The Other Brother Read online

  "I'm okay," he said. But he went on. "Remember that time you had a concussion? When you and Pops were driving to visit Uncle Bobby and got in an accident?"

  "Yes-goodness, that was years ago" She shook her head. "What about it?"

  "How'd you feel afterward? Did anything ... strange happen?"

  "Strange?"

  "Any bad headaches, anything like that?"

  "I do remember having an awful headache for a day or two. But that's not strange for someone who's had a concussion. What's wrong, Gabriel?"

  He never should have asked the question. Mom was ready to drive back to Grady and demand that the doctors reevaluate him. He'd been hoping that she would admit to weird side effects. A pins-and-needles sensation in her hands. Maybe seeing visions in mirrors. No such luck. It was time to change the subject, or else she would worry further.

  "I'm fine, Mom," he said. "I guess seeing that accident up ahead kinda shook me up"

  "Brought back bad memories?"

  "Guess so ""

  "Bless your heart" Mom patted his arm. "After your father and I had that accident, I was nervous riding in a car for about a month. But if you're feeling ill-"

  "Mom, I'm okay. Seriously."

  "You know I love to mother you, baby. I miss that sometimes, what with you living in your own house and about to get married."

  "I'll always be your son. I'd better be, 'cause I don't wanna give up your peach cobbler."

  "Can Dana make cobbler?"

  "Dana's cobbler is good, but it's not the same as yours. Don't tell her I said that, by the way"

  "It'll be our little secret" Mom smiled and then redirected her attention to the traffic.

  They drove past the accident. An Oldsmobile and a Mustang had collided, both of the vehicles looking as if they had been smashed in a giant trash compactor. Paramedics rushed a gurney toward an ambulance, the gurney's white sheet concealing a victim's prone body. Or corpse.

  That could've been me yesterday.

  Shuddering, Gabriel looked away.

  Mom pulled into the driveway of Gabriel's house. A dark blue Corvette convertible was parked in front of the two-car garage. It was his dad's weekend, cruising ride.

  "Is Pops here?" Gabriel asked.

  "He left the 'Vette for you to drive since your car was totaled." Mom dug a set of keys out of her purse and dropped them in his hand. "Keep it until you get the insurance and whatnot with yours squared away."

  "He didn't have to do this, Mom. I was going to rent a car."

  "You know your father. He's always looking out for his boy."

  Gabriel formed a fist around the keys. Once again his father had reviewed his situation, diagnosed a problem, and provided a solution. Gabriel loved and appreciated his father's concern, but sometimes he overstepped his bounds. Couldn't Pops allow him to handle anything on his own?

  "Your father only wants to help," Mom said, as perceptive of his moods as ever. "It would hurt his feelings if you don't take the car."

  "I'm a grown man. I don't need him to do everything for me"'

  "Fine. Give me back the keys. I'll tell him you don't appreciate his help."

  "I didn't mean it like that"

  "You should be grateful that you have a father like him," Mom said. "Do you know how many young men don't have their fathers in their lives? Do you know what they would give to be blessed with a father who loves you as much as yours does?"

  Gabriel wished he had kept his mouth shut. Mom was his dad's biggest champion, always had been. She was from the old school, believing that it was a wife's duty to submit to her husband's leadership and support his position on important family matters. She wasn't going to side with Gabriel over his father. He should have known better.

  "I'll keep the car," he said.

  "And you should call your father and thank him for providing it. Honor your parents"

  The only way to settle this was to agree with her.

  "You're right. Thanks for the ride, Mom. I'll see you at the party this weekend"

  He was having a birthday bash at the 755 Club, a ritzy establishment located inside Turner Field. Pops big surprise-was funding the celebration, while Dana, Mom, and his sister were organizing it.

  "Stop by to see me before then," Mom said. She winked. "Maybe I'll have some of that peach cobbler, just for you"

  "I'll be there"

  Chapter 6

  f 1 ome sweet home. C

  Gabriel lived in Glenwood Mills, a golf community of spacious brick homes with well-tended lawns. An eighteen-hole golf course wound throughout the fringes of the neighborhood. Gabriel's own house was a four-bedroom, two-story model sitting on a half acre of verdant Bermuda grass that overlooked the fairway for the sixth hole.

