The Comeback Kiss (11 page)

Finn scoffed. “
Before or after I set the place on fire?”
Joe shot him a look. Finn decided to let it go. “
Nothing but smoke and screaming birds,”
he said. He took a sip of his Pepsi and added casually, “
Speaking of which, who
’
d y
ou stick the macaw with?”

“
Seems a little weird,”
Joe said. “
In the last ten years, we
’
ve had exactly two suspicious fires. One on the night you left, and now one on the day you come back.”

Finn
’
s trouble radar went off. “
The night I left?”

Joe paused, his
beer halfway to his mouth, an expression of slight surprise on his face.

“
Yeah,”
Joe said slowly. “
Karen Scuderi
’
s craft shop.”
Finn took a moment to absorb the information. Karen Scuderi. Tessa
’
s mom. Holy shit, he pitied the person who set that fire. If
there was one person you didn
’
t want to piss off, it was Karen Scuderi. Sweetest woman in the world until you did something to make her mad
—
like, for instance, getting caught backstage at the school play with her daughter
—
then, watch out. He still had a
s
car on his right shoulder where the two-by-four had landed.

“
Wow,”
Finn said. “
Karen must have been pissed. What happened?”

Joe eyed him for a moment, then looked back at the pool game.

“
She died in a car accident that night. There was some evidence she
’
d
been running from the fire. Soot on her clothes and whatnot. The theory is that she was disoriented from smoke inhalation. She wrapped her car around a tree.”

“
Oh.”
Tessa
’
s mom. God. Finn blinked and stared blankly at the dartboard across the bar. “
Wow.”

S
o that
’
s why Tessa was still there, still working at Max
’
s. She
’
d been raising Izzy by herself. Doing everything, by herself.

“
So,”
Joe said after a minute, “
you didn
’
t know?”

“
Huh?”
Finn said, his mind still on Tessa. He looked at his brother, shook his
head. “
No.”

“
Seems weird. You knew about Father Gregory
’
s hearing aid, but not about Tessa
’
s mom.”

Father Gregory
’
s hearing aid?
Finn shrugged and kept quiet. The best way to ruin a perfectly good lie was to talk about it. Letting people draw their own con
clusions was pretty much the only way to fly.

“
Kind of a strange coincidence, though, don
’
t you think?”

“
What?”
Finn said, trying to connect the dots between Tessa
’
s mom and the father
’
s hearing.

Joe watched him for a moment. “
The fires.”

Finn tightened hi
s grip on his glass. “
You got something to say, Joe, come out and say it.”

Joe said nothing, just stared at Finn. Finn felt angry heat crawling up the back of his neck.

“
What the hell, man? You think
I
set those fires?”

Joe shrugged. “
I
’
d like to think not
.”

“
Then here
’
s a tip: think not.”
Finn took a moment to tamp his anger down. “
You know you
’
re not required to assume the worst about me all the time, right?”

Joe let out a sharp laugh. “
Assuming the worst is how I found you here tonight.”

“
Really?”
Finn s
aid. “
And here I thought it was our tight brotherly bond.”

Joe raised one eyebrow at Finn. “
You gonna tell me you didn
’
t come in here to hustle pool?”

“
So what? Is that a crime?”
Finn let out an indignant huff, then regrouped as he realized that, yes, tech
nically, it was a crime. This only heightened his desire to haul off and hit his brother. Instead, he leaned closer and met Joe
’
s eyes dead-on.

“
Look, I didn
’
t start either of those fires. I
’
m into petty thievery, general lying, and bad spy movies. I don
’
t
set fires and I don
’
t kill people, especially not the mother of the girl I
—”

Finn let that sentence drop and leaned back. He and Tessa were a long time ago, and this wasn
’
t about her anyway. It was about him, two suspicious fires, and one self-righteous b
rother.

“
In that case,”
Joe said, “
it might be in your best interests if you didn
’
t leave town.”

Finn watched his brother, incredulous. “
So, what? You
’
re telling me I
’
m an arson suspect now?”

Joe shrugged. “
The fire at Karen
’
s was ruled an accident, and as
far as I know, they don
’
t have any reason to suspect anything nefarious at Vickie
’
s shop. Yet.”

Finn relaxed. “
Did you just actually use the word
‘
nefarious
’
in casual conversation?”

Joe ignored him. “
If you leave as suddenly as you showed up, you
’
re gonn
a look guilty.”

“
Did you remember it from the SATs or do you have one of those Word-of-the-Day calendars?”

“
If you
’
ve got nothing to hide, you might as well stay a couple of days.”

