Curtis had another whiskey before he left the bar. A more expensive one than the cheap shit Danny had bought. He sat on his own, in contemplation, as he drank. To say the night had taken an unexpected turn was an understatement, and he really didn’t know where all the newly found information, new connections left him. He hadn’t even known Finn had been living in Mexico, never mind in a relationship for a year with an English-Italian-Frenchwoman who’d now gone missing.
Perhaps Alyssia and Danny were right – he should stay out of their ‘investigation’. Yet they had no authority, either over him or the search for Finn.
An ever-growing part of him felt that maybe it’d be worthwhile to bite the bullet and hand Finn’s name to the police after all.
What kept stopping him?
He left the car where it was and took a taxi back to East Cobb.
The lights were on, which meant Rachel was home; a surprise given her earlier messages. He opened the front door and stepped inside the house. Silence. No TV or radio. Lights on in the lounge and the kitchen.
‘Rach?’
No answer.
Given the day he’d had, the night he’d had, a whole ream of unwelcome thoughts flashed.
‘Rach? I’m home.’
He slipped his shoes off, wondering as he did whether if it was the right call. If an intruder lay in wait, shouldn’t he keep them on to help him escape and run?
Intruder? Why would there even be an intruder?
He jumped in shock when a figure appeared in the kitchen doorway.
‘Jesus, Rachel!’ he blurted. ‘I thought…’ He shook his head, composing himself. ‘I thought… you’d be home later.’
‘Yeah, course you did,’ she said, before taking a large swig from the goldfish bowl-sized wine glass.
‘I need some of that,’ he said, ignoring the nagging in his mind about how reliant he’d become on drink recently. Both of them, in fact.
‘You do? Thought you’d have had enough already with your date.’
So that was it. Jayne had called her. He’d never liked Jayne. Nosy cow. The type who wanted to be in everyone’s business but only for the sole purpose of stirring the pot.
‘What are you talking about?’ Curtis said, striding past Rachel into the kitchen. He took the wine from the fridge and poured himself a large glass.
‘Jayne saw you,’ Rachel said.
He took a drag of the wine.
‘Of course she saw me. I wasn’t trying to hide.’
‘Not what she said.’
‘Then what the fuck did she say?’
‘That you were getting cozy with some brunette. That the two of you went all sheepish and red-cheeked when Jayne clocked you. Stuttering a load of lame excuses about her being a client or something.’
Her words were slurred. That wasn’t her first drink. Curtis noted the empty bottle on the island.
‘Jayne needs to keep her nose out of other people’s business.’
‘That’s the best you’ve got?’
She whipped her phone from the back pocket of her jeans, thumbed the screen angrily.
‘This her?’ Rachel said, thrusting the phone toward him. ‘Is this who you’ve been seeing behind my back?’
Curtis glanced at the screen and did a double-take. Not only had Jayne relayed the cooked-up story to Rachel – no doubt reveling in doing so – but she’d snapped a picture too. And one that somehow captured a moment, Alyssia with her chin resting on her hand, staring at Curtis.
‘That’s… that’s not what it looks like.’
‘Oh my God!’ Rachel shouted, throwing her head in the air. ‘Would you listen to yourself. You’ve been caught, Curtis! I knew you were screwing around. At least be a man and admit it.’
He put his wine down and moved toward her. He reached for her hand but she brushed him off.
‘Rach, seriously, this is not what you think.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, a tear rolling down her cheek.
‘Damn it, Rach, I’m not having an affair!’
She shook her head, struggling to hold his eye. She didn’t believe him. Not at all. But then he could hardly blame her. The photo, all of the tension between them, his increasingly erratic behavior the last few days.
Except that last one was to do with Finn. She knew nothing about that. How could he not tell her now, even if the truth came with inevitable and possibly ugly consequences? For him. For their marriage.
‘I’m not having an affair,’ he said again, his voice resolute as he stood tall, confident in his own trustworthiness. ‘Her name’s Alyssia Montagne. She’s not a client. I only met her tonight, but it was not a date.’
‘Then what the hell was it!’ Rachel said, moving between anger and anguish. ‘Who is she?’
‘She’s… Her sister is… was Finn’s girlfriend.’
‘Finn?’
‘My brother.’
‘Finn? Finn’s dead.’
And there it was. The lie he’d hoped he’d never have to undo. Because the longer he’d held on to it, the more complicated he knew this moment would become.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Finn’s not dead.’
‘What are you talking about? You… Your brother is dead. That’s—’
‘That’s what I told you. It’s what I always led you to believe. But it’s not true.’
She shook her head but said nothing. She looked so confused. Distraught, too.
‘Finn is alive,’ Curtis said. ‘And… Perhaps it’s best you sit down. It’s a long story.’
She lifted her hand and sent a stinging slap across his cheek.
‘You bastard,’ she said. They stared at each other for a few moments, neither saying a word as Curtis’s cheek throbbed. Then Rachel took a long swig of wine, as though preparing herself. ‘This had better be good.’
