Page 19 of Keep

CHAPTER FIVE

Curtis

I told Brecken he didn’t have to join us for the funeral. He didn’t even really know Hale. But he wanted to come along for Dalton’s sake.

The service at the funeral home had been brief and punctuated by the heartrending sobs of Hale’s mother as Dalton delivered the eulogy. He had a tough time keeping it together as he talked about his brother and my own heart ached for his loss. I knew I couldn’t cope with losing one of my brothers. I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to stand in front of a room and talk about it while his remains sat on a nearby velvet-draped table in a silver urn.

“Will Derek go to prison?” asked Brecken as he snapped his seatbelt closed once the funeral was over.

Cassie stared straight ahead in the passenger seat beside me. She sighed and I reached for her hand.

Naturally Derek’s fate had been a huge topic of conversation lately. It was hard to believe that a week ago we were all partying at a family wedding. Now the best man at that wedding was dead and the bride’s cousin might go to prison for it. Cassie was pretty busted up about Hale but she was also painfully worried for Derek. The Gentrys were closer than any family I’d ever known. To them, cousins weren’t just distant relations you saw twice a year and forgot about the rest of the time. I’d barely known the names of my far-flung cousins while growing up and that wasn’t likely to change now. But it wasn’t the same for Cassie. She loved Derek like a brother, felt protective of him. No matter what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into.

“I don’t know,” I told my little brother. “He might. The accident is still being investigated.”

Brecken slumped in his seat. “But he was driving drunk?”

I thought about discovering Derek in that alcove with a bottle in his hand. How I wished I’d done something differently, that I hadn’t believed him when he said he knew better than to get behind the wheel. When I confessed my regret to Cassie she shook her head and said I shouldn’t blame myself. Derek wasn’t a kid. Nobody could have guessed that he’d be so foolish.

“Yeah, Derek was drunk,” I said. The hospital had run his blood work right away and the police were quick to make the arrest, although he’d been released on bail the next morning.

“They both were,” Cassie sighed.

It was true. Yesterday Cami had told us Hale’s results showed his blood alcohol content exceeded the limit, higher than Derek’s. They’d been two drunk idiots careening around out there on a path to destruction.

“Fucking dammit,” I muttered, gripping the steering wheel in both fists because I needed to squeeze something in anger. Anger toward such reckless fools who believed too much in their own invincibility and wound up destroying lives. Sometimes even their own.

Cassie patted my leg. “We should go, babe,” she said, nodding toward the stream of cars that were exiting the funeral home parking lot.

Cord had offered to host something at his house after the service but Dalton declined, preferring to spend some quiet time with his mother before she got on a plane tomorrow to fly back to her home in Chicago. He might have felt a little funny about it too, considering a guy with the last name Gentry was responsible for his brother’s death. Maybe that’s why Chase had come to the funeral without his family. He’d been quiet, sitting with Cord and Saylor in the last row. Dalton and Chase had known each other for years, long before Dalton met Cami. Chase had been Dalton’s favorite high school teacher.

Weird the way shit works out in life.

“You know that guy?” I asked Cassie, putting the car in drive and gesturing to a man I’d noticed earlier. He’d been at the funeral, occupying a seat at the end of the row nearest the door, blending in with ordinary thirtysomething looks and a gray shirt with black pants. He might have been a friend of Hale’s but he didn’t look sad. Just observant and maybe a little tense, his narrowed dark eyes surveying every mourner who walked through the door.

“No,” said Cassie. “He doesn’t look familiar.”

Now he was leaning against the brick exterior of the funeral home with his phone to his ear but to me it looked like it might be a pose. His lips weren’t moving and his shifting eyes were intent on the vehicles leaving the parking lot. I’d never seen the guy before and I never claimed to have superior analytical skills but I did have my instincts. And my instincts told me the dude was either a cop or up to something shady. If he was a cop it didn’t make sense that he’d need to attend Hale’s funeral to investigate the accident. On the other hand, if he was scoping out Hale Tremaine’s mourners because he had some bad intentions then that was a different worry altogether.

“My mom texted,” Cassie said. “She wants to know if we’re still stopping by the house.”

“You still want to?” I asked, forgetting about the mysterious funeral cop for the moment. I put my blinker on to make a right onto the street, aware that I’d been an extra cautious driver since the accident.

Cassie rubbed her eyes. She looked tired. “Yeah, we should go hang out there for a little while.”

“Not a problem.”

“Will there be food?” Brecken asked hopefully from the backseat.

Cassie turned and smiled at him. “You know my mom lives for any excuse to feed hungry teenagers.”

“Sweet,” Brecken said.

Cord and Saylor were already home by the time we pulled up. This was the house Cassie had grown up in so she had no qualms about going right through the front door without knocking. Saylor and Cadence were sitting on the couch and looking depressed, although Saylor brightened when she saw us.

“Anybody hungry?” she asked, already off the couch and on her way to the kitchen. “I’ve got some macaroni salad and cold cuts in the fridge.”

“I’m always hungry,” announced Brecken.

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