“Is it?” Zach asked.
“You’re seriously asking?” His brother was pissed. “What would make you think something like that? You knew Dad!”
Zach glared. “Who do you think did it? Came in our house without breaking a window, got Sheila outside without her so much as screaming? Tell me that.”
“One of Mom’s many lovers,” his brother said bitterly. “She might have handed out keys as often as she spread her legs.”
Zach wanted to take offense but their mother had liked to pick up men. A little thing like a wedding ring on her finger didn’t stop her.
Another thought occurred to him. “That’s why you went with Dad.”
“I tried to tell you. You wouldn’t believe me.”
“She was my mother!”
Turned heads told him he’d let his voice rise. As if he cared.
“She was a slut,” his brother said flatly.
“Dad lied to the investigators.”
Bran jerked back. “What?”
“He claimed he slept the night through. He didn’t. I heard footsteps...and he took a piss. Then I thought I heard the back door.” The memory haunted him. But he’d been a kid, barely nine. Maybe he’d dreamed it. Fallen back asleep after hearing his dad get up to use the john. Awakened again when the killer carried Sheila out. “He got up sometimes at night and went outside for a smoke.” Mom hadn’t let him smoke inside.
“You didn’t say anything.”
“He was my dad. I didn’t want to think...” He rolled his shoulders to release the tension. “But I did, anyway. And as an adult? A cop? Yeah, I think.”
“You’re wrong.” Bran reached for his wallet, pulled out two twenties, tossed them on the table and slid out of the booth. He looked down at Zach. “And I’ll prove it.” Then he walked away.
He’d blamed Mom. Told Zach he hated her. No wonder he’d never written back to her and refused to come to the phone when she’d called him.
Zach hadn’t had the guts to say no when Dad called him. Mostly he’d mumbled and made the conversations so useless and awkward, the calls had come further and further apart until they’d ceased altogether.
It was Bran he’d refused to talk to at all. Zach had called it pride, then. Now, stupidity was the word that came to mind. In his hurt, he’d severed the ties that meant the most to him. Whatever happened with their parents, he and Bran could have stayed in touch. Continued to be brothers. Now...who knew?
Zach pushed his plate away but reached for his glass and drained it, his thoughts reverting to the quarrel that had stood between them then and, apparently, still did. Bran held Mom responsible for the tragedy.
Me? I blamed Dad. He lied. No matter what, he was supposed to keep us safe. Sheila’s bedroom was right next to Mom and Dad’s. How could he not have heard somebody grabbing her, carrying her outside, raping her right there in the backyard? Unless...
A harsh sound escaped him. He had loved his brother more than anyone else in the world. As if he’d time traveled, the devastation he’d felt when Bran had decided to go with Dad was new again. As painful in its own way as the one glimpse he’d had of his sister’s body before he’d backed into the house and yelled for his parents.
He could still close his eyes and hear his mother’s screams.
Dad had gone terribly silent and so angry everyone in the house had tiptoed around him. There’d been raised voices behind Mom and Dad’s bedroom door. Mom might not have actually accused Dad, Zach didn’t know. But their eyes had told the story. They had held each other responsible.
When Bran had told him about the men their mother saw during the day when Dad was at work, Zach had refused to believe him. He remembered Mom’s screams—and Dad’s lie.
So nothing had changed, he thought wearily. Bran and he had made their choices back then and they weren’t about to unmake them. Bran, at least, had an agenda—to prove their father’s innocence. Zach just wanted answers.
Working together apparently wasn’t an option.
It would be interesting to see whether Bran admitted on the job to having a relationship with the pariah in the department.