Good? Certainly not how he’d describe it. She took a seat at a stool at the breakfast bar, and then he started to talk.
* * *
‘Who are you?’ Rachel asked, her face contorted in such a way as to make her distaste clear.
‘Honey,’ Curtis said, moving toward her but he didn’t get to within two yards of her stool before she held up a hand to halt him.
‘Don’t think you can make this better just by wrapping your arms around me, Curtis.’
‘But—’
‘No. Just… don’t.’
Yet he really did want to hug to her. To hold her and to say he was sorry, to try to explain again even though he’d already tried and failed that several times over the last half an hour.
‘You told me your brother was dead!’ Rachel shouted, her eyes wide now as she glared at him, anger the most dominant emotion by far.
‘He was dead to me.’
She tutted. ‘That’s pathetic and you know it.’
Curtis tilted his head, stared at the ceiling before closing his eyes.
‘You have to think about where I was in my life when I met you,’ he said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean? You were a confident, career-driven lawyer making a comfortable six-figure salary, driving around in a—’
‘Is that all you think my life boils down to? My career path and my salary?’
He sent a glare her way, to match the one she was giving him. The tinge of anger in his tone caused her to slump and retreat a little.
‘I know you had a hard time before—’
‘Hard time?’ he said, struggling to keep his irritation from showing. ‘I lost my dad to an unexpected heart attack when he was in his early sixties. A couple of years later my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I nursed her as the disease slowly ate away at her body and her soul for more than three years! I was her primary carer before she died. Her only carer, while my brother jetted around the world one country and several bimbos at a time.’
‘That was horrible for you, but it still doesn’t explain why you told me Finn died!’
‘It does, if you just listen to what I’m saying and put yourself in my shoes for once and stop making every damn thing about you all of the fucking time!’
OK. Maybe he’d spoken too harshly there, and Rachel looked shocked by the force of his words. But he didn’t try to take any of it back.
‘When I met you… I’d come through the most unimaginable period of my life,’ he said, a morose calmness returning to his tone as he put himself back in that moment of time. ‘To lose my parents like that… and without a brother or a wife or even a girlfriend to help support me…’
He was sure Rachel’s eyes welled a little as he spoke now, but he didn’t know whether it was because she sensed his dismay or still felt the aggrieved party herself, or even because her own painful memories – of her mom and dad – were being dredged up as he spoke.
‘You were the tonic I needed,’ he said.
He stepped towards her and she didn’t flinch, didn’t resist as he put his hand to her shoulder.
‘You saved me, Rach,’ he said.
She shook her head but said nothing.
‘And I swear, I haven’t seen or heard anything from Finn since the day I met you.’
‘But that’s not the point, is it?’
‘It is the point!’
He took his phone out of his pocket, enthused, his fingers fumbling as he brought up the years-old messages.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘These are the last messages, the last contact I ever had from Finn.’
He paused a moment as he stared at the screen himself, once again reliving that period and the exact feelings as he’d typed out those messages and read the replies.
‘He left Georgia days after her funeral. A funeral I’d organized with no help from him. Afterward? I was still left with the burden of clearing Mom’s things. Selling the house, settling the estate. And this was all he cared about. The money.’
He held the phone out to show her the messages, scrolled for her after a few seconds.
‘Not even a phone call. Just message after message checking on the inheritance to the point where he was demanding his share.’
Rachel shook her head again as her eyes flicked from left to right.
‘And finally… when he’d got what he wanted…’
Curtis’s gaze froze on the words, those final words, the last contact from his brother.
We’re done. You won’t hear from me again
‘That’s my brother. And that’s why I told you he was dead, because when I first met you, only weeks after this, I really wished he was.’
And he didn’t feel bad at all about saying that, so consumed by those old emotions once more, even if he’d come to regret thinking like that over the years.
Neither of them said anything for what felt like an age. Rachel had looked away, to the darkness beyond the windows, but Curtis remained staring at the phone screen until the device locked and the screen went black. He put the phone back in his pocket.
‘You still lied to me,’ Rachel said.
‘I… I did. I’m sorry. But once I told you… It just… became too hard to take it back. That one lie – it slipped out. I never imagined when I first met you that we’d stay together, that we’d get married and be here years later with that lie still hanging over us.’
She whipped back around to face him. ‘Wow, yeah, thanks for that. What was I supposed to be? A quick screw?’
‘Rachel, come on, that’s not what I meant, and you know it. I love you. You must know that.’
‘But back then – what? I was just a bit of action for you? A tonic.’
He clenched his teeth, tried to channel his irritation away. Was she trying to rile him? ‘You’re twisting my words, again. My point is, it was a lie I never thought would mean anything, and even though I never corrected it… It’s not as though it’s something I’ve had to repeat and build on constantly over the years, is it? Finn, alive or dead, has never been part of our lives. I barely even thought about it.’
‘I don’t believe you. And it’s just not true. This story has always been part of who I thought you were.’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘If you’re honest with yourself, this story has made no difference whatsoever to our lives over the last six years.’
