Aidan was still in Hannah Stark’s dorm room when he got the text that the bar was closing for the storm, and he shouldn’t come to work tonight. The Red Anchor never closed, not even for blizzards. He scrolled through the weather alerts on his phone. This storm looked serious.
He sat beside Hannah on her bed, keeping a safe distance. He’d been trying for a while to make an excuse to get away. Hannah liked him more than he was comfortable with. She’d offered him vodka (he’d declined), leaned her thigh against his until he’d inched away, taken cute selfies of the two of them. He’d kept things polite, but she was sure to be upset when they met again at some future date, and she learned that he was her mother’s boyfriend. Any points he earned with Caroline for conducting a safety check on her daughter would get erased then. But Aidan would cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, he needed to escape without hurting the girl’s feelings. The storm gave him the excuse he’d been looking for.
“This storm they’ve been making the announcements about?” Aidan said, standing up and pulling on his coat. “It’s a Category Four hurricane. That’s serious. I have to go take care of things at home. You should go, too. I’m not convinced your dorm is safe.”
“It’s so sweet of you to worry,” she said, and came to stand a bit too close to him. “This dorm is brand-new and super well constructed. I’ll be fine.”
“The security isn’t as good as you probably think,” he said. “Anybody could get in simply by following someone with a key.”
“The campus police are everywhere. It’s not a problem, really.”
What more could he do? He’d tried his best to warn Hannah of her vulnerable position. There was nothing else he could say without revealing that he’d followed her father and watched him meet with some street thug to contract hits on his own family. She’d never believe it—at least, not unless he explained why he’d followed Jason Stark, which in turn would reveal his relationship with Caroline. Aidan knew better than to do that. Caroline would never forgive him for telling her daughter about them without her permission. And he could hardly ask permission when she refused to return his phone calls.
“When will I see you again?” Hannah asked.
“I’m not sure. I’ll call you.”
“Can I get a kiss goodbye?” she asked shyly.
He kissed her on the forehead, in a fatherly sort of way.
“Stay safe,” he said.
Then he crossed the campus, bracing himself against stiff winds, to find his truck.
On the LIE, the rain started coming down hard, and visibility was poor. His truck was so big that folks deferred to him on the highway. But it was so old that the brakes acted up in heavy rain. A guy cut him off, and he slammed on the brakes and fishtailed, correcting course at the very last minute. His heart pounded. He kept his eyes on the road, the radio tuned to the weather, but he thought only of Caroline. He worried about her safety, and fought against the urge to call her again. It galled him that he wasn’t allowed to. All he wanted was to help her, but she’d constructed this phony wall between the two of them, making that impossible.
It took Aidan an hour to get to his apartment. He arrived to find Ron, the super, boarding up windows. Ron was an old guy with a big belly and arthritic fingers. When he begged for help, Aidan had a hard time saying no, even though his thoughts were elsewhere. He let himself be dragged into helping Ron secure the apartment complex, getting soaked in the ever-worsening storm. The whole time, thoughts of Caroline’s house in the path of the storm weighed on his mind. She’d be devastated if that house was damaged, or God forbid, destroyed. He’d ridden out lesser storms on his grandfather’s land as a child, and remembered how the wind could howl, how the surf could pound against the dunes. She must be crazy with worry. Maybe she was even driving in this mess right this minute, trying to get there to secure her place. The more Aidan thought about it, the more certain he became that Caroline was out in this evil weather right now, heading to her house. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if something happened to her, something he could have prevented. All he had to do was go take care of her house for her, and let her know she didn’t have to worry. How hard would that be? How terrible would he feel if he didn’t, and then something happened? Aidan lived with so much guilt already, from old wounds. Samantha. Matthew. The worry he caused Tommy on a daily basis. Tommy’s blood pressure was high because of him. If Caroline got into a car accident driving out from the city, when Aidan could spare her the risk by looking after her house for her, he would never forgive himself.
“Ron,” he said, “listen, buddy, I just realized. My girlfriend’s house is sitting empty right in the path of the storm. I have to go check it for her.”
“Now? But we’re not done.”
“Hey, man, that’s what they pay you for. Nobody’s paying me, and I got other obligations.”
“What if the place gets damaged?”
“Then maybe the landlord can get some insurance money and finally fix this dump up. I’m sorry. This is too important. Good luck, my friend. See you later.”
Aidan sat in his truck and dialed Caroline’s number. His number was still blocked and went straight to voicemail.
“Caroline, it’s Aidan. I don’t know if you blocked my number, or whether you’ll even get this message or not. But I want you to know, I’m heading to your house now to make sure it’s okay in the storm. There’s no need for you to come out here in this weather. I’m praying this gets to you. Stay safe, baby. I’m thinking about you.”
Then he took off in the direction of Caroline’s house. Aidan knew that what he was doing was risky. He wasn’t worried about the storm. He was worried about getting caught. Because, if Caroline wasn’t there, he planned to break in to secure the place. He knew he shouldn’t. If Tommy found him, he’d be so disappointed, especially since he’d read Aidan the riot act after finding the St. Christopher medal at Caroline’s house. Tommy had been right, of course: Aidan was the one responsible for setting off the alarm at Caroline’s house that night. Tommy knew the score, because back in the day, Aidan and Matthew had gone through a phase of breaking into the big houses along the beach. They were stupid kids, sowing their wild oats. They’d go into places they knew were empty, taking only enough to pay for a good time on a Saturday night. It was only after they got caught that Aidan realized how much harm he’d caused. Their families were devastated. They would have gone to jail if not for Tommy. Aidan never did anything like that again. Not even after he got out of prison, when he was broke and desperate and a pariah. He’d stayed out of trouble—until Caroline came along.
