Trina Simms lived in a one-story house the color of an avocado. The lawn was overgrown, but the flower beds had clearly been weeded.
There was a pastel welcome mat on the front porch. Dean rang the doorbell. Nothing happened.
“Bell’s broken.” A boy with a buzz cut came around the side of the house. He was blond-haired and fair-skinned and walked like he had someplace to be. At first glance, I’d put his age at close to ours, but as he came closer, I realized that he was at least a few years older. His accent was like Dean’s, magnified. He offered us a polite smile, more a reflex in this part of the country than a courtesy. “You selling something?”
His eyes skimmed over Dean and Michael and landed on me. “No,” Dean replied, drawing the man’s attention back to him. “You lost?” the man asked.
“We’re looking for Trina Simms.” Michael’s eyes were locked on the man. I took a small step sideways, so I could get a better look at Michael’s face. He would be the first to know if the polite smile was hiding something else.
“Who are you?” the blond guy asked.
“We’re the people looking for Trina Simms,” Dean said. There was nothing aggressive about the way he said it, no hint of a fight in his voice, but the smile evaporated from the stranger’s face.
“What do you want with my mother?”
So Trina Simms had a son—a son who was significantly taller and bigger than either Michael or Dean.
“Christopher!” A nasal shriek broke through the air.
“You should go,” Trina’s son said. His voice was low, gravelly and soothing, even when the words he was saying weren’t. “My mother doesn’t like company.”
I glanced down at the pastel welcome mat. The front door flew open, and I nearly lost my balance hopping out of the way.
“Christopher, where is my—” The woman who’d come out of the door came to a standstill. She surveyed us for a moment with squinted eyes. Then she beamed. “Visitors!” she said. “What are you selling?”
“We’re not selling anything,” Dean said. “We’re here to talk to you, ma’am—assuming you are Trina Simms?”
Dean’s accent was more pronounced than I’d ever heard it. The woman smiled at him, and I remembered what Daniel Redding had said about Dean being the kind of child people loved on sight.
“I’m Trina,” the woman said. “For goodness’ sakes, Christopher, stop slouching. Can’t you see we have company?”
Christopher made no move to stand straighter. From my perspective, he wasn’t slouching at all. I turned my attention back to his mother. Trina Simms had hair that had probably been up in rollers all morning. She wasn’t wearing any makeup except for red lipstick.
“I suppose it’s too much to hope you’re friends of Christopher’s?” she said to us. “He has all of these friends, but he never brings them by.”
“No, ma’am,” Dean replied. “We just met.”
If by “met” Dean meant “silently assessed each other.”
“You’re a pretty one.” It took me a moment to realize that Trina was talking to me. “Look at all of that hair.”
My hair was slightly longer and slightly thicker than average—nothing worth commenting on.
“And those shoes,” Trina continued, “they’re precious!” I was wearing canvas tennis shoes.
“I always wanted a girl,” Trina confessed.
“Are we inviting them in or aren’t we, Mother?” Christopher’s voice had a slight edge.
“Oh,” Trina said, stiffening suddenly. “I’m not sure we should.”
If your son hadn’t said anything, you would have invited us in yourself, I thought. There was something about the dynamic between the two of them that made me uncomfortable.
“Did you ask them why they’re here?” Trina’s hands went to her hips. “Three strangers show up on your mother’s porch, and you don’t even—”
“He asked, but I hadn’t gotten to introduce myself yet,” Dean cut in. “My name is Dean.”
A spark of interest flickered in Trina’s eyes. “Dean?” she repeated. She took a step forward, elbowing me to the side. “Dean what?”
Dean didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t react in any way to her scrutiny. “Redding,” he said. He glanced over at Christopher, then back at Trina. “I believe you know my father.”
