The Sinclair Heir

by Scott, Eliot

  It was Mr. Smith, the Tacoma Fire Department Chief, who’d come up with the genius idea to drop a large weighted crane hook into the grain, and because someone had spotted a disturbance in the top layers of the grain, they managed to figure out where Mr. Wallace’s dead body might be resting amidst the heavy metal.

  It was Officer O’Leary who took my initial statement. He told me I may need to come into the station tomorrow for questioning.

  I told them I hadn’t seen Mr. Wallace and was looking for him when I noticed the granary door open. I said I couldn’t find anyone around the farm. When I went up into the granary, I saw the railing stripped out of the wall and assumed the worst had happened, which is why I was crying and so upset when Jojo and Mrs. Wallace arrived. I told the officer that I had an appointment to help him tighten the walkways this coming weekend, and Mrs. Wallace confirmed it. She told the officer that maybe her husband had tried to fix the railing himself, thinking it would be okay because he’d done it before. She told them that side of the granary had always been a problem.

  Mrs. Wallace was so weak from her chemotherapy—so devastated from this news—that she wasn’t able to climb the stairs to see her husband pulled out.

  Jojo went in, though. She was there the whole time, crying, letting me hold her.

  She nearly crumbled when she told me what I already knew, that she’d been texting him right before it had happened. She blamed herself for distracting her father.

  Of course Jojo Wallace would try to take the blame. But it was mine. Mine!

  Father loved the part about when they pinged Mr. Wallace’s cellphone. I told him we could all could hear it just under the grain. Jojo nearly fainted then, and I had to carry her down the stairs and out to Mrs. Wallace with the help of one of the firemen.

  Father made me recount every detail of Jojo and Mrs. Wallace holding the man they loved, dead, in their arms. I told him how they both sobbed when they brought him out. He was still warm, but it was only probably from the grain. Father also loved my description of how, when the EMS guys opened his mouth to try to do CPR, Mr. Wallace’s entire airway was so full of pale-yellow wheat grains that his mouth and nostrils looked as though someone had shoved tinted cotton balls into them. Not a single one of the EMS workers could come close to clearing his airways, and that’s when Jojo screamed so hard she needed a sedative.

  My father reveled in the idea that Jojo was not okay, that the doctor who showed up told me she maybe wouldn’t be okay for a very long time after what she’d seen.

  I didn’t report to Father that I also would not be okay. That I may also need a sedative, and that I wanted to get Father’s gun and blow my brains and his brains out right now. Because, obviously, Father wouldn’t care about those details, and at this point, I was done being stupid and naive. I well understood that Father enjoyed betraying innocence. Mine—Jojo’s—hell, even Grady’s. We were just pawns inside his dark and fucked up fun-feud.

  My anger and absolute bitterness filled me up that night. It gave me backbone. Through every word, my father smiled, a freakish and very real smile.

  He told me how proud he was of me, that I would continue to report to him, and that my work was just beginning. When Jojo broke, her mother broke too. That’s how it works—threaten the kids, fuck up the kids, and everyone falls into line. I’d given him exactly what he’d been waiting for. I’m the key to it all. Because of me, every fucking breath Mrs. Wallace draws in, until the day she dies, will burn fire-and-pain inside her heart and head.

  Father grinned like a satisfied wolf, or the actual Devil, telling me how happy he was that Mrs. Wallace was smart. He said he knew she would suspect him and his young Sinclair boys. She’d suspect even more that I may have actually killed her husband myself. Then he told me that she would probably expect me to kill Jojo one day, too.

  I honestly don’t know how I managed to keep my face straight at those horrible words and images. But that’s when I knew that I changed. Fully. Inside and out. This had changed me. And, like the man my father wanted me to become, I didn’t even blink. I didn’t deny the ideas or reject them either. I didn’t bother to shout out that he was crazy—that all of this was crazy and that the feud needed to stop because I knew of a better way.

