In the summer of 1944, Leslie Atwater -- feeling abandoned by his lover Edward -- rushes to London to enlist in the armed services. After failing the physical, he retreats to the sanctuary of St. Michael’s rectory and to the love and support of his brother Robert.<br><br>When a bomb explodes near St. Andrew’s Home for Boys, it unearths a skeleton of an adolescent. As Leslie, Edward, and Robert set about identifying the remains, the shocking discovery stirs up an old antagonism between the two brothers and brings to light a string of repressed memories for Leslie.<br><br>With the truth obscured by the passage of years, can Leslie and Edward sift through the lies and subterfuge to track down the coldhearted killer of a kindred spirit?

Kindred Spirit

“Furthermore what?” Edward glared at his lover.


“Never mind. You’re not sympathetic in the least to what Robert’s been telling us. I hope the remains…they just can’t be the boy I remember,” Leslie said. “We were mates back then. Friends. I liked him. I don’t know how to say this other than to just come right out with it. I have a strong feeling, call it intuition, that I was…sort of in love with him, as much as a twelve-year-old boy could be or understands about being in love.”


“This is just plain old poppycock.” Edward narrowed his eyes at Robert and immediately shifted his position on the subject. “You started this Freudian rigmarole and now he’s all riled up.”


“You can’t be serious,” Leslie said. “I was twelve years old. You’re jealous of a twenty-five-year-old memory that might not even be real.”


“All of us are not riled up,” Robert said. “It’s just a theory. Can’t you—”


Edward tossed his napkin on the table and strode out of the dining room.


Chapter 22