Page 60 of Oddly Fine

There was a temporary, awkward shuffle of bodies as the Théraults tried to get to where they needed to go without colliding with one another. Hayes stood back, observing them in amazement and confusion as the Théraults scurried around like ants in a colony. Beckett stayed put until he’d made sure all of them had followed his orders before heading out the back door, signaling that Hayes should follow him.

Hayes took off after his partner, completely shocked by the sudden shift in attitude. Once they’d stepped outside, Beckett paused, tossing him the keys to their SUV.

“You drive,” he ordered. He moved towards the passenger side of their rental in the driveway, but Hayes reached out to grab his arm.

“Beckett!”

Beckett whirled around with a closed expression, so unlike his normally open one.

“What?” Beckett asked. He didn’t bark at Hayes, surprisingly enough.

“Breakfast?” he asked hesitantly, echoing Ma Thérault’s earlier query.

“My brother decided to fuck himself off the planet. That doesn’t mean we should all drop dead because of him. They need to eat. And shower. And that’s not going to happen unless someone orders them around.”

Beckett looked at Hayes with a surprisingly steady gaze. Grief and consuming sadness were now noticeably absent. There was only—decisiveness? No, that wasn’t quite right. He’d seen that flash of something in Beckett’s eyes before. He’d seen it while restraining Beckett in an alley more than a year ago, and again when Chase had gone to the police behind Beckett’s back.

Anger. That was what he was seeing. His boyfriend was seething with suppressed rage.

Hayes wasn’t sure why, but somehow he recognized what made Beckett embrace his anger. Beckett was familiar with anger. He wore it like a cape at times—and just as he knew how to wear it, he also knew how to shrug it off eventually. That was an emotional state that was far easier to manage than grief ever was.

Hayes released Beckett’s arm and watched him climb into the passenger seat with the same stony expression he’d seen a countless number of soldiers wear heading into battle. He sent up a silent prayer that this situation wouldn’t turn into a bloody battlefield as he slid into the driver’s seat.

By the time they returned from the grocery store with food to make breakfast, the entire Thérault family was back in the living room, no longer crying, but continuing to look fragile. Beckett, on the other hand, maintained his role of stalwart team leader. Ordering everyone to finish their breakfasts and cut the yapping, Beckett kept them in line. Surprisingly enough, it worked.

Hayes was secretly amused by the bossy, take-charge attitude that Beckett had displayed to great success, especially considering the normally feisty, independent attitudes of his family members. Around 9:00, Beckett granted everyone permission to resume speaking.

“We have to have the same story,” he informed them as he sat down at the kitchen table. He’d declined to sit next to Jackson on the bench of the breakfast nook.

Hayes remembered the story Cynthia had shared the year before about how Beckett, as a child, had been forced to sit there between his two brothers. Hayes was positive that it was a difficult memory for him to deal with now.

“The same story?” Jackson looked haggard. The bags under his eyes had not been reduced by taking a shower. He and Katerina had left their daughter with a friend while they dealt with the aftermath of Franklin’s death, and Maggie had followed suit. It was a child-free house until midday, which no doubt further contributed to the somber atmosphere.

“The cops will want to know how he’d been doing recently. If he was depressed, or if he was acting weird. They’ll need to make sure it was a suicide and not a murder,” Beckett explained.

“They didn’t mention anything about that!” Cynthia exclaimed, looking distressed.

“We should make sure they still investigate both scenarios,” Beckett said resolutely.

“Investigate? Franklin jumped off a bridge,” Maggie exclaimed angrily, slamming her fist down on the table. “There’s nothing to investigate!”

Hayes could see tears pooling rapidly in her already red-rimmed eyes. He didn’t know much about Beckett’s older sister. He knew that she wasn’t as close to Franklin as she was to Jackson. But she had been closer to Franklin than Beckett had. Which still wasn’t saying much. She’d been nothing but warm and genuine the few times they’d interacted previously. It was obvious now that anger was the driving force behind her emotions, and whether Beckett deserved to be the target of it was debatable. Nevertheless, he could certainly handle it.

“What if there is something to investigate? Franklin wasn’t depressed. He wasn’t weird. He wasn’t—anything unusual. He was just good old Frank, and now he’s dead,” Beckett stated without inflection in an effort to calm her.

“How the fuck would you know?” She snapped back. “You’re never here. You never spoke to him. You barely talk to us, and you hated Frank so—”

“Maggie!” John shouted her name, and hearing his raised voice stopped both siblings in their tracks.

But Maggie wasn’t done. Hayes could see it in her eyes, and braced himself for the next round.

“I’m right, and he knows it. They never got along, and Frank was always on his case because Beckett refused to get help after—”

“Enough!” Beckett roared, launching himself out of his chair, slamming both hands on the table and staring down at his sister with an intense, focused anger that Hayes had rarely witnessed.

“Fuck you! You don’t want to believe he killed himself because then we’re all responsible! There’s nothing suspicious about it. Just leave it the hell alone!” She screamed at him and then collapsed, harsh sobs cutting off anything else she might have wanted to say. Her husband who’d been looking back and forth between the two siblings like a tennis referee, reached for her, whispering soothingly as she cried against his shoulder.

Beckett looked momentarily dumbstruck but was still wound up. Hayes reached over with his right hand to encircle one of his wrists, squeezing gently. He snapped out of his stupor and turned to Hayes, eyes wide, like he didn’t quite understand what he’d done.