  He'd lived there for three years, and he and Dana planned to stay there after they wed in October. Due to traffic congestion and high real estate prices on the northern rim of metro Atlanta, the south side was booming, and he wanted to keep the house for a while longer to enjoy the increase in equity.

  True to form, Pops had offered to give him the down payment on the property, but Gabriel, in a rare display of independence, had come up with the funds on his own. This place was his, purchased with his own money, and that made him especially proud.

  He unlocked the door and went inside.

  Perhaps it was due to his close call with death, but he looked around his house as if he were a first-time visitor. It was tastefully furnished with contemporary furniture, in earth tones. Hardwood floors. Stainless-steel appliances. Granite countertops. Cathedral ceilings. Colorful, jazz-themed prints on the walls. Lots of framed photographs filled the rooms, many of them showing Gabriel and his family, others featuring him and Dana.

  He truly had been blessed. Even a collision with an eighteen-wheeler and a vicious tumble down an embankment had failed to ruin his good life. It was as though a magic spell had been cast on him at birth, to ward off misfortune.

  As he walked to the master bedroom on the main level, the house seemed unnaturally quiet. He felt out of place being home on a Tuesday morning. He'd rather go to the office. But his physician had advised him to take the day off and rest, and Dana would chew him out if she found out that he'd ignored the doctor's orders. He would have to stay home all day.

  A cool breeze had been blowing outdoors, so he opened several windows to let fresh air circulate. He leafed through his mail. Turned on the TV and channel surfed; saw nothing of interest. Dug inside the refrigerator, only to discover that he had no appetite. Logged on to the Internet to check his e-mail and found nothing but enticements for porn sites and online casinos.

  This isn't going to work, he thought. Like his father, he was a chronic workaholic. He was happiest when he was engaged in productive activity.

  He called his insurance company to follow up on the claim for his wrecked vehicle. But after sitting on hold for twenty minutes, he hung up and decided to call back later.

  Out of ideas, he decided to simply do some cleaning. Dana was coming over that evening to cook a birthday dinner for him-something she'd planned to do last night until his accident intervened-and while the house wasn't a pigsty, it could use some straightening up. He got a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels, and he went to the master bathroom to start cleaning in there.

  The wind, blustering through the opened bedroom windows, slammed the bathroom door behind him. Startled, he almost dropped the window cleaner.

  Gabriel laughed, a little uneasily, at his jumpiness. Relax, Gabe.

  He approached the large mirror. Last night's vision-or hallucination-flashed through his mind.

  But he was the only person reflected in the glass. As expected.

  He looked away, and then quickly turned back to the mirror. The same baby-faced mug, a little more gaunt than usual, a bandage on his head, stared back at him.

  "You're nuts, man" He laughed at himself.

  Realizing that he needed another cleaning solution for the toilet, sinks, and garden
tub, he turned away and walked to the bathroom door. He reached for the knob.

  The knob twisted. The door swung open.

  Before he touched it.

  Gabriel backed away from the door so rapidly that he nearly tripped over his own feet. He moved all the way to the other side of the bathroom, the small of his back mashed against the hard edge of the vanity.

  He stared at the half-open door. He tried to detect movement on the other side, a shifting shadow, anything. But he saw nothing.

  "Who's there?" he asked. His voice crackled.

  He heard only his shallow breaths, and his racing heartbeat. No intruder's footstep. He felt alone in the house, too.

  So how had the door opened?

  His hands, clenched in fists at his sides, began to tingle.

  He studied his fingers. They looked normal, but it felt as though cool sparks danced across his skin-the same curious sensation that had occurred last night.

  What was going on?

  As he contemplated the question, the tingling subsided.

  Gabriel wiped his hands on his pants and returned his attention to the doorway. He stepped forward and looked behind the door. There was no one there, of course.

  A breath of wind whispered inside the room and teased the curtains.

  "The wind did it," he said.

