Category Archives: Inheritance

Sorting out Carson’s legacy only leads to more questions.

Author’s Note: It was time for the two sides to meet. Or at least, time for Mackenna to meet the other Koslow boys.

A Minor Invasion

“I’m not sure I understand what’s going on here,” Mackenna said, shaking her head at the paperwork. Whatever his company was up to, she couldn’t make heads or tails of it. She didn’t know what she was going to do to help Myers—or what Carson could do, and he was the expert there. Right now, she was lost. She didn’t have any kind of plan. “Is this supposed to make sense?”

“It’s a bureaucracy, so no.”

She laughed. That made sense. He came over and picked up the file, taking it over to his chair, flipping through the pages. He muttered to himself as he did, and she didn’t think that his babbling was confined to his flashbacks or nightmares. Babbling was a part of him.

A loud rap on the door made them both jump, and he dropped his papers. She stiffened, not sure who they should have been expecting. She hadn’t wanted to drive back before they did something about this Myers thing, and now the day was almost gone—so gone that Mac would be angry with her for driving the Airstream at night. She had more or less accepted that she’d be on Carson’s loveseat for another night, though she didn’t know how he’d feel about it. Still, neither of them were expecting anyone.

Carson rose, frowning. “I… Maybe it’s just a neighbor. Or something. I don’t know. Just a second.”

She nodded, leaning over to grab the papers for him while he dealt with the door. She shifted them into a neat stack and put them on the coffee table. She looked up in time to see two men pushing past Carson into the apartment, and she stood, trying to figure out what to do.

“Oh,” the blond said, stopping when he saw her. “Carson didn’t say he wasn’t alone.”

“Like you gave me a chance, Nick,” Carson said, rolling his eyes. “Mackenna, my brothers. Nick and Larry. They decided to come check on me in person.”

“You haven’t answered your phone since you left Grandpa’s,” the one Carson called Larry said, giving his brother a dirty look. “First you leave when we all thought you were too sick to go, then you ignore us, and we finally came to your apartment to make sure you weren’t dead. So sue us. If you ever answered your phone, you’d know we were worried. You also never called when you drove back. If you don’t want people barging in on you, tell them you’re fine for a change. We’re not that nosy.”

Carson shook his head. “Sure you’re not. I don’t believe that for a second.”

She smiled, leaning back and watching the show for a moment. She knew that Carson didn’t trust his brothers, but it was still nice to see the brothers interacting, acting like a family. She kept expecting Larry to grab Carson and give him a noogie, and she didn’t know why.

“So, you’re the reason why Carson was acting so weird and dodging us, huh?” Nick asked as he sat down on the other end of the loveseat, making himself at home. “He’s probably told you a bunch of stories about his brothers and now you’re wishing you’d run since we showed up.”

She looked at him. “I don’t run. Your mouth does, clearly.”

“I like your girlfriend,” Larry said, clapping Carson on the back. “I like anyone who gives Nick crap, though.”

“He likes it better when they’re picking on Carson,” Nick said, giving Larry a shove. Carson glared at both of them.

“Okay, first of all, Mackenna’s not my girlfriend, and in the second, you already confirmed that I’m alive and well, so you can go before you humiliate me further. Just go. Thank you for checking, but get out. Now.”

“Ooh, ouch,” Nick said, turning toward her. “I suppose we just ruined his chances, huh? You’ll never date him now, right? Not after this.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what it is about people that immediately makes them jump to the conclusion that two people of the opposite sex must be dating just because they’re in the same spot. That is ridiculous.”

“Well, Carson never has girls in his apartment, so we were naturally a bit confused.”

“Wow, way to dig the hole deeper,” Carson said, taking hold of Larry’s arm. “Go. Please. Before you make things any worse. You already managed to insult both of us and look like jerks, so your work here is done, trust me.”

“No, no, we’re dragging you out to dinner first. Come on, Carson, when was the last time you ate?” Larry said, pushing his brother toward the door. He looked back over his shoulder. “You’re welcome to join us if you can put up with us, but it’s a rule—if we’re in town, we make our baby brother eat. He doesn’t take good enough care of himself.”

“Larry—”

“I’m thinking steak,” Nick said as he rose. “At least for me. Carrie went all vegetarian on me, and I would love some red meat. Carrie’s my wife, by the way. I’m married. Don’t worry. I won’t make a play for you since you’re not with Carson. Can’t say the same about Larry.”

“Hey—”

“Well, if she’s single…” Larry said, winking at her. Nick laughed as he reached for the door handle. Opening it, he and Larry pushed Carson out the door, leaving her shaking her head at all of them.

Author’s Note: Ice cream might help deductive reasoning. Might not, though.

Another Theory

“You’ve got some on your nose.”

Mackenna frowned. “How did I get ice cream on my nose and not notice? You’re just trying to mess with me, aren’t you?”

Carson shook his head, leaning over to wipe the bit off her nose as she turned red as her hair. He smiled at her before sitting back with his bowl, slurping up the remains of his ice cream. He wanted more, but he’d already had two bowls, and that was plenty, even if the doctor’s visit had been somewhat traumatic and more than a little unpleasant. He never wanted to have one of those conversations again. Yeah, so there’s a gap in my memory somewhere, and it’s possible that I was molested. Is there anyway to look and see if it did happen, or would there be any proof now? It would have been when I was a child, but I don’t know when…

He didn’t know how he’d managed to ask, and the doctor had been gentle and helpful as she explained what they would look for—most of the signs of former abuse were things that his shrink was supposed to be able to help him with, but Carson wasn’t so sure about that because if that were true, why’d he miss it the last time?

