Falling for the Brother

He found a locked box in Gram’s room. Wooden, about the size of a shoe box, beautifully embellished with a painted ocean scene. He could have picked the lock, but didn’t. Instead, he carried the box through the garage and out to her car with him, to move into his SUV later, so he could take it to her, along with the bag of other things she’d asked him to collect. More clothes. A watch. Some earrings. And a round brush she’d forgotten when they’d stopped by her house to pack the night they’d left.

Though he hadn’t seen the box before, he wasn’t surprised that Gram had it. She’d always been one for keeping treasures and hoped he could get her to open it and share them with him.

Imagining pictures of him and Bruce when they were kids, of his father, of his grandfather with Gram when they were a young couple, he backed Gram’s car down the drive. Suddenly an older gentleman appeared in the rearview mirror, waving at him.

In brown plaid shorts and a short-sleeved white golf shirt, with short gray hair, the man appeared to be somewhere between seventy and eighty. He was pretty spry as he moved toward the car door. Mason put on the brakes.

“I’ve been—” The man stopped speaking when Mason exited the car, just as the man got close. “Oh.”

Staring at Mason, his expression changed from welcoming to guarded. Why his presence brought negative reaction, Mason didn’t know. He’d never seen the guy before in his life.

“Can I help you?”

“No.” Backing down the drive, the man shook his head, and turned, hurrying to the sidewalk.

“Wait!” Mason called as he chased after the guy. “Who are you? What did you want?”

“No one. Nothing,” the guy said over his shoulder, not slowing at all.

“Hey.” Mason caught up to him, keeping pace. “You know my grandmother?” he asked. He’d been in Gram’s car. The guy must have thought, with the car pulling out of the driveway, that he was Gram.

“Nope.” The guy shook his head again. “Wrong house,” he said, then turned up the drive four houses down from Gram. Mason had knocked at that door the day before, when he’d been canvassing the neighborhood. No one had answered. “I’m expecting a call from my daughter,” the man continued, hurrying to let himself into the house.

He’d had a key, so he could very well have been confused and gone to the wrong place. On the street, staring at the two houses, Mason could see the similarities. Most of the homes on the block were identical in size. All of them featured the typical siding and brick of older California homes.

Still, the man hadn’t been heading to the door of the house. His goal had clearly been Gram’s car. He’d been flagging her down.

Unless he’d wondered why someone was pulling out of his drive?

He’d seemed completely lucid, but…

Taking one last look at the man’s home, he noticed the twitching of a blind in the front window.

And knew that he’d just come across an unexpected piece of his puzzle. The problem was figuring out where the hell it fit.

Did Gram have a neighbor problem? One she hadn’t told anyone about? Afraid of what Bruce might do to the guy if he found out the older man had been bugging their grandmother?

Could he be the one who’d put those bruises on Gram’s face? Broken her arm multiple times? Hard to imagine and yet…the guy was definitely in good enough shape to overpower an elderly woman.

He’d been unpleasantly surprised to see Mason.

And he’d run instead of staying for the casual conversation that would’ve been more likely in a case of mistaken driveway.

Unless he was worried someone would notice he was missing a beat or two and send him away?

Remembering the story Harper had told him about the resident at the Stand whose family had been threatening to put her in a home, he turned back to Gram’s car with a heavy feeling in his gut.

Grace had been pressuring Gram to skydive. Gram had lied to him about Bruce telling her not to go out at night. And she had a neighbor neither she nor Bruce had ever mentioned. A neighbor who’d just lied to him, too.

The puzzle was getting more convoluted by the minute.

He sure hoped something was going to break soon and he could get on with his life.