Male/Male Mystery and Suspense Box Set: 6 Novellas

by Lanyon, Josh

  Martha said, “But you’ve neither of you had any supper.”

  “I ate on the flight,” Uncle Thomas said, which happily distracted her while Finn stood swaying, biting his lip against the myriad aches and pangs and throbs.

  Uncle Thomas said with unexpected determination, “I think I’ll give you a hand upstairs anyway.”

  Finn nodded. No point pretending he didn’t need it. Uncle Thomas wrapped a strong arm around his waist, and Finn hung on to him as Martha bade them good night.

  “I’m stiff from sitting so long.” Finn explained as they passed slowly through the hall with its lilac sprig wallpaper. “I really am fine now.”

  “Of course you are. You’ll be working again in no time.”

  Ah. Of course. In this house, the work was paramount. Well, it was to Finn too.

  They crossed the dining room with the long formal table and harp-backed chairs where they had all eaten dinner when his grandfather was alive, across the back hallway, and then up the narrow staircase with the gleaming banisters Finn recalled sliding down as a child. Or was it Fitch who had slid down the banisters and Finn who watched? Sometimes it was hard to separate Fitch’s adventures from his own memories.

  Uncle Thomas’s voice jarred him out of his preoccupation. “Martha said your friend was killed in the accident.”

  Finn nodded tightly.

  “Was he…was your friend…?”

  Uncle Thomas floundered awkwardly, and Finn said, “He was a friend, that’s all. A good friend. He yanked the wheel at the last minute so that his side of the car took the worst of it.”

  The stairs seemed to take forever. Finn could have cried in gratitude by the time they reached the upper landing—then the final leg to his old room, the room that had been his since his teens. Fitch’s room was on the other side of the adjoining black-and-white checked bath.

  There was no sign of Finn’s bags, but his pajama bottoms and robe were lain across the foot of the dark wood sleigh bed. He bit back a tired smile. Martha would have unpacked while he slept downstairs. There was no privacy in this house. Lucky thing Finn had no secrets. Not anymore.

  Uncle Thomas helped him undress. It was embarrassing, but Finn really was exhausted beyond action now. With his uncle’s help, he pulled on knit sleep pants—and though the older man said nothing, Finn saw his face tighten up at the terrifying scar down the left side of Finn’s body. One inch more, and Finn would have died with Tristan.

  “You won’t be warm enough like that,” Uncle Thomas said. “You’ve forgotten how cold the winters are here. I’ll get you one of my pajama tops.”

  He was gone down the hallway, and Finn sat looking around the room. Once again he had that weird sensation of looking at an exhibit in a museum. Books and model ships… He stared at the framed photographs on the bookshelves: pictures of himself and Fitch sailing and climbing and fishing and swimming. A skinny eleven-year-old Fitch’s arm looped around his neck in a friendly choke hold, himself giving the eighteen-year-old Fitch an impromptu piggyback. People said they couldn’t be told apart, but Finn never had to wonder who was who in the pictures—not even in the earliest photographs of them.

  Uncle Thomas returned with a striped flannel pajama shirt, and Finn shrugged into it, did up the buttons.

  “Is it true Fitch left the island when I did?” he asked, eyes on the buttonholes.

  “Yes.”

  “And no one’s heard of him since?”

  “I don’t think that’s so surprising,” Uncle Thomas said grimly. Finn wasn’t exactly sure what he meant. Surely no one knew the full story of what had happened that day? But he was too tired to question.

  He crawled into bed, rediscovering the pleasure of clean flannel sheets that smelled faintly of the crisp ocean breeze. Stretching out gingerly, his spine seemed to unkink like a Slinky. He was astonished when his uncle shook the folds out of the quilt at the foot of the bed and spread it over him.

  “Good night,” he said politely, wondering if he was about to be tucked in and kissed.

  He was spared that much. The bedside lamp went out, and his uncle said quietly, “Good night, Finn. I’m glad you’ve come home.” He went out. The door closed silently behind him, shutting Finn into the darkness.

