Chapter 14

~Chapter 14~

When Lexy entered Josh’s house the first thing she noticed was the music. A man with a raspy voice and a twangy electric guitar sang out from the stereo on the table behind the couch in the living room.
Lexy smiled, she recognized the man as the blues master, B.B. King. The song was “Into the Night”, one Lexy had heard on the blues radio station her father sometimes played in his office.
As Josh came down the stairs Lexy shook her head in surprise.
“B.B. King?”
Josh nodded, “Yeah, you don’t like him?”
“Oh no, I’m just surprised, is all.”
Josh headed for the kitchen, and Lexy followed.
“Blues music seems to be the closest to earth, know what I mean? It has a strong idea of what is wrong and right and the musicians don’t try to water life down into something that will make people feel good. They tell it like it is.”
Lexy sat on a stool near the end of the granite-topped bar that separated the kitchen from the table area. Josh set a coke on the countertop in front of her and popped the top of one for himself.
“In a minute I can show you to the guestroom.”
Lexy nodded and took a drink from her pop can.
“Thanks. Is Nathan and Scarlet going to be staying here too?”
Josh nodded, “Nathan normally sleeps on the couch when he’s here. But I think I’ll move a cot into my room and we’ll let Scarlet have the couch. Unless of course you want to share the guest room with Scarlet.”
Lexy shrugged, “I guess that’s up to her. It might be fun, I like Scarlet.”
Josh leaned against the bar and peered thoughtfully into his coke can.
“I do too.”
Lexy hesitated before asking her next question.
“Um… are you and Scarlet… you know, is it possible…”
“Is it possible for me and Scarlet to be a couple? No. We tried that long time ago, and it didn’t work out for us.”
Lexy was secretly relieved.
“Why didn’t it?”
Josh straightened up, “Scarlet is a bit too wild yet. I was ready to settle down and she wasn’t, and still isn’t.”
Lexy didn’t know what to say. It was obvious that Josh had some remnant feelings for Scarlet, but he wasn’t going to even try to pursue a relationship with her. And from what Lexy could gather of Scarlet, Scarlet also had feelings for Josh, but also wasn’t willing to try for a romance. Lexy was kind of glad, but at the same time kind of sad. She was under the belief that for every person there was a special someone. But she was also under the belief that Josh was her special someone; so as long as Scarlet could find her special someone, or was content with having no one, everything seemed to be working out in Lexy’s favor.
“Let’s go see your room.”
Lexy dismounted her barstool and followed Josh through the entry and up the stairs. She noticed that next to the stairway was a fully equipped exercise room.
“Hey, Josh? Where’s Wraith?”
Josh looked back at her from the top of the stairs.
“Wraith is out shopping. I haven’t been home since I joined your father’s security team about a year ago, so there isn’t much food in the house.”
Lexy reached the top of the stairs and was greeted by an open area not narrow enough to be a hallway. Against the wall straight ahead was a shelf full of collectables from all countries. To her right where three doors, two of which she later found out led to a kind of fake office and a large walk-in coat and storage closet.
The middle door was guarded by two large suits of armor, and it was the door leading to the guestroom.
The guestroom was big enough to be a master bedroom. There was a bed along the wall to the right just as you walked in, and a desk next to the door on the left. Against the back wall next to the head of the bed was a large wardrobe-style dresser and a TV. In front of the TV was a large black leather armchair, and beyond was a large bathroom.
Lexy looked around in wonder, she had never seen a guest room so big or nicely furnished.
“Wow, thank you! Can I ask you a question though?”
Josh nodded.
“Why are the walls pink? Shouldn’t they be a more neutral color?”
Josh shrugged and turned to leave.
“Before it was a guestroom the room belonged to my daughter.”

