Читать книгу Echo Lake - Carla Neggers - Страница 10
ОглавлениеBrody opened a beer and sat at Vic’s kitchen table. Rohan was racing back and forth between the refrigerator and the back door with a chew toy that Heather had brought for him, at least according to Vic. Brody wasn’t confident his old friend was paying close attention to the puppy goings-on in his Knights Bridge home.
He had helped himself to a plate of hors d’oeuvres, but he’d never been a big wine drinker. He’d only taken a few sips of Adrienne Portale’s selections for the evening. She hadn’t seemed to mind. Brody couldn’t remember Vic ever mentioning Adrienne or her parents, Sophia Portale, a marketing whiz with her own firm based in San Francisco, and her ex-husband, Richard Portale, a corporate lawyer also in San Francisco. Adrienne’s house-sitting arrangement with Vic didn’t strike Brody as anything out of the ordinary.
Just as well nothing was jumping out at him to cause alarm since he doubted Heather Sloan would give up on trying to find out why he was in her little town. She was a Sloan. Every last one of them was stubborn. He doubted that had changed in his absence.
Heather wasn’t what he’d expected. Pretty, sexy, curvy...
He didn’t need that kind of distraction right now. An attractive woman—one from the hometown he’d sworn he would never step foot in again.
Also one with five older brothers. Bad enough if he stopped right there, but he couldn’t. He’d left Knights Bridge while Heather’s brothers were heating up the tar and gathering the feathers.
His negative history with the Sloans aside, Brody didn’t need them or anyone else in town meddling in whatever was going on with Vic. If Vic was being paranoid, no one else needed to know. Knights Bridge was his home now. That kind of gossip wouldn’t help him.
“What a day,” Vic said, yawning as he entered the kitchen. He put his full wineglass on the table, pulled out a chair and flopped down. “Adrienne’s reading by the fire. I think she’s disappointed we didn’t drink all the wine, but one more sip and I’ll pass out on the floor.”
“The leftover wine will keep. She’s got some gadget that helps.” Brody took a swallow of his beer. “You weren’t close to passing out, though.”
“I was. I don’t hold my alcohol like I used to.”
“Another of the myths you live by these days.”
Vic quirked an eyebrow. “Another?”
“You’re an optimist and a romantic at heart, Vic. Maybe that’s why you lasted as a career diplomat for as long as you did.”
“Forty years. Damn, that makes me feel old.”
Brody grinned. “You are old.”
“Hell, no. Sixty is the new forty.” Vic watched Rohan tear across the kitchen. “The little fella’s no worse for the wear, anyway. Heather didn’t recognize you right away. That surprise you?”
“Not really. She wasn’t pretending. She’s not one to hold back what’s on her mind. I didn’t ring a bell at all.” Brody set his bottle on the table. He’d spent far too much time thinking about Heather Sloan ice-skating. “Why didn’t you tell me a Sloan was working on this place?”
Vic shrugged. “I didn’t think of it. Nobody remembers your fallout with the Sloans. You haven’t been back here since then, so it’s on your mind. That’s understandable. Anyway, they didn’t run you out. You left of your own accord. You’re a federal law-enforcement officer now. A respected agent with the Diplomatic Security Service. You’re as big a hard-ass as any Sloan.”
“Not Heather. She could kick my butt.”
“Ha. I have no doubt.” Vic lowered a hand at his side and snapped his fingers to get Rohan’s attention. The puppy bounded to him. “His fur’s so soft. He wore himself out on his romp in the woods, but he’s got his energy back now. What would have happened if Heather hadn’t found him when she did?”
“I’d have found him,” Brody said.
“You’re just saying that so I don’t feel like an incompetent fool for having lost him in the first place. I’d have had to sell the house if I’d let the poor little fellow freeze to death in that brook. More to the point,” he said, sitting up straight as Rohan ran off again, “I’d have felt terrible.”
“You’re new to puppy care.”
“Trial by fire.”
The puppy careened into the mudroom and climbed into his bed with his chew toy. Watching him helped Brody anchor his thinking. Too many memories in this town. There were some good ones, but the bad ones were clawing at him now. Heather Sloan wasn’t a kid anymore. That didn’t help. He hadn’t considered her—that she would be overseeing Vic’s house renovations—when he’d agreed to return. He’d expected to have a chat with Vic, talk some sense into him and leave after a couple of nights.
