Jericho looked at him. “Yeah.” He ran a hand behind his neck. “I always thought that he was prepping you, Hud. You were the levelheaded, smart one.”
“But you were—are—the oldest.”
“I didn’t want it!” He winced at his own words. Schooled himself. “All I saw was ... well, I just knew it wouldn’t work. Anyway, we fought, and then he got in a plane and died. Because of me.”
And now he’d dropped a cluster bomb into the kitchen, everyone sort of frowning.
“If I hadn’t delayed him taking off—”
“He didn’t die because of a storm, J,” Sully said softly.
Jericho looked over at him. “What?”
“Yeah. We got the FAA report about a year later,” Hudson said. “Barry Kingston brought it over, went over it with us. He thinks the fuel was contaminated.”
Jericho had nothing.
“Dad was a master pilot. And sure, even the best of pilots can go down in Alaska, but Barry said there is evidence that the fuel line froze and starved the engine. It stalled and Dad couldn’t restart, and the low visibility made it impossible to land. It looked like the storm, but...”
Jericho wasn’t following. “The fuel froze?”
“It could have been contaminated with water, or even syrup, but yeah.”
He frowned at his brothers. “And you didn’t tell me?”
Hudson’s mouth opened.
“This might be the part where we mention that you didn’t come home after your second deployment,” Sully said, a coolness in his tone.
Right.He held up his hand. “Okay. So, was there an investigation?”
“Not really,” Hudson said. “It was still chaos here after Harley’sdad died, and the FAA in Anchorage had other things on their plate—”
“Dad was a state senator, for Pete’s sake! Certainly—”
“It’s Alaska, Jericho. Small planes go down all the time, without any sabotage.” This from Sully. “Although yeah, I’m with you. Someone killed them.” His voice softened. “But it wasn’t you.”
He drew that in. “And you’ve all just been sitting on that.”
“Trying to keep afloat,” Hudson said. Sighed.
“Right.” He took another sip of cocoa. He liked the way it burned a little in his throat.
“So . .. we gonna talk about how close it was today?” Kennedy asked.
The kitchen fell quiet except for the soft whir of the refrigerator. Outside, snow swirled past the windows, muffling the world in white.
“Mars’s dangerous. It could have been a lot worse,” Hudson said.
“He was always dangerous.” Sully’s face hardened. “He enjoyed hurting people. Even back in grade school. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they moved to Anchorage.”
“They hung around in the summers and then moved back and started to terrorize the community.”
Malachi set down his mug. “Word on the street is that the dope they sell is laced with fentanyl.”
“There were three overdoses last month in Copper Mountain.” Hudson scrubbed a hand over his face. “College kids, here for skiing.”
Harley’s brother stumbled into Jericho’s mind, then. A few years younger than him, Gabe was funny. A snowboarder. “Gabe Tatum had a lot of potential before the Sorros boys found him.”