Maybe he needed a new shrink.

He didn’t want to go back to any shrinks. If he could just unlock his memories, maybe he’d have an answer and it wouldn’t be what he feared. “Do you think it could be traumatic enough if I just… saw my father kill himself? I mean, you sort of had that, so… you’d know better than anyone. Is that what I blocked out?”

Mackenna took a deep breath. “Look, I didn’t see what happened to my uncle. I was outside, and I may have heard the shot, but I don’t know for sure. All I know is when I went to ask him about dinner, he was… well, dead, and it damaged me plenty. I can’t handle those scents that I associate with him and I can’t go into Mac’s bedroom, either. Not that I want to, but if I need to wake him, it’s not easy for me to force myself into his room. I have a flash of him lying there in blood like my uncle, and usually I wake him by whimpering in the doorway instead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re trying to figure out what’s in your head. I don’t blame you for asking.”

“I know, but I shouldn’t have pushed. I keep picking at all your old wounds, and that’s not fair to you. You shouldn’t have to bleed again just to stop my pain.”

She shrugged, setting her bowl on the coffee table. “I have to say, if it was just your father’s suicide, that would be… oh, best case scenario, right? No one hurt you, no one killed him, but it damaged you good, and you’re still struggling with it.”

Carson rose, taking his bowl into the kitchen. “I don’t know that I believe it. You’re still functioning after what happened to your uncle. Why am I so pathetic that seeing my father do that breaks me? Shouldn’t I be able to move past it instead of holding onto it in nightmares like this?”

She followed him, stopping in the doorway. “Everyone’s different, and I told you—I didn’t see anything. You might have seen the whole thing. Maybe you got splattered by the blood, and that’s why you dreamed about blood on you that one time. Maybe he ranted for a while, terrified you with the gun, and that’s why you screamed ‘don’t,’ and then maybe he saw what he was doing and put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger. You could have been badly traumatized by that.”

He nodded, accepting her bowl from her. “There must have been two shots, though.”

“What?”

“The angle of the bullet that hit Phantom. It didn’t hit like it passed through someone, and I don’t remember him up against a car. I remember him on the floor of the barn. One missed, one hit him, and there’s no way it could have been suicide even if the bullet did go through him and into the car.”

She grimaced. “Yeah, I’m no expert, but I have to agree with you. I don’t suppose you know anyone in law enforcement or forensics, do you?”

“No.”

“Me, either.”

“Well, I did get the sheriff to do the cadaver dog thing—Grandpa did—but I wouldn’t say he’s a friend or that I could ask him about doing tests on the car or anything. I wish it had been suicide, but I’m pretty sure it’s not. Why didn’t I go to that first?”

She laughed. “That’s easy. You’re a worst case scenario thinker. So am I. If you prepare for the worst, what you get isn’t so bad, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So… where does Myers live and how can we help him beat the evil that is your company?”

“Um…” Carson knew he should be used to her changes of subject by now, but she still got him every once and a while. “I’m not sure. Let me grab the file. It’s somewhere around here…”

Author’s Note: I didn’t want to go into detail about Carson’s doctor’s visit. This seemed to be the better way to handle that.

The Cure Might Just Be Ice Cream

“How’d it go?” Mackenna asked, rising from her chair. She’d forgotten how much she hated waiting rooms. Doctor’s offices and hospitals were the worst—whether she was waiting to hear if her aunt had some new disease or dealing with her grandmother’s quick decline after her stroke—and she never wanted to sit in another one of those chairs again, never wanted to see any of those magazines, and she could use a shower from all the unpleasant memories.

“Bad.”

She frowned. “Bad? As in… you have a tumor bad or bad as in you fainted at the sight of blood or bad as in—”

“As in there’s no way to get in for a non-emergency scan for at least a week. They don’t do those for just any reason, and I’m not showing any symptoms of a possible tumor or any kind of neurological condition. I’d have to pay for it out of pocket because no one would recommend the procedure and get it past my medical insurance. Oh, and the other part… there’s apparently no way to be sure about that. Sometimes there’s scars, but if there isn’t, it’s not definitive proof that nothing happened. It’s just… closer to a no than a yes. Or I think that’s what it means.”

She stepped close to him, putting a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I know we were both hoping for a lot more here. Answers, solutions—at least one part of it could have been eliminated, right? That would have been… nice.”

He nodded, letting out a breath. “Um… I need another shower, so can you drive me back by my apartment before we head back to the farm? I just can’t… I’m not sure how I got those words out, but having that—she wants me to go back to my shrink.”

“That might not be such a bad idea.” Mackenna stopped. “Wait, your doctor is a woman?”

He shrugged. “It’s hard enough to talk myself into seeing a doctor on the best of days, and having some old guy doing the exam? No appeal there. Picked a lady that reminded me of my mom instead. Can almost fool myself into thinking it’s just her fussing, not something else.”

“It’s not, though.”

