One Door Closes (8 page)

“Mr. Ware, this is Connor Maxwell from First Trust Credit Union, calling about your loan application.”

Oh, thank God. At least one thing would go right this week. “Yes, Mr. Maxwell. I’m on my way from work right now.” And definitely heading for the bank. “Something else you need from us?”

“Mr. Ware, I’m sorry to tell you that your loan has been denied.”

He stopped in the middle of the lot. He could feel the rain soaking through the top of his shirt. “May I ask why?”

“I’m afraid the credit checks didn’t pan out.” It was definitely the same man they’d spoken to yesterday, the same voice, from a welcoming face. But the tone now was much crisper than Calvin remembered.

He wiped his eyes free of water and started toward his car again. “You said the application looked good.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Calvin weighed it, a second of awkward silence broken only by the shush of the rain. Easier to thank the agent, hang up and go home. Ponder options. And not the correct reaction, not if he wanted to keep the house. Whatever else, he was answerable to his brothers. “Listen, can I come by and speak to you about this? I need to know exactly why we’re not getting the loan.”

The agent hesitated. “It’s not going to change the outcome.”

Irritation flared. “You’re open till five-thirty? I’ll be there before then.”

He thought about calling the others, but he’d be lucky to make it there himself in this torrent. The rain sluiced down the windshield as he drove, as fast as traffic allowed, and pulled into an open spot in the bank’s lot with only three minutes to spare. The security guard was already reaching for the door handles when he ran up and slipped inside. The guard’s expression clearly acknowledged Calvin’s sopping clothing, but he didn’t say anything.

Calvin made for the desk they’d been at the day before. Connor Maxwell was waiting, and not looking too happy about it. He could have been the man’s dour twin for all the standoffishness, and Calvin slowed as he approached.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Ware.” Maxwell indicated the chair in front of his desk, and started in before Calvin could speak. “As I said on the phone, we regret that we cannot approve your loan application at this time. Unfortunately the background checks didn’t clear.”

“Wait, so now it is a background check? Not a credit check?”

Maxwell’s complexion looked almost clammy. At least he still looked Calvin in the eye. “I’m sorry, but information has been brought to our attention that prevents the approval of your loan at this time.”

For a blazing instant, Calvin was furious with Danny and Devon. Surely if it were financial trouble, they would have said something. It was just common sense to— “What kind of information?”

Now Maxwell was definitely not looking him in the eye, instead darting glances over Calvin’s shoulder.

“Sir, I do apologize.” The guard appeared behind him, hand hovering. “We’re closing now. Any business transactions need to be concluded at this time.”

As far as Calvin was aware, good customer service dictated that any customer still inside the bank after the doors were locked would be dealt with as if the place were still open, and in a satisfactory manner. It was the expression on Maxwell’s face that stopped Calvin’s tongue from twisting sour, spitting whatever came next into both their faces. The agent looked genuinely miserable, as if he desperately wanted not to be there.

Calvin eyed him for a long moment. “Do you have a supervisor I can contact about this?”

Maxwell shook his head.

And that was just bullshit. Calvin’s jaw hurt from clenching. He wasn’t prepared for this kind of confrontation. Nothing made sense and he didn’t have all the information.

But he did have backup at home, provided neither of them were out doing whatever it was they did. Giving himself time to assess had always been Calvin’s most trusted instinct, and the one that got the most favorable results. He needed time and a second opinion, someone who had more experience with this kind of thing than he did, and that was Devon.

“I hope you have an explanation when we’re here tomorrow.” Always calming, to at least have a basic plan of attack.

Maxwell’s eyes dropped. He didn’t bother looking up again, just began clearing the loose papers off his desk.

The drive home was aggravated by roadwork as the two directions of traffic negotiated a closed lane. It was more than enough to distract his forebrain from the larger problem, and by the time he got past the poncho-draped worker waving them through, he was itchy in his seat, tapping the steering wheel and anxious to be out of the car.

