Page 96 of Veiled in Brick

“Yes, dear—grey eyes, fluffy hair, model-ish type face—you know.”

“My hair is not fluffy,” Luke said.

“Fantastic—hello, Lukey,” my mother greeted him adoringly.

“Did you tell her to call me that?” Luke asked me in a groan, and I laughed as I shook my head no.

“So, one hour away?” she repeated my words back to me. “Beds are ready. We can chat on dinner when you’re in. I was thinking pasta…or pork…I can’t decide, but I do have a great meat I could use for a bolognese—”

“About that,” I chimed in. “We have one more with us.”

“Did you pick up a homeless person off the freeway again, dear?” she joked. “I keep telling you to stop doing that; it’s not like the birds you used to rescue and nurse back to health when you were a child.”

Anxiety abated for the moment and tickled pink at the prior sentence my mother had spoken, Liam murmured, “You rescued birds as a kid?”

“Ah, hello deep-voiced mystery man!” Chris exclaimed. “She did—I cannot stress how many dead birds ended up in our home because they didn’t pull through, my God.”

“Mother.”

“What? It’s true. We’re lucky we didn’t contract some sort of bird-to-human virus at some point—anyway. Who’s the tagalong?”

“Ah—Liam. I’m Liam.”

“Liam.” She tested his name before saying, “I’ll get another bed ready for you, I take it you’re not just staying for dinner?”

Liam rushedly insisted, “Oh, um, no—I can take a couch. Or the floor. I’m not picky, er, Mrs. Sheffield—”

“Mrs. Sheffield,” Chris returned incredulously. “My God, the manners. It’s Chris, dear, and don’t be ridiculous. Zoey, where did you find this one?”

“I’ll see you in a bit, Mom,” I sidestepped her inquisition. “Bye.”

“Yes, yes, bye everyone!”

There was a general hum of an adieu by the remainder of the car, and the line clicked silent.

I muttered to Liam, “My mom’s a little—”

“Exactly like you?” he finished my sentence with a lopsided smirk.

“I’ve been told,” I replied with a smile, satisfied that his humor was intact. My phone buzzed in my hand, and upon a quick glance, I saw that it was James. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” All three voices spoke in unison to my muttered profanity.

“Nothing, nothing, it’s Jay,” I replied, handing my phone to Liam so I could focus on the road. “Read it for me? All I saw was his name.”

Liam looked to the screen in his palm, narrowed his eyes for but a moment at the preview of the message as if he were struggling to read it, and then sighed.

“He said that he got the card reader at my place—”

“Card reader?” Claire inquired.

“SD card in the camera; I had a reader for it to plug into a computer to see any footage that’s saved on it; Jay was going to get that at my place,” Liam told her quickly. “Anyway—just said it’s taking forever to download it all, but he’ll update us later.”

I let out the breath that I had begun to hold, we all gave him a collective nod, and I felt the four of us sit back in our seats. The expectation of any news on my horror film of a life put on hold once again, we continued our drive in a silence that was far less comfortable than it was mere minutes ago. I swallowed at the anxious lump that had formed in my throat, willing it to abate. The sensation persisted long after Liam’s announcement of James’ message, for it seemed that the only thing that would be able to dull the endless murmur of the memory of the man moaning in my ear was time.

Chapter 16

The view was beautiful this time of year—it was always beautiful, really, but there was something about the summer that just made the area more… lush. We drove through the spacious streets as we wound through the town, the sprawling green lawns well-manicured and the houses ostentatious. The real estate all backed to a small lake that was tucked away, the late afternoon sun gleaming off of the water, and Liam peered out of the window of my car in an awestruck, glassy-eyed gaze.

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