Brody took his beer bottle, still half-full, to the sink. It was pitch-dark outside, and dead quiet. Vic’s was the only house on this part of the lake. “You’re not used to the quiet and isolation out here, Vic. It’s worse now with the cold weather.”
Vic pushed his wineglass aside. “It’s been a while since either of us has been in a cold climate during winter.”
“Yes, it has.” Brody hadn’t expected to appreciate the bracing temperature and stark-white landscape—the quiet. Only the puppy’s playful growling disturbed the silence. He turned to Vic. “How are the renovations? Are you decisive, or do you dither?”
“We’re still pulling everything together and making decisions, but I wouldn’t say dither. I deliberate.”
Brody grinned. “Sounds like dithering to me.”
“I haven’t driven Heather crazy yet. I think the architect is about to bail on the project. Heather says not to worry, that’s just how he is. Mark Flanagan. You know him?”
“I did. He used to sleep in the back of class. Now he’s an architect?”
“A damn good one, too. He left town and came back again. He married a local woman in September. Jessica Frost.”
“I remember her. She’s younger—more like Heather’s age, as I recall. I didn’t have much to do with either one of them.”
Vic stretched, looking stiff and tired. “The Frosts still have their sawmill. They’re doing the custom woodwork on this place. Jessica’s sister, Olivia, married Noah Kendrick’s business partner on Christmas Eve.”
“Dylan McCaffrey.”
“I see you’re up to speed on the newcomers.” Vic didn’t sound surprised. “Dylan and Noah are exceptionally wealthy. What if their presence in Knights Bridge has attracted whoever is harassing me?”
“Harassing is a strong word, Vic.”
“Yeah, okay. Maybe the goings-on haven’t escalated to that level. Not yet, anyway.”
Brody leaned back against the sink. He had no concrete reason to suspect Vic was in real trouble. He was only weeks into retirement, but there were no lingering threats against him. “Sure you’re not just having trouble transitioning to retirement? Turning a draft into a suspicious incident.”
“I’ve never been a worrywart.”
“You worked nonstop in a high-pressure, high-profile environment, and now you’re chasing puppies and renovating your country house and stocking a wine cellar.”
“I was thinking about taking up bird-watching, too,” Vic added dryly.
“It’s not the life you’re used to.”
“It’s one I’ve been dreaming about for years.” He watched Rohan wander back into the kitchen. “Elly O’Dunn told me not to let him run wild.”
“Puppies need structure and a steady, firm hand. You need to be the alpha dog, Vic.”
“This is why I never was a father. I’d have had nothing but spoiled brats. I need to find him a good home. Winter’s a deterrent. People tend to get puppies in warmer weather. It’s no fun to train a puppy in January, but I can’t imagine someone abandoning the little guy out here.”
“Think that’s related to what’s been going on with you?”
“I hope not. We’re dealing with a real sick SOB, then. It’s been long enough that you’d think if he were lost an owner would have come forward by now.” Vic pulled his gaze from the puppy. “Why don’t you adopt Rohan, Brody? You can have a dog in the Diplomatic Security Service.”
“Not the places I’ve worked the past few years.” Brody stood straight. “Rohan seems to be at home here. Why not adopt him yourself? You could use the company now that you’re retired. You could take a puppy-training class so you know what you’re doing. It’s not too late. It would give you something to do.”
“Besides fretting about odd occurrences that don’t sound odd to you, you mean?” Vic put up a hand. “Don’t answer. Did you ever have a dog when you were growing up? I don’t remember.”
“Two before we moved to the lake and one after. No golden retrievers, though. Whatever’s up with you, Vic, doesn’t have to do with puppies.”
“No. Rohan’s a handful, but he’s not our culprit.” Vic grabbed his wineglass but didn’t take a sip. “Things not in the same place I left them. Anonymous hang ups. They aren’t a puppy’s doing.”
“Were the hang ups on your landline or cell phone?” Brody asked.
“Both. I think someone’s been pawing through my files, too. My physical files in the library. I haven’t given up my apartment in New York yet, but I’ve been moving things here bit by bit. It’s like...” He paused, his eyes distant then focused again on Brody. “I don’t know. It’s like I’m being watched. Studied.”
“Only here? Nothing in New York?”
“Only here.”
