Jeff Abbott: Distant Blood

“I knew you'd freak. And I didn't want you to worry. Now you see why I don't want you to come-”

“And why do you want to go?” she demanded. “Why put yourself in danger, babe? If you don't want Bob Don for a father-and you can't seem to decide-” She ended in a shrug and gestured at the hate mail. “Why not stay away from this-this-psychopath?”

“I don't scare easy,” I said with a bravado I didn't feel, “and I'm not going to be warned off by idiotic pranks like these cards. I want to know why now-why is someone so determined to keep me from the reunion? Why?”

“Curiosity may kill more than cats,” she cautioned. “If you're going, I'm going with you. You'll need someone to watch your back.”

“You sound like a bad cop show.”

“I'm not joking, Jordan. I'm not letting anyone hurt a hair on your head.”

I blushed at the intensity of her words, which was somehow more revealing than our casual nakedness in bed. And I knew better than to argue. “Okay, fine. As long as you stay out of trouble.” My blood ran cold at the thought of Candace near anyone who could send such missives, but we'd moved past the point of debate-I saw the stony set of determination in her face. “And not a word to Bob Don. I have my own plan for dealing with this sicko.”

“Tell me,” she murmured.

So I did.

I wondered if any passing motorists would render aid if I leaned out the car door window and screamed.

“-and that's when I decided Sass and I would not only be sisters-in-law, but be best friends,” Gretchen continued. “She was just so kind to me, and chock-full of marital advice when Bob Don and I got hitched.”

“Lord knows she should have been,” Bob Don muttered. “Sass'd been married often enough. I half thought she was gunning for the world record for times down the aisle.” Even his normally jovial temper seemed strained by the long drive.

It was not an auspicious start to our family reunion. Mostly in that I did not want to be reunited anytime soon with my loved ones in this car, much less make the acquaintance of a whole passel of new kinfolks. For all his enthusiasm for this trip, Bob Don seemed itchy. Gretchen's paean to his family irritated him, and he'd snapped more than once at his wife. Candace was strangely quiet, offering no relief from the ongoing Gretchen monologue. Gretchen appeared determined to sparkle all the way to Uncle Mutt's home. Not even the stars in the sky glitter quite that long.

I don't mean to complain. Honestly. But my stomach had started roiling at the idea of being introduced to a bunch of complete strangers (although they were technically blood kin) and tension gripped my limbs. I wanted Bob Don's family to like me and accept me-but at the same time I wanted not to care about their reactions to me. I tried not to reflect overmuch that at least one of them seemed inordinately displeased that a stray sperm of Bob Don's had ended up sentient, blond, and breathing.

A final card had arrived the day before, a last-ditch effort to avert my arrival at Uncle Mutt's. I had not even shown this one to Candace; it would have scared the bejesus out of her. At the moment the card lay safely contained in a bag in my suitcase, along with its fellow couriers of hate. I could nearly imagine a faint throb of evil emanating from the car trunk, like a telltale heart.

The card's designer had intended comfort; the front of the greeting, in flowery script, said IN DEEPEST SYMPATHY. Open it and you saw the rest of the sentence, hacked from magazine letters: FOR

YOUR IMPENDING DEATH YOU'RE NOT ONE OF US WE'LL MOURN ONLY A MOMENT

I wish I could say a cold shiver raced through me when I read those words; it seems the normal reaction, and I pray for normality in my life. But at this last, most bitter missive, I felt only a numb disbelief that someone hated me so. What crime had I committed, aside from the accident of my birth? (A crime I could hardly be judged and hanged for.) I'd spent the rest of the day in a quiet funk.

I had not rallied for this morning's drive to the coast. Bob Don's sudden silence, Candace's odd detachment, and Gretchen's prattling hadn't improved my mood. She rarely veered from discussion of her sister-in-law and she made no useful announcement, like “How's Cousin Herbert enjoying life outside the insane asylum?” If I wanted to identify my torturer, I would have to play investigator. Again. And people believe I go looking for trouble?

The landscape unfolded past us as the Cadillac raced toward the coast. The gently rolling hills of pastureland fenced in idle herds of Red Brangus and Santa Gertrudis cattle, grazing in the heat. We stopped at the brown-mustard-colored grocery store in tiny Swiss Alp for Dr Peppers. We arrowed through the heart of Czech Texas. In Schulenberg and Hallettsville I saw bumper stickers written in Czech next to bumper stickers that advised me to love or leave America. We headed south on Highway 77, and as we approached Victoria the pasturelands gave way to the flatness of the coastal plain. In Victoria, an old Texas town that seems to have every new fast-food restaurant imaginable, we turned south onto Highway 87, bulleting through small towns like Placedo and Kamey. As we continued through Calhoun County one side of the road seemed thick with an unfurled skein of bush that never quite ended; the other side of the road was charcoal dark farm soil. An empty railroad track ran parallel to the road, as if from a forgotten time. Oil pumps, the eternal symbol of Texas, moved in languorous thrusts near the road. The July air grew perceptibly denser with humidity as we headed south.

Port Lavaca, which guarded Lavaca Bay and its bigger parent, Matagorda Bay, came up quickly, a sleepy, salty hamlet. Port Lavaca works too hard to be a pretty town; most of the businesses seemed industrial, the eateries cheap, and old, hand-painted signs for last winter's local elections still stood in forlorn disuse. Bob Don insisted on stopping at a colorfully painted Mexican restaurant that looked like a botulism testing site but had marvelous home-style food, prepared by a chattering grandmother who scolded Bob Don in Spanish for not visiting more often. After our meal, we drove further out on the jutting chunk of Calhoun County and headed down Highway 1289 toward Port O'Connor. The land here was hardly coastal looking-tilled flatland, tall grass, horses and cattle grazing, profusions of thick bush. I rolled down the window and could smell the barest tinge of salt. We drove over marshy areas, with signs that said NO FISHING FROM BRIDGE. Old men and boys, black and white and brown, sat inches from the sign, watching their lines dangle in the water with the patience of statues. They did not even look up as the Cadillac rumbled past.

Fishing is the main reason for Port O'Connor's existence (aside from target practice for hurricanes-Carla nearly destroyed it in 1961). Every other billboard seemed to advertise the county's best fishing guide or a boat stall for cheap rent.

“We'll do some fishing,” Bob Don promised me. Of course, I thought, that's what fathers and sons do.

He pulled into Port O'Connor proper, stopping near the main beach-a very narrow one-and pulling into a small but well-kept driveway for a little cottage. The other homes around it looked full of vacationing families.

I craned my neck out the window to see the brackish, greenish water of Matagorda Bay. Gulls swooped above the beach as screaming children hurled bread in the air in delight. The birds were white-breasted and gray-winged. A cloud of them cawed and wheeled as two children further down the beach lured them with new treats. A sailboat plied past and I saw a pretty girl in a bikini lean against the boat's railing as though she were unimaginably bored.