It was dark before Nathan and Scarlet’s plane was ready to depart. They said goodbye to Steve Marr and boarded the plane. After saying hello to their pilot and after Nathan had given the plane a quick once-over, they settled down for the flight.
Steve Marr and one of his pilots, a black-haired man of about thirty named Joe Binkley, watched the plane taxi out to the runway.
Steve shook his head in wonder.
“I tell yah, Joe, there goes one of the toughest hombres in the US of A. You know he and that girl he’s traveling with, they killed that Brit that Regent shipped in to kill the Sharktooth?”
Joe scratched his scalp in amazement.
“Carl Mash? They killed Carl Mash? I thought that guy was like invincible!”
Steve turned to go back into his office.
“Think again, Joe. But do you know what the real kicker is?”
“What?”
“That Nathan drank half my fridge of Miller, and he’s still got enough of a head to check the plane in places some mechanics wouldn’t think of.”
Joe shook his head and followed Steve into the office.
“Damn…”

Josh had disappeared into the door to the left of the stairs and directly across from the guestroom. Lexy sat on her bed a while and tried to convince herself she was going to be more careful with what she said to Josh. But the more she told herself, the more she knew she would still slip up. Finally, after taking one more look around the room, she turned the light off and went downstairs.
In the living room B.B. King’s jazzy voice still played softly from the Sony stereo system. Lexy decided to look through Josh’s shelves of media. She thought maybe she could learn something about him from the music he listened to or the movies he watched.
The movies were, surprisingly, mostly comedies. From The Princess Bride to Galaxy Quest to old Abbot and Costello movies, Josh had a little bit of everything. While comedies took up about three-fourths his selection, the rest were more what she would expect from a person like Josh.
Bourne, Oceans 11, The Italian Job, and James Bond were the theme of the other fourth of the movies Josh owned. Lexy smiled to herself and moved on to look at music.
Josh’s music collection was an even bigger variety. Blues, Country, Rock, some pop, and a few rap CD’s. He also had CD’s from a few older pop singers like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, and Bing Crosby.
“See anything interesting?”
Lexy jumped up from where she was kneeling on the floor next to the shelves of CD’s to face Josh. He stood behind the couch nearest to her, watching her with his sharp gray eyes.
“Oh! Hi, Josh,” Lexy stammered, “I want to say I’m sorry about upsetting you earlier. I’m normally not very careful with what I say to people, Daddy says I’d make a bad politician, and I really didn’t mean to make you upset or bring up bad memories or anything.”
Josh came around the arm of the couch and sat down. He rested his elbows on his knees, his eyes flicking over the CD’s on the shelves.
“It’s alright. You don’t know about anything yet, and people have been telling me for years I need to talk more about it.”
Lexy got up and sat next to him on the couch.
“Can you talk to me about it?”
Josh’s eyes became cloudy and Lexy could tell he wasn’t looking at the CD’s anymore. He wasn’t even looking at something in the room; he was looking back in time.
“Her name was Mariah DeTrello. She was a nurse at a hospital in New York, and Nathan was dating one of her co-workers at the time and introduced me to her. She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. She had wavy light-brown hair and blue eyes that reminded you of a clear blue sky.”
Lexy shifted uncomfortably, a piece to the puzzle slowly falling into place.
Josh continued, “We were married in 2003, and our daughter, Mara, was born just three years later. Mara was just like her mom. They both loved to laugh and play and just enjoy life. And with that group of stone-cold businessmen and killers as a family, being with them was heaven.
I left the Marines in 2011, and I got home just in time to have my wife and child die in my arms. I remember getting out of the car and hearing a scream from the backyard. I ran as fast as I could around the house, but as I was about halfway I heard gunshots and knew it was too late. I got there to find Mariah leaning against the strut of the swing set and Mara lying in a pool of her own blood where she had fallen off the swing. The officer who had given me a ride to my house heard the shots and came around to see what had happened. He went inside to call 911, and I just held my wife… feeling the life leave her body. I could tell Mara was already dead…”
Josh stopped. He didn’t choke up, he didn’t cry as most people would have done. As most people should have done. He just stared for a long moment at the wood floor.
Lexy just sat where she was, frozen in shock. Even after what she had seen in the last few days, the images Josh’s story conjured in her mind horrified her. She also understood now how Josh had gotten to be how he was. If her family had died in her arms she would have wanted to kill herself right then.
Josh straightened up and looked at her, his eyes clearing.
“Now it’s my turn to apologize to you. I haven’t been as nice as I could have been, and I’m sure my actions have probably confused you. But… you look just like her.”
Lexy’s eyes widened, she had almost seen this coming, but still wasn’t ready for it.
Josh stood and made as to go back upstairs.
“I look at you and I see my dead wife, and so I haven’t been able to get over that. I’m sorry.”
And with that, Josh left the room.