“Are you trying to read something in to the fact that my doctor’s a woman?”

“No. I’m—Honestly, I hope we find something that tells you that we were wrong about that part of the theory. Not that we won’t get you through it if we find that we’re right, it’s just…”

“I know.”

She nodded, not sure how else to help him, not at the moment. This was beyond her, and she didn’t know that she could do anything at this point. She let out a breath. “I want ice cream.”

“Trying to change the subject on me again?”

“Didn’t work this time, did it?”

“Not really. Except now I want ice cream, too, so… Why don’t you drop me off at my apartment, I’ll shower, and you can get us some from the store? The little shop on the other corner of the street should have plenty.”

“Only I have to go get it?”

“Well, I figured it would save a bit of time, unless you want to wait around for me to shower. Oh, no, you can’t do that. You might fall asleep again. Get another kink in your neck.”

She grimaced. “It’s not that bad. Your loveseat is surprisingly comfortable. Either that, or your sleeping bag is. I was out like a light, and that never happens.”

“You can have the sleeping bag if you want.”

“Okay.”

“That was easy.”

Shrugging, she nudged him forward, trying to get them both out of the waiting room. She didn’t mind going to pick up the ice cream, not really, and she would rather not wait around while he was in the shower, either. “Did you get the doctor’s note you need for work?”

“Yeah. I’m going to call the office later and see if I can arrange leave or if I’m quitting so that I can take that trip you wanted to go on. That’s… Tuesday, right?”

“We drive down on Tuesday. The pre-tours start on Wednesday, and the full hundred twenty mile tour is on Saturday. We’ll need most of the week, but I don’t want you to have to quit because of me—”

“I hate my job. If they won’t give me time off, then I’ll find a new one when I get back. Even if the trip is a long shot, I’ve been… I don’t think I can do this any longer, can’t go on without answers. I don’t know how to get them, but I can’t keep doing this. I’m… I’m not okay, and that’s obvious to everyone who knows me.”

“We’ll do our best to get you your answers, Carson. I promise.”

He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into a hug. She stared at him. Since when did they hug? Not that it was bad, but they didn’t do this. They barely touched. “Um…”

“Sorry. I just… I needed to thank you. For that promise. For everything.”

She smiled. “You’re welcome. Now let’s go get that ice cream.”

Author’s Note: I was going to write a role reversal bit with Mackenna being the one with the nightmares. It didn’t end up that way, but a part of why she is the way she is slipped out anyway.

Sensory Triggers

“I’m going to shower before I go to sleep. Just fair warning,” Carson said, not sure he wanted to look at Mackenna. Things had been awkward ever since she snapped at him in the car, and a part of him regretted ever bringing up the subject of their sleeping arrangements. He hadn’t meant anything by it. If they didn’t have the complication of being of the opposite sex, he would have suggested sharing, but they were, and it was different. They could ignore it most of the time, but they weren’t related, they weren’t dating, and he didn’t want her thinking that he was… after that. He needed her, needed her friendship and her guidance and the way she always pushed, and he didn’t want to lose that because of any kind of misunderstanding.

Of course, it almost felt like he’d lost it already because she’d been so cold on the walk over, and now that they were in his apartment, the tension was worse. He thought it best to separate for a while, and he did need a shower anyway. “Mackenna?”

“That’s fine.”

He wasn’t sure if that was distraction or fatigue he heard in her voice, but he didn’t like it much. “I’ll grab my sleeping bag out of the closet and bring it out to you.”

She nodded. He turned and went to grab it, wondering if they’d still be like this in the morning. He had to to back to get his car when he was finished at the doctor’s, and maybe then it would be better if he didn’t talk to her again. It wasn’t right, dumping his issues on a stranger, and no matter what she’d been through, she wasn’t obligated to help him.

He grabbed the bag out of the closet, taking it back to the front room. She’d take up a spot on the loveseat, staring out into space, and he set the bag down next to her, not getting any kind of reaction. He hesitated, not sure he should leave her like this. “You okay?”

“What?” Her eyes went to the bag, and she grimaced. “Wow. I’m more tired than I thought. I didn’t even hear you come back.”

“Are you sure you don’t want the bed? I should have an air mattress or something, but Larry’s got all our family’s camping gear, and camping was mostly about hunting, and I’ve never been much of a hunter.”

“Bad shot?”

“Worse. Animal lover.”

“Oh.”

“Mackenna, really, take the bed. I’ll be a while before I’m ready to sleep, and if you’re that tired, you can have it. You drove, and I kept you up last night. Fair is fair.”

“I’m fine.”

He knew she wasn’t, but he decided not to push this time. He didn’t need to set her off again, didn’t need to hurt her by forcing the issue. He didn’t like the feeling he got when he thought about her reaction to this, and he wanted to pretend he didn’t see it. “I didn’t offer it to you because I was hoping to trick you.”

“Is that what you think I—I don’t do men’s bedrooms because that’s where I found my uncle, okay? It’s not what you think.” She twisted her hands together. “I could still smell his aftershave, his deodorant, everything that made up his unique scent, you know, that one that someone has that lets you know that they’re there? My aunt shut that room up, and every time the door opened, that smell was still there. I don’t know if she went in there and sprayed or spilled that stuff just to be close to him or not, but you wear the same deodorant, and there is no way I’m walking into your bedroom, Carson. Don’t push me again.”