“When you’re here alone, or when Adrienne and Heather are here?”
Vic shrugged. “Mostly when I’m here on my own. I had a hang up at least once when Adrienne was here. It was shortly after she started house-sitting for me in early December. She’s not here all the time. She went out to San Francisco for a week after New Year’s, and she pops down to New York every now and then.” He shook his head, as if he were reading Brody’s mind. “It’s not Adrienne.”
“What about Heather Sloan?”
“Heather? Why would she want to spook me?”
“I’m not concerned with whys right now,” Brody said. “How often is she here?”
“As necessary. She’s in charge of renovations. There’s a hell of a lot to do. We’re down to it now, so she’s been here every day since I arrived last week. There will be people in and out of the house once renovations start, but there aren’t now. I’m telling you, Brody, something weird is going on around here.”
As Vic spoke, Rohan yawned and headed for the his bed in the mudroom. Brody was ready to do the same with his spot in the guesthouse. He didn’t want to delve deep into Vic’s mind, but he knew he had to, at least to a degree. “Could you have moved things and not remember?” he asked.
He half expected Vic to spring up out of the chair, offended, but instead he tapped a finger on the rim of his wineglass, thoughtful. Finally, he shook his head. “I don’t think so, no. I admit that I’ve wondered if I’m losing it. I asked myself that repeatedly before I contacted you. I decided no. If I had decided yes, I would have called a doctor instead of you. I’m retired, but I’m in good mental and physical health.”
“I had to ask,” Brody said.
“I know you did.” Vic sucked in a breath and smacked a hand down on the table, an unusual display of frustration for the career diplomat. He exhaled. “I’ve nothing concrete to give you, Brody. No evidence. It’s possible someone toyed with me for a while and figured out I’m not that interesting, and that’s that.”
“Do you have any reason to suspect you’re in danger, Vic?”
“I have enemies. There’s no question about that.”
There wasn’t, but it wasn’t Brody’s point. “Is one of them in Knights Bridge?”
“That’s why I asked you to come here, Brody.” Vic’s voice was quiet but intense, his frustration with his situation unabated if under control. “I need your objectivity and professionalism to help me figure out what’s going on.”
Brody crossed his arms on his chest. How many times had he stood in this same spot as a kid, getting Vic’s advice? How many times through college, training and his years with the DSS had he counted on Vic Scarlatti to be a phone call or an email away?
“All right,” Brody said. “We’ll figure this out. Anything else you can think of?”
“I was followed,” Vic said. “I didn’t mention that. The other day this black car followed me from Amherst right to my driveway, then kept on going out toward the upper lake. You tell me that was a coincidence, Brody. You tell me.”
“Did you get the plate number?”
“Did I—” He stared at Brody, looking baffled. “No, I didn’t get the plate number. I had my hand on my cell phone in case I had to call the cops.”
Brody lowered his arms to his sides. Vic wasn’t paranoid by nature, and even now Brody didn’t sense that his mentor and friend was afraid. Curious, annoyed, uncertain. Not fearful.
At this point, Brody couldn’t tell his old friend anything except that he was here now, and he’d have a look around.
He felt a cold draft coming through the kitchen window. The place needed work. It had for a long time, and Sloan & Sons was the outfit to do the job.
He didn’t need to go there right now.
He shifted back to Vic. “You could have called the police and asked them to look into these incidents instead of calling me.”
“I don’t want to sound like a crazy old man. I call the cops, it’s a thing.”
“It’s a thing when you call me, Vic.”
“I asked you here as a friend with experience in these matters. I know you’re a law-enforcement officer. That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the local cops. Heather’s brother is a police officer. Knights Bridge is a small town. I’m an unknown. People are curious. They gossip.”
“I’ll need to bring in the police if it looks as if there’s more going on here than a bored retired diplomat with an overactive imagination.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Once I decided to contact you, I knew there was no good outcome. Either I’m overreacting, or something’s going on.” Vic pushed back his chair, the legs scraping on the worn floor. “You’re not here just because of me, anyway, are you, Brody?”
He glanced at the window above the sink but could only see the darkness and the reflection of the lights in the kitchen. “I dreamed about Echo Lake right before you got in touch with me.”
“A sign, you think?”
“A sign it’s time I saw about the land I own here.”
“Think you’ll put it on the market?”
