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“Is it safe for you to do this?” she asked in a remote, tired voice as he piloted the van back toward Fairview. “What if he’s watching?”
“He probably is. And yes, it’s risky. But you go through staff quickly at the assistant level, so new faces aren’t unusual. I’ll keep my head down. ” He glanced her way. “You still with me, Bryn?”
“Yes. ” She could hardly keep her eyes open, but when she tried to let them drift closed, she saw jolts of images. Ants. Maggots. Flesh. Eyes. “I think I need a drink. ”
He laughed softly, and a little shakily. “That, Miss Davis, is a vast understatement. There has never been a single moment in my life when I more needed a drink, and I wasn’t the one—” Holding the saw, Bryn finished silently. He let it go. “I heard your sister is staying with you. ”
“I thought you’d be angry. ”
“I was. It seems a little beside the point right now. ”
“Annie’s okay,” Bryn murmured drowsily. “She’s just a kid; that’s all. And we push her too hard. ”
“We?”
“The fam. Especially Mom, and my sister Grace. Grace is kind of a bitch. Not as bad as George, though. ”
“George is a girl?”
“George is a pissy little bitch of a man. He’s not gay, which is too bad; he’d be a lot more fun that way. He’s just a jerk. He runs a pharmacy in—” Her brain finally caught up to her mouth. “You already know all this. I told you all about them, in the car. ”
McCallister shrugged. “I like hearing you talk about them. ”
“Remember Kyle?”
“The one who’s three years into a fifteen-year sentence for armed robbery?”
“Kyle is still more fun than George. ”
“Ouch. ”
Her brain was waking up. Small talk, it seemed, did wonders. “Anyway, Annie just wanted some space, so I’m letting her stay a few days. It’s not a big deal, and I won’t tell her a thing. ”
“She’s a walking, talking security breach, and you should have run it by me, but what’s done is done. I’m just concerned for your safety. ”
“From Annie? She grew up wanting to be a fairy princess. She’s not exactly dangerous. ”
“That’s what I’m concerned about. ”
She couldn’t work that out, tired as she felt, so she let it lie. “You got me to talk about my family,” she said. “But you never return the favor. ”
He glanced over at her, frowning, and shook his head. “It’s not the time, Bryn. ”
“Come on. Humor me. ” She needed something else in her head besides … that. Besides the smell, the insects, the desperation in Violetta’s eyes. The rasp of the saw. “Tell me about your brother. ”
“I can’t. ” He paused, then let out a sound—not a laugh, more of a sigh. “Can’t. That doesn’t sound right either, considering … it’s just words. All right, if you really want to know. Jamie was … different. My parents couldn’t see it. He was a charmer, but he was cold inside. A sociopath with no real empathy or connection to anyone else. Including me. And I was his favorite target. ”
“You. ”
He shrugged. “I learned to cope. I had to. Jamie’s little games were often meant to maim or kill. I couldn’t complain; when I tried, he blamed it all on me, said that I was the bully. They believed it. ”
“My God. ”
“By eighteen, I wasn’t going to let it go on anymore. I went to my father, but he didn’t want to hear it. So I left. I went straight into the marines, enlisted as fast as I could, and got the hell away from the whole family. ”
“You told me Jamie … died. ”
“By the time I came home, eight years had passed. I think he was truly surprised. He fully expected me to die in the line of duty. ” McCallister’s eyes were unfocused now, looking into something far away and not at all pleasant. “He was out on his own by then, with his own house out in the country. I came back from deployment and intended to just stop in and try to mend fences with him, as much as possible. But when I got here, he was … He’d found a new hobby. One that suited his personality. ” He swallowed, a visible bob of his Adam’s apple above his collar. His hands gripped the steering wheel a little too tightly. “I found out later that he’d made a business of it, but I didn’t know that at the time. I just knew that when I went looking for him, I found him upstairs in one of the rooms with cameras and a victim. I shot him. I had to, to save her life. ”
