I squinted at the vibrant light from the television screen coming from inside the house and took a deep breath.

The son of a bitch was still awake.

Good.

On the rare occasion Vince Donovan and I interacted, it was with mutual intolerance. He spoke to me like I was a punk, and he treated my brother the same.

As I climbed the porch steps, I heard Madoc drive off behind me. I stepped through the front door and walked into the living room, filling the doorway as I hovered there.

Vince didn’t even bat eyelash as he barked, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Grabbing the long, wooden stem of the lamp next to me, I yanked the cord out of the wall. “You hurt my brother,” I spoke calmly. “I’m here to settle up.”

“You didn’t have to bail me out.” I ran my tongue over the sweet sting of the cut at the corner of my mouth. “I didn’t,” James, Tate’s dad, answered. “Your mother did.”

He steered the car through the quiet twists and turns leading into our neighborhood. The sun peeked through the trees, making the red-gold leaves glow like fire.

My mother? She was there?

Madoc and James had been at the police station all night, waiting for me to be released. I’d been arrested, booked, and ended up sleeping in a cell.

Word to the wise about waiting to be bailed out: Nothing happens until morning. But if my mother had bailed me out, then where was she?

“Is she at home?” I asked.

“No, she’s not.” He turned a corner, downshifting the Bronco. “She’s not in any shape to help you, Jared. I think you know that. Your mother and I talked last night at the station, and she decided it was time to go to the Haywood Center for a while.”

James’s blue eyes were concentrated out the window, an ocean of things he would never say boiling underneath.

In that respect, he and Tate were one and the same. If James yelled, then you knew it was time to shut up and pay attention. He rarely said anything that wasn’t important, and he hated unnecessary chatter.

It was very clear when James and Tate reached the end of their rope. “Rehab?” I questioned him.

“It’s about time, don’t you think?” he shot back.

I laid my head back on the headrest and looked out the window. Yeah, I guess it was time.

But apprehension crawled its way into my head anyway.

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 621