Storm Season Read online

  Gerald Klay had always been a larger than life figure. Artist, poet, dharma bum, he had moved to the Pacific Northwest in the 1960s and proceeded to leave an indelible mark on it. It wasn’t that Adam had such a terrible childhood, he’d had a roof over his head and enough to eat. It was the role he had been pushed into, not so much ‘cared for’ as ‘caretaker’. Gerald’s death had been a surprise, they hadn’t been on good terms but if he had known Gerald was sick, Adam would have made an effort. He wasn’t the heartless bastard some people assumed he was.

  Adam’s mom hadn’t stuck around long enough to see Adam’s first steps, leaving him and his father, and never looking back. After that disaster, Gerald had a long string of girlfriends who were basically live-in baby sitters. Gerald, after all, was an artist and didn’t have time to raise a kid, except sporadically.

  When people found out who his father was they inevitably fawned a little bit, sometimes a lot. Adam always felt disloyal to Gerald when he tried to explain that he, Adam, had been more the parent than Gerald. Therefore, he was going to wallow in self-pity for a few days before getting back to the depressing chore of cleaning up Gerald’s property.

  The Booking Room was cute and, in addition to an impressive selection of espresso drinks, also offered sandwiches and soups. He thought maybe the guy he’d seen behind the counter was a manager. Since he wasn’t staying, he didn’t need to find out. He was certain the colorful thirty-ish woman was the owner; she ran the place with confidence. Adam liked her.

  He claimed one of the tables toward the back and next to the windows as his own. Today He’d been there since they opened at 5:30, attempting to keep up with his cases while he took care of Gerald’s business. Mohammad had told him not to worry, but he couldn’t help it. Reputation notwithstanding, he felt personally responsible for each victim and wanted to help their families find closure. He also didn’t want some other yahoo messing up all his hard work.

  Adam was still avoiding talking to the lawyers, or returning to Flagstaff Lane since that first day. He had managed to talk Weir into sending him the findings from Ringling and was trying to put some kind of timeline together. There was so much time between Rochelle’s disappearance and the discovery of her body, though. He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end—he needed a haircut.

  A crash startled him from his brooding. The perpetrator was a hot mess who, in the space of a few minutes, knocked over a chair with the grocery bags hanging from his wrist and then backed into a woman on her way to the restroom. The poor guy almost expired on the spot.

  Adam was immediately and inexplicably fascinated by him. At first it was pure rubbernecking. The guy seemed to have no idea where his arms and legs were in relation to his body or the space around him. He saw the guy trip on the flat sidewalk outside the café the next day.

  Three days later, when Adam realized he was waiting for the guy to come in for his afternoon coffee, he knew he needed to quit going there. There was no reason to waste time going over paperwork and files if Mohammad wasn’t going to let him actively participate. Which he wasn’t. There was absolutely no reason to keep his eye out for a lean man with dark curly hair and green eyes (he thought) who couldn’t walk a straight line sober.

  The next afternoon he returned anyway and found himself disappointed when Cute Hopeless Guy didn’t come in for his standard triple Americano, with room for cream.

  The next day he stayed away.

  Instead, he drove out to his dad’s property. It kind of reminded him of Rochelle’s meadow. He wasn’t wearing his third-best suit or his dress shoes, but he felt just as useless. Just as unsure of the details of his father’s life and death. The house was shabby and unkempt, more so than when he had left eighteen years ago. There had been some development along the two-lane county road while he was gone. The formerly empty five-acre lot next door had been built out with a huge post-something Craftsman-style monstrosity. Adam figured they couldn’t have been too fond of their weirdo neighbor.

  The house he’d grown up in looked the same as it had the first night in town when he had pulled off I-5 and driven straight there: dark, empty, brooding. There was so much he and Gerald had never said to each other, never resolved. Now it was too late.

  “Why?” Adam asked into the gloom.

  The two huge Douglas firs at the end of the drive had heard it all before. Their long limbs scraped across each other, whispering their secrets into the damp. Still not answering him.