  But he didn't really believe it; it was a woefully inadequate theory, the equivalent of slapping a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. The wind could not have twisted the knob like a corporeal being and opened the door.

  That left him with only two possible explanations.

  The first: his house was haunted. He thought that was as likely as the theory that the world was flat. He was a man of reason and logic. He didn't believe in ghosts, hauntings, any of that superstitious nonsense.

  So that left him with the second, and far more disturbing and plausible, possibility: he had hallucinated the whole thing, which meant he was losing his mind.

  Chapter 7

  nn Tuesday, Isaiah performed reconnaissance. I

  JHe'd arrived in metro Atlanta late last night. After checking into a Days Inn located off 1-75 in Marietta, he was asleep within three minutes of hitting the mattress.

  Nightmares tormented him. Dreams of gunfire, death, and eternal darkness. Fearsome visions plagued his sleep every night, and though they visited him daily, they were no less terrifying. It was the price he paid for his history of violence; he'd suffered such dreams since he was a teenager.

  As he showered, he ignored the scar tissue on his chest. The mark of the bullet that had nearly stolen his life.

  Dressing in jeans, a black T-shirt, and Timberlands, Isaiah kept his attention on a photograph he'd placed on the nightstand: a snapshot of his mother and father, smiling as they dined at a Japanese restaurant in Chicago, so many years ago.

  It was the only keepsake he'd taken from Mama's house after she was murdered.

  Isaiah took the photo with him as he left the hotel. He kept the picture on his person at all times. To make sure that he always remembered his promise.

  No matter what ...

  He took 1-75 South into the heart of Atlanta. He wanted to take in the skyline of this so-called City Too Busy To Hate, this monument to the New South-and his new home.

  Skyscrapers jutted into the hazy morning sky like giant blunt knives, sunlight coruscating along their edges. Gigantic billboards flashed enticements for air travel, lotteries, and Braves games. Opiates for the masses.

  But at road level, highways 1-75 and 1-85 merged, creating an ugly traffic snarl. Drivers chatted on cell phones, weaving in and out of their correct lanes. Others cut off one another with impunity and switched lanes with reckless abandon, not bothering to use turn signals. A soccer mom in a Honda Odyssey swerved in front of Isaiah, nearly clipping his bumper, and when he tapped his horn to alert her of what she'd done, she shot her hand out the window and gave him the finger.

  Isaiah cursed under his breath. These people had lost their damn minds.

  He was thankful when he inched out of the clogged traffic and made it to the exit ramp for 1-20, which would take him to southwest Atlanta.

  Twenty minutes later he turned into the entrance of Reid Corporate Park.

  It was an impressive sight. Gently winding roads flanked with elms and dogwoods. Lush, manicured islands of grass. Walking trails curving around a gleaming lake and shady trees. The headquarters, located near the middle of the park, was a gray, two-story structure with lots of windows.

  The building looked exactly as it did in the pictures he'd examined for so long.

  Late-model cars filled the parking lot, as though everyone employed there was earning lots of money-or saddled with debt.

  Isaiah cruised along the front of the building. There was a row of three reserved parking slots at the front. Expensive foreign automobiles occupied the spots belonging to the CEO and CFO.

  Isaiah's gaze lingered on the black Mercedes sedan parked in the CEO's slot. The Georgia license tag read HNIC.

  Head Negro in Charge, huh? We'll see about that.

  The third parking slot, for the VP of operations, was vacant.

  Isaiah frowned.

  He parked in the far corner of the lot, dialed a number on his cell phone.

  A woman answered, "Good morning, Reid Construction. How may I direct your call?"

  "May I speak to Gabriel Reid, please?" Isaiah said, using his best Corporate America voice.

  "Mr. Reid is out of the office today. Would you like his voice mail?"

  "Oh, he is? Gosh, I'd wanted to chat with him about the proposal he submitted," he lied. "Do you know when he might return, ma'am?"

  "Tomorrow, hopefully," she said. "He had a car accident yesterday and he's home recovering."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. I hope he gets better soon"

  "What did you say your name was, sir?" the woman asked, no doubt realizing she had shared personal information with a complete stranger.