  His heart began to pound, turning over sickly in his chest. Finn waited, sweat breaking out along his hairline as he listened. Through the dormer windows, he could see the mutable darkness that was the sea; stars glittered on the waves, pinpoints of light.

  No need for panic. There was plenty of light. Moonlight, starlight, reflected light…

  His uncle’s footsteps died away down the hallway. Finn sat up and turned on the lamp.

  He relaxed, let out a long breath. In the mellow glow, the books and toys of his childhood looked very old, very fragile.

  He stared at the photos of his cheekily grinning twin and whispered, “Where are you, Fitch?”

  Chapter Two

  They had grown up on the island; the Barret Boys, people called them. Their grandfather was Holloway Barret, the famous artist. His lush illustrations, reminiscent of an earlier period, livened up all kinds of dry history tomes and sappy children’s stories. Their mother was Pamela Barret, whose elegant watercolors hung in galleries and private collections all around the world. But here on Seal Island off the coast of Maine, they were simply the Barrets, and Finn and Fitch were the Barret Boys. Sometimes Those Damned Barret Boys. But they were good kids mostly, and it was a tightly knit community, and they had grown up safe and sheltered.

  For a time it looked as though the Barret drive for success had skipped a generation. Fitch had been expelled from college after one too many pranks, and Finn had flunked out. In Finn’s case, it was homesickness as much as anything else. That, and desperation to paint—really paint—not spend his life talking about painting or studying how others did it. At twenty, he had returned to the island in disgrace, for the first time experiencing what it felt like to disappoint the people you love. A feeling Fitch was well acquainted with and had learned, mostly, to laugh off.

  He had certainly laughed off Finn’s guilt. Finn had done exactly what he wanted, why feel guilty? And if he felt truly bad about it, he could always go to Grandy, who would pull a few strings and get Finn admitted to another brand-name college where he could excel at listening politely to people who had never painted a real dab in their lives tell the people with talent what to do. Well, Finn didn’t feel that bad about it, and Fitch had laughed at him again.

  Grandy had been less amused. Finishing university was about discipline and learning your craft and respect—it was nothing to do with talent. It was already obvious Finn was the keeper of the flame for his generation of Barrets. Even when he had been quite young, messing around in his mother’s studio, he had heard the adults quietly appraising him and agreeing; Finn had “the gift.” No, Finn had failed by leaving school, and Fitch was equally to blame for encouraging him.

  The fact that Grandy had never gone to college was irrelevant.

  And how the hell dare Fitch disparage art critics and art teachers when his uncle Thomas was one of the same, and a damned fine one!

  Never mind that Fitch had been practically quoting Grandy verbatim.

  That had led to one of Fitch and Grandy’s famous blowups, which ended with Fitch leaving the island yet again. He was gone for nine months that time—only returning when their mother lay dying.

  Finn, quietly accepting that he was in disgrace, returned to his painting and blissfully lost himself in the work. He politely ignored everyone’s disappointment and disapproval—it only lasted a week or two had he even been aware of it. He was pretty much unaware of everyone and everything but the work. That was the summer he had finally given himself over to painting.

  He had missed Fitch, of course, but he had missed Fitch in college too, and Fitch did periodically disappear when he and Grandy butted heads. No one antagonized Grandy like Fitch, and yet the old man adored him—when he wasn’t calling f
or his head on a palette. But then everyone adored Fitch. Finn did. Their mother had postponed her painful dying that long summer in order to spend as much time as possible with her eldest.

  But that first spring—the spring after Finn had bailed out of college—was the happiest of his life. He felt that he had at last come into his own; he was consumed with painting, with “making up for lost time,” which (had he known it) amused the adults around him no end. He ate, drank, and slept painting. It was all he thought about, all he wanted.

  For years it was all he wanted. And then Conlan Carlyle came home.