  Because I didn’t. Not anymore. This was the only way, the only way to keep Jojo alive.

  I nodded and smiled, copying his expressions and demeanors the best I could, and answered, “Yes, sir. Whatever you want next. And yes, I’ll report more tomorrow.”

  He laughed and tousled my hair like a kid who’d won a soccer match. “So proud of you, boy. Glad to have you ramped in to the future,” he said, acting like it was a normal day and I was joining the family business. I guess I was.

  He left me with one final chill before he went back to bed.

  “May as well stay awake son. I’m sure you can’t sleep anyhow. I’ll wake the cook and tell her to get you some coffee and food. You’ve got school today. You better not be missing one class or assignment, either. Your father didn’t die last night, after all. You can visit Jojo after school. You can bring her phone to her…you know, when you ‘find it at school?’”

  He laughed all the way down the hallway.

  I slumped into his office chair and the bleary-eyed cook brought me some coffee, her eyes going wide as she saw my face. Though I had no appetite, I washed my face in ice cold water in the office’s adjoining bathroom, and ate every bit of the eggs and bacon, telling myself to swallow when all I wanted to do was vomit. I knew I needed my strength to get through the school day so I could get to Jojo’s house as soon as possible—as soon as was allowed and commanded by my father.

  As all of my tears dried up and I couldn’t squeeze out anymore, I watched the sunrise. After an hour of working hard to breathe in and out, I forced myself to relive the vision of Mr. Wallace’s face until it became seared on my soul. My father’s voice echoed inside my head. I promised myself I’d revisit the memory every single damn day of my fucking worthless life just to make sure I would remember.

  As I pushed my plate bitterly across Father’s desk, the last shred of what was once me burst forth with an idea. I had one last rebellion.

  It was stupid of me, really, because if Father stumbled back in and caught wind of the thoughts in my head and what I was about to do, he would have killed me without hesitation. But at that moment, the core of the old me was warring with the new one.

  I wanted to give Jojo something huge, something that could make it all better, as if I ever could. I wanted her to have something to hold over my father like a dagger too.

  I dug out the keys to Father’s special cabinet. He kept them in a hidden alcove that was built under his massive wooden desk. Only Mother, Grady and I knew about the keys and the drawer where Father kept his deeds, passports and secrets. This drawer contained everything important to him and his businesses, and he was so organized, so methodical, that I found the deed to the lake easily. The papers for the lake he’d given me were placed in a file folder marked Alex Sinclair Deeds/Trusts/Tax Shelters.

  The lake. My lake, so the deed said, though the first time I received it I only glanced at my name on it. I didn’t read it like I was reading it now. But back then, three years ago, I was just a kid. Now, I was a man looking at his land trusts and deeds, looking at a way to give one of them away.

  Jojo had lost her father today. She didn’t know it yet, and maybe she wouldn’t have to know it, but she’d also lost her boyfriend. I knew I could never be the same person to her ever again. I could never look at her the same way, or be anything but a fake, horrible liar. But the lake—our lake, which was the only thing left of my heart that was still beautiful and clear and pure—could be saved. It was the only thing that was truly mine. It was mine to give. And I gave it to my Jojo.

  I wrote my name in the empty column that said Transfer of Deed—List Shared Property Holders. Then I hoped to God that I understood the small print of the document. I also prayed my Fathe
r wouldn’t find out what I’d done for a long, long time. I hoped that somehow this gesture would give my fucked-up shredded heart and soul some solace. Glimmers of redemption. A future for Jojo that one day she could claim for herself and the life she deserved to have in that future—with someone else.

  I printed my name very carefully, and then I signed my name where directed along with the date. Then I wrote Jojo Wallace’s name, just as carefully. Because we studied together so much, I knew exactly how she wrote her letters. Heck, I’d written her name for her many times already, because Jojo always forgot to put her name on her assignments. I forged her signature next, every stroke of pen perfect, right next to mine…where it would be safe.