He shrugged without answering Vic’s question.
A gust of wind rattled the kitchen windows. The age and condition of the house could be responsible for some of what had Vic unnerved, or at least for triggering him into ratcheting up normal occurrences.
“I’ll need to ask Adrienne and Heather if they’ve noticed anything,” Brody said.
Vic clearly didn’t like that idea. “Be tactful.”
“Sure, Vic. No problem. Tact is my middle name.”
“Tact is an unknown concept to you,” Vic muttered.
Brody grinned and started for the mudroom. “I’ve got some work to do.”
“I thought you were on home leave.”
“I am. You relax and let me know if you remember anything else. Write every incident down. You can email it to me or hand me a sheet of paper.”
Vic shook his head. “I’m not writing a damn thing. I don’t want you or anyone else using it against me if this turns out to be nothing.” He raised his wineglass. “It’s called plausible deniability. If I’m losing it, we’ll all know soon enough.”
“I doubt you’re losing it, Vic.”
“But you also doubt I’m in danger.”
“Correct.”
Vic didn’t seem offended. “How was it seeing a Sloan again?”
“I told you I never had much to do with Heather.”
“But she is a Sloan. She didn’t stir up old wounds?”
“No.”
“Then your feud with the Sloans is in the past. No hard feelings.”
It wasn’t a feud, and it had never been a feud, but Brody wasn’t indulging Vic, especially if he was in a mood to stir up trouble as an outlet for his own problems. “Call if you need me. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the morning.”
Brody headed into the mudroom where Rohan reigned. It was immediately evident that the fur ball had relieved himself in the corner. Brody grabbed some newspaper to clean up the mess but felt his phone vibrate in his jacket.
He saw he had a text from Greg Rawlings, a DSS colleague and friend recovering from a bullet to the shoulder incurred two months ago during a difficult mission.
How’s Knights Bridge?
Brody decided to answer.
I’m cleaning up puppy poop.
Auto-correct problem?
No.
Oh man. At least it’s not Vic’s poop. Later.
Brody didn’t know whether to laugh or grit his teeth, but tackling the mess on the floor wasn’t optional. It had to be done, and he might as well be the one to do it.
He noticed Vic standing in the doorway. “Thank you,” Vic said, his relief palpable. “Cleaning up after Rohan isn’t my favorite activity, and I hate to ask Adrienne to do it. I never had a dog. A cat, either. I had a goldfish once, but it disappeared. My parents told me it died and they got rid of the body before I could see it. Suspiciously, we were about to leave for a month in France.”
“Think they flushed it?”
“It wasn’t well...” Vic sighed. “I suppose I should take them at their word. Think our pup here misses his siblings and that’s why he’s been tearing up the place?”
“Alpha dog, Vic.”
Vic scowled and headed back into the kitchen. Rohan sat on Brody’s foot, looking irresistible. Brody pointed the newspaper at him. “No more messing on the floor, you hear?”
Whether Rohan was worn-out or heard something authoritative in Brody’s voice, the puppy sat politely, as if he were the best-minding golden retriever in the world.
“Good dog,” Brody said.
Rohan responded by diving face-first into his water bowl and then licking Brody’s hand as he squatted down to clean up the mess. When he finished, Rohan had curled up in his bed, all innocence.
Brody took a picture and sent it to Greg.
Meet Rohan.
Greg texted him back immediately.
All hope is lost.
Brody was surprised to find Adrienne standing in the driveway, looking at the stars. She must have gone out through the front. “I can’t resist the night sky here,” she said, crossing her arms on her chest. She had on a coat and hat but no gloves. “There isn’t much ambient light to spoil the stars. It’s freezing, though. I think this is the coldest it’s been since I’ve been here.”
“It’s supposed to drop below zero tonight.”
“I can’t remember the last time I was in below-zero temperatures.”
“You sound excited.”
She laughed. “I guess I am. Vic’s never stayed here through an entire winter. He says he likes winter, but I wonder if he’ll end up buying a condo in Florida.”
“How well do you know him?”
“Not well at all. He goes way back with my parents. I looked him up one day when we were both in New York, and we hit it off. Next thing, I’m house-sitting.”
“When was this meeting in New York?”
“November.” She shot him a quick look. “Easy, there. It was just lunch. Vic didn’t pass me any state secrets.”
