Jeremy reached into the neck of his T-shirt and pulled out a silver chain with a small oval medal pendant. Rafe knew exactly what it was. A St. Hubert medal.
Then Jeremy reached out and lightly tugged the silver chain around Rafe’s neck, pulling the medal out from under his shirt. St. Anthony.
Caught like a robin in a hawk’s grip. They had traded medals in the hospital. Jeremy wore his. Rafe wore Jeremy’s.
He wanted to kick Jeremy out, send him packing, punish him for the silent treatment. But he couldn’t do it. In fifteen years, you can stack a very long line of dominoes, a line so long you can’t see where it will end. But someone has to kick the first domino over if only to hear that rapid-fire clickclickclickclickclick as they fall. They can’t stay standing forever.
The bear. The bird. And now Jeremy. Was everything falling down or falling into place?
Rafe said, “Okay. Fifteen minutes.”
Chapter Five
Rafe let Jeremy into his cabin.
“Be right back. I’ll put these away,” Rafe said. He carried the grocery bag to the little galley kitchen and stuffed it into the back of the fridge, hiding it from himself. He left the door open a minute more and breathed the chilled air into his lungs.
Jeremy was here. Here in his cabin. Here on his hill. Jeremy, who he hadn’t seen in person in fifteen years, was in his living room right now. He’d imagined this moment a million times, but now that it was happening, he didn’t know what to do. Punch him in the face for abandoning him? Kick him out? Hug him until it hurt?
He had to pull himself together. He’d terrorized three heavily armed poachers this morning and faced off with a black bear. He could handle one conversation with Jeremy Cox.
But whatever Jeremy wanted from him, Rafe told himself, he wouldn’t do it. Not unless Jeremy paid up in answers to the questions he’d asked fifteen years ago.
He slammed the fridge door shut and went out to the living room. Jeremy had found the postcards on the floor. He squatted and sifted through them.
“You kept the cards I sent you,” he said.
Rafe bent down, grabbed a thick handful of the postcards, and tossed them into the wastepaper basket by the closet. He wished he’d cleaned them up before Jeremy saw them. Not that it mattered. There was no hiding from Jeremy Cox.
“Selling them on eBay. Since you’re so famous now.”
“Funny. You know how hard it is to mail a postcard from Pitcairn Island?” He grabbed the postcard from the can, waved it in Rafe’s face, then tossed it back in the trash.
“I needed the shoebox for the bird,” Rafe said. “And you’re wasting your fifteen minutes.”
“Did it start already?”
“One minute ago.” Rafe pointed at his wristwatch. “So talk fast.”
Jeremy was over the postcards already. He’d stood up and turned his attention to the murals Rafe had painted on the walls, the ceiling, even the wooden staircase that led up to his loft bedroom. His mother said it looked like Bob Ross had dropped acid—trees gone mad, impossible mountains, strange valleys. He’d painted it so that every time you walked into the room, you saw something different.
“Did you ever remember anything from when we were missing?” Jeremy asked.
“Nothing,” Rafe said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, why?”
Jeremy faced him. “How much time do I have now?”
“Thirteen minutes. Good time to tell me why you’re here.”
Jeremy went to the window and looked out. Nothing to see out there but the trail that led deep into the woods.
“What is this place?” Jeremy asked. “Starcross Hill? Some kind of nature preserve?”
“You want to waste your thirteen minutes asking me about my place?”
“Talk fast. Use lots of words in a short span of time. Go.”
“It’s just a hill. About a thousand acres. Some old-growth forest, so you have to keep an eye on it. I don’t own the hill itself, but Dad bought the cabin for hunting after he retired. Now it’s mine. I get to use the land in return for keeping an eye on it.”
Jeremy turned away from the window. “You like it here?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. It’s about the only thing Dad and I ever agreed on. He said he wanted to die out here. He got his wish.”
“I’m sorry.” Jeremy sounded almost sincere. Rafe didn’t buy it.
“Are you?”
“Sorry for you.”
Jeremy turned away from the window and pointed at the east wall, where Rafe had painted a sprawling spring woodland. Under the canopy of the pink and mossy green trees, animals ran, leaped, and danced—a silver tiger, a golden wildcat, snow-white deer, and smoke-gray foxes.
“Nice paint job,” Jeremy said. “Different. More people should have hallucinogenic murals in their houses.”
“I can paint over them if I ever sell the place.”
