Damn. It was like he hadn’t left. It was like he’d never done all the shit he’d done. Never walked into Hell on Wheels and…fuck. He didn’t want to think about that. He set his coffee down and opened the right drawer. It was where he kept his notebooks, but that wasn’t what he saw when he opened it.
Comic books. A big stack of comic books lay at the bottom of the drawer. Superman and X-Men and Fables and Spider-Man.
He’d loved those books. He’d spent hours reading them.
He’d been an idiot then. His whole childhood flashed before him. He’d spent all his time dreaming about being some freaking superhero, and all he’d gotten out of it was the final realization that he was nothing.
He slammed the drawer shut.
Maybe certain things hadn’t changed around Bliss, but other things had. He had. He’d changed irrevocably and there was not a damn thing anyone could do about it.
He turned away and started toward the room he’d lost his innocence in. Nate’s office. His personal version of hell.
Fuck, he hated everything.
Seth loved everything about Bliss. This was paradise, his true home.
Manhattan might have been good to him, but Bliss was paradise. Of course, even paradise had its issues.
“Seth.” Henry Flanders held out his hand and Seth shook it, holding it probably two seconds longer than necessary because he’d missed Henry.
“Henry.” Seth forced himself to let go. He’d only been back in Bliss once since the time he’d met John Bishop, aka Henry Flanders, but they had kept in touch. It had been awkward at first, but then they’d settled into talking once a month, their long conversations filling something deep inside him.
“What’s wrong with you, son? Get up here and give me a hug.” Henry held his arms open.
Seth practically jumped up and hugged the man he considered a father figure. “It’s good to see you, man.”
“It’s been a long time. I was starting to think you wouldn’t come home again.”
He stepped back, sliding into the booth as Henry took the place across from him. Henry’s hair was longer than it had been five years before. When Seth had first met Henry, he’d had a short, very neat cut, and his clothes had been straight out of Professor Retail. He’d been a little uptight, but the man who sat in front of him now was relaxed, his brown hair brushing his earlobes. His clothes were fairly loose and laid back. Seth would bet they were all organic cotton.
A waitress stepped up, winking Seth’s way. She took their orders and walked back toward the kitchen.
“Still eating vegan, huh?” Seth asked.
“Always. Good for the body. Good for the soul.” Henry leaned forward. “How bad is it?”
Seth frowned. This was the shitty part of his visit. “I think I stopped it, but I can’t shut down everything. If I do, it could actually make things worse.”
“I understand. Should I expect a visitor?”
Seth shook his head. “I don’t think so. According to all the records, Henry Flanders lives in Seattle. I keep a place out on Bainbridge Island in your name.”
Henry smiled, a little grin. “You’re such a devious thing. We should all be damn happy you’re not a criminal.”
“Hey, some people would disagree. Have you read the Times lately?” The Times seemed to have it out for him, claiming that his current domination of the software market was bad for businesses and consumers everywhere. They likened him to the old railroad tycoons who had a stranglehold on transportation in their time.
“It’s always hard to be on top, Seth. So any ideas on who’s looking?”
“I traced some of the inquiries back to DC.” In Seth’s mind, it was the absolute worst-case scenario.
Henry took a long breath. “Langley. The Agency.”
“Yeah. I don’t know how or why they would start looking, and I damn straight have no idea why they would be looking for Henry Flanders. There weren’t any loose ends that I can think of.”
“Oh, I can think of one.” Henry sat back, a sad smile on his face. “I shipped out of Colombia on Henry Flanders’s passport. At the time it seemed like I was starting a new life, but now I can see where I was lazy. When I left Bliss, I switched to another passport so Henry Flanders left Colombia, but he never entered the country according to airport records. I could fake the stamp on my passport, but I couldn’t fake the airport records. The authorities don’t like messy passports. And sometimes they like to run checks. It’s entirely possible that the passport got flagged.”
“After all these years?”
He shrugged slightly. “Identity is a funny thing, Seth. And so is intelligence. Things can be very fluid in that world. The way things were set up, I was killed by a cartel and they took my body. If the next operative got in good with the cartel, he might have investigated. The Delta agent who set up my exit could have had a change of heart, though I would be surprised at that. He seemed solid. I suspect they found something, some little thread, and now they’re seeing how far it will unravel. Stay calm. They’re fishing. They don’t have anything or they would be on my doorstep and not on the Internet.”
How could he be so calm? Seth was almost always calm, but the idea of someone looking for Henry had his stomach in knots. He’d worked so hard to keep this all under wraps. Nell didn’t even know that her husband had a past life as a CIA operative who went by the name John Bishop. “I’ll keep an eye on the situation. And I have someone watching the Bainbridge house to see if anyone’s casing it.”
“You know the Agency would have loved to have you. You’re a genius when it comes to laying out a plan. So Nell and I own property on Bainbridge Island, huh?”
Seth couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t try taking her out there, man. I bought the place off a junk bonds king. The housekeeper says he was a true believer in gold fixtures and mounted animal heads. She hasn’t gotten around to earth friendlying the sucker up.”
The very flirtatious waitress set a pot of tea in front of Henry and a water for Seth before winking at him as she left.
It made him really uncomfortable. He was already taken. He just wasn’t wearing a ring yet.
Henry poured the tea with a practiced hand. “You haven’t even seen the place?”
Seth shook his head. “Nah. I didn’t buy it for a vacation.”
“No, it was part of your plot. So tell me, that monstrosity of a house next to mine…what plot is that a part of?”
Seth sat back, a little startled. “It’s not a plot. You know I’ve always meant to come home.”
“You haven’t been back in almost four years, Seth.”
“I was working. I finished school and I started Stark Software. It was really intense. The programming was just the start. And then contracts started rolling in. I’ve barely looked up from my computer for the last four years.” It had been a whole lot of hard work, but everything was in place now. He could breathe a little.
“It was funny. I rather think we all believed you would move out here after college, or at the very least spend some time with Logan. That first summer you didn’t show up was a surprise.”
Whoa. He’d always thought of Henry as the father he wanted, but now he was sounding way dad-like with the guilt tripping. “Granddad died. My dad sold the place right out from under me. I think granddad thought that my father would do the right thing and keep it in the family, give me a chance to make some money and buy it, but Dad sold the cabin two days after we buried him. I’ve been working my ass off so I could come home in style.”