Chapter 6
I did not like being tested.
Then I remembered my brother had once been nearly killed because he trusted a message with my name on it.
He earned caution.
Faye agreed to take me to St. Alden.
Sabine tried to stop us.
Not physically.
With panic.
“He won’t want you there.”
“Maybe.”
“He built a life.”
“Good.”
“You’ll destroy it.”
That made me stop.
“Is that what you told yourself?”
She flinched.
I left.
Faye’s daughter June came too because there was nobody else she trusted overnight.
Five years old.
Bright red coat.
Serious face.
She held her mother’s hand and asked whether I was “the scary boss.”
Faye looked mortified.
I answered:
“Sometimes.”
June accepted that.
Children are efficient.
St. Alden was small enough that strangers looked intentional.
Lucien’s cottage stood near the water.
Gray.
Blue shutters.
Pear tree.
Exactly as Faye described.
Empty.
Not abandoned.
Recently left.
One cup in the sink.
Firewood stacked.
Piano beside the window.
My brother had always played badly.
The melody was the only thing he performed beautifully.
On the piano sat an envelope.
DORIAN.
My name.
His handwriting.
I knew it immediately.
My hands actually shook.
Inside:
If Faye brought you here, Sabine reacted exactly as I expected.
Then:
Do not follow me yet.
Typical Lucien.
Still ordering his older brother around from hiding.
I kept reading.
Ask Sabine why she closed the east gate at 11:40.
Ask Warren who arrived after the fire.
Ask who took Father’s second will.
Three questions.
The last one surprised me.
Our father had one will.
Or so I believed.
Then another page.
Owen is the man in my grave.
Give him his name back before you ask me to come home.
I stopped.
Fair.
More than fair.
Under the letter was a photograph.
Lucien.
Recent.
Older.
Alive.
Standing beside Faye and June outside the inn.
I touched the edge.
Ten years of a headstone dissolved beneath my thumb.
My brother was alive.
May you like
But he would not let reunion become another Montclair performance.
First, I had to correct the grave.