  "Pardon me? My cell's breaking up... ."

  As she repeated her question, Isaiah hung up.

  Gabriel Reid had gotten into a car wreck on his thirtieth birthday. What tough luck.

  But Isaiah would continue with his plan. It was time to make his next stop.

  Gabriel Reid's house.

  Gabriel Reid lived in a subdivision that oozed buppie money. Big brick houses and large, trimmed lawns. Driveways full of Cadillac Escalades, Benzes, Lexuses, and BMWs. He knew black folks lived in these cribs because the licenseplate frames boasted colleges such as Morehouse, Spelman, Florida A&M, Howard, and Tuskegee, and Greek organizations such as Alpha Phi Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and so on, ad nauseum.

  Isaiah curled his lip. Uppity-ass Negroes. Why did they have to advertise their educational backgrounds and Greek affiliations for the whole world to see? It proved that no matter how much money they made, they were still insecure.

  He cranked up the volume on his Alpine car stereo, to let these bougie folks know that someone outside their caste had invaded their precious real estate. The speakers pumped out an early song by Cypress Hill, "How I Could Just Kill a Man" An anthem to homicide and ghetto insanity.

  Nodding his head to the bass, he drove past Gabriel's house. His brick home was impressive for a man who lived alone and had just turned thirty.

  A blue Corvette convertible was parked in front of the garage. The Georgia plate read MYVETT, which seemed, to Isaiah, insufferably conceited. "My Vett " As if he'd earned it.

  As if he'd earned anything.

  Isaiah completed a pass of the house, busted a U-turn, and parked against the curb, a couple of residences down from Gabriel's house. Since Gabriel was apparently home, he would keep a safe distance.

  There would be plenty of time, later, for face-to-face conversation.

  He opened the duffel bag that lay on the seat beside him. He removed a pair of Bushnell high-powered binoculars. He focused them on the house.

  He spied Gabriel throug
h a window on the first level.

  The man was sweeping the floor. A bandage was wrapped around his head.

  Isaiah's hands shook.

  He had seen Gabriel before, in pictures, but viewing photos hadn't prepared him for the experience of seeing the guy in the flesh.

  He and Gabriel looked so much alike, it was almost as if he were viewing a film of himself.

  They had the same complexion, the identical lean, sixfoot-tall build. Similar facial features.

  He zoomed in for a closer look.

  On closer scrutiny, he noticed differences. Gabriel's face was pudgier than his, as if storing deposits of baby fat. Gabriel had a short fade haircut, too, and a goatee, while Isaiah was clean-shaven and his dome was completely bald.

  Isaiah wondered if they shared the same gray eyes. He couldn't be sure; the binoculars weren't powerful enough to allow him to discern eye color.

  Gabriel moved differently, too. His movements were slow, a bit lazy-the movements of a man lulled by a sedentary, privileged lifestyle. Isaiah moved with the quick, economical grace of a man who'd spent his entire life on the edge.

  As Isaiah watched, Gabriel set the broom against the wall and picked up a cordless phone. A grin spread across Gabriel's face. He rubbed his belly.

  It was the perfect tableau of a man gorging himself on the good life.

  "Spoiled motherfucker," Isaiah muttered.

  Grinning and laughing as he talked to someone on the phone-probably a woman--Gabriel shuffled out of sight, disappearing deeper into his luxurious house. He reappeared moments later in the living room. He sat on a sofa and propped his feet on an ottoman. He sipped a glass of iced tea. Still yapping on the phone.

  Isaiah had to restrain the urge to explode out of the car and rush to Gabriel's house.

  "Patience," he advised himself. "Patience"

  But patience wasn't his strong suit. He hated waiting, for anything. That was one of the reasons why he'd committed so many crimes back in the day. Why work a minimum-wage job and sock away pennies in hopes of purchasing a new television, when you could easily break in someone's house and just take the damn thing? When every day might be your last, you learned to take the things you wanted to satisfy your desires immediately-because tomorrow might never come.