“I won’t. I’m sorry. I… I just couldn’t… couldn’t let you be scared of that with me.” He fidgeted. “I’m the surrogate brother, right? You should be able to feel… comfortable with me.”

“I am.”

“Okay. Good. So… I’m going to shower. I’ll check on you after I’m done, just before I turn in, all right?”

She smiled. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know. I want to.”

Author’s Note: It’s a different experience altogether, driving an old car, in so many ways. Of course, the scene took a turn on me, but that’s to be expected.

Driving History

“I feel like I should be somewhere else.”

“Oh?” Mackenna asked, looking across the car at Carson. Mac’s rule about the Airstream not being on the road after sunset was about to be broken, and the glare from the road made him more of a shadow than a person, at least for a moment. “You want to run away again?”

“No. I just… get what you mean about the other place and time bit. I feel like I should be wearing a suit and a fedora and preparing to take down gangsters.”

She laughed. “I almost thought you’d say something about Bonnie and Clyde, and I could have argued that they died two years before this baby was made. It’s a thirty-six, and they died in thirty-four. Of course, if I say that—”

“You show off just how much of a history geek you are?”

“Shut up.”

He grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes, fighting the urge to smile back. He got that reaction out of her far too much. She didn’t know what it was about him, and she didn’t care to find out. She didn’t think she’d like what it was. Loneliness, desperation, maybe, too much of a connection between his past and hers. She didn’t know. She didn’t want to dwell on it.

“It’s kind of interesting. You’ve let me see a whole side of history I didn’t even think about before. It’s nice. Different. It’s a past I’d rather think about—not like my own. It’s not like it was all happy or perfect, but it’s still something worth thinking about.”

She nodded. “I think that’s a part of why it appeals so much to me, too. It’s a way of looking for the good in what was, instead of always seeing the bad. These things are a part of my history, a part of my family and my legacy, and they’re the bits that are worth remembering and holding onto. Not the crap that happened, but the strength of what we are and what we’ve built and what we love…”

“Yeah.”

She smiled at him, knowing that he somehow got her, understood her in a way that most people didn’t, that most people wouldn’t. She’d kept them from doing it, and she should have kept him away, only she’d been weak and let him close.

“Something wrong?”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing. I just… started thinking about where we’re going to park this car for the night. I’m assuming you don’t have a garage or your car wouldn’t be the wreck that it is. Mac would kill me if anything happened to it, and so we have to find somewhere safe to stash it.”

“Um… Right. Do you consider a parking lot safe?”

“What kind of a lot are we talking about?”

“There’s a paid parking garage about two blocks, I think it is, from my apartment. We can park there and walk back, if that’s okay with you.”

“I don’t mind walking,” she said, shrugging. She wasn’t the sort that sat around all the time—more of the opposite, needing to keep busy. “The garage should be good enough, I hope. I hate to think of what he’d do to me if I ruined his first car.”

“This was his first car? I didn’t think Mac was that old.”

“I never said he got it new.”

“Oh.” Carson looked away, out the window. Silence held for a moment as he seemed fascinated by the scenery and then he started to fidget. She tried to ignore him and focus on the last part of the drive—they were almost to the exit—but he didn’t stop.

“What?”

“Uh… We didn’t discuss the other thing.”

“What other thing?”

“Sleeping arrangements,” he choked out, not looking at her. “I… only have one bed and a loveseat. It’s not a couch. It’s not big enough for that.”

“I don’t sleep much. It’s fine.”

He looked at her. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t you—”

“You have the doctor’s appointment. You can keep your bed.”

“Mackenna—”

“Don’t pull any more chauvinist crap on me. I don’t need the bed just because I’m the girl. I don’t need anything from you.”

“All right. Fine.” His eyes went back to the window, and she regretted her tone, but she didn’t want to be patronized. She didn’t need the bed, and she didn’t want to try and fight to some kind of “compromise.” She would survive the night. She knew that, and so did he. They didn’t need to discuss it further. “That’s the exit, there.”

“Right.”

Author’s Note: Because all the cars in Carson’s life are wrecks.

Transportation Issues

“I had forgotten about the other reason why you shouldn’t head home,” she said, giving his car a look, almost like it was something to be scraped off the bottom of her boots, and since Carson knew how she felt about cars, that said a lot. “You can’t drive that thing. I can’t let you. I know I said that before, but I’m saying it again. I’ll say it again and again as long as necessary.”

“I told you—I don’t have the money to repair it, and even if I did, I don’t think I’d want to. I think I’d rather put that kind of money into Phantom, not that thing.”

Mackenna smiled. “I don’t blame you for that, but we’re going to have to find something else you can use in the meantime. I’ve got tires coming for Phantom—those wheels are different from the ones on the other two, wooden spokes instead of metal ones, but we can probably get by with some of the spares for now—that should help in moving her around, at least a little, but we’re not going to have her up and running before the run. I can almost guarantee that. We don’t have the parts, and I haven’t started to look at the engine, which is where we’re bound to have the most trouble.”

He nodded. “I’m sure we will.”

“Did you make an appointment with your doctor?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow. They had a cancellation, and they offered me the spot. I will have to go back home tonight so I can make it since it’s first thing in the morning.”

