Catching Serenity (Serenity #4) (12 page)

“No decent girl would do him in that bed.”

“Yeah,” Mollie says, sidestepping around a stack of dirty dishes, “O’Malley doesn’t strike me as the type that much cares for decent girls.”

The mess was overwhelming, but, over the stench of dirty plates, and sweaty socks, was the hint of Quinn’s cologne.

It takes several minutes of snooping but I finally find a small box among the empty suitcases at the top of Quinn’s full closet. It is a solid cardboard box with old packing tape loosened around the edges and threads of loosened adhesive hanging from the opened center.

“Anything good?” Mollie asks, then we both freeze as we hear the noise of a car door slamming outside the window. “I’ll go investigate,” she says.

Once I kick aside some empty boxes that litter the floor and use my foot to shove off a stack of black t-shirts from Quinn’s bed, I sit with the box in my lap, pulling open the folded tabs. Inside are photographs—most of Quinn with half-dressed girls, blondes, redheads, their arms draped around Quinn, their lips on his neck, his face. Those I set aside, not remotely curious about the partying Quinn had done back in Ireland or the girls he kept company with.

Behind the pictures are stacks of envelopes, some bills, some used airline tickets and then, in a leather satchel tied with a black, satin ribbon, is an official looking document that reminds me of the legal docs my dad sometimes brings home with him. It is very formal-looking, on expensive letterhead with a logo I know comes from an exclusive barrister group in Ireland. The dates and address on the thick paper tell me this has to do with Quinn’s estate and I scan the document, my gaze catching here and there at Declan’s name. It contains legal jargon that is familiar, but it wouldn’t give me any information as to why Quinn was hanging out with my little cousin.

Digging deeper, shuffling through other papers and documents, I find a small leather bound photo album. It is red with gold edging, and has the O’Malley crest stamped on the front cover.

The cover creaks when I open it and the thick pages tend to stick together, so I have to proceed carefully. Flipping through the photographs, is see image after image of a kid, thin and very pale, but they are still undoubtedly Quinn’s features. I go a bit further and come to the same boy, older, but even thinner, and in a hospital gown. At his side is a thin woman with dark hair and eyes that remind me of dimes—a little dull and very narrow. She has the look of a bird, underfed and unwanted, but she holds onto Quinn as though he were a lifeline. There is no smile on her thin face, but the expression of the man on Quinn’s other side is friendly, a little flirty. The elder O’Malley had been handsome, his eyes bright, his expression open and I pull the album closer, scanning the man’s features closely, seeing a thicker, broader version of Declan in those features. But where Declan’s eyes, and Quinn’s if I’m being honest, are bright and open, their father’s seem guarded, and even a little weary as though his smile is forced and the welcome he projects is one that isn’t sincere.

No doubt the elder O’Malley had been charming, that I could tell by that cheeky grin and the soft, gentle cast of his features. But it struck me as odd, not that Quinn’s parents who seemed so different had been together, but that they had produced a son that was equally as unfriendly and as charming as the both of them had been. The oddest thing, though, was how different their expressions were—hers, haunted, his, wearily coy.

Quinn had clearly been very ill for quite a while, a few more flips of the pages tell me as much, with Quinn in one hospital room after another and his parents posing with him, their expressions unchanging from page to page.

And then, just like that, Mr. O’Malley no longer appears in the pictures. A few more flips and Quinn grows older in the photographs, healthier, and then the scenery changes. There are no more hospital beds, no more hospitals and only Quinn and his mother on the beach, then in the mountains, at the theater or in front of some monument or another, until I reach the end of album.

Is that all there is to it? Quinn had been a sick kid and likely had hated every second of it. From the pictures, I gathered that holidays, birthdays, at least until he was ten had been spent in a hospital bed. No wonder he seems partial to Rhea. He can relate. Oddly enough, his behavior and these photographs prove that there is, in fact, something other than venom beating beneath his chest.