  November in the Pacific Northwest meant the sun never fully rose. Despite the murky light, Adam could kind of see into the windows of the log house. He could see shrouded shapes that might be canvases or, easily as likely, stacks of garbage. He had no idea how much Gerald had painted since Adam had left.

  When Adam was much younger, his father always had a canvas going. Sometimes more than one. Peering closer, Adam could also see stacks of what might be books and papers. Mounds of what looked like clothing—towels, maybe? The front area seemed mostly clear; cars had to park somewhere. The medical examiner had to have come down the same gravel road to pick up his father’s body.

  The backyard was a testimony to decades of hoarding. When Adam was a teen it wasn’t called hoarding. It was “collecting” or “preparing” or “just in case.” Calling it hoarding didn’t make it any more understandable.

  A vehicle grumbled down the pitted driveway. He was going to have to have fresh gravel brought in if he kept the place, or even if he chose to sell it. A nosy neighbor had probably seen him arrive. Seen, meaning: watched him through a grimy pair of binoculars, and decided to call the citizen patrol on him.

  Eighteen years and he still recognized the beat-up red truck pulling up next to him. He was incredulous the thing was still running. It was a relic from the late 1970s, it had rust on its rust. Ed Schultz, weather-beaten and grayer than Adam remembered, but still tall and strong-looking, slid off the driver’s seat and out the truck door as it creaked open. The truck’s windshield had a huge horizontal crack running along the bottom that the sheriff’s department had probably ticketed Ed for twenty times. Adam figured that because it had been there the last time he had seen it.

  “Adam.” Ed held out his hand, grimy and stained from years of hard work. Adam shook it and managed not to wipe his hands on his pants afterward.

  “Hello, Ed.”

  “Marty Lang called and said there was someone up here. I figured it was you. But I told her I’d check.” Ed’s voice was wicked from decades of cigarettes, pot smoking, and heavy drinking. He was kind of a miracle of science. Skagit’s very own Keith Richards.

  “How’d you know I was in town?” Stupid question, really, what with the Marty Langs of the community.

  The older man rubbed his chin. He needed a shave. “Adam, this town may have grown since you were here and now some folks seem to think Skagit is actually on the map. But a lot of us old folks are still around and we have a network kinda thing.”

  That didn’t sound sinister at all. But it did sound eerily similar to the conspiracy theories his father and his cronies used to throw around when they were high or drunk. So, pretty much all the time.

  “Okay.” Adam didn’t know what to say. He was in Skagit solely to clean up what was left of his father’s estate, not to linger with the locals and reminisce about the ‘old days’. He’d looked up a couple of junk-removal companies. They were booked out a week or so; he had time to go through the house and get rid of the trash.

  The house he hadn’t been able to enter yet.

  “Also,” Ed interrupted his train of thought, “my Sara owns that coffee place you’ve been going to.”

  Adam took a good look at Ed. The Ed he remembered was well on his way to a frequent-flyer pass with the county jail. He had been a heavy user and an almost vagrant, living in his truck between jobs when he couldn’t couch-surf or stay in someone’s cabin. This Ed looked like he showered regularly and didn’t use fingernail clippers to cut his hair. This Ed looked hea
lthy.

  “Your Sara?” Because, what?

  “My daughter Sara. We found each other a few years back. Well, she found me.” He seemed embarrassed. “It’s a long story. Look.” Ed glanced at Adam, then back at the house. “Why don’t you and me go get a cup of coffee. I can fill you in on the past couple of years.” As if Adam hadn’t been gone for almost half his life. “And you can meet Sara.” Ed had a determined look on his face. “I know you need to clean out Gerald’s place.” They both turned, looking at it for a minute. Ed shook his grizzled head. “But it doesn’t need to be right now. Maybe we can figure something out.”

  Adam so didn’t want to go into Gerald’s house that any excuse not to was a sign from something. Not God, but something. Even if he was a little dubious of Ed’s motivation; he knew as well as any of the old-timers that the house was a potential gold mine, his father had been well known. Regardless of how it looked or the amount of trash outside and probably inside, Gerald Klay’s legacy was buried in there somewhere.