Brody smiled. “That’s good.”
“We got to talking about wine, and he mentioned he’d like to know more about wine now that he was retiring to his country house in Knights Bridge. I’d never heard of Knights Bridge.” She stuffed her bare hands under her arms, presumably to keep them warm. “Vic says you’re like a son to him. He’s relaxed since you got here, even with Rohan’s escape this afternoon. He’s been keyed up. He won’t tell me why.”
Brody buttoned his jacket, trying to appear casual. He wanted to get a read on Adrienne without alarming her. “Vic’s had an intense job for a lot of years.”
“You’d know more about that than I would. He doesn’t talk about his past with me, or with Heather, that I’ve been able to see.” There was no trace of criticism in her tone. “He’s been great to me, though. I’m not broke or desperate or anything, but I’m between apartments.”
“Your work doesn’t tie you to an office,” Brody said.
“Exactly. I have a freedom of lifestyle that I’m taking advantage of in a variety of ways. Fortunately, I have friends all over the place who let me stay with them. I help with things like wine tastings and stocking wine cellars.” She gave an easy smile. “I always bring a few bottles of my favorite wines.”
Brody looked up at the spray of stars in the black sky. “It’s quiet here. Do you like the quiet?”
“Right now I do. Vic’s excited about renovations, but I think retirement has taken him by surprise. It’s one thing to have it figured out intellectually. It’s another to experience it. He’s used to a fair amount of drama. There’s not much drama around here.”
“Small towns often seem sleepier than they are.”
“Well, there might be local dramas. People are people, after all. I doubt international diplomacy is ever at stake.”
Brody shrugged without answering. He pointed to the dark sky. “Nightfall comes early this time of year. Plans for the evening?”
“Vic and I were going to make dinner together, but the hors d’oeuvres filled us up. An early night with a book sounds good to me. The comforter on my bed is to die for. Fluffy goose down. I snuggle under it and read until my eyes can’t stay open. It’s a luxury, that kind of night.” She shivered. “It’s almost always colder than I expect when I come outside. You’re welcome to help yourself to any food you want, of course. I stocked the pantry.”
“Thanks. I’m not hungry, either.”
“Do you cook?”
“Not well, but I can chop, slice and clean.”
Adrienne turned to him, the light from the back door catching her dark eyes. “I will keep that in mind.”
“I can set a table, too. I even know my wineglasses.”
“Vic makes it easy. He only has one kind.”
“You’ll be correcting that?”
She laughed. “Absolutely.” She hunched her shoulders. “I’ll say good-night. I’m freezing.”
Brody waited as she dashed up the back steps and went inside. It was damn cold, but it felt good to him. He didn’t have a good sense of Adrienne Portale and her reasons for house-sitting in Knights Bridge, but he hadn’t found anything suspicious, never mind alarming, in their conversation about Vic, wine and dinner.
He took the shoveled walk to the guesthouse but didn’t go inside, instead heading through the snow down to the lake. The stars were out in full force now, penetrating the darkness and creating shadows in the woods and on the lake. He could see Heather’s footprints from her Rohan rescue. He pictured her climbing up from the brook with the puppy in her arms, her pant leg soaked, her scarf dangling, one glove. She’d been focused and determined, and she hadn’t needed his help.
He ducked past white pines to the lakeshore. A breeze whistled in the clear night air. He remembered standing in this spot as a boy, waiting for the stars to come out, imagining being on a different planet—in a different place. He hadn’t hated Knights Bridge then. He’d wanted to go places, see things, do things, get out in the world.
He’d done that in spades, and now here he was again, on the shore of Echo Lake. He hadn’t lied. He had dreamed about Echo Lake in the days before Vic’s call. He’d just returned to the US to begin an extended home leave, and it had struck him that he had no real home, except for his land in Knights Bridge—and it wasn’t home. He’d picked up his car and considered dividing his time between visits with his mother in Orlando and his father in Key West.
He felt the cold sting his face and ears. He gritted his teeth. Damn. He was a tough federal agent. He’d endured all sorts of extreme conditions. He could handle a southern New England January evening.
