“Is there a reason my man is acting like someone just shot his dog?” Dana finally asked, setting the binoculars down. He’d been sitting in the car with Brian for the past hour while he followed up on a huge lead with their corporate jumper. “Duke let him go home after he picked up Rodney’s slippery ass and got him back into custody. I thought he’d be happy to have a half day to himself but when I spoke to him he was growling so hard I could barely understand him.”
Brian rubbed the scruff of his beard. It’d been a rough night. He hadn’t slept well at all—actually he hadn’t slept well in a few weeks—and then the fight with Ford was eating at his gut. He hated when they fought, it was rare, but it was also what brothers did sometimes. He knew they’d get past it and soon, but it hurt nonetheless that he was letting Ford down so hard. “He got mad at the gym.”
“He doing that thing again?”
Brian shook his head, looking at his hands and picking at one of the many gun callouses on his palm, before Dana continued.
“I know he’s bossy as fuck. But you know he loves you, dude. He’s noticed… well, we’ve noticed you’ve been looking a little rough lately, bro. Working long hours, not hanging out as much. Avoiding everyone’s questions.”
“I’m fine. Everyone goes through rough shit. It’s called life. Ford needs to accept I have to live my own. He has to accept I can’t talk! He won’t accept it and I’m getting fed up, Dana!”
“Whoa, whoa, Bri, slow down, you know I can’t keep up when you sign that fast. Say that again, but go slower.” Dana was watching Brian hand’s so carefully, as if he was about to perform the world’s greatest magic trick and if he blinked he’d miss it. He loved how much of an effort Dana made to communicate with him. He could’ve waved him off when he’d discovered Brian didn’t talk and not bothered like most people. But, Dana wasn’t most people. He was one of the most considerate men he’d ever met. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for anyone, especially a friend, and Brian wasn’t afraid to have Dana go to bat for him regarding Ford. The guy had ways to get his mule-headed brother to see reason… ways he didn’t want to think about too hard.
Brian breathed slowly before he brought his hands back up. “I’m wondering if we’ll ever be able to just be family again. Ford my brother. Not Ford my caretaker. Not Ford my voice cheerleader. Just be my damn brother, no matter what.” Brian was sure Dana didn’t catch every word, but he could see he’d put most of it together.
“I get it. Sway gets frustrated with me sometimes when I worry about him. But, that’s how we see little brothers, ya’ know. He’ll always be Squirt, I can give a rat’s ass about that bit of peach fuzz on his chin. I don’t see a thirty-five-year-old man. He’ll always be the boy that didn’t get any height on him until he was sixteen and I had to keep the other kids in the schoolyard off him.” Dana tapped Brian on his shoulder to make him look at him. “I don’t think he’s incapable of taking care of himself. Sway ain’t no weakling by no means. He was just… he’s… he’s my baby brother. I don’t care if we didn’t have the same parents. They’ve been my family forever. I swore to myself and Stanton to always protect Sway.”
Brian nodded, staring at the jumper’s house while Dana talked. He let him know he was hearing him.
“So, I’ll take the huffing and the few curses he throws at me as long as he’s safe. I’ll listen to it all damn day. I believe Ford sees it the same way. He’s goes on sometimes about how he protected you from your mean-ass dad. That he had to raise you even though he wasn’t much older. He talks about it now. About what he had to do in Afghanistan to get you out that…” Dana let his words drift off. Brian was good at concealing his discomfort, but he felt Dana saw the tightening of his jaw at the mentioning of his darkness.
Dana continued after a breath. “You can bitch and moan all you want. He won’t back off. He won’t stop caring… or worrying. He can’t. It’s just not in his nature, B.”
Brian understood. Damn, it drove him crazy when Dana would flip the script on him. He’d been dead set that he’d been right, and that Ford had deserved his rage this morning, but now after listening to his brother’s lover say how Ford had been worrying about him… the pain in his chest worsened. Dammit. Now, he was not only consumed with thoughts of Ford, but his mind was also flooded with memories of the time he’d spent yesterday with Sway. Those long arms around his neck.
They didn’t say anything else for a while. He let the knowledge Dana just dropped on him marinate for a few minutes. A woman dressed in a crisp ivory suit came out of the double doors of the large home dragging a weighted black trash bag. Brian quickly began snapping pictures.
“She looks like a million bucks.” Dana raised his brow as he watched her. “I don’t see any movement inside the home.”
She’d left the front door open and a tiny lapdog stood on the stoop, dancing in circles as it waited for her to come back. Brian snapped a few more times. “Read it again.” He asked Dana.
Dana opened the file they had on their executive jumper—Robert Clarkson—and began to rattle off the details again. The more Brian uncovered about this man the more his hackles rose. Everything on paper made him look like the poster boy for the American dream, but behind the façade, the fancy suits, and the intellectual jargon, this guy was slick. And his wife, a pampered queen. Brian took the binoculars and put them up to his eyes, watching as she loaded garbage bags into her Mercedes SUV.
“Robert Clarkson stole his investors’ money, embezzled corporate funds, yada yada.” Dana kept skimming, going for what Brian needed to know. They could’ve cared less about the crime. They were neither the judge nor jury. “Wife, Josephine Clarkson, small-town girl, came from nothing, married rich. No job or work history but she belongs to several organizations and a country club. The few associates you spoke to described her as shallow and materialistic.”
Brian leaned deeper into the leather, focused on every move she made. The way she held her head a smidge higher than the average woman told him she felt her wealth made her superior. He saw the tension in her body, and the clench of her teeth as she aggressively manhandled the bags. She was stressed. Brian could see the knots in her neck from where he sat. Something about what she was doing was making her angry. What are you up to? Maybe she was packing his shit and taking it to him. Perfect. Brian continued to let the information Dana gave him filter through his head like an abstract algebra equation.
“She was exonerated for any knowledge of her husband’s crimes after she fully cooperated with the feds. Filed for divorce three weeks after his grand jury indictment.” Dana shook his head sadly. “Damn, these girls ain’t loyal.”
Brian frowned and finger-spelled, “Prenup?”
“Nope. But, it doesn’t matter. All the accounts have been frozen. The guy is broke as a joke.”
Not all of them were frozen. Brian opened his speech app and let the irritating computerized voice say what he needed. “Pull out the sheet I had on the business partner.”
Dana shuffled a few papers. “Here it is. But, he appeared in court. Why are you—?”
“Just start reading.” Brian motioned.
“Joseph Wright, forty-nine, him and our jumper met in business school. Kellogg.” Dana whistled. “Fancy. They were roommates, graduated top of their class. Went into money management and started doing some low-level investing, until they bought in on a computer software developed by Oracle in ninety-nine and struck it big. They were inseparable, a dynamic duo. They made millions for themselves and others. Joseph was married for about a year before his wife had it annulled. He has a nephew he adopted and raised, named Max Wright. He’s thirty-one, no address listed. Our guy was the CFO, Joseph claims he didn’t know what his partner was doing, yet still he was indicted.”
Brian watched her roll her eyes, slam the car door shut and lean against it. She looked upwards and murmured something, but he only caught the word please before she turned her head and walked back inside. She was overdressed for winter cleaning.
“The wife looks pretty fed up, B. Her man is up to his neck in legal troubles. Left her with no money, just a bunch of frozen assets. She’s done with him. Too materialistic to care if he’s okay. She’s not helping him.” Dana stared at the photos of the woman then groaned, rubbing his hands over his messy hair. “Maybe I’m off.”
Brian huffed a laugh. “You’re not off. Trust your instincts. She’s strung pretty tight. But, we’ll keep tabs on her still.”