“Oh.”

He almost teased her. She sounded so disappointed, almost pouting, but he knew he didn’t want to leave anymore than she wanted him to go. The whole thing got awkward then, and he fidgeted. “I bought a day or so from work because I told them I had a doctor’s appointment. They might actually believe I’m sick now. Not that I wasn’t that first day, but I’m not nauseous anymore, and Sanders has to know I’m avoiding what I’m supposed to do with Myers. He’ll assign it to someone else, and I’ll be out of a job.”

“Well, better that than stealing family legacies, right? That’s not what you signed up to do, it’s not what you want, and it’s not right. You know it, I know it, and you’re not going to do it.” Mackenna stepped closer to him, and he forced a smile for her. “Don’t argue. I’m right. You had no intention of going through with what they wanted you to do. You might have thought you’d go back and do it eventually, but you were lying to yourself. You couldn’t go through with it, and you ran from it.”

“That makes me sound like such a coward.”

“Well, I still think you should do what you can to block your company and help this guy Myers, but you’re the one with the degree and all that. You know what you can and can’t do.”

“The degree means nothing. You’re the smart one.”

She grinned, and he felt, again, like he should hug her, but he wouldn’t. She wasn’t upset this time; he wasn’t dealing with his past. They were fine. No hugs were needed; they were not necessary. He would not make a fool of himself doing it.

“So now that I’m stuck being the brains of our operation, I suppose I need to make our plan. We need a car to get you safely back to the city, and the ones around here… Well, they require special permission or a lot of work.”

“The truck, even?”

“That’s the one that needs a lot of work. Well, that one and Phantom. Let’s go see if Mac will loan us the Airstream.”

“Us?”

She gave him a smile that was more of a grimace. “Well, the thing is… While I may have adopted you, I don’t think Mac has, and no one but family gets to drive his cars.”

“I thought you offered to let me drive Shadow yesterday.”

“Well, it’s different when it’s under his supervision. Or mine. Hence the ‘us.’”

Author’s Note: Back to the same nightmare…

Never a Useful Nightmare

Mackenna pulled on her robe as she rose, going to the door and looking out at the hall. She didn’t know that she’d been sleeping, she didn’t manage more than a doze most of the time, but if she had, that disappeared the moment she heard Carson screaming in the other room. She heard Mac moving around in his room, and she winced. He should be sleeping. He was too old to be woken in the middle of the night. Carson was her guest. She’d take care of it. She crossed over into the other room, going toward the bed.

What was that the experts said? Don’t wake people in a nightmare or a fugue? Or was it always wake them? Which was best?

Carson’s screams had stopped, fading into whimpers and one repeated word. “Don’t…”

Oh, hell, she didn’t care what the experts said. Maybe waking him was wrong, but maybe it would mean that he’d be able to remember something more for a change. Maybe it would just make her feel better because there was no way she could watch him like that.

She knelt next to the bed and gave him as gentle a shove as she dared, not wanting to startle him and hurt him, but she also wasn’t going to waste time getting him out of that nightmare. She couldn’t stand to see him like that, couldn’t take knowing that he was suffering, even if all of that happened years ago.

That didn’t make the pain fade in far too many cases.

“Carson. Hey, come on, now, you need to wake up,” she said, shaking him, trying to bring him around. After a moment, his eyes opened, and he blinked before shuddering and closing his eyes again.

“I woke the whole house again.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

“That makes it so much better,” he said, rolling over. He pushed himself up to a seat, legs tangled in the blankets. He grimaced, trying to free himself. “Damn it.”

“It’s okay. Mac’s gotten used to this sort of thing. I used to do to him every night. Trust me,” she said, sitting down next to Carson. She gave him a smile, but he didn’t return it. “Did you… remember anything this time?”

“No. It’s always gone when I wake up,” he said, kicking off the sheets. “Why? Did I say anything that could help? Or was it just babble again?”

“Screams, whimpers, and ‘don’t.’”

“That could be anything,” he said, sighing. She nodded, unable to disagree. “Could be me begging the killer not to hurt my father, could be me begging my father not to do something to me… It’s too vague. Why can’t I ever get something useful from the nightmares? It’s not too much to ask, is it?”

“Nightmares are only useful when they show you what you fear. You overcome that fear, and then maybe you can say the dream helped. Most of the time, they don’t,” Mac said. He gave Carson a long look, appraising him, and then turned, leaving the room without further comment.

Carson groaned, putting a hand to his head. “I don’t get it. I mean, I just… don’t. It’s not like we haven’t found the worst case scenario, right? My father molested me, and I killed him. So I accept that, and my mind can stop hiding it from me. I know what happened, I don’t need to keep it locked up anymore.”

“You still don’t know that is what happened. You don’t know that either of those things happened. Maybe the reason you’re afraid of it is that you don’t want to face the person who did kill him. Maybe you trusted that person too much.”

“I’ve been wondering if Grandpa did it for years. It’s always been my first assumption, and he’s the one I trusted the most. I don’t know, Mackenna. I’m so frustrated with myself, with my inability to look at what happened and see what it was. I keep saying I want to know, but I must not want to because I refuse to let myself do it.”

“Did you ever get checked out by a doctor?”

