“What, Shannon?” Shea’s voice, though low, seemed to boom across the room. “Are we what?”
She dropped Maureen’s hand, kissed her temple quickly and then walked to the doorway where her brother lingered. “You were eavesdropping.”
“You were asking Mom strange questions,” he charged, his expression unreadable.
She shut the bedroom door. “I said we need to talk. Let’s do it. Now.” One step ahead, she hurried down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the back door to the porch, the very spot where her brothers had huddled and whispered together just yesterday. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“I want you to be straight with me,” she said, in no mood for small talk.
“About what?” Cupping his hands over the end of his cigarette, he lit up.
“The Stealth Torcher. Us…our family.” As Shea stood on the porch in the shade and smoked she laid out everything Nate had told her that morning. He didn’t interrupt, didn’t ask a question, just listened while yellowjackets buzzed in the apple tree in the backyard and blue jays bathed in a nearby birdbath, splashing water. Finally she said, “So how much of this is true, Shea?”
He took a final drag and shot a plume of smoke from one corner of his mouth. “I don’t know what good ruining Dad’s reputation would do now.”
“You’re telling me he was the arsonist?” She’d thought she’d braced herself but when faced with the truth, she had to hold on to the rail and steady herself.
“I don’t know. I think so.” He squashed his cigarette out in the moist soil of a planter box overflowing with pink petunias.
“And our names?”
“All part of the great cosmic joke.”
“You knew?” She was aghast.
“I suspected.”
“But Ryan…?”
“Was no innocent.” He swatted at a mosquito that was buzzing near his head.
“When he died, the fires stopped.”
“Dad was scared, I think.”
“You don’t know?”
Shea shook his head. “I’m not sure of anything,” he said and looked away, over the top of the fence to the neighbor’s yard where an aboveground pool was visible, an empty air mattress floating on the surface.
“Who killed Ryan? Did Dad? And then set me up?”
Shea squeezed his eyes shut. “No.”
“You know something, Shea,” she charged. “Something that’s killing this family one member at a time. We’ve already lost Neville, haven’t we? And now his twin, not to mention Robert’s wife. Who’s next, Shea? You’re an officer of the law, for God’s sake, you have to do something!”
“I can’t,” he yelled. “Don’t you get it, Shannon? I can’t say a damned word.”
“Why?” she demanded. “People are dying and…and…” And then it hit her. As hard as if a semi had driven over her. Nate was right. Shea was involved.
Chapter 31
There was no way around it.
Shea stood on his mother’s porch, looked down at his sister and wanted to die a thousand deaths. Maybe he had already. “Okay, Shannon,” he said. Defeat rested heavily on his shoulders. “You win. You’re right. I can’t keep this up any longer…It’s just not worth it. But before we go into any details, I want my lawyer present and then after I discuss everything with him, I’ll talk to Paterno. I’m only going through this once.”
“As long as you come out with the truth,” she said. Her green eyes charged him with all kinds of unspeakable things. Funny thing was, with everything that was going on, he would have thought she would be afraid of him.
Not so, his little sister.