  I added her address and birthdate to the document, and after checking the entire deed to be sure I hadn’t missed any spots that may need initials, I stole a stamp off Father’s roll, snagged a proper envelope from his side drawer, and took the time to look up how and where to send the document so these changes of property ownership would be recorded inside the State of Washington Registrar’s Offices, as well as within the County Land Offices.

  My only job would be to check the mail every single day to make sure I intercepted the documents that would reflect the changes to the deed. That would be easy because Father never got his own mail directly. That was considered menial work. He wouldn’t look for this copy of the deed—nor would he suspect it to be missing—and in the off chance he did find it gone, he would assume he’d filed it somewhere else and spend some time looking.

  I carefully placed my file folder back in it’s proper place, minus my deed to my lake—mine and Jojo’s lake. I replaced Father’s keys, too. And when I went to school that day, I stopped at the post office to make copies and mail everything, keeping the altered original inside the freshly cut lining of my school backpack. I’d even re-sewed it closed.

  It took ten days straight of lurking around the mail that was deposited on Father’s desk by our maid until I had the new and legal copies of the registered deed also sewn into my schoolbag as well.

  Only then did I try to breathe in and out each day. I fought impulses to kill myself and to kill my own father, and I did exactly what he said to protect Jojo from more hurt.

  I made myself live as a proper Sinclair.

  8.

  Jojo, Present Day.

  Bliss this awesome should get to last forever.

  This last week has been a stillness of time. I’m not entirely convinced we haven’t died or aren’t dreaming each and every moment.

  This home, this time here with him, has been a sweet afterlife. Something I thought I might never get to have with Alex—and it’s also changing into what I hope will be my forever finally coming true.

  There isn’t a room in this house where we haven’t made love. There isn’t a part of my body that doesn’t ache from our constant touching. I ache for more.

  He told me this home was built as a gift for me, that it stood as an architectural reminder for the love we shared. Alex said he built each corner of it to reflect things about me.

  My heart expands every time I see something new he put here just for me. Every time he tells me something romantic and sweet and slightly insane—like how he worked so long to get the tiles surrounding the bathtub to match my eyes—I fall in love a little deeper.

  This morning, it was the box of my notes and letters that I found stashed between two of his favorite books on the middle shelf in his library. My words and promises to him have been nestled in that cigar box between Tolkien and King since we’ve been apart. How fitting he stored them in his library.

  Our library.

  He insists everything here is mine just as much as it’s his. I want to trust how genuine it is. The house, him, his words and our resurrection as a couple feels so good, so right, and just how I imagined it would. Only, I just can’t seem to let go of that last thread of caution. It’s fear and worry, really, that none of this is real.

  I cling to the sensation, waiting for the other shoe to drop and one more Sinclair trick to gut me, because that’s how I’ve been trained and conditioned by them. Even from his grave, Mr. Sinclair has us behaving as he’d like—holding back, analyzing each other’s every move and word. Even after one week of making love and promises to each other, Alex and I are still scared to death and acting like untrusting and wounded fools who might never come together completely. Like how oil can never, ever mix with water.

  Maybe that’s why we’ve been so hungry for each other.

  We started this morning just as we have the last four—making love in the enormous shower that feels like a decadent waterfall cave crested with silver and turquoise jeweled stones.

  It started innocently, though we both knew it wouldn’t end that way. While I’ve been the instigator the last two mornings, today it was Alex’s turn. He insisted on washing my hair for me, and as I tilted my head back into the warm stream of water to wash away the foaming shampoo, Alex ran his fingers through the long strands bringing the soapy flow of water to my breasts.

  With one touch, I was ready. His hands lathered my skin until I was slick everywhere, feeling the contrast of his hands sliding over the raw tips of my breasts until they were completely clean of soap so he could suck them to painfully delicious peaks.

  This was the first time he took me this way—from behind. He was gentle at first, his fingers running against my tender skin until I was so swollen and ready that I nearly came in his hands. He turned me so I faced the glass, pressing my breasts flat against it so we could watch each other in the mirror on the other side of the room.

