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Nathan was at the house. "Maybe you could enlighten me."
The man hung up again. Gale hit redial, cursing suburban residential streets and their damned
speed restrictions.
"Stop fucking calling!" The man yelled, picking up the line, shouting so loudly Gale had to hold
the phone away from his ear. He could almost smell the alcohol in the words. "I'll call the
fucking cops and--"
"Please do." Gale agreed. "My name's Gale Solomon, I'd love to know what you're planning on
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telling them. Now explain to me again why Nathan would call you about my house?"
"I ain't telling you squat!"
"What do you know about his mother?" Gale asked. The man didn't sound sober enough to
register the questions, but maybe Gale could catch his inhibitions at an unguarded point. "What
do you know about Katherine Oakley?"
"Stuck-up little slut," the man muttered, before the sound of something falling over echoed down
the line. "Like her bastard son." He laughed, as if the concept of his joke amused the life out of
him. Gale thought he'd punch the life out of the man if he was close enough.
No one talked about Nathan that way.
"How do you know about her?"
"Don't." The man slurred, pausing long enough for Gale to hear the bottle cap being opened with
a hiss. "Goddamn wife knew the neighbors. She's a stuck up little slut, too."
"The McIntyres." Gale spoke softly to himself as he pulled up outside 1213, glancing at the
empty plot that used to be the neighboring house. There hadn't been electricity in 1213 ever since
Gale bought it, but there was a light flickering in the small window in the attic.
Nathan&
"Who the fuck are you, anyways?" the man asked. "You a cop?"
"No," Gale said. "I told you, I'm Nathan's friend."
"Nathan ain't got friends." The man barked a laugh, the sound harsh and grating. "And if you call
this number again, I'll made damn sure you ain't got none either."
"Wait, I--"
The dial tone greeted him. Cursing, Gale flipped the phone closed, shoving it in his pocket as he
got out of the car. The light still flickered in the window; if Nathan was dumb enough to light
candles in a place like that, they'd both go up like a tinderbox.
The gate slammed shut behind him. So did the front door. The only way out was past him, thanks
to the amount of trash and junk that had piled up outside the back door. Nathan wasn't going
anywhere.
Gale s footsteps reverberated in the house as he made his way up to the front bedroom, the sound
echoing and muffling until he didn't know where it came from anymore.
The wallpaper by the door to the box room had been pulled back, revealing grooves in the door.
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Gale frowned, running his fingers against it, before shoving it to the back of his mind. Nathan
could explain that after he'd explained how he'd gone about trying to fleece Gale out of the whole
damn house.
He took the narrow wooden steps two at a time, until he came to the tiny box room. Candlelight
flickered against the walls, casting shadows and gouges in the flaked paint and curled wallpaper.
Even in daylight, he thought, this place wasn't really light. Just a different kind of dark. At least
Nathan's candles made it a little less foreboding.
Nathan sat on the floor by the window, one knee bent up, the other leg stretched out before him.
He looked up at Gale as though he'd been expecting the intrusion.
Well, he might not expect the question.
"Who did I just call?" Gale tossed the scrunched up ball of paper at Nathan, watching as he
unfurled it, eyes widening.
"Why the hell did you do that? Gale--"
"Who was he?"
"My dad." Nathan scrunched the paper up again, viciously throwing it across the room.
Gale blinked. Well, that sure explained a lot. "Your dad?"
"The man who raised me." Nathan shrugged. "Not my real dad."
Walking over to the window, fingers tracing the letters etched in the wood, Gale glanced at
Nathan. "You think this D is?"
Nathan nodded. "Probably. I know you don't believe any of this, but my mot--" He amended
himself. "The woman who raised me had that letter for some reason. Bobby, the guy you talked
to, said she'd talked him into taking me in from some relatives of the McIntyres she knew. We
don't know where she is now, so we can't ask, but she never mentioned any of it to me. When
Bobby heard about the Oakley house& "
"How?"
Found the letter, the obit, somehow managed to stay sober enough to put two and two together.
He's in deep shit," Nathan said wryly. "He's one late payment away from losing the house, and
thinks it's better to pay for a new bottle of Jackie D. than it is to pay the banks and the credit card
companies. He sent me to get the money."
"Sent you?" Gale barked a laugh. "Wow. So all this, us, was that part of the plan, too?"
"No& " Nathan shook his head. "You were never a part of the plan, Gale. You pretty much
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single-handedly fucked up the plan."
"Was that before or after you tried to fuck me over?" Gale glared.
"Gale--"
"Lies, I could get." He shook his head, walking over to the shadowed wall opposite the door. The
old floral paper was peeling in great big strips, and to occupy his hands in case he felt like
beating the living crap out of Nathan, Gale started tugging at the old, brittle paper. "Never been
used before, it's kinda of a new thing for me& "
"I didn't use you. Gale, please--"
"You fucked me to get at the house." Gale ripped one long strip viciously. "I think that's exactly
what you did."
"And you think wanting you was easy?" Nathan got to his feet. "You think knowing it'd come
down to this was good for me? Why the hell do you think I tried to& "
"Keep your distance?" Gale muttered. "Well, you've done a bang up job of it lately." The paper
peeling was addictive, the compulsive in his soul couldn't leave it alone until he'd gotten a neat
patch clear to the scratched wall beneath.
"I had to. I didn't mean for any of this to happen, Gale. I've tried blowing Bobby off, but he won't
listen, I figure if I just& " Nathan ran his hands though his hair. "Do what he always expects of
me and fail spectacularly, then I won't have to do anything."
The paper piled up around Gale's shoes like hamster bedding, thin narrow ribbons curling into
tight coils. The wall beneath looked to be an old faded blue, with slashes and gashes in the
plaster.
"That's mature of you."
"Never been that." Nathan chuckled humourlessly, before lapsing into silence. "No, actually, I
probably did use you a little bit. You knew more than I did, and if I wanted to dig deeper I had to
go through you. But it was never for the house, Gale."
Pausing briefly in his quest, Gale turned, sending Nathan a look of disbelief.
"Okay, fine, maybe before I met you it was about the house," Nathan said. "But then I did, and
you're& "
"I'm what?"
"You listened. You brought me here, you gave me a chance to get close to my family for a
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