Background check. Something personal, then. Calvin couldn’t think of a thing in his past that had the power to bust up a loan application so quickly. Certainly nothing financial. No criminal history, and even that would have been shaky ground if his finances were sound. He wasn’t exactly rolling in money, but he made it work. Devon clearly had steady income from somewhere.

Danny?

It was troubling all over again, realizing how little he actually knew about his foster brothers.

By the time he reached the house, the clouds had scudded apart as if the rain had been an illusion, and sun beamed on weathered wooden boards and sparkling window panes. The gate stood open. He was sure he’d closed it departing for work that morning, and his pulse picked up at possibly finding both his brothers home.

Indeed, Devon’s motorcycle was there between the house and garage. But the vehicle standing in the driveway was Will’s truck, and the dismay was so sudden that Calvin’s foot jerked down on the brake, wrenching the car to a stop. He looked at truck and bike side by side on the gravel, gripping and releasing the steering wheel, then threw the car into park and shoved the door open. The anger was vanishing fast, sucking down and leaving a cavity in its place. Slamming the door was a mistake. The remainder of his ire rushed out in a flourish and Calvin sagged, shivering in damp clothing.

The person sitting on the porch’s top step came too late into his awareness. Eric Angus lounged back on both elbows, a perceptive smile gracing his mouth. The sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up and his suit jacket lay folded across his thighs. He was somehow completely dry. Calvin became aware, again too late, of having passed another car parked on the road, having to turn wide around it in order to make it through the gate. He stared at his visitor and his visitor smirked right back.

“Glad I caught you, Mr. Ware.”

Calvin quickened his pace, aiming fixedly for the tarnished doorknob. “You need to call before you show up.” At least other people were here. Somewhere.

Angus got to his feet and brushed off the backs of his legs. “Apologies. I’ll be sure to do that when I return.”

Far too ominous. Calvin wasn’t having this conversation on the porch with a wall between him and the family he was still able to scrounge together. He jogged up the stairs past his visitor. “You’re leaving, then?”

“I think you’re going to want me to stay.”

When he turned around, fingers inches from the doorknob, Angus was right where he had been before, leaning against the railing as if he already owned the house. Dread hummed in low through Calvin’s belly, with no discernible source except for the glint in Angus’s eyes. “Why?”

“Wouldn’t want to waste your time coming back to negotiate the paperwork, since we both know you can’t afford upkeep anymore.”

No. No way. This didn’t happen to real people. The dread took a more fixed grip, solidifying into terms Calvin could make sense of. “You don’t know anything about my situation.”

Angus smiled. It didn’t even look cruel. “There’s no loan coming, is there?”

Calvin’s hand dropped to rest on the doorknob behind him at last, a chilly sense of reality. His grip quickly turned painful. “You did this.”

Angus nodded.

How
had he done this? The question burned its way up Calvin’s throat when Angus’s smile finally morphed into its bitterer form. Angus cocked a knee up, bracing his foot against the slats behind him. “Keeping my interests at heart.”

Calvin started toward him, then pulled up, hands flexing at his sides. “You got the bank to deny our loan?”

“Credit union. And yes. Didn’t take much effort.”

One person, even one with his hands in the city’s main staples, couldn’t convince an entire financial institution to turn away a profitable business venture. Calvin looked around, anxious for a familiar face, but the yard was empty and peaceful. “I don’t believe you. This—”

“You shouldn’t let people with questionable backgrounds sign your legal documents.”

The courage Calvin was always sure he didn’t have ticked to life. He’d never had much family to speak of, just Audrey, but that protective instinct had been fierce enough, if only mustered against childish name-calling. He honestly could not have predicted he’d jump to his brothers’ defense in the same way, but apparently it was natural instinct.

Maybe it was just natural when facing off with Eric Angus. “My brothers aren’t questionable.”

“Especially not the one with the criminal history.”

Calvin felt the ground teetering under his feet but was unwilling to give way just yet. He wasn’t working with enough information, he knew that, but—

Danny’s reticence to sign the application shafted in like a fading beam of light. Calvin had to work hard to keep the alarm from showing. And then to remind himself that Angus might still just be fishing. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Angus sniffed, turning his head to the side as if sharing a joke with the yard at large. He looked supremely unflustered. “Daniel Redmond has an arrest record. Larceny. It really wasn’t a problem convincing the credit union to rethink things.”