But Quinn’s motivations leap from my mind when I place the photo album into the box and my fingers brush across a thick sketch book. It is here where I discover who Quinn really is. It was all there in charcoal pencil. The paper is thick and the charcoal dust falls from the sketches when I move the book, when the pages turn from one image to another, each with his sloppy O’Malley signature at the bottom.

The sketches themselves are remarkable lines that arch and move into forms. Mountainsides, horizons that go on and on and then figures that become forms, forms that become women, lots and lots of women of all shapes and sizes. Women who are young, beautiful, stunning. Breasts that are imperfect, bodies full and voluptuous, some thin and waiflike. They all come to life on these pages, are so vivid and real that I find myself stopping on each one, looking into drawn eyes that should have been flat and crafted but were vibrant and almost alive. They are all drawn from life, all drawn with at least some small affection. Who knew? I didn’t believe Quinn had it in him.

But what he was or who he’d been before he came to Cavanagh would be left for another day, another time when snooping could be more thorough. Joe’s tires stop just outside of the sidewalk in front of his house and Mollie darts back in the doorway.

“Come on, Joe’s back.”

Joe jiggles his keys in the lock and I move as quickly and quietly as possible, stuffing the envelopes and album back into that box, forgetting for a second about the sketchbook, I pull on the corner and stuff it back into the box, then up onto the shelf and close the closet door with a small thump that I hope Joe doesn’t hear.

It’s only when I hear Joe’s low, soft voice humming down the hall and then muffled by the shower running in his bathroom that I follow Mollie down the hall and out of the back door, locking it carefully behind us. And as we leave Joe’s home, I try my best to put thoughts of Quinn and the kid he’d been out of my mind. That look in his young eyes had been too haunted. That expression too damn familiar. It matched the one Rhea had worn up until a few weeks ago, before her health had improved. Before Quinn had made his way into her life without permission, without invitation. But maybe, just maybe, for a good reason.

THERE IS ALWAYS
chaos and activity at my parents’ home. But Mom and Dad, if not my brothers and sisters, are, at least, well-meaning. For example, inviting everyone, including Joe (who declined) and Layla and Mollie (who conveniently found something else less embarrassing to do), to their house for Sunday lunch, had been born from a desire to catch up with my friends who hadn’t been over for a visit in months. Joe, Autumn suspected, had a date he didn’t want to mention to her. And so it was only Declan and Autumn and
Satan
Quinn, who rang my parents’ doorbell precisely at twelve-thirty and as soon as they arrive, I grab her, greeting Declan with a kiss on the cheek and ignoring Quinn completely because he was a supreme asshat. Despite what I had learned about his childhood, my heart had not softened much to O’Malley.

It might have, had he not continued to greet me with an eye roll whenever our paths crossed at the hospital, and insist that whatever he was working on with Rhea stay a secret just between the two of them—not that I hadn’t tried to get to the bottom of it (without being too obvious, of course).

“What’s the project you and Quinn are working on?” I’d asked Rhea nonchalantly just a few days ago after she had hastily stuffed her sketch pad under her pillow as I walked into her room.

“Nothing,” she’d answered just as offhandedly, too young, too inexperienced to understand that avoiding my gaze only made me more suspicious.

“Nothing?”

“Well, Quinn says it’s no one’s business.”

“Not even mine, kiddo?”

She’s glanced at me then, attempting a smile that was pathetic if she really thought it would charm me, and one that did nothing to hide her humor. “Quinn says, especially not your business.”

Hence, my standing
O’Malley Can Suck It
attitude.

Not welcoming him into my folks’ home ala the ingrained southern hospitality Mom had raised me on was highly immature. Still, it makes me feel better, especially since he hadn’t missed the chance to call me a wanker yesterday when Rhea and I hadn’t finished our reading of
The Forest Again
chapter in the final Potter book before Quinn came in for his time with her.

“Pathetic,” he’d muttered as I’d left the hospital room. It was an insult I now returned when I saw him curiously scrutinizing the obscene amount of family photographs in the den. He kept poring over them, which gave me the perfect opportunity to be an asshat, too.

