Chapter 6 - My Dead Brother
For six years, I had imagined seeing my brother again.
Sometimes in dreams.
Sometimes when I drank too much.
Sometimes in the faces of strangers walking away from me.
None of those versions prepared me for the real thing.
Ewan stood ten feet away.
Older.
Thinner.
A burn scar climbed from beneath his collar toward his left ear.
His left hand remained partly closed.
But his eyes were the same.
Gray.
Annoying.
Alive.
Delia whispered his name.
That broke him.
Not me.
Her.
Ewan looked at her and all the hardness fell out of his face.
“Dee.”
She crossed the room.
Then stopped before touching him.
Six years stood between them.
“You’re alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
She slapped him.
Hard.
The sound cracked through the room.
Ewan accepted it.
She slapped him again.
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let me sit beside your mother every night wondering if I was protecting the last person who knew you.”
“I know.”
“I waited.”
His eyes dropped.
“I know.”
Then Delia hit his chest with both hands.
“You don’t get to say that!”
Ewan caught her wrists carefully.
She was crying.
So was he.
“I thought if I came back, they would kill you.”
“You don’t get to decide whether I’d rather be in danger than grieving.”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“I don’t.”
She stepped away.
Then Ewan looked at me.
I walked toward him.
He tensed.
I punched him once.
Not hard enough to drop him.
Hard enough to make the point.
He rubbed his jaw.
“That seems fair.”
“You told your wife not to trust me.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
His expression changed.
“Because the shipping release that put me at Pier 44 that night had your signature.”
I froze.
“That’s impossible.”
“I saw it.”
“Forged.”
“I know that now.”
“When did you learn?”
“Three years ago.”
I stared at him.
“You’ve known for three years that I didn’t set you up?”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed dead.”
“Yes.”
I wanted to hit him again.
Instead, I turned away.
“Who inside the house helped them?”
Ewan walked to the wall of photographs.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve had six years.”
“And they’ve had twenty-eight.”
He pointed toward my father.
“Dad entered the original agreement because Vale Shipping was collapsing.”
“Our company was never collapsing.”
“In 1998 it was.”
He showed me financial records.
My father had hidden millions in losses.
August Vandermark rescued him.
In exchange, Vandermark received future access to waterfront property.
But my mother discovered the agreement.
“She wanted Dad to dissolve it,” Ewan said.
“He couldn’t?”
“He could.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
Ewan looked at me.
“Because the contract wasn’t the real leverage.”
He produced an old cassette recorder.
A digital copy had been made.
On the recording, my father’s voice spoke with August Vandermark.
They discussed an accident.
A union organizer who had died after threatening to expose bribery at the docks.
My father had helped cover it up.
I sat down.
My father had taught me that loyalty was worth more than money.
Apparently his own had been for sale.
Ewan continued.
“Mom found the tape four years ago.”
“Right before she collapsed.”
“Yes.”
My eyes lifted.
“You think Celeste caused it?”
“I know she did.”
“How?”
“I saw her leave the estate that night.”
“You were here?”
Ewan nodded.
“I’d come back for Mom.”
My anger returned.
“You were ten feet from me?”
“Closer.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I saw you coming down the stairs with Marcus.”
I looked at him.
“What does Marcus have to do with it?”
“I didn’t know.”
“But?”
Ewan crossed to a filing cabinet.
He removed a photograph.
The image showed Celeste entering a parking garage two weeks before my mother collapsed.
A man walked beside her.
Tall.
Heavy coat.
Face turned partly away.
But I knew the shoulders.
I knew the way he walked.
Marcus Keane.
My best friend since I was sixteen.
My right hand for twenty years.
Ewan said, “Before you decide this means what it looks like…”
A phone began ringing.
Mine.
Marcus.
I answered.
His voice shook.
“Damian.”
Behind him, I heard my mother’s breathing machine.
Then Celeste spoke.
“Hello, darling.”
My blood went cold.
Marcus had taken my mother to safety.
Except there had never been a safe house.
Celeste said, “Bring the survivorship agreement to me.”
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“Where’s Marcus?”
A man groaned in the background.
Celeste laughed softly.
“Oh, Damian.”
May you like
Then she said:
“You still don’t know which one of your men belongs to me.”
