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“That’s OK,” I said, forcing my face into a smile, hoping it didn’t look like a Jack O’Lantern grimace.
As I grabbed a cup and poured his steaming coffee, I glanced through the open door into the kitchen, hoping desperately that Torin would be back there, prepping the pastries and muffins.
But of course he wasn’t.
“Sugar? Cream?” I asked.
“Just a splash of milk,” Vick said, and he sniffed appreciatively as I walked slowly over and set the cup down in front of him. “Smells delicious.”
I felt the cold sweat break out on my neck and back as I tried to act relaxed and unconcerned. My heart was thumping painfully into my ribcage, and my breath seemed to rasp in my dry throat.
“Sit down,” Vick said, indicating the chair across from him.
“I’ll have to be getting the bakery ready soon,” I hedged.
But I sat down.
He took a sip. “Ah, that’s good. One of the best cups I’ve had in a while. You have a real talent, young lady.”
Then he flicked his shrewd eyes up to me.
“Do you know where your brother Torin Reilly was from 6:30-7:30 am this morning?”
Later I wondered how I had managed to speak so quickly and without hesitation.
There was no internal struggle. No pull between right and wrong. I felt only an immediate dark, primal need to protect my brother, and it flooded my system, wiping out any sense of right or wrong.
I did believe in morality, in trying to be a good person, but my need to protect my brother ran deeper, hungrier, and I would never turn on him.
“Why, he was here with me!” I said brightly.
Vick looked skeptically at me.
“Here? Why would he be here?”
“He’s been helping out at the bakery,” I said.
Vick narrowed his eyes as he looked at me, the wrinkles in his craggy face deepening as he frowned.
I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help adding, “I think he’s changed.”
That was such an obvious and stupid lie that I could tell it immediately set off Vick’s bullshit detector.
Torin hadn’t changed at all. He had no morality. For him, there was only me. What protected me could never be wrong to him.
“Is that so?” Vick asked, politely skeptical. He set down his half-drunk cup of coffee.
“Where is he then?”
“He’s been getting the pastries ready in the kitchen,” I said, my nerves screaming at me.
He wasn’t in the kitchen!
My brother had undoubtedly murdered the man who had harassed me and he was going to go back to prison again.
“Well, I’d like to see him,” Vick said, his eyes boring into mine.
Panic flooded my system. Each beat of my heart only strengthened that deep, primal instinct to do anything to prevent Torin from going back to jail.
