Davy wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It definitely felt like something he could argue—if that was an option—was some sort of lesson learned. On the other hand,hismurder apparently hadn’t triggered any sort of epiphany.
“The original miscarriage and near-death experience might have still been a sore point,” he pointed out. “Even if he didn’t blame you for his death.”
Fraser shrugged. “Even if he did, it’s the Invoker who sets the rules of engagement,” he said. “And you aren’t like me. You’d want answers, not revenge. Which I would have given you if you’d just asked.”
“Liar,” Davy said. That slipped past his attempt to pretend to be Hill, who’d have tried their best to soften the blunt statement with mitigating excuses. Fraser caught the slip and gave Hill a mildly surprised look.
“I suppose that’s true,” Fraser admitted after a pause to consider the accusation. “There’s been plenty of times I could have told you and never did. I suppose…I never had much faith in the confessional, but it seems prudent not to die with too much on your conscience.”
“Does that mean that you’ve…had a visitor?” Davy prodded carefully.
Fraser’s mouth twitched into a sketch of a smile. “A powerful man turned pensive about his past on Christmas Eve?” he said. “What other reason is there?”
Davy reached up and pulled a leaf off the tree. He shredded it absently with his nails.
“You mentioned your brother,” he said. So maybe his murder hadn’t been what had given Fraser his encounter with a moral, but if his was the first name that sprang to mind, then it had still weighed on him. “Is that who…”
Fraser twitched his chin in a nod. “I know where all the other bodies are buried,” he said. “Mark’s the only one whose corpse is still in play.”
Mark? Who the fuck was—
Oh.
Davy stitched the pieces together, finally. It was him. That was the name he’d forgotten. Mark. He waited for it to become part of him again, to rewrite the gaps where it had been. It just lay on the bottom of his brain like a wet fish. He didn’t feel like a ‘Mark’. Mark Jones?
Fraser hadn’t noticed his distraction.
“I’m at peace with the pound of flesh I owe my brother,” he said. “And I’m willing to take one more stain on my soul to make sure Tannenbaum doesn’t get to think he won.”
What?
“What’s the deli guy got to do with—” Davy blurted out.
Fraser blinked at him as if he’d forgotten he was there. He hesitated for a moment, the habit of being guarded tightening his eyes. Then he glanced at his watch to see the seconds tick by and shrugged.
“Tannenbaum’s the one who killed my brother,” he said. “And he’s the only one who knew where he was buried. I always knew…Iknewif I kept the pressure up on him, if I kept shitting on his life, he’d break eventually. I just thought the stupid gingerbastard would tell me whose pocket he’d been in. I didn’t expect him to flout the Church and summon the dead.”
Davy stared at him.
Why lie about that? Now. That didn’t make any sense, it was…
No. It made sense. That actually made everything fall into place, as long as Davy movedonebuilding block in his half-assed recreation of his death.
His little brother hadn’t killed him.
And he’d actually been upset enough about it to spend thirty years ruining a man’s life.
Davy didn’t know what to do with that, to be honest. His sinuses felt weird and he felt the urge to grab Fraser in a headlock, or something, like when he used to torment him when they were kids. He thought thatmaybehe wanted to hug him—his tentacles splitting the difference as they tried to futilely grab the living man in an affectionate tangle--but there was nothing in their relationship that he could use to imagine that.
Fraser hadn’t murdered him.
It mattered more than he’d thought.
…but, did it actually solve Davy’s problem or just give him more? There was still the Christmas Eve deadline to get Fraser to learn some sort of lesson, and being sad enough over your brother’s death to torture a man for thirty years probably wasn’t going to cut it.
“Fraser—” Davy said.
“Hold on,” Fraser interrupted him as he fished his phone out of his pocket. He held his hand up to Davy in a ‘just a minute’ gesture as he answered it. The glow of it lit the side of his face.