  He slid into me slowly, the angle strange but not painful. With each thrust, I grew bolder and my body formed to him this way more until finally he was pounding into me with so much force that I had to steady myself by flexing my arms and spreading my hands out on the glass wall.

  I watched him the entire time—his eyes locked on mine in our reflection as his face grew rigid with want and need. He took me—possessed me—and the power of his stare was so fucking seductive. Long gone are the days of innocent exploration of our bodies by the water under the trees. This man, his abs a sculpture of perfection that curve into his loins, and his arms dented where they should be and defined by discipline, is mine to touch and to taste, and I will have him.

  My body is now sore from Alex, the bruising and scrapes from Grady nearly healed. We may need to spend the day doing something mundane and domestic, as my insides are raw from his thick cock. Even this morning I had to pull him out of me before he finished, dropping to my knees in the shower and stroking him until he came on my breasts.

  Honestly, I would be satisfied lying like this, in his arms, on this sofa that overlooks the still water outside.

  “Maybe we should take you shopping to get some clothes…not that I don’t love how you look in my white T-shirts and sweatpants.”

  I turn into Alex and he kisses the end of my nose.

  “I told my aunt I would be by her place later to gather my things.” I’ve been texting her daily so she doesn’t worry, but I think if I don’t come back to her place soon she’ll start to suspect that I’m secretly in trouble and being forced to tell her I’m fine.

  I am fine, though. I’ve never been so fine. And that’s part of the reason I have been so hesitant to leave this safe space—this moment. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back. My body tingles with the millions of questions that race through my head from here. I don’t know if I come back to Alex’s house after I see my aunt, or if I go back to Ohio to get Emily. I don’t know if I bring her to Alex first, or if I tell him about her and take her to him. I don’t know if this is how we do this—or if we run away.

  There’s also the incessant worry of whether or not we’re truly safe. This game, it’s gone on for so long it’s hard to be certain that I’m not still in the thick of it. If this is a plot, how can I risk bringing Emily into it. I wear that worry, and Alex massages the small dent it makes on my forehead.<
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  “Grady won’t hurt you again,” he says, assuring me.

  I smile with tight lips and wiggle into his chest.

  “I know.” I breathe in deep and hold my lungs full, trying not to think of that other lingering question. It’s there, though; it’s always going to be there until it’s cleared from both of our heads.

  “Alex?” My voice is raspy with lack of sleep, and I debate whether to ask him now or to just fall asleep with the breeze spilling in through the window.

  “Mmmm hmmm.” His chest vibrates against my jaw. His smell fills me up. He can feel me tremble. I know he can.

  “Jo, ask me. Tell me. Leave nothing unknown. That’s what we pledged, and you have to let go of it. What is it?” He twists and dips his chin into his chest as his thumb lifts mine until our eyes meet.

  I practice the words in my head six or seven times before they finally leave my lips.

  “Did you kill your father?”

  I’m not sure what to expect, but the laughter that comes after long seconds of complete silence lets me breathe.

  “Jo…oh god, no. No. I mean…I wanted to, yes.” He shakes his head then lifts me as we both sit up, and he pulls my legs over his lap leaving enough distance to look directly into my eyes. “No, Jojo. I didn’t murder my father. And I’m guessing since you asked that…”

  He shrugs and it takes me a few seconds to catch on. When I do, I burst out a short laugh and cup my mouth.

  “You thought…” My eyes are wide in surprise. I’m almost a little proud that Alex thinks I’m capable of murdering his dad, as sick and twisted as that is.

  “Not really, but I wondered a little maybe, deep in the back of my mind. You had plenty of reasons to do it, and I’m pretty sure there’s a list of people in town who would lie to give you an alibi.” Alex runs his thumb over my brow and follows the trail of his hand down my face with his eyes.

  “I guess the suspect list in this town is pretty long,” I say.