All at once, my memories of him slam into me like getting hit by a truck.
Shane boosting me up into the tree house. Shane playing hide and seek. Shane singing, teaching me how to shoot pool. Shane swimming. Shane reading books, lounging in the backyard on a giant picnic blanket, throwing a football, tackling Callum and Aiden, laughing. So much laughter. Shane was always laughing back then.
I see him in there. He’s a man now with a dark beard speckled gray and short dark hair, but he’s got my eyes, green-bordering-blue and sparkling, my nose, my cheeks. He’s heavier than I remember, bigger and more muscular. But it’s my brother.
“Daley,” he says, and that voice kills me.
“Hey, Shane.” I’m blinking rapidly. I’m trying not to cry and barely managing it.
He comes around the table. Rian’s sitting bolt straight, ready. But I stand and Shane wraps me in a hug.
My brother, back from the dead.
We embrace for a few seconds before he breaks it off. He looks at me, shaking his head. Tears are in his eyes and that does it for me. I laugh once, stupid with giddiness. My brother’s alive. Shane’s alive, and God, for a second, I’m going to let it feel good.
“It’s great to see you,” he says softly, grinning. “I never thought I would. You’re all grown up.”
“I was like ten years old when you died.”
“And now you’re, what, twenty-three?” He glances over and nods at Rian. “I’m Shane.”
“Rian.” They shake and Shane goes to sit next to Queenie.
“Can we get you two anything?” Queenie asks. “I’m sorry. We weren’t expecting anyone right now.”
“I know we dropped in out of the blue, but you know how it is,” I say, shrugging a little.
“What with me being dead and all?” Shane grins, head tilted. “How did you find out?”
“Dad told me where you live.”
They both go quiet. Shane glances at Queenie and she frowns at him. The worry is obvious, and suddenly I realize how long they must’ve been living in fear, terrified that her father might find them and take revenge for everything that happened. They have a life here, a family, a million reasons to protect themselves.
“I bet you have a lot of questions,” Shane says. “I’ll answer what I can.”
“Why here?” I ask, shaking my head. “You’re still so close by.”
Queenie laughs and Shane gives her a look. “That was my doing. I insisted that we stay near Philadelphia in case my father decided he wanted to forgive us, and once we bought a house and settled in, it became too hard to move again.”
“The clan barely ever goes north of the city anyway,” Shane says, frowning. “We’ve been careful.”
“But you made a mistake all those years ago, didn’t you?”
Shane grimaces. He stares at the table and the mood instantly shifts. Queenie’s smile fades as she looks at her husband, and I’m sure she’s aware of what happened. She knows everything he did, all the horrible details.
“You’re taking about Megan,” he says and manages to meet my eye again. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“I’m the guy they pinned the blame on,” Rian says, raising a hand. “We’ve been trying to find out the truth.”
“Ah, shit,” Shane says. “I’m sorry that happened.”
And my blood runs cold. I feel a chill in my bones as Shane looks at me again, the sadness obvious, but there’s no apology in his eyes. No contrition in the way he holds himself.
“How’d it happen?” I ask, afraid of the answer. I want to hold on to the joy of finding my oldest brother alive for a little while, but we can’t avoid this. It’s the reason we came all this way.
“You want the whole story?”
“It’s why we’re here.”
He nods slowly and looks at his wife.
“Go ahead,” Queenie says. “You can’t hold it in forever, right?”
“I would if I had to.”
“I know, babe. But tell them the truth. They might even understand.”
Shane nods and takes a deep breath, closing his eyes, before opening them again. “Megan found me at the King of Prussia mall. Of all the places in the fucking world, she happened to run into me outside of the Gap. I recognized her right away. I mean, you and her were practically inseparable, even when you were little, and she was always at our house. I thought of her as another sibling, if I’m honest. She was basically around as much as you were.”
“That’s what Dad said.” I glance at Queenie. “But she started blackmailing you, didn’t she?”
“She followed me in the mall when I tried to walk away. I guess she recognized me, too. Kept hounding me, asked me a few times if I was Shane Halloran, and I kept telling her no, but she took pictures of me. Finally she was like, I know it’s you, and if you don’t give me your number right now, I’m going to show these videos to everyone back home. So I did and that’s how it all started.”