  Conlan Carlyle, the writer—the writer of dry and dusty histories that, as Fitch had once said, could have used Grandy’s illustrations to perk them up. Con Carlyle was by way of being a neighbor although his folks were “summer folk,” wealthy New Yorkers who summered in their elegant and enormous “cottage” on the island. Con hadn’t any time for the Barret Boys, being so much older and busy with his own friends—female and otherwise…

  So many remembrances; it could have been memory lane down which Finn was making his painstaking way rather than the path that led from The Birches to Gull Point. It was the morning after his arrival on Seal Island. He had borrowed his grandfather’s old walking stick, a maple cane with a nickel-silver wolf-head handle, and he was suffering the fresh air and sunshine so beloved by physicians everywhere. The fact that it was fucking freezing skipped everyone’s notice. There were thin layers of ice over the puddles in the path as he hobbled slowly past the black fir spinneys and meadows turning gold and red in the late autumn.

  Automatically, his eye began isolating colors into the paints he would use…Raw Sienna, Old Holland Yellow, Indian Red, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Orange…

  He didn’t want to remember how things used to be, but it was impossible here with the salt scent of the ocean, the chill spice of pines, the taint of wood smoke—funny how fragrance brought it all back.

  He passed Estelle Minton’s house. Yellow shingles and red brick, red roses behind a white picket fence. The roses Estelle had been in the process of planting three years ago were now tall—if wind-tattered. At this time of year, her beloved garden was not at its best. Smoke rose cozily from the chimney. Finn half expected Estelle to wave him down—rarely did anyone slip past her front window without being spotted—but if she saw him, she did not come out to say hello, and Finn walked on, dogged by memory.

  “You’re Finn,” Con had said. “The Barret boy.” As though there were only one Barret boy.

  He was twenty-three that spring, and he had met Con—literally bumped into him—walking into the Curtis Memorial Library. He had gone to the mainland to pick up art supplies and a couple of Ross MacDonald mysteries for Grandy. His thoughts had been a million miles away; he’d spent days trying to paint the fishing fleet’s sunset return but couldn’t get it right—and he had walked right into the tall man coming out the west entrance.

  At the time he had thought the collision was his own fault, but now he realized Con had been nearly as distracted as he was. It was Con who had reached out to steady him, hands warm on Finn’s arms.

  “Whoa! All right?” he’d said, and he was smiling, a cynical twist of his lips as though this was exactly the kind of behavior he expected from the natives. And then his brown-black gaze had seemed to sharpen. “You’re…Finn. The Barret boy.”

  Finn recognized him immediately, although it had been at least two years since he’d seen Con Carlyle. All the same, he was genuinely surprised. People—strangers—had trouble telling them apart, and when had Con Carlyle been anything but a stranger, for all that they’d summered on the same island for twenty-three years?

  “Yeah. How did you know?” he’d asked.

  Con had smiled again—and the smile was a revelation. Finn had never seen Conlan genuinely smile. Oh, maybe a polite grimace when someone—often Fitch—was acting more like an idiot than usual; Fitch had always had a little bit of a thing about Con Carlyle.

  Con had grinned that devastatingly attractive grin and raised his elegant eyebrows. “How could I not know you? You’ve been stealing my blueberries and swimming in my cove for the last twenty years.”

  “Twenty-three, but who’s counting?”

  He was so very attractive—pale hair, a lean, ascetic face, sable eyes lighting with unexpected laughter. It was like one of those paintings of old saints suddenly coming to life, suddenly animated and vivid.

  “But maybe I’m Fitch,” Finn had suggested.

  And Con had said, “You’re not Fitch.”

  The funny part was that at the time Finn had imagined it was a compliment.

  But he didn’t want to remember these things. What was the point of sinking down into quaggy, regretful thoughts? If he was going to dredge all that up, better to focus on the hurt, the anger, the betrayal. But why think of it at all? It was a long time ago, and he had more important things to worry about.

  Like…the fact that he had walked too far from the house. That was his impatience getting the better of him, but to hell with “not rushing things.” What did that mean? You could only rest for so long. And what on earth did peace and quiet have to do with anything? It wasn’t as though he lived in a box beneath a freeway underpass. This whole idea of being sent away to recover his health was so fucking Victorian.