“What?”

“Maybe the trauma’s not just emotional or mental. Maybe you were hit on the head or something. You have a problem with your memory from then because something got damaged when you were hurt. Did anyone ever look into that? Did they scan your brain or just put you on drugs and assume you were crazy?”

“I don’t think anyone did, no. I don’t remember any scary machines doing brain scans.”

She touched his hand. “That’s another thing to look into, then. Just have them see if you have any old scars that might relate to when that happened that could be physically impairing your memory. You don’t have any unexplained scars around your head, do you?”

“Only scar I’ve got on my head is right here, and that’s from when Nick hit me in the head with a shovel. It was an accident, but I had to get stitches. It’s not some random mark I’ve never known about or had an explanation for. I remember when it happened.”

“Okay. I could be wrong. I’m just throwing out ideas.”

“I know. I’m grateful, really, I am. I know I keep saying this, but… I need you. I don’t have anyone else. If I knew when it happened, maybe I could go back to trusting my brothers, but right now… I don’t know how to trust them. To trust anyone in my family.”

“Yeah.”

“You trust Mac, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s good you have him.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged, not wanting to go anywhere near her past. “So… since we’re awake, more cards? If, of course, you can stop accusing the winner of cheating. Just because they’re winning doesn’t mean they’re cheating.”

Carson rolled his eyes. “You only say that because you always win.”

Author’s Note: Not every moment is tense and full of mystery, I guess.

Guess Who’s Staying for Dinner?

“Are you planning on driving back to the city tonight?” Mackenna asked, watching Carson’s face, more bothered by her question than she cared to admit. She didn’t know why it mattered. She could still call him if he left, and he did have a day job. His business wasn’t like hers. She got a project like his and worked on it until it was done, no clock to punch, and while Carson still said he didn’t know how to pay for it, she wanted to make Phantom run again.

She felt her grandfather’s eyes on her, and she wondered if he’d ask her, if he assumed that fixing the car was her way of fixing Carson, too. She didn’t think anyone could do that. He needed his memories to do that, and he didn’t seem able to unlock them, even with their discussions on the worst case scenarios. He still couldn’t seem to face what he’d seen or done back then.

She hoped there were answers at the run, that someone might recognize Phantom, but she had no way of knowing. She’d like to get a few things first—replacing the tires was essential, making the car mobile again, even if the engine didn’t work—and if Mac could weld the other half of the hood, that would be great, too. He might even have a spare one out rusting in his scrap heap.

“I… I should, but I don’t want to. I hate the idea of facing Myers and telling him what the company decided. I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t know how to stop it, either.”

“Don’t you know how to bypass the bureaucracy? Can’t you set him on the right track?”

“It’s not the bureaucracy. At this point, it’s going to the courts, and the courts almost always rule in favor of the people my company represents, not guys like Myers. I’m not a lawyer, I don’t know how to manipulate that to help anyone.”

“Too bad you don’t have real sharks, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Dinner,” Mac said, and she smiled, nodding to him as he headed up to the house. She turned back to Carson, putting her hands in her pockets and fidgeting.

“I have to cook.”

“So go cook.”

“Are you staying or going? You didn’t answer that yet. I need to know. It’s important. I need to know if I’m feeding you or just me and Mac. I don’t have to make as much if it’s just the two of us, so… you know… an answer would be nice.”

“I’ll stay. Maybe if we play cards with Mac, you won’t be able to cheat as much.”

She snorted. “Are you kidding? You’re the one that cheated. You kept winning and then getting all upset when I had a good round or two. Jerk.”

Carson rolled his eyes, and she grabbed him by the hand. “Come on. You can help me cook. Or you can just keep me company while I do. I don’t care. Either way is fine by me. I don’t know that I could teach you much of anything, but you said no one in your family cooked, so maybe you might learn something, break your bad habits with tv dinners or something.”

“Hey, some of them can be very nutritious,” he said. She gave him a look, and he laughed. “Okay, so what I actually do is have all my meals delivered by one of those weight loss programs. Maybe it’s not the greatest food ever, and you’re supposed to add stuff to it, but I never do. At least that way I get a balanced sort of meal versus something that is so processed that it can’t possibly be good for me or anyone, for that matter.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. I’m one of their success stories. Just look at the website.”

Mackenna shook her head, unable to help the laughter. He was terrible sometimes. “I thought you didn’t eat that much.”

“I don’t.”

“You are such a mess.”

“I know. We both are.”

Author’s Note: I owe what Mac says to my grandfather. He said it first, once, when we were driving in the 1908 Maxwell.

A Pleasant Yet Awkward Drive

“Natural air conditioning.”

Carson leaned forward, not sure he’d heard the old man right. “What?”

“There’s no top,” Mackenna explained, translating for her grandfather. “Natural air conditioning.”

“Oh,” Carson said, feeling foolish. He was far out if his element here, lost and confused, and he knew that it amused Mackenna to watch him stumble about like he did. He didn’t mind that so much. He felt better here, a part of something, which was different. He’d been an outsider in his own family for so long, the crazy one, and he didn’t know how he could feel like he fit with a taciturn old man and a mechanic who liked to tease him, but he almost thought he did somehow.

