Matt nodded. “Then I will keep this between us. And I will stay out of your matter with Kenzie, as well. My brother must walk his own path, just as you must walk yours.” Then he grinned at Jack. “Keep your television tuned to the news tomorrow morning, Stone, and see what happens when shadow and light work in harmony.”
Jack gave Matt a wave and walked down the steep shoreline to his sled. O-kay. Either he’d just put Canada on the map as the newest nation to give OPEC a run for its money, or he’d turned it into the next world disaster-relief recipient.
He zoomed across the cove and up onto his lawn, grabbed his pack, and headed around the house to his porch, taking the steps two at a time. He opened the screen door and spotted an envelope taped to the window.
He dropped his pack, tore open the envelope, and read the invitation written in Megan’s bold scrawl. YOU ARE INVITED TO GÙ BRATH AT SIX TONIGHT.
Jack shoved the note between his teeth, unlocked the door, picked up his backpack, and walked into his house with an eager smile. Nothing like ignoring a girl for a few days to get her to take matters into her own hands. Maybe after dinner with the parents, he’d take his little warrior for a moonlight stroll and see if she wanted to rip off his clothes again.
Chapter Twenty-three
D inner turned out to be a birthday party for Elizabeth’s youngest boy, with nearly every kid in town in attendance. Grace told Jack he was welcome to join the adults in the living room; no, he wasn’t expected to bring a present; yes, Megan was around someplace. “Feel free to hunt her down,” Grace had offered just as the birthday boy—Joel, Jack thought his name was—demanded his gram’s attention in the kitchen. Apparently there was a major crisis over the cake’s looking like Big Bird instead of Curious George.
Feeling a bit overdressed in the tie and blazer he wore under his police jacket, Jack lingered in the huge foyer of the MacKeage fortress for several minutes, working up the courage to venture into the chaos. In that time he witnessed no fewer than a dozen kids, ranging in age from five to thirteen, sliding down the curving banister at breakneck speeds—with no adult to supervise them. The kids did appear to have a method to their madness, though. The older ones slid down first; then one stayed at the bottom to catch the younger kids while the others guarded the youngsters sliding past them on their way back up the stairs to do it all again.
Several other girls and boys came charging down the hallway with wooden swords, engaged in a fierce battle over a confused but definitely excited puppy. Jack scooped up one of the female combatants just as she was about to be flattened by an older kid catapulting off the end of the banister. He swung the toddler up against his chest and found himself face-to-face with beauty personified—wielding a sword as long as she was tall.
“Poweeceman,” the girl said, patting the badge on his jacket. She used her sword, smacking him in his head, to point at the ongoing battle. “Save Puddles.”
“You’ll probably need several pair of handcuffs in order to do that,” Camry said with a laugh, taking the girl from him. “Which one are you?” she asked the toddler.
“I’m Peyton, Aunt Campy,” the girl said, putting her hands on her hips in disgust—her sword missing Jack only because he managed to duck.
Camry laughed and set her down, then patted her bottom to send her on her way. “Go save Puddles yourself,” she instructed. “We MacKeage women fight our own battles, young lady.”
The girl took off after the disappearing mob of young clansmen, her sword held over her head as she let out a battle cry that shook the rafters.
Before Jack could say hello or ask where Megan was, Camry slipped her arm through his and dragged him into the chaos. “Come on, Jack. Let’s get you a drink.”
Completely oblivious to the party going on outside her father’s office, Megan sat perfectly rigid, hugging herself in an attempt to still the tremors forming deep in her stomach. If she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t feel, maybe she wouldn’t turn into a bottomless pit of anguish.
“Who told you this?” she asked Carl Franks of Franks Investigations.
“You said you wanted a thorough report,” Carl told her, shifting uncomfortably in his chair across the desk. “So I found the driver of the logging truck who hit them. I got his name off the accident report and found him living down in Edmonton, Alberta. He’s around seventy-five now, but he certainly remembered the accident. He never got behind the wheel of a rig after that day. I was surprised he was even willing to talk to me about it. It was obviously still painful for him.”
Megan hugged herself tighter to stave off the tears welling up inside her. “And he told you Jack watched his family burn up? His mom and dad and brother?”
Carl nodded. “Seems Mr. Stone had pulled his car onto the side of the road because his two boys were fighting in the backseat. The younger boy had punched the older one and given him a bloody nose, so the father gave the kid a time-out under a tree. The truck driver’s load of logs shifted when he came around the curve a bit too fast, and when he tried to get his rig under control, he ended up slamming into the back of the Stones’s car. He told me both vehicles burst into flames. That’s when he spotted this kid running out of the woods, and had to pull him away when the boy went to open the door of the mangled car.” Carl shook his head. “The driver figured they were dead, because there wasn’t much left of their vehicle and he couldn’t see any movement inside. But the boy fought him, kicking and screaming, and continued trying to get to his family. The kid burned his hands, and the driver eventually dragged him half a mile down the road, back around the curve so they couldn’t see the accident. He had to practically tie him down while they waited for another vehicle to come along.”
Megan used her shirt sleeve to wipe the tears running down her cheeks. “And the accident report said the boy’s name was Coyote Stone?” she asked, her throat raw with emotion.
Carl Franks stood up and grabbed the booklet he’d laid in front of her, then paced to the hearth, sticking a finger inside his collar to loosen his tie. He opened the neatly typed report, and leafed through the pages.
“Coyote Stone was brought to Edmonton, and a social worker there changed his name to Jack in hopes it would help him get adopted. But the boy,” Carl said, looking up then quickly back at his report, “who was nine at the time, just up and disappeared from his foster home. They found him ten days later walking along a road that headed north.” He looked up again, shaking his head in wonder. “The kid had made it halfway to Medicine Lake. They put him in several more foster homes after that, but he ran away from all of them. There’s speculation that his great-grandfather helped him the last time. They never saw Jack Stone again until he was fifteen,” Carl said, no longer reading his report. “But when they placed him in a foster home that time, he disappeared again and didn’t turn up until I found a record of him having joined the Canadian military at age twenty.”
Carl walked over and set the report back on the desk in front of her. “Everything’s in there, Miss MacKeage. I did exactly as you asked and was very thorough. The only thing I couldn’t discover is what Jack Stone did in the military. Those five years are classified information.” He started edging toward the door. “I’ll just send you a bill, okay? I’ll let myself out,” he said, going out the door.
Megan stared at the report, no longer bothering to wipe the tears flowing down her face. Jack had never lied to her about his childhood; he’d merely left out the heart-wrenching details. She hugged her belly, suddenly deciding she would name their son Walker, after Coyote Stone’s older brother.
What must go through a nine-year-old’s mind after witnessing something like that? Did he blame himself for their deaths, because his father had stopped to give him a time-out for fighting? Was that why he was a self-proclaimed pacifist?