Distant Blood Read Free Page B

sexual innuendo. A handsome blond fellow leaned against a column, bare belly rippling with muscle, jeans faded and strategically torn. Vanilla frosting was lightly smeared across his well-defined chest and gut and his puckered lips held a small, lit candle. The inside, preprinted message said HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT
    IT, TOO. HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
    The outward message, though, was of greater interest. The man's visage had been carefully sliced in an
X
with a razor, and inside my well-wisher had pasted in stolen script:
    THIS IS YOUR FACE
IF YOU DARE TO SHOW IT
STAY AWAY FROM OUR FAMILY
    Cold chilled my bones. I could never be handsome enough to be a model, but the fellow on the card was lanky, a thick-haired blond, and green-eyed—like me. I couldn't imagine that the hate-mailer had gotten lucky in choosing a countenance and coloring like my own. And the vandalism on the card had been minutely done, careful to preserve some semblance of the model's face.
    This person knew what I looked like.
    Thickness coated my throat. My glance had gone to my windows, my door. Were they watching me now? Did they know my face, or was it a lucky guess based on Bob Don's own looks? I checked again for the postmark—this time it was Beaumont, much further up the long, curving Texas coast from Corpus Christi. So my admirer traveled, or had an accomplice. I sealed the second harassing missive in another Baggie and stored it with the first. And spent a long, sleepless night, listening to Candace's soft breathing in the darkness.
    I hadn't told a soul.
    Now, watching Bob Don cheerfully grill dinner, the soft voice of the Rangers baseball announcer chronicling a home game, the chirp of crickets in the trees, the hate felt far away. I sipped at my Shiner Bock and listened to the soporific drone of the bugs, singing away their short lives.
    “Earth to Jordan,” Bob Don boomed out after I'd been idling moments away in my own world. I looked up at him with surprise.
    “Something's got you out of gear, son. The Rangers ain't losing that badly.”
    I smiled.
Son.
Despite my ambivalence about Bob Don as a parent, I have to admit the endearment had a nice ring. When my father died from his bout with cancer and my mother forgot who I was, I'd thought
son
would be a word dropped from usage in connection with me. But here wasBob Don, ready to pick up the reins. Ready to love me like a father, like the one I'd lost. I stood suddenly and walked through the smoke wafting from the grill.
    “You and Candace crossways?” he asked my back.
    “No.” How, how to do this? “I need to ask you a question. Is anyone in your family considered—dangerous?”
    “Good Lord.” He blinked at me with honest surprise. “What on earth would make you ask such a thing?”
    I felt torn about revealing the poison-pen letters. Part of me wanted him to know, to tell me I didn't have to go to the reunion, that he'd find out who was terrorizing me. Another half of me wanted to entirely ignore the epistles, not give in to the foul bullying they represented. But I was swimming into unknown waters here, and I needed to know where the sharks lay.
    I ran my tongue along my lips. “I just would like for you to answer the question, Bob Don.”
    “I will, when I know why you're asking.” He swallowed another long swig from his Shiner longneck.
    “I'm just wondering if everyone in your family is going to be delighted by my presence. There could be some resentment against me. After all, I'm somewhat of an unwelcome addition.”
    “Why unwelcome? They're just going to love you—”
    “If you say so,” I interrupted, cutting off his extrovert's flow of words and tasting my beer. I'd been giving some thought as to why I—as the newest member of the Goertz family—might merit vituperative messages. And I'd concocted a theory. “Uncle Mutt's rich, right?”
    I asked this while Bob Don was in mid-gulp and he nodded his assent. “Yeah, rolling in it.”
    “Are we talking millions