Mary Brady - Promise to a Boy

“Okay,” she said, feeling as if she was betraying Jesse while Jesse’s brother peeled hundred-dollar bills off the wad without even asking what she charged.

When she took the cash she realized it was more than she thought. “This is too much.”

“I’m sure Jesse has cost you more than what I’ve given you.”

She found herself smiling. “He does have a way of making his problems seem like mine. And he has such an innocent way of doing it.”

The man’s expression lightened again. Maybe he was remembering the delightful, funny way his brother had of being irresponsible.

“Um, the door’s not locked,” she said. “You can let yourself in.”

“So I could have walked in and you’d have had to get the sheriff to stop me if you didn’t like it.”

“You could probably walk into many places here in St. Adelbert—” he gave her a skeptical look and she continued “—but you would not want to cross our Sheriff Potts.”

He nodded and turned toward the garage located on the other side of her side yard.

Abby watched his confident stride. He walked as if he were used to getting what he wanted. He probably never disappeared for weeks at a time and never in his life let his hair and beard grow long like Jesse’s—though he might look good with longer hair. In fact, he’d make a great wild mountain man. She imagined him wearing buckskin pants and maybe one of those shirts made of rough cloth with an open V-neck, open down to his navel. Instead, even a bit disheveled, he looked sleek, smooth and, she’d wager, was totally out of his element in Montana. Wild mountain man…

Ridiculous. He probably followed rules and regulations all day long. Heck, he probably made those rules, but was he really a snob who didn’t give a rat’s behind about his brother? He must care a little. He was in St. Adelbert searching for him.

Abby let herself back into the house. He could check the apartment and then there would be nothing to keep him here. He’d go to Utah. Maybe he’d find Jesse and let her know. She liked Jesse. It was more like she had a younger brother as well as a younger sister when Jesse and Lena were around.

She wondered, as she picked up a pair of Hot Wheels cars, if there was anything in Jesse’s apartment to find. Jesse may be a wayward fellow, but he always seemed so open, a no-secrets kind of guy. And she’d never found anything odd or even telling lying around when she tidied his apartment and put away his clean laundry. Jesse Maxwell had no secrets that she knew of anyway.

REED HURRIED UP THE STEPS to Jesse’s apartment two at a time. He had been trying to find his brother for six weeks, first on the internet and by phone, and last week he started in person, and now he had a real lead.

The apartment door opened into a kitchen, with a dining and a living room area as one continuous room, one continuous small room. He could see a bedroom and bathroom through the open door off to the left.

Everything was in order and clean. Not a thing out of place. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but neatness was not it.

So not like the drop-it-anywhere Jesse he had known. The place was as orderly as his own condo, and he couldn’t imagine living any other way. Jesse could and did. Helter-skelter best described the life the Jesse he knew led. Maybe miracles did happen.

Reed pulled out his mobile phone and ran his finger across the screen to boot it up. Two bars. Good enough.

He needed to speak to his business partner. Corporate investing seemed to go better when his and Denny’s complementary brains studied the deals together. Denny looked at things more from the people angle and Reed from the logistics side. Together they understood better than most the motivations and financial implications of buying businesses and real estate for their business clients.

But right now, Denny was also working on a personal issue for Reed.

Reed placed the call.

“You found civilization. Impressive,” Denny said instead of hello.

Reed laughed. “I wear my battery out checking for service.”

“Find anything out there, and where is there anyway?”

“I’m in St. Adelbert, Montana. Cheery little burg buried in the mountains where my brother has an apartment.”

“But no pay dirt?” Denny was perceptive.

Reed looked around and then decided the bedroom might be the best place to start searching. As he neared the bookcase along one wall, he stopped for a moment. On the top shelf sat the photo of him and Jesse with their parents Abby had mentioned. That Jesse had it was a wonder. That he displayed it made him think Jesse might not hate his family as much as he pretended.

“Reed?”

Reed moved on. “But—he’s not here. Hasn’t been for a while, a couple months.”

“Then you won’t want to hear that your mother has been in again asking if you found anything.”

“I wear out the rest of my battery listening to her voice mails.” He opened the top drawer of the beat-up old dresser and picked up a paltry pile of cancelled checks from the local bank.

“I told your mother I’d call her if I heard anything from you.”

“Thanks, I know it won’t stop her from coming into the office and I promise I’ll make that up to you some day.” The checks were mostly to Abigail Fairbanks in nice, neat penmanship, only the signature was Jesse’s. The memo lines said rent, cleaning and laundry. That explained why the apartment was so neat.

“Don’t think I haven’t got things figured out, buddy.” Denny’s tone held a mock challenge.

“What’s that?” Reed played innocent.

“Your mother is the reason you went out there instead of hiring someone else to do the legwork.”

Reed gave a gruff sound that probably passed for laughter. “Might have been. I need you to see what you can find on Abigail Fairbanks. She’s renting an apartment to Jesse.” He gave Denny the address listed on Abby’s checks and then moved around the things inside the drawer to look under them. A few pairs of new underwear and some unmated socks, one with a hole in the toe. Nothing else.

“Related to Angelina? Oh, and I know it’s a little late, but I found Angelina. She’s in the army. Apparently, she was given a strong recommendation by a judge to find some meaning in her life.”

“Sounds like Jesse’s type. Abigail is Angelina’s sister.” Angelina was apparently a wild woman. He wondered what Abby was like. Her mass of dark curly hair, warm brown eyes, snug-fitting flowered shirt with its seductive V of buttons and jeans said she had a figure that probably drew a crowd of men. People in Denver had been happy to regale him with stories about Angelina, whom they called Lena. None of the neighbors knew much about Abby, not even her name.

“From what I can tell, Angelina hasn’t been in any trouble since she left for Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

She’s in the Middle East right now.”

“Do they have any other siblings?”

“Not that I’ve found.”

“Angelina might have a child. A little boy came to the door when I was talking to the sister. He called her Aunt Abby and she called him Kyle.”

Denny laughed. “Are you sure the child is a boy? Many gender related names are crossing over to the other side these days.”

Reed made an exasperated sound. “Who am I to know? I’ve paid so little attention to kids in my life, it could have been either, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell even if I had seen the kid’s face.”

Denny shuffled papers. “Wait. I think I have info about a child, but the sources, apparently a bit on the drugged-out iffy side, said—yeah.” The paper shuffling stopped. “They thought the kid was a little boy and might even have belonged to the sister. They rarely saw him. The sister took care of him anyway.”