Chapter 2

“Is he dead?”

“Who is it? That’s not Elliot Carey’s brother, is it?”

“Someone needs to call 911.”

Calvin stopped staring at the space the sniper had filled to see several people huddled around the body. It sprawled amidst the orange and brown leaves, arms akimbo like someone making angels in the snow. Blood spattered over the grass behind them. If the dead man hadn’t been in the middle of the tableau, it could have looked like a Jackson Pollock painting.

While two women fought with their phones, trying to get reception to contact the police, the minister and Eli flanked Calvin, trapping him next to the open grave.

“I’ll bet wherever Ted is, he’s pissed he’s missed the excitement,” Eli commented.

“Ted wouldn’t have wanted an innocent man to lose his life,” the minister admonished.

Calvin refrained from sharing a knowing look with Eli. Under the right circumstances, Ted would have been the one pulling the trigger if he thought he could get away with it. Only fear of incarceration had leashed the man’s darker tendencies.

The last thing Calvin wanted was to spend more time at the cemetery, but with the women finally getting a hold of the police, he knew he was stuck. Running looked like guilt; it didn’t matter if he was only a witness. He had no choice but be available when the cops arrived. From listening to the others, nobody else had seen the man on the mausoleum. They kept exclaiming, “Who could’ve done this?” and arguing over the dead man’s identity. Eli wanted to rifle through the man’s pockets and find his wallet, but the minister’s calmer head prevailed.

So nobody touched him. Calvin didn’t even want to look at him. His attention insisted on wandering to the other end of the cemetery, wondering whether or not he’d actually seen the shooter.

“I need a cigarette,” he announced to nobody in particular.

“The police will be here soon,” the minister warned.

Calvin nodded and gestured vaguely toward the mausoleum. “I’ll just be over there. Someone get me when the time comes.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets and trudged through the dead leaves, away from the whispers, away from the hole in the ground, away from blood that looked like paint drops. He stopped only when the stone structure blocked him from the others’ gawking. Then, with a long, ragged exhalation, his shoulders slumped.

Calvin didn’t actually smoke, but the desire for something to relax the knots in his neck made him wish he did. If he’d just stayed in New York…if he’d just ignored the phone call from Ted’s attorney…if he’d just refused to pretend that he gave a damn about the man who’d called him a cocksucking faggot and kicked him out of the only home he’d ever known as soon as he legally could…

If he’d just, if he’d just, if he’d just.

Funny how coming back home did more than fuck with his head. It turned back the hands of time. It turned Calvin Michael Schumacher back into the shy, self-doubting young man who didn’t have the guts to stand up for what really mattered to him. Where was the artist on the rise, the confident painter who, according to the Greenwich Art Revue, saw a black-and-white world in Technicolor? Where was the guy who wasn’t afraid to go up to an interesting-looking stranger in a bar and introduce himself, just on the hope that maybe this was the one?

Calvin didn’t like this particular shade of himself. It was one reason why he was grateful to Ted for kicking him out of the house. It had forced Calvin to reassess just what he was going to do with his life. Stand up on his own two feet. Leaving Illinois had given Calvin balls he’d never possessed before.

Apparently, those got checked at the state border. Because here he was, back in his sixteen-year-old shoes, hiding away because he didn’t want to face the disapproving eyes of people he didn’t know.

He shook his head. He hadn’t abandoned the group to stand around and feel sorry for himself. He’d come to see if there was any truth to what he had seen. What he thought he’d seen.

His gaze swept over the vista and immediately arrested on the rear of the mausoleum. Patches of green flaked away, revealing the dark gray stone underneath. Closer inspection found the crushed lichens scattered on the ground. It didn’t take a CSI fan to figure out somebody had broken them off climbing up the wall.

He tilted his head back. If he stretched, he could reach the lip of the roof, hold onto it as he braced against the wall with his heels.