“If you wanted it off the record, you should have said so.” She watched him rub his hand across his jaw as if she had sucker punched him. “Besides, by tomorrow everyone will know about Agent O’Dell when she starts asking questions. What are you worried about, Nicky? Calling in an expert is a good thing.”
“Is it? Or will it just make me look like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing?” He shot her another look. “Don’t you dare print that.”
“Relax. I’m not the enemy, Nicky.” She noticed the boys doing their victory dance between the required handshakes. The game was over, and it was beginning to get dark. The park lights slowly turned on one by one. “You know, Dad wasn’t afraid to work with the news media.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not Dad.” Now she had made him angry. She knew to stay away from the comparison, but she hated him treating her like an ambulance chaser. Besides, if he didn’t like the comparisons, perhaps he shouldn’t have followed in their father’s footsteps. As usual, she simply sidestepped the subject.
“I’m just saying that Dad knew how to use the media to help.”
“To help?” Nick asked incredulously, his voice rising above the cheering in front of them. He quickly looked around, realizing he was too loud. He lowered his voice again and leaned toward her. “Dad used the news media because he loved being in the limelight. There were so many leaks, it’s amazing they ever caught Jeffreys.”
“What leaks? What are you talking about?”
“Never mind,” he said, glancing at her notebook.
Christine rolled her eyes at him, wondering if he was just baiting her now.
“But they did catch Jeffreys, and Dad solved the case,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, they did catch Jeffreys, and good ole Dad took all the credit.”
“Nicky, no one’s asking you to fill Dad’s shoes. You always take that on yourself.” Okay, there it was. A slip, an innocent slip. She watched his face, waiting.
Instead, he simply shook his head. A frustrated smile caught at the corner of his mouth as if he thought she couldn’t possibly understand.
“Haven’t you ever wondered …” He hesitated, looking out at the field, his thoughts far away. “Didn’t you ever think it happened all too quickly … too neat and convenient?”
“What are you talking about?”
This wasn’t the response she expected. The night air was chilly, and Christine felt a shiver down her back. She rubbed her arms and tried to look into her brother’s eyes. He was starting to scare her with his anger and his hushed manner. Normally, he joked around and never took anything too seriously, even their sibling banter. Had the mention of their father brought all this on? No, it was something else. What did he know? What was it that had her arrogant, confident little brother so spooked?
“Nicky, what do you mean?” she tried again.
“Forget it,” he said, standing up and stretching, closing the subject.
“Uncle Nick, Uncle Nick! Did you see me score?” Timmy yelled as he ran up the bleachers, carefully watching his small feet the whole way up.
“You bet I did,” Nick lied.
She watched as Nick’s entire face changed, relaxing into a smile as he snatched her small son up into his long arms, wrestling him in close for a hug.
Christine knew her brother was hiding something, and she was going to find out what it was.
CHAPTER 14
He drove around the park again, this time slowly. The game was finally over. He pulled into a parking space far from the other cars, alone in the corner of the lot. He turned off the headlights and sat watching, listening to the music and waiting for the jerky strings of Vivaldi to smooth out and silence the throbbing in his temples.
It was happening again and so soon. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t control it. And worse, he didn’t want to. He was so tired. He tried to remember when he had last slept through an entire night, instead of pacing or wandering the streets. He rubbed his eyes, wiping at the exhaustion, then stopped suddenly. His fingers were trembling beyond his control.
“Dear God, make it stop,” he whispered as he tore at the hair at his temples. Why wouldn’t it stop? The throbbing, the pounding made his head ache.
He watched the group of boys in grass-stained uniforms. They looked so happy, fresh from their victory, arms crossing around one another, hands patting each other on the back. They touched so carelessly, so casually. Their singsong voices grew loud as they approached, drowning out Vivaldi with lyrics of gibberish.
The memory came flooding back to him, paralyzing him and pinning him to the stiff leather of the car seat. He was eleven years old and his stepfather had made him join the Little League team, bargaining with the coach to get him out of the house on Saturday mornings. He knew it was only because his stepfather wanted to fuck his mother all morning.
He had accidentally walked in on them the Saturday before, only because they were out of milk. The memory washed over him—powerful despite the years. So clear, so vivid he grabbed the steering wheel to brace himself.
He stood in the doorway of his mother’s bedroom, paralyzed by the sight of his mother’s skin, white and naked with the silver cross swinging between her big breasts. Her breasts wagged back and forth. She held herself up on her hands and knees while his stepfather rode her like a dog in heat.
It was his stepfather who saw him first. He yelled at him, panting and jerking, while his mother’s eyes grew wide in horror. She twisted out from under his stepfather, falling and tumbling off the bed, grabbing for the sheet. It was then that he turned to run. He stumbled down the hall, tripping and falling only once before he got to his room. Just as he began to slam the door, his stepfather crashed through it.
His stepfather was still naked. It was the first time he had seen a grown man’s penis, and it was horrible: huge, stiff and erect, protruding through the thick black hair. His stepfather grabbed him by the neck and shoved his face to the wall.
“You interested in watching or maybe you want some of this.” He could still hear the man’s graveled voice, out of breath and panting in his ear.
He stood perfectly still. He couldn’t breathe. His stepfather’s fingers strangled his neck with one hand while he ripped his pajama pants with the other. His mother screamed and pounded her fists against his locked door. Then he felt it. The intense pressure, the pain so stifling he thought his insides would explode. He kept quiet and still, though he wanted to scream. His cheek scraped against the rough texture of the bedroom wall. All he could do was stare at the crucifix hanging next to his face, while he waited for his stepfather to stop slamming into his small body.
A car’s horn blasted. He jumped and clutched the steering wheel even harder. His palms were sweaty, his fingers still trembling. He watched the boys getting into the cars and vans with their parents. How many of them were hiding secrets like his own? How many of them hid their bruises and scars? How many waited for some sort of relief, some sort of salvation from their misery? From their torture?
Then he saw the small boy waving to the others as he started up the sidewalk. He watched to see if anyone would join the boy tonight, or if he would walk home alone as he usually did.
It was starting to get dark. Several street lights blinked on. He listened to the gravel grind beneath the cars as they pulled out and drove off. Headlights flicked on and blinded him as they turned to leave. No one noticed him. No one took extra time to look his way. Those who recognized him smiled and waved, for there was nothing unusual about him taking in a neighborhood soccer game.
Half