Page 181 of The Spider & the Storm

I huffed an irritated sound. I wasn't lying; I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't even know who this woman was—ifthat was who was living here in the first place. The cop hadn't provided that much information—just in case I wasn't who I had claimed to be, he'd said, to protect the privacy of a seemingly innocent woman.

Would she feel so protected if I just rang the doorbell right now?

I didn't want to scare her. I just wanted to ask a few questions. I wanted to know who she was, if the kid was my brother's, if … if …

If he forgot about me.

“I'll be right back,” I said abruptly, opening the car door.

“You want me to come with you?” Stormy asked, already opening the driver's side, but I shook my head.

“No, not yet. Stay here. I'll come back if I need you.”I always need you.But I needed to do this alone.

She hesitated for a moment but eventually replied, “Okay. I'm not going anywhere.”

I hardly acknowledged her as I shut the door behind me. I couldn't help it as I slowly made my way from the curb to the driveway, eyeing the freshly painted mailbox, where Tommy had once left a pile of dog shit. The place at the end of the asphalt, where he'd spray-painted a death threat, now gone, like it'd never happened. I foolishly wondered if the bloodstain was still in the hallway, if the crimson handprints had been wiped away from the walls and my parents' bedroom door, knowing damn well that they were long gone, just like the peeling paint on the siding and doorframe.

God, even the door itself is different, I thought as I carefully climbed the steps to the front stoop. Feeling an awful lot like a stranger to a place I'd known since birth.

I didn't belong here anymore. And I didn't know why that hurt the way it did, but … God, it really,reallydid. It had been my choice to walk away, to abandon this place until I was ready to return, but somewhere along the line, it had stopped beingminedespite my name on the deed, alongside Luke's.

Standing in front of the door, I tried to peer through the frosted glass windowpane, but the image was too distorted to make out anything but a couch and a TV in places they'd never been before. I reached out to the doorbell and hesitated, wondering if I should just leave and continue to live my life in ignorant bliss, the way I'd been for the past five years. But … how blissful had it been when I couldn't stop thinking about my brother and what he was doing? This was my chance to get answers. This was my chance to know how he'd spent his last years alive, and didn't I deserve that? I mean, I might not have deserved much, after all of my wrongdoings and broken promises, but I deservedthis. I deserved closure.

Without another thought of doubt, I rang the doorbell. And I waited.

Footsteps approached from where I knew the staircase to be. A muffled voice called out, saying something I couldn't hear, but it wasn't meant for me, I realized, as another voice answered. The footsteps came closer, and with every single one, my heart rate escalated. This was it. This was the moment when I'd meet the woman who'd married my brother while he was incarcerated.

God, who the hell marries someone while they're in prison with little chance of getting out?I pulled in a quivering breath, waiting for the door to pull open.Who the hell marries amurderer?

The distorted figure of a woman came into view, and the locks were undone. I clenched my fists at my sides, urging my feet not to run back to Stormy's car. The front door was pulled open, and my heart stopped all function as a head of strawberry-blonde hair and a pair of sparkling blue eyes were revealed to me. She startled at the sight of me, as I did at the sight ofher. Her gaze roaming over my tall frame before landing on my face, hands clinging to the doorknob and doorframe, staring at me and blinking away the paled-face impression that she'd somehow seen a ghost.

Then, as if happening in slow motion, the air was forced from my lungs as she launched her body against mine, her arms wrapping around my neck and mine around her waist.

She trembled as she held on tight. Her tears wetting my neck, down to the collar of my sweater, her gentle sobs filling my ear.

“Charlie,” she whispered, digging her fingertips into my shoulders.

I exhaled and finally gave myself permission to cry with her as I whispered, “Melanie.”

“You came back.”

I couldn't help but laugh, waterlogged and warbled. “So did you.”

She didn't laugh with me. She only cried harder, louder, burying her face into my shoulder. I breathed her in, filling my senses with the memories of my youth and the one thing—the oneperson—who had always made things good at a time when nothing was good at all. And I couldn't believe she washere, couldn't believe she was in this house, couldn't believe she and Luke had …

God, whathadhappened?

“Whyare you back?” I asked gently, my cheek moving against hers.

Reluctantly, she let go, stepping back and away, but not before pressing her palms to my cheeks and smiling despite the tears still cascading over her face.

“God,lookat you,” she whispered, shaking her head, bewildered. “Luke would be so happy. He'd …” She pulled her lips between her teeth, her face crumpling all over again. “God, I'm so sorry, Charlie. I'm so,sosorry. I thought about you all the time. I wanted to find you. I just … I didn't know how, and—”

“It's okay,” I said, taking her face between my hands and brushing her tears away with my thumbs.

“No, it's not.” She held my wrists and forced a smile. “But I guess it has to be, right? You're here now. You'reback.”

“Yeah.” I nodded and pulled in a deep breath. “I'm here now.”

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