Jericho’s mouth opened. “I’m now going to have to hurt you.”
Hudson held up his hand. “Hey, I promise, there was no peeping. Or popcorn. We had your back ... In fact, a couple times,Malachi headed off Mom’s sixth sense that you’d gone AWOL. She’d head to your room and Mal would sneak into the connected bathroom and flush the toilet, like maybe you were in there reading or something.”
He glanced at his youngest brother, who winked.
Oh.“Thanks.”
Malachi lifted a shoulder. “You were nicer when you were with her. Less bossy.”
“I was never bossy.”
Silence. Hudson picked out a rib. “Whatever.”
For some reason, Harley’s words from the cabin latched on.“Youcan’t save everyone.”
And his own stupid response.“Ican try.”
Oh. “Maybe I was, just a little.”
“You kept us alive.” Sully had walked into the room. “Not an easy feat.” He had gone upstairs to check on Kennedy, who retired early.
Grief made people tired. He remembered that.
Now Sully sat at the table, set down a cold can of root beer, reached for the box and pulled out a rib. “Fact is, we’ve all been a little at loose ends since Mom and Dad died.” He grabbed a napkin. “Probably time to admit that we need each other.”
More silence.
“Okay, I’m not saying we hug or anything, but just ... you know. Life feels less overwhelming with you guys around.”
“You two are going to make it through this,” Hudson said quietly.
Sully met his eyes, his mouth a line. Nodded. “Yeah.” He opened the root beer. “We’re not quite ready to head back out to the outpost.”
“No rush, bro.” Hudson took his own can, crumpled it, and tossed it like a basketball toward the garbage.
And the action just stirred up a thousand family dinners, allfour of them, and their parents, the laughter, the ribbing—even the fighting, sometimes.
Family. It swept through Jericho, heating him, filling up brittle, hollow places.
He’d already apologized. Now maybe he needed to embrace the grace on the other side.
“Okay, I’ll go to church with you in the morning.”
Hudson nodded. “Good. Barry Kingston attends too. You can talk to him about his findings regarding the plane crash.”
Steps in the hallway, as well as clipping against the floor. He looked over—Harley had come out of the room, Orlando her shadow.
“So?”
“I did some digging. As a PI, I have access to some private databases, and I did a hunt on Summit Construction. They started a year after Mom and Dad died, but according to some records I found, it’s the same ownership as North Face Construction. All owned by a company called Blue Peak Holdings, LLC. But according to my research, they have no assets, no other holdings ... so my guess is that it is a shell company. Its registered agent is a law firm in Alaska, with just a PO address, so I think that’s fake too. I’ll do a search for the annual report of Blue Peak tomorrow—it might have its corporation holders listed. But for now, I’m going to bed.”
Silence.
“What?” She reached for Jericho’s root beer. “I’m a PI. Did you think I just ran down bail jumpers?”
“Please don’t remind me,” Jericho said.
She winked at him. Looked down at Orlando. “So, buddy, you coming to snuggle with me?”