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That voice . . . she knew it. She had heard it yell and threaten like this before.
It belonged to Varen’s father.
19
Things Buried
Isobel took a timid step forward. She pressed herself close to the door, listening.
“I’m old, but I’m not deaf, Mr. Nethers,” she heard Bruce say. “If you’re going to shout, you can turn around and take yourself back outside. My ears can’t take it.”
“You know what else will be hard to take?” Varen’s dad said. “A lawsuit. For obstruction of justice. That’s lying, Nobit.”
“I haven’t lied to anyone,” Bruce said. “I’m not keeping anything from you. I don’t know where your son is, Mr. Nethers. I’ve already told the police everything I know. In detail. So stop coming into my shop day after day, scaring off my customers and bellowing like a fool. If you weren’t the boy’s father and I didn’t see this for the deferred if not profoundly mangled attempt at parenthood that it is, I’d slam you with a lawsuit of my own. For harassment!”
“You are a liar!” Varen’s dad said, shouting again. The sound of a sharp, rattling bang made Isobel jump. She could picture Varen’s father slamming an enormous palm on the glass countertop. “How am I supposed to believe a damn word you say? You’ve lied to me before when I’ve come in here looking for him!”
“I didn’t lie when I told you I hadn’t seen him. If I haven’t seen him, that doesn’t mean he’s not here. You’ve taught him, however indirectly, to be very cautious with his whereabouts, Mr. Nethers. And I can’t say I blame him for that. Besides, I’m too old to be trekking up and down stairs after teenage boys. He wanted a place to study, undisturbed, and so I gave it to him.”
“Along with too many other excuses not to come home,” Varen’s dad snapped. “That stupid job, for one. That junk-pile car sitting outside.”
Suddenly it dawned on Isobel why Varen’s car had been parked outside the bookshop. When his father threatened to take the car away, Isobel remembered how Varen had argued that Bruce had been the one to cosign the loan, not him. And since the Cougar was here now, that had to mean Bruce must have paid the loan. He must be keeping it on purpose, she thought, believing that Varen would return.
“Your son earned that car, Mr. Nethers,” Bruce said.
Isobel lowered herself to kneel in front of the door. Closing one eye, she peered through the old-fashioned keyhole.
Beyond the open archway, she could see Bruce standing behind the counter, his shoulders stooped and bent at a slight angle. He scowled at the man on the other side of the register, a tall, straight figure dressed in a spotless black business suit. He stood with his broad back to Isobel, his glossy hair shining like coal.
“Earned it how? Working for you?” Varen’s father pointed a finger in the old man’s face. “You are not his family,” he seethed.
Isobel felt her blood surge hot in her veins. Rage flared within her, and she had to clench her hands into fists to keep from tearing the door open and starting her own yelling. The fear of being caught, however, kept her rooted to her hiding place.
“I’m not so certain he has a family,” Bruce said. “He never talks of one. His mother left, that much I do know.” He kept his own voice steady and low, wielding inflection in place of volume. And it seemed his aim had landed true. Varen’s dad turned his head in her direction, almost as though he’d been dealt a slap, and she saw his face for the first time.
His sharp and angular features collapsed before hardening again.
“Our family’s business is none of your concern,” said Mr. Nethers. The anger and bravado in his tone had drained away and was replaced by a cold matter-of-factness.
Bruce spoke again, wheezing between his words, his throat clogged with suppressed coughs. “I’m . . . afraid that the reality here . . . is that he is no longer any of your business. Not anymore. He turned eighteen week before last. But you knew that, of course.”
Varen’s birthday had passed? Isobel had never even asked him when it was. And now he’d turned—
“Eighteen, Mr. Nethers. Do you know what that means? It means that even if he does choose to return, he no longer has to go back to you, sir.”
Isobel could see the tremble begin in those big, meaty hands, the quake traveling up his solid frame as they formed into boulder-shaped fists.
The outburst came like a roar of thunder. “He is my son!” Varen’s dad shouted, loud enough to cause the bowl-shaped light fixtures to ring. “You are not his father. I am!” He pounded the counter again, causing a row of stacked paperbacks to slide.
“Then why don’t you try acting like it,” Bruce said, at last starting to shout himself, “instead of waiting around until it’s too late? Until he’s run into trouble at school or vanished altogether? Where have you been, Mr. Nethers? Where have you been all this time besides at the bottom of a bottle?”
A hush fell over the shop.
The sound of her breathing became unbearably loud in Isobel’s ears.
Her phone vibrated in her hand. She fumbled to open it and found two texts from Gwen. The first, she realized, was the one she’d received upstairs but had neglected to check.
WHOA. SOME DUDE JUST PULLED UP IN A LEXUS. LOOKS LIKE PACINO FROM THE GODFATHER.