Her face scrunched up like she’d chewed a wasp. ‘Honesty? You’re trying to tell me about honesty?’
He decided not to dig any further on that one.
‘The point is… Finn is—’
He stopped. They’d spent all the time so far debating the fact that Curtis had lied about his brother’s life, and death. But the reason they were having the conversation at all was because of Finn’s sudden appearance in Washington, D.C., and the questions his presence and his actions there raised. He didn’t know how to even start explaining that, nor what he’d been up to the last couple of days.
‘Just tell me what’s going on,’ Rachel said, sounding a little dejected. ‘No more lies. No more hiding the truth, either.’
Curtis sighed as he built himself up.
‘The attack in Washington? The hero? It’s Finn.’
She held his eye but remained silent as though she expected more.
‘Finn is the hero,’ Curtis repeated.
‘You said that already.’ No surprise or shock or anything in her voice.
‘But Finn isn’t a hero,’ Curtis said. ‘Finn is a self-centered piece of shit.’
Yet as his big brother, Curtis still felt a certain responsibility for the man, and he still loved him. Missed him. And he hated feeling like that because Finn didn’t deserve it.
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ Rachel said, as though overcoming some doubt in her mind. ‘Finn… is the hero?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? Why would your brother—’
‘That’s the point, isn’t it?’ Curtis said. ‘I have no idea why Finn was here in the country, never mind why he was there at the Capitol Building and how he got himself caught up in that attack. Or why he’s nowhere to be found now.’
‘You told me Finn was a consultant.’
‘Exactly! He was. Is, perhaps. A boring old management consultant. I don’t… I just… seeing him. I know it’s him, Rach, and I need to know why. I need to find him.’
To protect him, he almost said but stopped himself just in time. It’d been a long time since he’d protected his little brother. Since his little brother had let him.
‘And the woman in the bar?’
Curtis sighed and did his best to explain that one. Rachel sat barely moving as he did so, clearly a whole heap of doubt still present in her mind, not just about Alyssia but about everything.
‘You never met her before tonight?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t know anything about her at all. I don’t know a thing about Finn’s life since I met you. But… seeing him. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about him. Wondered about him.’
‘And now the brother you haven’t seen for years has resurfaced and… what? You decided to just skip out on your job and run across the country chasing after him?’
She said it as though it was the most ludicrous thing she could imagine – for him at least.
‘Work… Maybe I took it all too far,’ he said. ‘I know you think I have it easy compared to you, but… I’ve given that job my all and if you pull a piece of string too hard, eventually it just snaps.’
She laughed out loud at that. ‘Seriously? How long have you been waiting to drop that line?’
‘It’s not something I said for effect,’ he bit back, not hiding his agitation. ‘It’s how I feel.’
‘So what? Your plan is to walk away from your job, your career, and to gallivant across the country with this woman you just met to search for your long-lost brother?’
‘No,’ Curtis said. ‘Because Alyssia, or more specifically Danny Golder, the pit-bull PI she’s hired, told me to back off.’
Rachel seemed to consider that.
‘And if you care for my opinion at all, that’s exactly what you should do,’ she said.
‘You don’t get it, do you? Finn could be in trouble. Why else hasn’t he come forward?’
‘Get it? No, I don’t get it. But what are you expecting, Curtis? That all of a sudden you can remodel yourself as James Bond, trailing around, tackling bad guys? Whatever your brother is involved in… If you really think he’s in trouble then leave it to the police to sort it out.’
Curtis didn’t reply, but he’d feared this was exactly the position the conversation would end up at. Another reason he hadn’t opened up to his wife sooner.
Although the biggest reason had always been to avoid his own discomfort and embarrassment.
‘Curtis, I’m not playing about here. You need to call the police. Tell them you think your brother is this hero. Let them do what they need to do to find him, investigate him, protect him, whatever.’
‘I can’t… What if…’
He couldn’t find the words. He knew what she was proposing made absolute sense, yet it was the course of action he wanted to avoid as far as possible.
‘OK, this is how it is,’ she said, now a picture of calmness. ‘You have a simple choice to make.’ She stood up from the stool and folded her arms as she glared at him. ‘Call the police. Tell them everything. Then tomorrow, go to work and smooth over whatever mess you’ve made there. Get on with your life, our life.’
He slowly shook his head as he struggled to imagine that course of action.
‘Or… pack a bag and get the hell out of here.’
He scoffed. ‘You or him. That’s what you’re basically telling me.’
‘I’m your wife.’
‘He’s my brother.’
‘Some brother.’
He huffed.
‘So?’ Rachel prompted after a few moments of silence. ‘I’m not playing, Curtis. You do it now or I want out.’
He sighed. ‘OK,’ he said, pulling out his phone, his heart thudding in his chest in anticipation, as though he were about to make the biggest mistake of his life… But he couldn’t risk losing Rachel. ‘I’ll make the call.’