He turned away from the lake and walked up to the guesthouse. He’d had a rough few months on the job, and being back in Knights Bridge—running into Heather, even if she wasn’t one of the Sloan brothers—was messing with his head. He didn’t like digging into his emotions. Didn’t want to go there. Thinking about the past wouldn’t help him size up what was going on with Vic. So far, it seemed as though he was in the throes of adjusting to retirement and making mountains out of molehills. Brody wasn’t even sure there were any molehills, never mind mountains.
He went into the guesthouse through the side door. The two-bedroom cottage was solid and only about forty years old, a late addition to the original 1912 estate. It needed work, but not as desperately as the main house. He didn’t care one way or the other. It suited his purposes. He liked keeping some distance between him and Vic, and time alone, even here, with the past so near, worked for him right now. He hadn’t been back in the US in months, and his mind was still thousands of miles away in North Africa and his unfinished business there.
He filled the wood box and started a fire in the woodstove. Its crackling was the only sound in the place. He stood at the windows and looked out at the night sky. His mother loved stars and had pointed out various constellations to him when he was a kid. It wasn’t until he was in middle school that he’d realized her names were all of her own creation and not the actual names. Eric Sloan had told him. “Dude, that’s not Camel Head. That’s Orion. There is no Camel Head constellation.”
Brody had felt like a dumbass. At first he’d blamed his mother for lying to him, but she hadn’t lied. She’d made up her own names because she didn’t know the real ones—couldn’t sort herself out enough to go to the library and find out—and needed something to grab on to for herself, and maybe for her only son, too. She’d been restless and depressed, hating her life, hating Knights Bridge, and by his fourteenth birthday, Mary Hancock had left him and his father.
Brody hadn’t told Eric he’d gotten Camel Head from his mother. He’d covered for her.
That was what he was good at—watching people’s backs.
She’d loved Echo Lake itself, though. “It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived, Brody. I can’t imagine any place prettier than right here, even if it’s not for me.”
She was happy as a clam these days in Orlando, where she’d moved his senior year in high school. His father had been right behind her, beelining to South Florida twenty-four hours after Brody had turned eighteen, two weeks after his graduation.
He smiled, thinking of his parents. A couple of flakes. He wondered if they’d have stayed together if they’d moved to Florida instead of to Knights Bridge. He needed to go see them while he was on home leave.
He felt the heat of the woodstove. He was surprised at how tight his throat was, but he knew it wasn’t just being here. Being back “home.” That was an aggravating factor, but it was also the weight of the past few months, the tension and the uncertainties of what came next for him.
The fire popped and hissed, the sounds launching him back to a mission in November to secure a small consulate that had been shut down the year before. He remembered the heat, the dust, the eerie stillness. He and Greg Rawlings had looked at each other, sensing—knowing—something was off. They hadn’t exchanged a word. They’d had a split second to react before gunfire erupted, but it was that split second that had saved their lives.
Brody had emerged uninjured. Greg hadn’t been so lucky. He had taken a bullet to his shoulder that he and Brody both had believed would end Greg’s seventeen-year career as a DSS agent. Blood seeping through his fingers as he applied pressure to his own wound, Greg had looked at Brody with pain-racked eyes. “Now what, Brody? Hell. I don’t have a life to go back to.”
“You do, Greg,” Brody had said. “Think of those kids of yours.”
“I’ve never been there for them. What, start now?”
Before Brody could respond, Greg had drifted into semiconsciousness. Two months later, he was making a full recovery. He could go back to work if he wanted to. His call. He didn’t have to take on another dangerous assignment. He had married young and had a couple of teenagers, if also a wife who didn’t want to “indulge” him anymore. Laura Rawlings didn’t care if he was good at his job, if it made him happy—she was done. Even before he was shot, Greg had expressed his doubts that a nonhazardous post where she could join him wouldn’t make any difference.
But as in need of TLC as Greg’s home life was, at least he had one to come back to. Brody didn’t. He didn’t have a family, a pet or even an apartment.
The wind howled out in the dark January night then settled down again. It had been a long time since he’d experienced such quiet. He turned from the stove and sat on the sectional sofa. He’d slept here last night. He’d grabbed a pillow and a blanket from one of the bedrooms. The front room was warmer with the woodstove, and it had a view of the lake. He’d wanted to wake up to the sunrise over Echo Lake. He didn’t know why.
Maybe he didn’t want to know why.
He leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, listening to the crackle of the fire and trying not to think, not to remember and especially not to feel now that he was back in Knights Bridge.