  They ended up at the Booking Room, of course, and the thirty-ish woman with hair more on the side of strawberry than blonde was Sara, Ed’s daughter. She was cute, if you were into that sort of thing, and she rocked the vintage-rockabilly look like no other.

  Sara came out from behind the counter and gave her grizzled dad a huge hug.

  “Dad, I didn’t think I’d see you today! You missed me that much.” There was a tease behind those words.

  Ed blushed. Adam blinked in shock.

  “Adam, this is my daughter, Sara, and she owns this place.” There was so much pride in those words.

  Adam reached out to shake Sara’s hand, but she closed in and gave him a hug as well.

  “Sorry, I’m a hugger,” she said unapologetically.

  “Sara, Adam is Gerald Klay’s son. I ran into him up at the cabin.”

  “Oh, Adam, I’m sorry for your loss.” She looked remorseful.

  Adam hated getting condolences for someone he hadn’t seen in eighteen years or spoken to in months. He felt like a traitor; he hadn’t been here at the end. Regardless of their differences, he hoped his father hadn’t suffered, that the heart attack took him quickly.

  “Were you at the funeral? I’m nosy, too. And I think I would have remembered you.” Sara asked, still smiling.

  “I was. I flew in and flew out the same day. I was still on a case.” Bald-faced lie. Mohammad had taken him off the Ringling case immediately. He’d flown to Skagit, stood in the back of the Elks Lodge where the memorial was held (and managed to avoid signing the guest book) and then headed to L.A. so he could bring Weir up to speed. Then he’d spent a week or so dragging his feet about what was coming next. When the lawyer called and gave him the details of the will—Adam inherited everything—that was when he had wanted to cry. What Gerald couldn’t do in life he was doing in death: forcing his son to return home.

  They were all kinds of standing there, staring at each other. Adam felt mildly uncomfortable. He and Ed had a history, but what would they talk about now? He was no good at making polite conversation. The door jingled quietly, they all turned to look. Of course, it was Cute Hopeless Guy. He wore his standard deer-in-the-headlights look, and his cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink when he noticed them all staring at him.

  Sara dashed behind the counter. Adam had the feeling that was how she lived her life, lots of hugging and dashing and nosiness. A force to be reckoned with; no wonder Ed had straightened up when she came on the scene.

  “Hi, Micah! Your usual today?” Sara asked. Even though her employee was standing right there, she hip-checked him out of her way so she could take care of Micah. Very hands-on.

  Micah. Adam wondered vaguely about the name, tested it out in his head. He and Ed stepped away from the front of the counter to allow him to pass, but Micah continued to stand staring blankly.

  “Hey, Micah, your usual?” Sara repeated.

  Micah shook his head, seeming to realize he was standing in front of the counter. He blushed again. Not mild, like Ed, but a full-on blush, from neck to hairline. It was adorable. Adam’s inner voice mocked him: adorable, really?

  “A large triple with room, thanks.” Adam watched as Micah paid for his drink and went and sat down toward the back. The same table he had seen him at before.

  “What do you guys want while I’m back here?” Sara asked. Her employee shook his head at her and crossed his arms across his chest. He was a reasonably good-looking guy, on the skinny side, older than Adam, with a slight East Coast accent.

  “Are you going to let me do my job?” he groused. “Don’t you have paperwork or something to do?”

  Ed chuckled. “Don’t worry, Ira, she has to sleep sometime.”

  Two large drip coffees later they sat down, close to the front so Sara could sit with them between customers. Customers Ira was perfectly able to help.

  “So,” Ed started. “Word about town is that Gerald left you everything.” Adam waited a beat for the recrimination. “That’s got to be hard for you. I never knew what happened or why you took off; it hurt Gerald something fierce, but he never would talk about it. Said he was to blame. Some folks were surprised when they found out about the will, but I wasn’t. I knew Gerald better than most, I guess.”

  Four

  It wasn’t getting better; it was getting significantly worse. Micah’s already-crappy concentration was completely shot. Gone. Out the window. He hadn’t been able to focus for days. He finally admitted defeat and emailed his clients explaining that he needed some personal time and he would have to push back their projects a little while.

