in the dark.
CHAPTER 20
Gibson didn't realize he had been sitting staring at the computer for what must have been hours. The game had come and gone and he had watched, not participating, not really even paying attention. It was the first time ever that he hadn't played.
He heard the front door slam and searched for the time in the lower right-hand corner of his computer _ 5:25 p.m. His mom would be pissed. She'd go on and on about how worried she was that he was cooping himself up in his room. That he'd become a recluse like Emily Dickinson and die without anyone really knowing him. This week it was good ole Emily because his mom's summer college class had been discussing dead poets. Several weeks ago she had compared him to some fourteen-year-old Palestinian boy terrorist whose tearful parents described him as always being so quiet and smart and keeping to himself until he walked into an Israeli cafe with enough dynamite strapped to his body to kill fifteen innocent people. There seemed to be a new comparison every other week.
His mom wasn't like this when his dad was alive. At least Gibson didn't remember her being like this __ worried all the time about the littlest of things, the stupidest things. So tense and nervous that she couldn't make a decision or stand up to even a rude grocery clerk who wouldn't give her a discounted price. And now she cried all the time. At least she did at first. Maybe not so much anymore, not since the Zoloft.
He didn't remember her ever crying when his dad was still alive. But then his dad had a way of making them all feel safe and secure. They didn't need to worry as long as he was around. He just took care of things. He had been the strongest and most confident… the best man Gibson had ever known.
For Gibson it hadn't just been about knowing that his dad could and would fix his broken bike or that he'd not be afraid to tell Mr. Fitz, the Nazi English teacher, that Gibson and the rest of his class needed more time for their assignments. It was more. It was a feeling that everything would be okay. A feeling of just plain old happiness. A feeling Gibson hadn't felt since.
But then his dad had to go and get himself killed, getting in the way of some frickin' drunk driver. And that's when Monsignor O'Sullivan started calling Gibson into his office at school, claiming to be worried about him, wanting to make sure he was okay. He'd make Gibson pray with him. They'd recite the Our Father while the monsignor told him how special he was. He'd stand behind Gibson, leaning in against him so that sometimes Gibson could even smell the alcohol on his breath. He'd rub Gibson's shoulders, his neck and then not just his shoulders and neck. The first time it happened, Gibson could hardly believe it.
He shook his head and pushed away from the computer. He didn't want to think about it. It wasn't right, no matter what the bastard said. It just wasn't right. And he knew it. Why else would he insist Gibson tell no one? Only, who would he tell? He didn't have anyone he could tell. Nobody'd believe him. Nobody, except The Sin Eater.
He heard firecrackers in the distance. Someone down the block. Maybe Tyler and his buddies. He couldn't believe he had almost forgotten tomorrow was the Fourth of July. It used to be one of his favorite holidays. Now it was just a lot of irritating noise.
CHAPTER 21
Nick smiled and waved, disguising his relief. Jill evidently didn't notice. She climbed back into the BMW packed with four of her old college girlfriends. Her high from the engagement party continued. He'd never seen her like this _ almost giddy. Maybe it was just being around her old friends. Whatever it was, Nick was quickly learning that he played a small role in this week's events.
'So I guess you're stuck with me tonight,' Christine said, coming out onto the porch of their parents' farmhouse. She let the screen door slam behind her and handed him one of the two longneck beers in her hands.
He took her offering, moving over and making room for her next to him on the old wooden porch swing, setting it creaking and swinging. The beer was cold, the condensation wetting his fingers. It was just what he needed. He guzzled half the bottle before Christine's sudden laughter made him stop.
'Is the prospect of spending an evening with your big sister that bad?'
'It's been a helluva day,' he told her, but now he rolled the bottle between his hands, watching the amber liquid swish against the inside of the bottle. 'How 'bout I take you and Timmy out for pizza? Mom, too.'
'You can ask, but I think Mom's pooped. And Timmy went with a couple of his friends to a movie.'
'What movie?'
'I don't know. I don't even care. It's bad enough I had to bribe him to go. He's been spending way too much time alone in his room on his computer.'
Nick glanced over at his sister, seeing her frustration. He knew it had to be tough raising a teenage boy all by herself. Christine complained about many things, but Timmy was rarely one of those. After her husband, Bruce, cheated on her a second time, Christine threw him out again, but this time with little of the fanfare or emotion of the first blowout. It was almost as if Christine had expected it, had prepared herself.
Sometimes Nick wondered if the emotion would catch up with her, sort of like an aftershock knocking her off her feet long after the initial impact. Christine had a way of reacting on impulse without thinking things through, without weighing the consequences. He hoped that wasn't the case with Bruce, especially where Timmy was concerned. But then, who was he to judge? He certainly was no expert on relationships. After all, here he was an engaged guy, sitting on his parents' front porch asking his sister to go get a pizza with him on a Saturday night.
'How did things go with Father Tony?'
'Are you asking as a friend of Tony's or as a reporter?'
'Give me a break,' Christine said, but he recognized that faked, hurt look. Yet she diverted her eyes and was suddenly interested in the dust she brushed from the porch-swing arm. 'I heard that Monsignor O' Sullivan may have been murdered, too much blood on the bathroom floor for a heart attack.'
'How did you already hear that?'
Now she gave him her eyes, only to roll them at him. 'I work for the largest newspaper in the state. How do you think I found out?'
'Which brings me back to my original question. Are you asking about Tony as a friend or a reporter?'
'As a friend, stupid. I have other ways of finding out about the case. Come on, give me a break. It's been almost four years.'
Nick took another gulp, watching her out of the corner of his eye, letting her know it wasn't that easy to forget, to let bygones be bygones. Almost four years ago when he was sheriff of Platte City, she undermined a murder investigation __ his investigation __ using him to scoop her competition and to get front-page headlines and front-page bylines for herself.
'They just had some basic questions for Tony,' he said, carefully leaving out any information.
'Basic questions like who would want O'Sullivan dead?'
'Yeah. Basic questions like that.'
She shook her head at him and smiled, acknowledging that was all she was getting from him. Nick smiled back and I took another swallow of beer. They knew each other too well. When had everything become a game with them? Two steps forward, three steps back __ it was something his father always said, though Nick couldn't remember at the time what his dad meant by it. Antonio Morrelli was the power broker of mind games. Or rather, he had been. There weren't too many games the old man could play these days, lying in his bed, unable to move or speak, the massive stroke leaving him with eye movement his only communication tool.
'Actually I shouldn't be telling you this,' Christine said, but paused, waiting for his attention. 'We've been