“Isn’t this great? I would do this every day if I had time,” she said, leaning over the back of the chair. I can’t wait to drag you on all the stuff for the run. We’ll take Shadow around the lake, have root beer floats…”

“You really get into that, don’t you?”

“These cars have history. They have stories. They’re not just collector’s items—they are, but they’re so much more than that, too. They were someone’s first drive, someone’s cross-country trip. They moved families around, they were all they had to their names, they were someone’s treasure, someone’s inheritance…” She shook her head, still smiling. “I don’t know. In some ways, they’re a gateway to another time and place, only you don’t have to leave where you are.”

“You are such a geek. One would never know it to look at you, but you are.”

“Hey! I object to that. Who is calling who a geek now, Mr. Funny Socks?”

“Might be kettle and pot situation, I admit, but you so are. You’re a complete car geek. You’re not just about the fixing of them. You’re all about the stories and the history—”

“People who like cars are collectors or enthusiasts. Not geeks.”

“Please. Geek is like a catch-all phrase now.”

“I will show you a catch-all, buddy.” Carson knew that she would have, if she hadn’t stopped when she heard her grandfather’s voice.

“Mackenna.”

She slumped down in her seat, pouting. Carson smiled, thinking she was right. He could have used a sister like her growing up. She’d never treated him like he was going to break. She backed off when she thought she needed to, pushed when she could, and she kept him going, kept him searching and trying to explain things rather than acting like the explanation would break him, no matter what it was.

She understood, he supposed, because a part of her was broken, just like he was broken in his way, and his brothers seemed to have avoided that. He didn’t know why or how, but they had. Nick and Larry were immune to whatever had happened, and Carson didn’t understand that any more than he did the rest of the murder.

“You’re quiet back there.”

He leaned forward again, putting his hands on the back of her seat, next to hers. “I don’t really know what to say right now. It was fun teasing you until we got in trouble. Then I started thinking, and my mind went where it always goes…”

“Yeah.” She tapped his hand. “You want to learn to drive this one? It’s not the same as any stick shift you might have tried in the past.”

“It isn’t?”

“Not quite.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t. I’d be afraid of breaking it. I don’t want to crash this thing and ruin everything. It means too much to you and to Mac and…” Carson sighed. “I suppose that sounds all cowardly, huh? I just… can’t destroy something that important.”

She nodded. “I understand. I won’t force you. It took me years to work up to driving them, and I still get nervous about it. I have a hard time stopping every now and again. Don’t feel bad. I’m sure if we get Phantom going for you, you’ll feel like driving her all the time. She’ll be yours.”

“Won’t that bother you? Letting her go after putting all that work into her?”

“Well, you’re not going to stop being my friend and surrogate brother as soon as I fix your car, are you?” She frowned. “Or should I ask if you’d stop talking to me if you figured out who killed your father and why? Would you do that? Just… stop?”

He shook his head. “I can’t think of any reason why I would.”

“Then we’ll still talk, and you’ll bring her by, and it’ll be like seeing a distant relative, I guess. You can still love something—someone—you don’t see every day.”

“True.”

She gave his hand a pat and turned around to face the front again. He sat back, feeling even more awkward than before. It wasn’t like he had any plans to stop talking to her for any reason, he wasn’t lying about that, but now that the subject had been raised, the whole thing left him with an unpleasant taste in his mouth, like his stomach was going to turn on him again, and he tried to hold that back. He wasn’t leaving today—he’d have to go to work sometime—and he could still call her when he was back in the city, like he had before, so why did it matter so much all of a sudden?

He didn’t know that he wanted to know.

Author’s Note: I have a bunch of links today. I made a reference guide with a few pictures.

I put the song in Kabobbles Sing Along.

I think the rest speaks for itself. 🙂

In Comparison

“Here,” Mackenna said, pushing the door open the last little bit and stepping back to gaze on the two beauties hidden behind it. She couldn’t help smiling. Seeing the antiques always made her happy, though she didn’t know why. Maybe it was because this was where she’d first met Mac, out here tinkering, and those two grills had seemed kind of spooky looming out of the garage the first time, but then when she realized what they were and Mac had her working on them, she’d found something she hadn’t had since her uncle died. Peace.

Rebuilding Scarlet’s transmission had put a lot of her back together, and she’d always be grateful for that. She’d never let that car go, even if the other one was her favorite. Shadow had been in her family since the beginning, more of a member of it than she was, but somehow it let her feel like a part of the family, its second seat making it possible for her to go on the antique car runs with her grandparents and share those memories.

She shook her head. Since when was she nostalgic? She wasn’t.

“So. Two Maxwells. What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Carson said, walking toward Shadow with a bit of awe in his voice as he did. “So… this is what Phantom would look like if it was in better shape?”

“Well, Shadow is unrestored, yes, but this one’s a HC touring car. Phantom’s a messenger. Mac said I told you wrong about the year, and I should have known better. It’s more similar to the runabout, more like Scarlet over there.”

“Oh. That threw me off. Phantom has doors.”

She nodded. “Yeah. It’s a bit different from a runabout, seems to be a bit rarer from what I’ve seen, I’m not an expert on them. Mac is. He shook his head at me saying 1909. Said it had to be a ’12 and I should have known that.”

“Why?”

“The doors.”

