Wanted by the Alphas(34)
She breezes through the door, and Lucien is immediately beside her.
“Look, Shannon, I’m sorry. Don’t go, just wait for me here. I’ll pay and then we can do whatever you want.”
“He’s my boss, Lucien.”
“I know.” He does appear contrite. “I’m sorry.”
Kirk comes out after them.
“It’s OK, I’m going,” he says. “I’m sorry, Shannon. I’ll see you at work.”
A few people who are about to enter the café look curiously at them. Shannon can’t help but be shaken. She hates confrontations.
“OK,” she says to Kirk.
They watch Kirk walk towards his Tahoe, get in and rev away.
“Shannon,” Lucien begins, but she wheels on him.
“Look, I don’t know what really happened between your families, but you can’t keep going on having this feud. You’re both like tin cans waiting to explode. Someone is going to be hurt real bad if you don’t solve it, especially if you say your family is innocent of the crimes he is accusing you of.”
“It can’t be solved,” he declares. “His family accused mine of something we didn’t do and they can’t prove we did it either.”
“What exactly is it then? You want to keep me out of this, but I am already involved. I need to know.”
She thinks she knows. Kirk has hinted at it, but she wants to hear it from Lucien.
His face is an unreadable complexity of flitting emotions. Then he says abruptly, “OK, I’ll tell you, but don’t blame me if you don’t believe me. Most people would say it’s a pretty tall tale.”
“Try me.”
He pauses. “I’ll go in and settle the bill. Then we’ll go for a long drive.”
THE DRIVE
The route Lucien decides to take in his Mustang is a scenic one, but then, most routes in Dolphin’s Bay and its surrounding towns are scenic. The air is crisp today, and the sun is actually out, although scudding clouds on the horizon indicate there may be rain later. The mountains, blanketed with forest, are on one side, and Shannon finds herself wondering what Jared is doing on a bright day like this.
“I didn’t want to involve you in all this,” Lucien says.
“I think I am already involved.”
He glances at her. “Not even a surface scratch. There’s a lot of iceberg under the water you can’t even imagine.”
“No metaphors, please, Lucien. I am not a child.”
“No, you’re not.” He sighs. “I’m torn between telling you everything and wondering what to leave out.”
She wants to say, “So don’t leave anything out”, but it wouldn’t be fair because she doesn’t tell him everything about herself and Jared either.
Lucien says, “It was two years back. My father and I were at a meeting with a client in the Chatterly when Alison Fitzpatrick, the eldest of the Fitzpatrick siblings, burst in with two of her sisters. I don’t know how much you know about the Fitzpatricks, but they are like the Irish, except they are not Irish. They are a family of seven children, and they have cousins and more extended relatives than you can count on a dozen hands.”
Five girls, two boys. Shannon remembers the photo in Kirk’s room.
“Alison pointed at my father with an accusing finger and said, ‘You killed him, didn’t you?’
“Naturally, we were all concerned. My father and I excused ourselves from our client and went outside with Alison.
“‘We didn’t kill anyone,’ my father declared. ‘Who do you mean?’
“Alison Fitzpatrick was incensed. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know,’ she accused my father. ‘It had your mark all over it.’
“I was rather concerned myself at this point.
“‘We don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ I said. I felt like throttling her at that point. ‘Who died?’
“She rounded up on me. ‘My brother, who else?’ she said.
“She has only one brother that I know of who lived here then. He was Kyle Fitzpatrick. Younger than she was by five years, but clearly the leader of their clan since their father died.
“‘I haven’t seen Kyle in months,’ I said truthfully.
“My father said pretty much the same. We live in a small town, and sometimes you bump into some people, and other times not. The Fitzpatricks and the Walkers do not cohabitate in the same social circles. I don’t mean that in any sort of derogatory way. It’s just that my father is more used to country clubs than kiddie care.
“Alison glares at me as if she would like to murder me on the spot. Then she tells us what happened. They had found their brother, Kyle, in the woods. He was naked and very dead. But there were no marks on him. No stabs or puncture or bullet wounds.”