AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I look around the office, remembering things I’d forgotten. Amazing how the brain works. Adjusts. Protects.
The last thirteen years, life has gone on here while I’ve been living my own separate one. They all moved on. I guess I did too, but part of me, it’s still sixteen years old as I sit here.
And that part of me that, even now, feels a pang of jealousy of Declan.
He slipped right into my place, took over my role like it was his from the start. Stole it right out from under me. Stole both my father and my life.
“Why didn’t you name him Hawk?” I ask out of the blue, interrupting the reading of the will.
I look to Declan who looks to me.
“First born male child carries the name,” I say. I was disowned. Didn’t that erase my existence and give Declan that status?
“First-born of the first-born. The name wasn’t mine to give,” he says.
Fuck.
Am I supposed to be grateful?
Michael clears his throat. “The distillery is still bringing in some money, but not nearly what it used to.”
“Hawk knows well what the distillery is bringing in, Michael,” Declan says. “He holds fifty-one percent of the shares, not quite honorably obtained, but well, what can you expect?”
Michael gives me a glance but is clever enough to keep his judgement to himself.
I sit back, take a deep breath in, keep my face hard as stone. “Just business, brother.”
Declan’s hands fist on his lap but he keeps his gaze forward on the wall of shelves behind my grandfather.
When the will’s been read, Benjamin slips another document onto the desk. My offer to buy the house. He clears his throat.
“Before that’s signed, I want to see the house,” I say, standing. “Declan.”
“What am I, your personal tour guide? Don’t remember where things are?”
“I want to see the state of things. I assume you know it best.”
“I have more important things to do like meeting my son for lunch,” he says, and walks out the door.
26
Melissa
After Hawk left, I took a long, hot shower then decided to lie down and close my eyes for a few minutes. Now, as I open them in the almost pitch-black room, I realize I must have slept for hours.
I glance to the other side of the bed, but it’s not been slept in. I wonder what time it is but there’s no clock in this room. Pushing the covers back, I get up. I’m barefoot and the cold of the stone beneath the old carpet chills me.
I walk into the alcove thinking the walls must be three feet deep. I wonder if that’s for insulation or protection in times past. I look out the window at the utter darkness outside. The almost complete stillness.
The moon is full, the wind a whistle that urges the clouds across the sky, the light an ominous silvery ghost-like thing spilling over the water and the hills.
I think if I look hard enough, I’ll see ghosts out there.
Finding the latch, I push one of the heavy windows open and lean out. It’s a cool night and I inhale the clean, fresh air.
I think how I’d like to go outside, walk out there in the dark. Feel that quiet. You never have quiet like this in Las Vegas, not even in my neighborhood in the middle of the night. This is nature at its most primal. Undisturbed and serene and magnificent.
My stomach growls and I close the window. I switch on the lamp beside the bed and from inside my tote, I find my phone but it’s out of charge and I can’t tell the time. I don’t have a charger that fits these sockets.
I put on my jeans and a sweater and tuck the phone into my pocket hoping someone has a charger I can borrow.
Slipping on my shoes—a pair of ballet flats—I open the bedroom door and walk into the hallway.
The house is still, as quiet as the night.
As if on cue, I hear the tolling of a clock.
Three chimes.
Three o’clock.
I glance down the hall at all the closed doors, count five in addition to the master. I then head down the stone stairs, taking in a painting on the wall, the tartan of the man pictured the same as the one at Hawk’s penthouse.
I remember thinking how generic the penthouse looked. This place, there is nothing generic about it. The opposite. There’s history and purpose and family in every square inch.
When I reach the first-floor landing, I see a dim light and walk toward it. It’s the living room, I think. A large room with a huge fireplace at the center. I can smell the wood of a recent fire but it’s not burning anymore.
I touch the stone of the fireplace and wonder how old it is. How old some of the paintings on the walls are.