“We don’t all have different fathers, in case you’re wondering, O’Malley.”

I shoot a grin at my brother, Booker, who laughs at the old family joke. Of course we have different fathers. Duh, adopted.

“Nope,” Booker calls as he flops into the recliner in the living room. “But Mom swears the sperm bank screwed each one of her pregnancies. Except Carver. We got him from the Freak Show.”

“Oh you mean your
identical
twin brother? What does that say about you?”

“I was the better looking one.”

“You wouldn’t say that if he was here.” Booker’s laugh is loud, welcoming as my friends and Satan follow me into the room and I kick his feet off the coffee table to make him sit up.

My brother completely ignores me, standing to greet Autumn when she reaches up to kiss his cheek. Booker sighs as if all his dreams have just come true, an exaggerated sound that I know he utters for Autumn’s benefit and to annoy Declan, who stands right behind Autumn. “So, beautiful,” my brother says, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief, “Not married yet, are you?”

“No, Booker, not yet.” She is ever gracious with this running joke between them, tapping his shoulder to rustle his thick hair.

“Excellent,” he tells her, stepping closer before Declan clears his throat.

“But still taken, mate.” He offers Booker a hand to shake and my brother relents, laughing when Declan squeezes his fingers too hard.

“So you keep saying and yet,” he glances at Autumn’s hand, “no ring.”

“Sorry, I was always partial to Carver,” Autumn admits, laughing when my brother pratfalls onto the recliner. “He still in California?”

“Working, yes. He’ll be home next Easter,” I fill in, waving off my brother when he eyes Autumn with a mock expression of longing on his face. “Leave them alone, perv,” I say, pushing him further down onto the sofa. “No one wants your stinky butt anyway.”

Booker mocks offense, shooting me the bird just as my younger sister Alessandra walks in, pulling her thick, long hair into a bun at the back of her head. She’s inching toward twenty, is obsessed with dance and it shows in those long, muscular legs that she shows off in shorts I’d never be caught dead wearing. Dad can’t have seen those shorts yet, I think, squinting at her when she glances past Autumn and Declan and her attention hones directly in on Quinn.

“Who is this one?” Alessandra asks, showing her barely eighteen year old immaturity, her grin obvious.

“That one is a lot of piss and wind and way too much trouble to even consider.” I push my sister out of the room, ignoring the grin on Quinn’s face when he inches behind me.

“Worried I’ll fancy your bitty sister?”

“No,” I say, glaring at him over my shoulder. “Worried she’ll catch your bastarditis.”

“That I can offer for free,” he says, standing close enough to bend next to my ear. “Care to have a nip?”

“Bugger off.” Declan pulls his brother by the collar and away from me as we all move towards the kitchen.

“Oh, Autumn!” Mom squeals, rushing to Autumn and squeezing her tight. She returns that hug, smiling when Mom grabs her face, gaze working over her features as though she’s checking for something to worry over.

“I’m fine,” Autumn tells her indulgently, pulling Mom’s hand from her face. “What I really need to know is—is there fudge?”

“Autumn,” Mom says, frowning. “Are you trying to insult me?” Then she breaks into a laugh and nods toward the center island where a pan of homemade fudge sits waiting. Eagerly Autumn drags Declan, who had stopped to greet my mother with a kiss, towards the decadent treat, my siblings joining them in the now crowded kitchen.

“Who is this?” Mom asks me, stepping to my side as we both watch Quinn leaning against the doorway.

“This is Quinn, Mom. Declan’s brother.”

“Half-brother,” he reiterates and I try not to laugh at my mother’s humor or the way Quinn squirms under her scrutiny.

“So this is the one I’ve heard so much about,” she tells him walking away from me to stand next to Quinn. “How are you liking Cavanagh, Quinn?” They both glance at me when I laugh and Quinn’s glare almost dares me to rat him out. I could easily relate to Mom Quinn’s attitude about being here, how he thinks we live in a
shitehole
, but that would be too rude, even for our dueling.