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.” Danny studied their faces.“Of course, you must still think I’m losing it.”Cal slowly shook his head.He cleared his throat.“I’ve been dreaming about her.A lot.She comes to me in my dreams.”Devon let out a ragged sigh.“I.feel her.”Danny frowned.“Feel her like.sense her?”“Sometimes.Other times I actually.feel her touch.Usually as I’m drifting off to sleep.And I smell her perfume.”“Chanel No.5,” Cal and Danny said together, and then the three of them exchanged long, telling looks.Danny felt a surge of relief so profound, he almost cried.“How long.”“Not until I got back here, after she died,” Devon said.He glanced at Cal.“You?”“I had one dream before I moved back, but I just thought I was grieving.”“I thought I had ESP or something,” Danny said.Devon arched a dark brow.“I got the letter the day after I heard her the first time.The one from the lawyer.”Silence fell again as they all stared at one another.“So,” Cal said.“What do we do with this?”“I have no fucking idea,” Devon muttered.“Oh, his language,” Audrey said, and Danny tried to stifle his startled laugh, but he ended up sputtering.His brothers looked at him.“She thinks you cuss too much.” Danny grinned at Devon, who glared around the room while Cal swallowed a smile.“I don’t suppose she’s told you what it is she wants, or why she’s here?” Devon asked.Danny shook his head.“No, she just sort of.talks to me.Not about anything in particular, and never when I expect it.She’s just—there.”“Well, she chose a good time to mention her relatives.” Cal slipped a sheaf of papers out from beneath the letter from the council.“Will did a web search and found the family records back to when the brothers first came west from Michigan.It’s all right here.Eric Angus and Audrey are cousins.His problem is being related to the wrong brother.The brother that built this house was Audrey’s relative, not Angus’s.And apparently there was some major falling out between the two of them.So much so that Maxwell pulled a gun on Dylan in a bar downtown.It made the newspaper.” He shuffled through his papers.“Here.In January of 1910.They’d been business partners, but after the fight Dylan bought his brother out.He ended up going back to Ann Arbor and died basically penniless.”“Will got all of that online?” Devon peered at the papers.“Yeah.It’s pretty frightening what you can find out, actually, if you’re willing to pay for it.Arrest records and everything.”Danny stiffened.Cal had inadvertently reminded him of what they still had to discuss.He felt faintly ill but pushed through it.“There’s something else I need to tell you about,” he said, his voice rough.“Something.personal.” Both of his brothers watched him with quiet interest.“You know I did time in juvenile detention.I was pinched for shoplifting.”“How old were you?” Devon asked.“Seventeen and a half and trying to survive on the streets of L.A.” He took a deep breath, and told them everything.He told them about Mark, and how they’d run away.He told how he’d been abandoned in L.A., about the street kids he’d lived with, and what he’d chosen to do to earn his keep.Devon’s gaze sharpened; he’d just done that piece on street kids.He knew exactly what Danny had been through, how he’d lived.Cal could commiserate on an intellectual level, but Devon got it.When Danny got to the part about the juvenile detention facility, and the guard, the muscles down his back began to tighten.He spoke softly, laying all of it out.How he’d defended the younger boys, how he’d mouthed off, how he’d awakened in the night handcuffed to the frame of his bunk.Danny felt tremors begin near the center of his body and he had to stop.Cal reached over and took one of his hands, holding it and steadying him.After a moment Danny was able to continue.“He pulled down my boxers, and he.he.” His voice caught in his chest.Devon moved closer on the other side and Danny felt surrounded, insulated.“Christ, no wonder you have a hard time trusting people,” Devon said raggedly.“You don’t have to finish this.”“No, I do.” Danny turned to him.“It’s important you understand.I think it explains a lot about me, about the way I’ve been.”“The nightmares,” Cal murmured.He held Danny’s hand between both of his, his knowing eyes solemn.“Did he rape you?”Danny shook his head.“No.He.fingered me.” He shuddered.“That’s all he did, and I have three years’ worth of fucking nightmares.”Devon leaned in, one of his big hands gripping Danny’s shoulder hard.His brown eyes were narrowed and dark with banked fury.“For Christ’s sakes, Danny.You say ‘that’s all he did’ like it isn’t a big deal, like it shouldn’t bother you.It is a big deal.He may not have raped you but he incapacitated and then violated you.You were a kid and he was a sick fuck.Don’t try to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal.”Danny’s eyes ached but he was not going to cry.He wasn’t.Not even when Cal pulled him into his arms and Devon leaned close, his cheek pressed to Danny’s and his hand resting gently on Danny’s head.* * *Danny had never been to Elk Ridge City Hall before, and as he stood at the back of the huge meeting room, he didn’t think he’d missed much.Built in the late sixties, the building showed its age in every pink poured-concrete wall and liver-spotted linoleum floor.Even the chairs were retro, but not in a good way.Pressed plastic with metal legs, they were bright orange faded with age.They looked sturdy though, he would give them that, holding some impressively wide fannies in stretch polyester, unintentional clones of Sam’s Aunt Edie.If the chairs were equal to that task, they were worth whatever they’d paid for them [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]