Yet a Stranger (The First Quarto #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,14
The dog had run to the end of its chain, and now it stood on its hind legs, yapping at cars. In another yard, ancient patio furniture cooked slowly in the sun. A woman with the skinniest legs Theo had ever seen was sitting under an umbrella, drinking what looked like lemonade.
“That’s not how Wayne usually is.”
“Ok,” Auggie said.
“I mean, he’s always kind of a bully. But he’s just mad today.”
“I get it,” Theo said. “Jacob, my brother, he’s a complete prick. Of course, he’s a prick with the Bible in one hand, so it’s kind of a different tone.”
“Fer likes to give me shit,” Auggie said. “It’s just a brother thing.”
“Yeah,” Orlando said, resting his head on the window.
Auggie reached over and squeezed his leg. Then Auggie’s eyes went to the rearview mirror, and Theo realized that he’d been caught watching Auggie, watching him touch Orlando. Busted, Auggie’s eyes said. More sweat broke out across Theo’s back, across his chest, under his arms. He looked out the window. When he looked back, Auggie was still watching him.
Orlando took them out of the city, and they followed a narrow blacktop road behind a Baptist church, across a one-lane bridge, and over a wooded hill. On the other side, the ground sloped down into a field of chest-high Indiangrass. A storybook house stood in the middle of the field: frame with gray siding and blue shutters, a wraparound porch, dormer windows. Flowerbeds full of echinacea, catmint, and the billowing flames of bougainvillea gave way to a perfect lawn. A diamond cutting pattern was visible in the grass. Three cars were parked in the circular drive—two Audi sedans and a Mercedes coupe.
“You grew up here?” Auggie said.
“Yeah,” Orlando said, his head still resting on the glass.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” Orlando said.
They parked in silence.
Instead of approaching the front door, Orlando led them around to the garage. He keyed in a code, and after the door had rattled up, they snaked past a huge gray Silverado and a Lexus crossover. The third bay of the garage held two four-wheelers. Orlando walked into the house, wiped his feet, and shouted, “We’re here.”
Theo had been in nice houses before. He’d been in nice country houses before. But the Reeses’ home wasn’t like any house he’d been in before. Some of the stuff was what he’d expected: high ceilings, wood floors, an open floorplan, granite and stainless steel in the kitchen, thick rugs and swimmable leather sofas in the living room.
What made the home different from everywhere else were the pictures. He recognized Wayne in several of them. Others featured another man. One, a newspaper clipping, had his name in the caption: Calvin Reese. He had a slimmer build than Wayne, but otherwise they could have been twins. Three girls with softened versions of the same family features filled the other frames. All of them were dressed in uniforms or sporting apparel. All of them had at least one picture that showcased them as part of a university team—Cal, for example, was featured with a Mizzou tennis uniform. Not a single picture of Orlando.
They found Orlando’s family in the living room. A middle-aged man with thick, salt-and-pepper hair bounced to his feet and shook hands with Theo and then Auggie. “Jerry Reese,” he said as they shook. “Reese Automotive.” Then he said it again for Auggie’s benefit. Orlando’s mother, Cathy, was trim, and her hair was dark—expensive coloring, Theo thought, because it looked natural and she didn’t have any roots showing. Then the three girls: Chris, the oldest of the girls; Pam, a middle child; and Billie, who was just older than Orlando. All three of the girls had dark, curly hair that they wore long, all three had the strong features that made them handsome instead of beautiful, and all three of them had the strong, firm bodies of athletes.
“We told Mom and Dad that we had to do this,” Chris kept saying, laughing between rounds like she was making a joke. “We told them we just had to do this.”
“No,” Orlando said. “Don’t lie. None of you wanted to do this.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Jerry said. “I never said it was a bad idea.”
“It’s just so much fuss,” Cathy said. “It’s a great deal of fuss when he’ll be back any day now.”
“We don’t know that, Mom,” Orlando said. “We need to make sure he’s ok.”
“Oh, Orlando,” Cathy said to the rest of the room, rolling her eyes like he wasn’t there.