made it to
the computer feeling like his life was flashing before his very
eyes. The desktop was still up, as was the web browser. Michael
deftly navigated his way to Stephanie’s email and couldn’t believe
his luck; the computer automatically placed the correct username
and password into the appropriate fields.

Having broken into a secret part of his
wife’s life, Michael realized as he looked at the screen before
him, that he should at least feel a small twinge of guilt. He did
not. He cared no more about breaking such sacred privacy than he
did lying down on a bed with another woman.

It was his right.

There were countless messages displayed;
various different senders and countless subject lines. Not one from
Trista. While there, he checked the junk mail folder and saw
nothing that caught his eye. To be safe, Michael double- and then
triple-checked everything. Finally satisfied, he closed out the
email and turned towards the door.

The figure standing there, accusing, took
Michael’s breath.

“What you doing?”

Michael had started but, thankfully, did not
yelp in surprise. He felt like a child caught with his hand in the
cookie jar. Heat glowed red in his cheeks and he feared for the
tiniest moment that his bladder might actually void, like some
ninety-eight year old geezer who had to take pills the colors of
the rainbow just to sit up in bed and gum his pudding breakfast,
lunch and dinner.

“Nothing, sweetheart, nothing.”

“It looked like you were messing with Mom’s
computer.” Was there an edge to this precious little girl’s
voice?

“Messing with her… No. No. Nothing like that.
I thought I smelled smoke, thought something electrical might be
getting too warm in here.” Why he didn’t tell the child to run
along and mind her own business was hard to say. Perhaps it was
part of the spell she had on him, a powerful spell.

“Oh, okay.”

“Guess what, Christal?”

“Huh,” she said, striding into the office to
be closer to her daddy. Michael scooped her up in both hands and
bounced her up in the direction of the ceiling. “I missed you,
sweet baby.” He gave her a big raspberry on her belly, through her
shirt. She giggled. “Oh, Daddy,” she said. “I missed you, too.”

“I have a surprise.”

“What, Daddy, what?”

By now they were out of the office. He tossed
her to one arm and used the free hand to pull the door shut. “Me.
You. Your mother. We’re all going out.”

“Where we going? Chuck E. Cheese’s?”

Despite himself, Michael had to smile at
that. “No. Not any cardboard pizza and brass tokens tonight. We’re
going for a ride. Maybe to the lake. Go shopping—”

“—
at the music store?” she
interrupted. Christal loved Marshall’s Musical Notes, the musical
instrument and equipment store downtown, as much as other children
loved Toys R’ Us.

“Maybe. If you’re good on the drive.”

“I will be. I will be. Then where?”

“Well, maybe a big old catfish from the
Wooden Pier?”

“Yeah!” Christal had never had trouble
expressing her excitement.

Just then the cell in Michael’s pocket began
to play “Welcome to the Jungle.” He pulled it from his pocket, not
thinking to check the Caller ID.

“Yeah?”

“Gave you quite a scare, didn’t I?”

Slowly, but not smoothly, Michael let
Christal slide from his arm. She looked up and said something, but
Michael was already walking off.

“You bastard,” Michael spat. His voice was
low, but filled with hate.

“Now, now, old friend. I would have really
been a bastard if I’d let wifey in on our little secret, wouldn’t
I?”

A heartbeat and Michael was out the door into
the yard. He scanned around. There was no way that Jerry could have
timed his call so perfectly, unless he had a direct line of sight
to, or into, the house. The only other possibility was that the
house was bugged, which was possible but not likely. No. It was
much more probable that Jerry was staked out somewhere, whether
within eyesight or a bit beyond. There was nothing this side of the
house but a large stone fence running east to west, separating his
property from that of Darrin Reddick’s. Michael continued speaking
as he went.

“No, you’re a bastard for even taping
that.”

“What? Little Mikey don’t like to see himself
on camera? Don’t feel bad, the sight of your hairy ass almost made
me lose my breakfast. Trista, on the other hand, well, a man could
look at that any time of the day, couldn’t he, Mikey?”

“I’m assuming you know her well then?”

Jerusalem Garrett laughed. It was not a
little laugh. “Well? Let’s just say that I know every dimple in her
bottom. Such a shame really…”

“A shame. What are you talking about?”

“Don’t worry too much about that, pal. You’ll
find out soon enough. What should really concern you is that video.
Just because it wasn’t sent today, doesn’t mean it won’t be. And
who’s to say that Stephanie would be the only one I’d send it to?
How about that hot little number you were on the phone with
earlier? Carrie’s her name, right?”

“How did you—”

“How did I know? Tsk, tsk, Mikey. I’m like a
Boy Scout, always prepared.”

“Listen. Enough is enough.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of saying that? I
sure get tired of hearing it.”

“I’ll pay. A hundred grand. Cash. Just take
it and go.”