Carson shook his head. “I wouldn’t have known, either. I didn’t even known Maxwell was a car company before I opened up that door and saw Phantom sitting there. I don’t know what to think of any of it. These things… well out of my reach, I guess, other than the one I somehow inherited.”

She couldn’t help a smile. Educating him about the cars might just be fun. “I’m going to enjoy this. Have you ever heard of the mother-in-law seat?”

“What?”

She laughed. “I’ve always gotten a kick out of that. Remind me to show you that song, too. And her mother came, too… Okay, I can’t sing, but I’ll dig it out. I heard it on a movie, and ever since, it’s been connected for me. They also call it a rumble seat or a dickey seat—that’s a British term—but the idea’s the same. It’s just an extra seat, unprotected. Probably originally intended for servants, but not necessarily. I haven’t done all the research into them. I just get a kick out of calling it a mother-in-law chair, especially after the song.”

Carson managed a smile. “All right. So it’s just an extra seat.”

“It could have been a tool rack, but yeah, you could put a chair there. Drag the mother-in-law along behind you.”

He shook his head. “I guess that might be tempting if you didn’t like her much. Not that anyone would have to worry about it with me. Or with you. No mothers left, right?”

“Exactly.” She didn’t know why they both grinned when he said that, like it was a good thing that both of their mothers were dead. It wasn’t. Not really. She forced her eyes back to the car. “So. Now that you’ve gotten a better look at these babies, what do you think?”

“Do they actually… run?”

“You bet your ass they do.”

“Mackenna.”

She looked behind her, wincing. “Sorry, Mac. I just… I’m defensive when it comes to my babies. They’re the only children I plan on having, which is kind of screwy when you think about them being over a hundred years old each.”

“Very disturbing,” Carson said, a frown on his face. She reached over to ruffle his hair just for the hell of it and flipped back the latch on Shadow’s hood. He needed to see what it was like to drive in the cars, and since Mac was out, they needed the touring car with its back seat. She was not making Carson sit on the toolbox. “Where are the keys?”

“No keys, not back then.”

“Couldn’t someone have… stolen it then?”

Mac lifted the magneto switch out of his pocket. “Not likely without this, and just because they might have got it started didn’t mean they knew how to drive it. It’s not like them fancy ones today. No getting behind the wheel and letting it do all the work.”

“Come here,” she told Carson, letting her grandfather start the oil drip. “Normally, they’re be more prep to this, since the car would have sat for a while, but we took her out last week. Swap meet with the Horseless Carriage Club.”

“There’s a club?”

“There’s a lot of clubs. You don’t have to own a car to be a member, but some of them have fees, so you’d have to keep that in mind.” She pulled him over. “You ever started a car using a crank?”

“No.”

“Be careful. It might kick you.”

“What?”

“Push the handle in, hold it there. No, don’t let it out,” she said, trying to show him how to do it. “You have to keep that part held in as you turn. Go clockwise, and yank it up. Start down, pull up. No, let go there. If you push back that way, it’ll break your arm if it kicks.”

“This is a lot harder than it looks.”

She laughed. “It takes some getting used to. They used to cheer for me when I managed it. Especially since I seem to lose all credibility the minute I’m out in that crowd. Girls don’t know cars, can’t possibly drive one of these…”

Mac grunted. “She can. Should see her on a run. Does it all in a dress.”

Carson looked at her. “You wear dresses?”

“Only once a year. I get into the costuming. It’s fun.” She couldn’t help being amused by the look Carson gave her. “Yeah, I do. It’s just a lark, but I like proving them all wrong. Women weren’t sissies, not even back then. You know four women drove across the US in 1909? A woman named Alice Ramsey was behind the wheel all that way. She did her own repairs, even wrote a book about it.”

“Wow.”

“You know what? We should go. All of us. To the run. One of Mac’s favorites is coming up, and we always go, even though he threatens to quit going each year.” Both of the men were looking at her now, and she shook her head. She wasn’t crazy—even if the idea of getting Carson in anything close to vintage clothes was probably impossible. “It’s a great idea. We borrow an extra trailer, take Phantom along, and then we show her off.”

Carson frowned. “In her state? She’s a mess.”

“Yeah, but the people involved in the run have done it for years in many cases. Some might be new, but it’s not exactly a club that everyone joins. A lot of people don’t get this sort of thing, and some of them don’t have the money for it. They might recognize Phantom on sight and know who sold it to your grandfather and when.”

“I don’t know.”

“Other than trying to find out who in your family owns a handgun—which might not tell you anything even if they did depending on where they keep it; anyone could have removed it and killed your father and then put it back or they got rid of it years ago—the car is the only lead you have. Even just the right year could help you start unlocking all that stuff in your head.”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I bet you’d look good in costume.”

“Shut up.”

“Mac has a spare duster, and you could just wear it. You wouldn’t even have to give up your socks. No one would know.”

“Stop it.”

“Say you’re going, and I’ll stop teasing you about it.”

“Fine. Fine. I’ll go. Okay. Happy now?”

She gave him a smug smile, enjoying her victory. One thing she liked about Carson—he was a lot f fun to tease. He made a good surrogate brother, didn’t he? She was fine with one of them. She didn’t need anything else, but she could use a friend. Everyone could, and other than Mac, she hadn’t had one of those in a long time.