  Even more irritating was the fact that the only place he had been able to think of going to recuperate was Seal Island. What had he been thinking? But at the time—or perhaps it was due to too much pain medication—he had yearned for home like the homesick college kid he had once been. And of course the doctors thought Seal Island was a terrific idea. The fresh salt air, the sunshine, the long, quiet nights—everyone cheerfully ignorant of how goddamned cold it was, and how…painful and tiring to face the memories you had been running from for so long.

  At least he didn’t have to face anything more than the ghosts. Con was safely on his book tour, and Fitch…

  That was strange about Fitch.

  All these months…years without word. That wasn’t like Fitch. Even when he had clashed with Grandy the last time, he had stayed in touch with Finn. Granted, he couldn’t very well stay in touch with Finn this time.

  Still…

  The spark of uneasiness Finn had felt on initially hearing that Fitch was missing had kindled into quiet worry. Three years was a very long time to disappear without a word. And Fitch had never been one to hold a grudge—nor had Fitch any reason to hold a grudge, since he had come out the winner that time.

  Finn became aware that with his thoughts running elsewhere, his feet had followed the familiar path to the cottage by Bell Woods. The cottage was on the edge of the old Carlyle estate; Con worked there most days, safely out of reach of his devoted family. There was no phone at the cottage—or at least there had not been a phone three years ago.

  For a time Finn stood, leaning on Grandy’s cane, studying the white shingles and black shutters, the brick chimney and neglected garden. He felt surprisingly little. It was only a building, after all, and the memories existed independently of the architecture.

  Lost in these thoughts, he noticed too late the door to the cottage swinging open. Con stepped outside. “Finn,” he said.

  There was an alarming moment when Finn thought his mind had snapped, that he was rolling and sliding off the edge of sanity, and then he realized that he was not imagining things. Con was striding down the path toward him.

  Too late to flee even if could manage it without looking like the loser in a three-legged race. So he held his ground, clenching his grandfather’s walking stick, as Con reached him.

  “Finn,” Con said again, and he sounded out of breath.

  He had not changed much in three years. Tall and lithe, his hair was still ash-blond, straight, and fine as silk, but he wore it a little longer now. His eyes were a shade of brown-black that Finn had never managed to determine; he remembered reading in one of the books his grandfather had illustrated about a pirat
e with “sparkling black-cherry eyes,” and he’d always thought that perfectly described Con’s eyes—although the wicked laughing eyes were at odds with a face as elegantly and distantly beautiful as the saint in a Renaissance painting. But there were faint little lines now around Con’s mouth and eyes, a tightness to his features. He looked tired, like he’d run too long and too far and had still not found what he was looking for.

  Idiotically, the only thing Finn could think to say was, “I didn’t know you were back.”

  “I got back last night.”

  Good Lord. They should have held out for a group rate given the amount of traffic to the island yesterday.

  “Oh. Well…nice to see you.” Finn turned to go, leaning heavily on the cane.

  “Wait.” Con jerked out, “Can you…come inside for a minute?”

  “Not today.” Finn kept moving, crablike, trying to escape. “I’ve got to get back.”

  “Finn—” Con came alongside him.

  In his slow-motion panic, his foot turned on a stone, and Con reached out to steady him. Every nerve in Finn’s body flinched away from his touch. He’d thought he was over it, but the feel of Con’s hand—the warm weight through his sweater—warned him otherwise. Bewilderingly, it was as though no time had passed at all, all his emotions were boiling right there at the surface.

  “Jesus, Finn, you’re white to your lips. You should never have walked so far. Come in out of the cold for a few minutes.” Con looked—Finn didn’t think it was an expression he could capture on canvas. It surely wasn’t an expression he remembered ever seeing before on Con’s face.

  “Please,” Con said.

  It was something in the way he said “please.” Not a word Con had ever used a lot. Certainly not with Finn. As he stared at him, Finn was suddenly and utterly exhausted—light-headed with it. It was borne in on him how very far he had walked—and what a bad idea that had been. His head began that slow, ominous pound. He allowed himself to be led inside the cottage.