  The fog he was used to being enveloped by, used to hiding out in, was his comfort zone. Had been for years. For the most part Micah could function within its promise of safety and forgetting.

  A pair of somber brown eyes were proving to be his unraveling. The safe fog was slowly dissipating, leaving him exposed and vulnerable.

  Micah had thought he was imagining things; why would anyone watch him? For the last decade he’d managed quite nicely, thank you, without anyone taking notice. He was less interesting than watching paint dry. And happy about it.

  Micah’s brain couldn’t decide whether he should be flattered or run in the other direction, never setting foot in the Booking Room again. It was unnerving. His body was responding to what the stranger’s stare seemed to offer, and that in itself was a miracle. It had literally been years since he had been attracted to anyone. He was probably wrong and the guy wasn’t really watching him with the kind of hunger Micah had long since stopped dreaming would ever be directed toward him.

  If anything, in the past few days he had become clumsier. More awkward, more self-conscious. He’d never been very good at keeping track where his arms and legs were; now they seemed to have developed a life of their own. In the past couple of days he’d tripped on empty stretches of sidewalk, knocked over inanimate objects with one or both elbows, and dropped random items from his lifeless grip.

  He was comfortable as a ghost in his own life, drifting through without having to feel, in opposition to the laws of physics. Instead of his actions having equal opposite reactions, or creating energy, Micah’s existence dissipated to nothing, swallowed by the universe. Rather than the butterfly effect, he liked to think of it as the Micah black-hole effect. It was easy to manage. No surprises. No fear.

  Brandon had been the one to point out to him--in a fit of frustration and anger--how Micah lived. Or, rather, didn’t live. Micah hadn’t had the heart to tell Brandon he was a ghost. Maybe he wasn’t dead, but he certainly wasn’t living; had no reason to. Brandon had thrown up his hands in frustration before pulling him in for a tight hug, because Brandon loved him and sometimes was the only reason Micah got out of bed in the morning. Brandon was the only person who had touched him in years. Micah didn’t know what he would do if he stopped.

  Looking up from the crossword puzzle he’d snagged before one of the other regulars got to it, he was caught by a pair of
warm brown eyes looking his way. He looked back down at his puzzle, but he was unable to control his blush.

  Five

  Adam had wondered if Ed knew about what had happened between him and Gerald. If Gerald had ever said anything. Spring eighteen years ago in Skagit had been brutal: constant heavy rains all over Skagit County and Western Washington. Mudslides, rivers hovering at flood levels, bridges and roads washed out. The weather had felt like an analogy for Adam’s own life. The next small push would finish undermining his foundation, bringing it crashing down; every frustration, each glint of anger or dissatisfaction demolishing his emotional sandbags. And it had. He and Gerald had an epic fight.

  Adam had always wanted to go into law enforcement. It had seemed an outrageous dream— there was no way Gerald was going to pay for a criminal justice degree—until his SAT and ACT results had come back and suddenly he was being courted by UCLA, MIT, big names. Adam had never wanted anything so badly. He was tired of being the Klay boy. He wanted to be Adam Klay and be proud of it, and to do that he had to get far away from Skagit. Adam had only talked to Gerald a few times over the intervening years. The fight they’d had over Adam deciding to become a cop had been brutal. Unforgivable things had been said on both sides. So, yeah, he had been pretty fucking surprised when the lawyers had called him with the news.

  A crash of furniture startled Adam from his dark thoughts. Cute Hopeless Guy (Micah—he had to stop thinking of him as Cute Hopeless Guy now that he knew his name) had managed to slosh his coffee—again—and when he’d jumped up to avoid the lava flow, he knocked his chair over. On autopilot Adam stood up too, to help or whatever and inadvertently locked eyes with Micah, who looked like he wanted the floor to open up underneath him.

  Sara grabbed a towel while Ed and Adam watched her do her thing, clucking and tsk-ing and taking the blame for overly hot coffee. Micah looked miserable. Adam had never witnessed such a clumsy person.