The betrayal was already unfurling, Danny at the center of it, but Calvin tamped it down in light of the more immediate threat. The threat, he reminded himself, that he trusted far less than he did his foster brother at the moment.

At any rate, Calvin knew small-town mentality. If Angus’s business paid certain bills, it was unlikely that fighting the situation would do much good with local business owners, not when he still had other options. He summoned up a version of his voice that wouldn’t stick him in the defensive position. “You know I’ll just take out a loan somewhere else. Somewhere that will laugh you out of the building for even trying to pull this shit.”

“I don’t think you will, Calvin.” And didn’t that just bite, the use of his first name like they were friends? “Your little brother’s not the only one with a secret.”

Oh God, not Devon, too. Calvin gritted his teeth, preparing for whatever came flying his way next. “And you’re going to air all the dirty laundry, are you?”

“Do your youth group organizers know you have a history of drug use?”

“I don’t!”

But Angus’s eyes went disturbingly bright. “Yes, you do.” He enunciated each word. “Some fairly potent antidepressants. Do they know? More importantly, would they be interested in knowing?”

Calvin’s throat felt hot, his head strangely desolate, as if it had just been washed clean with lava. He swallowed and knew Angus saw it, hated himself for allowing such an easy blow. “You’re blackmailing us?”

Angus’s lips tripped upward at the corners, an amused flutter that sickened Calvin. “Your kids’ group is liberal by design. But it’s still a small town, still parents to answer to. I think your particular history of medication won’t go over well.”

The crunch of shoes over gravel erupted, and Will came around the side of the house, wooden slats in hand, his face already grimy with sweat. He stopped when he noticed them. His expression twisted and he started forward again, faster.

“And maybe your contractor wants to know, too,” Angus murmured.

Calvin had no idea what horrors he’d just given away in response to that. The jolt in his innards was more resounding than anything so far. He waved Will off with a shaking hand, praying the blood back into his cheeks. “Will, give us a minute?”

Will eyed them warily. He didn’t nod, but he did head for his truck, casting his eyes their way once he dumped what he was carrying into the bed.

Calvin forced himself to meet Angus’s gaze again. He could record this, on his phone. Except he didn’t know his cell’s systems well enough to do it blind, and if Angus noticed, there’d be nothing worth recording. “What are you doing?” His voice cracked. He was lucky it didn’t do more.

“Protecting my investment.” Angus had a hundred smiles, each one shocking in its ability to hammer exactly where it was aimed.

God, he was a fool. He should have waved Will closer, at least then he might have a witness. But it was too late. Will had vanished, gone back around the house out of sight. As it was, it likely wouldn’t matter. Angus wasn’t stupid and he didn’t need to voice his threats in order to make them real.

“You’re not getting the house,” Calvin croaked.

This time the smile Angus gave him was revoltingly soft, almost commiserating. “Talk it over. I’ve been patient this long, I’m perfectly comfortable waiting for you to tally the options you still have.”

He left Calvin on the porch, chilled by the damp in the air, and walked out through the gate with his hands in his pockets as casually as if he planned to stroll home.

It might have been a minute before the front door swung open—Calvin couldn’t pinpoint the passage of time. He could have been standing there for ages, except the sun had barely moved. His arms rippled into goose bumps and he turned to find Devon in the doorway, Will close behind him. Resignation twinged deep alongside all the rest. He wondered how something as petty as Will going immediately to Devon still had the power to hurt next to this new ugliness.

“He left?” Devon’s voice was sharp. Will’s attention remained fixed on Calvin.

“Yeah.”

Devon pushed the door wide, eyeing the now-empty drive. Will squeezed by him and touched Calvin’s arm, causing another nauseating shiver. “Cal, what?”

Calvin rubbed hard at his eyes with thumb and forefinger, edging out of Will’s space. “Will, can you call it for today?”

Will’s hand dropped to his side. “Are you okay?”