“Mikey. Don’t be crude. A hundred thousand is
nothing. I told you already. I want it all.”

A pause—one so pregnant it could have been
carrying twins. Michael took the moment to survey the front of his
house. Down the drive. Across the street. Nothing. From where he
stood, just center of the house, out in the circular drive near the
clichéd fountain, he was only afforded a small vignette of the
street beyond his own gates. There was no car parked there.
Immediately across was the Washington’s property, an avant garde
structure that had barely passed the approval process, but Michael
had seen fit in the crucial moment to allow its constriction. No
lunatic waited beneath its heavy beams, or to either side.

“Jerry, be reasonable.” He was stalling now,
as he made his way to the north face of his home.

“Mikey, old buddy, old pal. I think I’m being
more, much more, than reasonable. I’m allowing you to purchase your
freedom. An opportunity I was never extended.”

“Freedom?” Michael couldn’t stop a small
chuckle as he wound around the far corner and started trotting to
the rear. “Freedom…broke…dead on my ass?”

“Mikey, you sound a teeny bit out of breath.
You wouldn’t be running circles around your house, would you?
Looking for me?”

Michael stopped cold in his tracks.

“It’s funny, isn’t it? Almost as if I was
looking at you right now?”

“There’s nothing funny about any of
this.”

“Oh. I agree, Mikey. Fun, perhaps, for me.
But certainly not funny. You do have to agree though, it’s like I
know your every move.”

“Where are you?”

“Tsk, tsk, Mikey. A magician never reveals
his secrets.” That was the second time Michael had heard the tsk,
tsk issue from Jerry and he found it more than a little
obnoxious.

Now at the rear of the house, just at the
pool deck, Michael caught his breath, strained his eyes, but
conceded that if Jerry was in fact watching him, he wasn’t going to
find him. The absolute back the lawn merged into woodland. No tall,
secure cut stone fence separated the yard from the trees. An
oversight, maybe. It was possible to simply walk right up to the
back door of the house from that direction. Jerry could be back
there amid the pines, oaks, and maples, either standing, sitting or
up in a tree. He could even be using a tree-stand like hunters
often employ.

With renewed air in his lungs, Michael spoke,
“Five hundred thousand. That’s the best I can do.”

“That’s not nearly good enough, Mikey. Not
nearly enough. I want millions and you offer me thousands. Surely
that’s not the expert negotiation that has grown your stock
portfolio to the size of War and Peace. I’m a guy with what I like
to think of as a good sense of humor, but I have to admit you’re
trying it.”

“You’re giving me no choice, Jerry. You come
back after fifteen years, blackmail me with a whore and say you
want everything I have. What kind of negotiations am I supposed to
make?”

“Sounding a bit whiny, aren’t you? Like a
snotty nosed little blubberball. Kinda like when I met you.”

“Fuck you, Jerry. Fuck you!”

Michael killed the connection and started
back into the house. He looked down at the screen for the number
Jerry dialed from. PRIVATE NUMBER was what the screen read.

“Great.”

Michael entered the house through the French
doors by the kitchen, slipping by Mrs. Wylder in the dining room
like a phantom. In the utility room he located the network box that
provided the house’s wire and wireless Internet connection. With
his right hand he yanked the power cord free from the plastic black
housing that held the countless wires and circuit boards.

There would be no incoming mail to this house
today.

But he wasn’t quite done yet.

Stealthily, Michael made his way into the
master bedroom. The shower was running in the bath and the door was
shut. He found Stephanie’s cell on a nightstand table. Collecting
it, he was on his way out the door before he pressed the power
button powering it down. Upstairs, past Christal’s bedroom—where
she was hard at work brushing her hair and prettying herself
up—there was a linen closet that hadn’t been used since it’d been
built and was filled with extra bed linens. Michael opened the
closet, squatted, and pushed the phone far back into a pile of
sheets. Content that he had now cut his family off from the World
Wide Web and videos of him in all his promiscuous glory, he headed
back downstairs and prepared himself for a night out with the
family.

It was a temporary fix, but it would buy
time. And that was all Michael Cole could ask for.

Then

“Goddammit, boy! You’re going to eat me out
of house and home! Why the hell you gotta eat so much?”

Michael Cole looked up from his plate, not
daring to meet his father’s eyes, but at least daring to look in
his general direction. With a paper towel he wiped ketchup from the
corner of his mouth. The supper had been good, really good. Fish
sticks and French fries, both his favorites.

Mike hadn’t expected the attack; his father
could blow at any minute and for any reason. And Mike could do
nothing. His father never really appreciated witty
comebacks—although he was king when it came to hurling them out—so
Mike pretended he had nothing to say. Sitting dumbly in his chair
at the small table inside their mobile home, Michael just waited
for the storm to pass. The momentary silence was only the eye of
the storm. His father would yell again if he remained silent, but
would whoop him good if it even looked like he was trying to stand
up for himself.