10:03 a.m.

He was waiting when Melanie drove into the parking lot. Her stomach took a slow nosedive when she saw him. She knew how much Jared hated to wait. He sat in one of the wooden rocking chairs, the last in a row that lined the restaurant’s deck.

She glanced at her wristwatch. She was on time. Okay, maybe a minute late, but only a minute at the most. And even though he sat slouched, feet propped on the handrail, as though content enough to catch a nap, Melanie knew he would be pissed. Pissed that she wasn’t the one waiting for him. That she hadn’t been anxious and excited, ready to jump when he told her to. In other words, that she wasn’t the same little girl who looked up to her big brother, constantly wanting to please him. That girl would have been here on time. No, that girl would have been here early.

He nodded at her without really looking at her. There was something different about him. Something Melanie wasn’t prepared for. He was smiling, almost a grin, which made things worse. Jared smiled only for a couple of reasons, none of them because he was happy. This smile was his “I have something over you now” smile. If Melanie had had any appetite left—which she didn’t—it would be gone for sure.

He dropped his feet one by one as if he was in no big hurry, each an exaggerated plop against the deck’s wood floor. Then he pushed himself out of the rocking chair, scooping up the backpack that Melanie only now noticed.

“That’s Charlie’s,” she said in place of a greeting, pointing to the worn purple backpack, its corners scarred with black-and-white marks. She’d recognize that ratty old thing anywhere. Charlie could lift a new one—hell, he could lift a dozen new ones—and, yet, the boy carried this thing around like that pathetic Charlie Brown character with his worn-out security blanket. Because that’s what it was to Charlie. Her son, who wasn’t scared of anything or anyone, carried around this pathetic old canvas bag like it was his Superman cape, drawing strength from its simple presence. “Is he here?” she asked, looking around, but not seeing Charlie’s pickup in the parking lot.

“No,” Jared told her, the smile already gone as though he didn’t feel the need to explain. “But he will be.”

Melanie watched him sling the backpack over his shoulder with exaggerated purpose, as if to reinforce the fact that Charlie would eventually show up. Sort of like a ransom. Ransom? That was silly. Why in the world would she even think such a thing? Charlie was crazy about his uncle Jared. He looked up to him like a father figure. Even during Jared’s five years in prison, it was Charlie who visited when Melanie couldn’t make herself go to the prison. Instead she had kept in touch via phone calls and letters. Melanie didn’t mind that Charlie wanted to visit. She knew he needed a man in his life to learn how to be a man. And his uncle Jared, despite what their mother called his “unfortunate incarceration,” was a better mentor for Charlie than Charlie’s own deadbeat father. There was a bond between Charlie and Jared that sometimes drove her crazy.

“He doesn’t go anywhere without that thing,” she said, not taking Jared’s hint and letting the subject drop. It bothered her. She couldn’t believe Charlie would have left it willingly, not even with Jared. It contained an odd assortment of what Charlie called his “valuables.” “Did he say where he was going?”

“He’s running an errand for me.”

Jared walked into the restaurant ahead of her, not bothering to hold the door open. A gray-haired man on his way out with his hunched-over wife shot Jared a nasty look. It was a wasted effort. Jared didn’t even notice. Melanie ignored them, too. Actually, it didn’t bother her. She didn’t need any man holding a door open for her.

No, what bothered her more was that Jared wasn’t telling her something. He was shutting her out again. He had been like this since he came back, quiet, almost secretive, as if he was holding something back.

The hostess led them to a table in the middle, but Jared continued on to a booth in the corner by the window. Before the woman even noticed, he was tossing the backpack against the wall and sliding in after it.

“This one’s not taken, is it?” He was already unwrapping the paper napkin and setting out his silverware while the poor hostess simply stared at him.

“No, that one’s not taken, but we—”

“Great. Could we have some menus?” He squinted at her name tag. “Annette?” Then he held out his hand for the menus. Annette immediately complied, a rush of crimson crawling up her neck from her white lace collar, coloring her cheeks.

“I’ll send your waitress over to get your order.”

“That’d be just fantastic, Annette.”

Melanie slid into the other side of the booth, giving the woman only a glance while examining Jared’s smirk. What she once considered to be her brother’s charm now seemed like sarcasm. Ever since they were kids, Jared would call strangers by their names, catching them off guard by reading their name tags that Melanie never noticed. It had always seemed so cool, so adult, even polite and friendly. Maybe she was only imagining that he sounded sarcastic.

What was her problem? Why was she doing this, second-guessing things? She and Jared were blood. They were family. They had a bond, held together by promises and secrets. They had vowed long ago to always be there for each other, and Melanie had broken that promise. Not only that, she had let him down when he needed her most. If she had only been able to provide him with an alibi he would never have had to waste five years of his life in prison. She owed him. That’s exactly what she told herself as Jared closed his menu, ready to order, waiting once again. He grabbed his fork and began cleaning his fingernails with the prongs. At least she wasn’t the one keeping him waiting this time.

Suddenly Jared broke out in a grin. Not at Melanie, but at someone over her shoulder. She turned, expecting to see a waitress, but instead saw Charlie making his way through the maze of tables. He bumped into someone and excused himself, but then turned and rolled his eyes at Jared as if the elderly man had been in Charlie’s way and it was his own fault for getting bumped.

Somehow her son seemed to lose his manners in Jared’s company, eager to please his mentor and instinctively knowing just how to do that. He annoyed her when he acted like some bumbling idiot, a puppy doing tricks for its owner. He was above that. Or he should be. Melanie would never call Charlie brilliant but the boy was smart, sometimes too smart, learning with ease the trade of manipulation. That red hair, spiked in all directions, along with those irresistible freckles and that boyish grin allowed him to get away with just about anything. Now if only someone could teach him how to dress. She certainly had not succeeded, because here he was wearing those baggy jeans she wished he would throw out and the black T-shirt that read, What if the hokeypokey is really what it’s all about?

Melanie hadn’t even noticed that he had something tucked under his arm until he got to their table. She might not have noticed it at all except that Charlie stood it in front of them on the table, grinning from ear to ear.

“Here you go,” Charlie said, presenting the object to Jared as if he were Indiana Jones delivering some gold treasure he had seized by outrunning violent tribesmen and Nazi henchmen. “You said you needed one more. Whadya do with the one I gave you yesterday?”

Melanie couldn’t believe it. Was this the important errand Jared had sent Charlie on? What the hell were the two of them up to? Was it Jared’s way of testing Charlie’s loyalty? What stupid, immature game were they playing? Because why else would Jared encourage her son’s obsession with stealing ugly ceramic gnomes from people’s front yards?