He’d never seriously thought about breaking into Caroline’s house before. But the fascination had been there, ever since the night she came into the Red Anchor and dissed him with that insultingly big tip. The insult infuriated him, and yet afterward the thought of her consumed him. She was beautiful and rich and beyond his reach. And she owned that house, on that land. The house became a siren song to Aidan. He would go there at night, look up at the light shining from the windows, and dream of her. He would walk around, peek in through the glass, imagine her life there. One night, he’d made the mistake of reaching for a door handle on the terrace. Not because he planned to break in. But to make sure she’d locked it, that she was safe from those who would do her harm. That one enthusiastic jiggle of the handle wound up setting off the burglar alarm. Aidan had run away so fast that he’d dropped the St. Christopher medal, which led to that big lecture from Tommy. Now, tonight, he would break in for real. But only for the purpose of protecting her house. He didn’t have the material with him to board up the windows, but he would use whatever he found inside. He knew breaking in was wrong. But he was acting out of concern for Caroline. He just hoped to hell his brother never learned of it.
When he arrived at the house, it was raining buckets. As Aidan pulled into the driveway, he noticed the light on next door, and worried Mrs. Eberhardt would see him and call the cops. Back when he was a kid, and Gramps was alive, Mrs. Eberhardt gave them hell from dawn to dusk. Aidan and Tommy and their cousins could do no right in her eyes. Hard to imagine she was home tonight, since anybody with half a brain would evacuate that rickety beach shack at the first sign of a storm. But she was stubborn, and if she was there, she’d make trouble.
He turned off the engine. He could barely see out the windshield of the truck, that’s how hard it was coming down. Climbing through Caroline’s bedroom window would have a certain Romeo-and-Juliet quality, but scaling the building in this weather would be too risky. He’d have to go in the front door. He kept a toolbox in the bed of the truck. He rifled through it in the rain, pulling out anything that might help him—a screwdriver, a bolt cutter, some wire that he could use to pick the lock. The deluge made the ground look like it was boiling. He pulled his hood forward, but the rain streamed into his eyes anyway, making it hard to see as he ran to the front door. He stood in the midst of the downpour, trying to work the lock with a stiff piece of wire. But he couldn’t see, and couldn’t hear the click of the tumblers beneath the roar of the wind.
He was about to quit when the lock finally gave, and he stumbled into Caroline’s living room. The screeching started immediately. He had to shut the damn thing off before Eberhardt heard it and called the police. The keypad was right inside the door. Aidan held his flashlight in his mouth, shining it on the keypad as he popped the plastic surround off with his screwdriver. He eased the bundle of wires from the wall and aimed the flashlight at them. He couldn’t make heads or tails of the writhing mess of wires, and besides, he didn’t want to damage anything. He’d come here to help, not to destroy her burglar alarm. He pushed the wires back into the wall and snapped the plastic cover of the keypad back into place. Even if Eberhardt heard the alarm and called the cops, it would be a while before they’d show. In weather this bad, cops had other, more pressing concerns. He’d do what he could to protect the house, then get out before he got caught.
Aidan walked around flipping on lights, checking things out, trying not to get distracted by the beauty of the place. This house was magic. It glowed with light and smelled of flowers. He wanted to protect it, to keep it safe, for when he could live here openly with the woman he adored. The windows and the terrace doors were locked, but there were no storm shutters and no boards up. He went to the mudroom and found some newspapers in a pile near the trash bin. It was the best he could do. There was no wood here, not even any cardboard boxes. He brought the newspapers to the kitchen and tossed them on the island, planning to look for tape and then cover the windows with newspaper. Then he heard a sound behind him, turned around, and saw his brother standing there.
Fuck.
“You fucking idiot,” Tommy said. “I knew it was you.”
Tommy grabbed Aidan by the back of the neck and forced him toward the door. In a second, they were out in the pouring rain grappling and wrestling, trying to force one another to the ground. They were the same height, but Tommy had fifty pounds on Aidan. Aidan was strong, Tommy was stronger. It had always been that way. Tommy shoved and kicked him toward his truck. He slammed him up against the truck bed and grabbed him by the hair.
“You get out of here now and don’t come back,” Tommy spat out, his face screwed up with rage. “If I find you here again, I’m arresting you and you’re going in. This is your last chance. Do you understand?”
“I was only—”
“I don’t care what you were doing. That call went out to every patrol car. You’re lucky I was five minutes away, or you could be dealing with Mike Castro right now, who thinks you’re a piece of shit and would love nothing more than to lock you up.”
“Fine,” he said.
“What?”
He raised his voice to be heard over the pounding rain. “I’ll leave.”
“Yes, you will. And you’re going straight to my house.”
“What?”
“You’re driving away from here, Aidan, and you’re not looking back. You’re going to my house to watch over Kelly and the kids. Ma’s down in Pittsburgh visiting Aunt Joan, and my family’s all alone tonight. With everything I’ve done for you, I think you owe it to me to look after them through the storm. And to give me the peace of mind that I know where you are. Don’t you agree?”
Aidan couldn’t quarrel with that. The storm was intensifying. He and his brother were soaked to the skin, and the sound from the ocean was like a roar. He was worried about Kelly and the kids, too, if he was honest with himself. Only, he couldn’t really feel that, because his worry for Caroline got in the way. It was so much bigger.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said.
“Okay, then. Go.”
Aidan gestured toward the house, where the alarm still shrieked, and the door gaped open.
“We have to close up.”
“If I go in there and turn off the lights and the alarm, she’ll know we were here. I’ll have to file a report, the whole nine yards, and I’m not doing that, because it would mean lying on duty.”
“But the house.”
“Screw this lady and her goddamn house. She’s poison to you. We were never here. You got it? It’s for your own good. You understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Now get the hell out. Or I swear to God, kid, I’m done with you.”