The Mermaid Collector Read Online Free PDF Page A

clarified sharply. “He didn’t know anything about us.”
    “Of course not,” Buzz said quietly with regret. “I didn’t mean it that way. Hell, don’t pay any attention to me, son. I say all the wrong things all the time. My sister, Joan, used to say that I was like a garbage disposal in reverse, that I spit all the crap back out. Frank always thought that was funny. He used to try to mend things between me andJoannie. Didn’t do much good. She and I never really saw eye to eye. Fought like cats and dogs from the time we were kids. You close to your brother, Tom?”
    A loaded question if ever there was one, Tom thought, musing on his answer as he glanced to the window. “I try to be,” he said.
    Had
to be, was more like it. Not a day went by that Tom didn’t wish his younger brother could have been outfitted with one of those bracelets they put on criminals to monitor their whereabouts. What Tom wouldn’t have given for such a device over the years when Dean would disappear for weeks at a time on one of his drinking binges, leaving Tom to scour the city for his whereabouts, only to have his younger brother, strung out and delirious, resurface without warning, promising not to vanish again.
    “Frank said you’re a teacher. High school.”
    “That’s right,” said Tom.
    “Think you might try to find something around here?”
    “That’s my intention, yes.”
    “Wish you luck. It’s been a bad few years. Cutbacks and all that. Might have to travel to find something.”
    “I’ll do what I have to do.”
    When they were back outside, Tom tugged his cell phone out of his pocket, frowning down at the small screen.
    “It’s real hit-or-miss with those things around here,” Buzz said. “And you might as well use it for a paperweight when you get down to the Point. You’d probably have more luck with a pair of cups and a string.”
    Tess emerged from the woodshop just then. Tom watched her cross the driveway, watched her skip up her steps, locking eyes with him for a deliberate moment before she slipped inside her cottage.
    “Doesn’t she make you nervous doing that?” Tom asked, staring at the watermelon door she’d closed behind her, a dried wreath tacked to it now crooked.
    “Doing what?”
    “Using those sharp tools without proper shoes. She could really hurt herself.”
    Buzz sighed. “It’s not her toes I worry about,” he said. “For the record, she doesn’t know about you and your brother. I didn’t see the point. You’re here now, and I’ll leave all that up to you. Who you want knowing, who you don’t.”
    “My brother doesn’t know,” Tom said, “and I want it to stay that way.”
    “He doesn’t know what? About me?”
    “About any of it,” Tom said evenly. “Dean doesn’t know who Frank is, who he
was
. To
us
. My brother hates any kind of charity. He sees it as pity. He wouldn’t have understood why I took the money at all, let alone as long as I did.”
    Buzz frowned. “This is a small place, son. If you didn’t want him knowing, then maybe you should have stayed where you were.”
    “That wasn’t possible. My brother has a hard time saying no to things that aren’t good for him.” Tom glanced around. “I’m hoping he could learn how to in a place like this.”
    “Frank said he struggles with alcohol.”
    “Frank had no idea what my brother struggles with. No idea whatsoever.”
    Tom began back to his car. Buzz followed.
    “Now, you sure you don’t want me to go down there with you?” Buzz asked. “CMP got your power on, but old houses can be finicky. Some are tough to warm up to. Old pipes, old wires. You never know what kind of dust you’ll kick up when you flick a switch. It’s been a while since anyone’s really lived in that house, you know.”
    “Thank you, but I’ll be fine, Mr. Patterson.”
    “Oh Jesus, call me Buzz. Everybody does.”
    Tom tugged open the driver’s door and climbed in, yanked his seat belt across his chest, and snapped