Finn could tell by the irritated look on Joe
’
s face that his brother was cl
early giving the advice to do the Right Thing, not because he particularly wanted Finn
’
s company.

Joe eyed his brother. “
If you had nothing to do with the fires, then it shouldn
’
t be a problem for you.”

They stared each other down for a moment. Finn smiled
. “
It
’
s the Word-of-the-Day calendar, isn
’
t it?”

Joe took a sip of his beer, then said, “
So, you came all the way back here after ten years just to return a thirty- year-old car?”

“
Rumor has it.”

“
Okay.”
Joe seemed to relax a bit. “
Glad we had this little
talk.”

Finn watched Joe for a minute. His brother
’
s dark eyes never wavered from the pool table in the corner of the room. There wasn
’
t a hint of a smile, or a hint that there was any enjoyment in his life at all.

With the possible exception of seeing his
no-good brother end up in the clink for arson. But even as the thought occurred to him, Finn knew Joe was too good- hearted to truly enjoy something like that.

Which made Finn dislike him all the more.

“
So,”
Finn said, turning his attention back to the poo
l game, “
for a geometry teacher, Mr. Dale kinda sucks at pool, don
’
t you think?”

Joe downed some more of his beer. “
Car accident. Glass eye. Throws off the depth perception.”

“
No shit,”
Finn said.

Without so much as a flicker of a smile to acknowledge the
lightening of the moment, Joe gave a small nod. “
No shit.”

Chapter Six

Tessa sat in her living room, flipping through the channels on the television. There was a great documentary on about the Templars, but it couldn
’
t hold her attention. She hit the bu
tton and got an episode of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Took her a full minute to get restless again. She hit the clicker to see a romance author painting her furniture on a craft show. The woman had even painted her television in a blue checkerboard pattern.

Tessa smiled. Mom would have loved that.

She flicked the TV off and sat for a moment in the dark of her living room. Illumination drizzled in from the streetlights outside, giving her just enough light to meditate on the extreme blandness of the room. The
sofa she sat on was beige. The walls white. The floors wood. The occasional throw rug cream-colored. It was like living in a large vat of vanilla ice cream.

It hadn
’
t been like that when her mother was alive. Karen Scuderi had been all about the kitsch; t
he place had been littered with crafty items. Sweeping matron dolls on shelves in the kitchen, ceramic cats on top of the upright piano, school art projects displayed throughout the house. It had been her mother
’
s paints that Tessa had borrowed to cover t
h
e Thing with flowers. They might not have had a lot of money, but one thing about the Scuderi women
—
they were colorful.

After the state had taken Izzy away, though, the kitsch and the color had been too much. Tessa had spent an entire weekend packing up ev
erything of her mother
’
s, even little art projects she and Izzy had done, and shut it all up in the attic. It had never occurred to Tessa that her home and her life were one big blah; she
’
d been too busy getting a job, proving herself a responsible adult,
and covering up any evidence to the contrary. Then, once she got Izzy back, she had neither the time nor the inclination to brighten things up, to get back to the person she used to be. She hadn
’
t even thought about the fact that she hadn
’
t painted a sing
l
e daisy in ten years.

Mom would have hated that.

Still, deep inside, Tessa knew it wasn
’
t the lack of daisies in her life that was eating at her. At the diner she
’
d been able to distract herself with work, but since coming home, she
’
d been unable to outrun
the tension she was feeling. She
’
d cooked dinner. Cleaned. Tried to read some magazines. Nothing had worked. Nothing could get Finn
’
s face, the feel of his hands on her body, out of her mind. And it seemed the harder she tried to push him away, the more
s
tubbornly he held on.

“
One good kiss,”
she said out loud. “
That
’
s all it was. One good kiss. I
’
ve had plenty of good kisses in my life.”

Of course, that wasn
’
t exactly true. She
’
d dated a bit over the years, but none of the men had given her the zing that
Finn did. Not even Joe, who had proved to Tessa once and for all that
looks good on paper
is not a reason to date someone. It certainly wasn
’
t Joe
’
s fault; he had been great. He
’
d paid attention to her. He
’
d brought her flowers. He wasn
’
t too needy, nor wa
s he too standoffish. He was good-looking, honorable, trustworthy. He was perfect, actually, the only problem being that there
’
d been no
zing.
Not like there was with Finn.

Of course, looking at it from another angle, Joe had never stolen her car. Big bonu
s points for Joe. And if it had been any other guy, she might have let it go on. But Joe was so
good.
He deserved two-sided
zing.