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Shrugs and murmurs, but Jemma said she had heard it was a heart attack. Nobody thought there was anything unsavory about it. Death happened out this way, and things that maybe were survivable in a city weren’t so much out here.
They fluttered at each other. But Mrs. Beetle was done, so Bill came over. His large hands clasped over mine. “Winter, welcome home.”
This had stopped being home a long time ago, I just hadn’t realized it. I introduced Sterling.
Bill shook Sterling’s hand. “Mortcombe? Any relation to Garrett Mortcombe?”
The surprises could stop anytime now.
“He’s my father,” Sterling replied.
“Know the name. Back a few years ago, he tried to buy a spread of land up north. Trying to keep a pipeline out of here. A lot of folks wanted that pipeline, it was the treehuggers who cawed about the environment. Can’t eat trees.”
Vague memories drifted from the dusty corners of my brain. The Mortcombe name hadn’t been mentioned that I remembered, but it was likely he’d been operating under a company name, or teenage me had simply not paid attention. By the time it had bubbled into my teenage awareness, the adults had been arguing about it so bitterly, and the news reporting on it so unrelentingly, that I’d wanted to clap my hands over my ears and sing 99 Bottles of Beer at the top of my lungs. Thankfully, my father had had enough werewolf politics to keep himself entertained, and the pipeline jobs were five hours away anyway, so it hadn’t been dinner table conversation.
A chill entered the room, and it seemed as though the other five people in the bank glared right at Sterling’s back.
Bill seemed to be waiting for a response from Sterling. My mate glanced around at his audience, then told Bill, “The deal died when proper due diligence turned up that the oil companies had been counting on ramming through policy changes that would have permitted them to side-step large numbers of regulations on basic worker safety and environmental considerations. Once those policy changes died, the deal ceased to be profitable for them.”
“Lots of folks around here think your father had something to do with that,” Bill stated.
Sterling quirked a brow at the accusation. “Sounds like something he’d do.”
Bill sucked in a breath and his eyes flickered with how many millions Garrett Mortcombe had probably cost his bank. I stepped in between them before the chill in the bank started cracking off fingers. “Bill, the box, please? Is it even still here? I never saw a bill for it.”
“Oh, sure,” he said absently as he led me to the vault. “Your mom prepaid ten years on it.”
The tiny, cramped room was lined with dozens of little doors. “Ten years?”
“Yeah, ten years. Need your license.” He pulled out a clipboard, “So is that how you met Sterling?”
“What, you mean the deal years ago? Come on, Bill, I was like… fourteen.”
“He’s what? Thirty? Thirty-five?” Bill said with disapproval.
Must have been the grey hair, and the idea a guy Jerron’s age having his life together was a foreign concept in this town. “Twenty-five this spring.”
Bill wrote down my driver’s license number and had me sign on a little line. “Your brother was awful put out about this box. He wanted me to turn it over to him.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, Thursday,” Bill said, still writing. “He didn’t have the key. Told him I couldn’t help him. He was angry.”
That must have been when Anais had decided she needed to get the hell out.
“You two never did get along. Everyone always figured sibling rivalry, but I guess sometimes family can’t be friends.” He gave me a long look. “I always figured you’d do okay for yourself, one way or the other. I hope you and Jerron patch it up. There’s just the two of you now.”
I couldn’t even muster I wish we could for the sake of politeness. Jerron and I had never been siblings except in name. Shameful and bad-luck as it was, he and I just had never liked each other, and our mom… everyone had always told her it was just sibling squabbles, but she’d known it was more than that. She’d never said anything, but there’d always been something on her scent when she’d demanded we apologize to each other, and we’d each refused and always accepted some murderous punishment than give an inch to the other. It was the one thing we’d ever agreed on: no quarter given, none asked, and we’d rather be punished than apologize.
Questions lurked on Bill’s face, but he was polite enough to not ask them. Instead, he said, “Family’s family, Winter. Leave the door cracked for him. Maybe ten years will change things.”
Not a chance.
The box sat in the middle of the vault. A few quick turns of keys, and Bill slid it out of its spot and handed it to me. Inside, something rustled.
“Winter!” Jerron shoved his bulk into the vault room.
Bill held out a hand. “Hey, you can’t be in here!”
