Jesse had his eyes on the road, but focused on Ian from the corner of his eye. Ian was trying hard to act normal, but he was sweating and white.
“Do you remember how to get there from here?” Ian was looking around at the scenery passing by.
“Of course I do.” Jesse rolled his eyes.
“Then why doesn’t any of this look familiar?”
Jesse flipped the turn signal on. “Because we are going somewhere else first.”
“Oh.” Ian sat back in the seat.
Jesse smiled as he watched him fidget a moment. “Don’t worry, there’s something I want to show you. It won’t take long…and you’ll be home in plenty of time to help make dinner.”
“Sorry.”
“S’okay, it’s the little brother’s job to make the big brother squirm.” Jesse grinned as he turned the jeep off the highway onto a small road.
“You’re doing a fine job then.”
“Lots of practice.”
They were silent a moment as Jesse finally put the jeep in four-wheel drive and took a barely noticeable dirt road.
“Uhm…Jesse…are you gonna take me off somewhere private and kill me?”
“Not today, but can I keep that option open?”
Ian smiled. “We really are brothers aren’t we?”
“Still just sinking in, but yeah.” Jesse wasn’t sure if Ian nodded or his head just bounced from the rough terrain.
“I’m not sure how to be a brother. What if I’m not good at it?”
“You’ve got to be better than Reese. He really sucks.” Jesse was sure Ian chuckled that time. “Look it’s simple. You’re the big brother. I’m the little brother. So I win every fight. You let me have my pick of all the pretty girls and I always get my way no matter what the cost to you.”
“Yeah. That’s gonna happen.”
“See?” You already got it down. The hard stuff we’ll work out later.” Jesse put the jeep in park and looked directly at Ian. “We’re here.”
Ian looked out of the windows skeptically. “Where are we?”
“My place.” Jesse unbuckled his seat belt. “Com’mon let me show you around.”
“Your place?” Ian said as he took a precarious step out of the jeep on to the sand.
“Yep. My own little place in the dunes.” He waited for Ian to catch up with him.
When Ian stepped beside him, Jesse spread his arms wide and smiled. “My little shack.”
What Ian saw was a nice, tidy little bungalow settled tightly in the dunes, about the size of his Aunt Hil’s house only overlooking a cliff and sound tracked with the roar of the ocean. Ian looked at what he was trying to remember was his brother. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but this place is yours? You’re barely twenty-one. You must get some allowance.”
“It was a gift.” Jesse motioned Ian to follow him up the spiraling rock footpath to the front porch. “Herman and Miss Elizabeth gave it to me for graduation.”
Ian grabbed Jesse’s arm and made him stop and turn around. “The neighbors gave you beach front property for graduating high school?” When Jesse nodded his head, he couldn’t help but ask, “What did Reese get?”
Jesse shrugged his shoulders and took the last few steps to the porch. “Don’t know. All I know is he got a little hideaway somewhere just like me. Mom and Dad don’t even know about it.”
“So this is a secret?”
“Yup.” Jesse opened the door with a key from his ring and motioned Ian in. “Didn’t you get a graduation gift from your neighbors?” He said as he motioned him in first.
“I…uh…got a card.” He stepped inside. “I still have it. It made me cry.”
“See, we have a lot in common.” Jesse said as he shut the door and walked past him. “We’re both sentimental…and big ol’ babies. Come enjoy the view with me.”
Ian followed his brother through a set of sliding glass doors and found himself on a deck that seemed to jut out into nowhere. Jesse squatted Indian style on the edge and looked out over the ocean. Ian sat beside him, leaning back on his arms and dangling his feet over the edge.
“Don’t lose a shoe.” Jesse pointed. “I ain’t goin’ after it.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Finally, still staring out over the endless tides, Ian said. “If this is a secret. Why did you bring me here? Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell Mommy and Daddy?”
Jesse turned to his brother. “You don’t trust easy…and I’ve done something to make you doubt my loyalty.”
“No you haven’t.”
“Ian, I knew about the birth certificate. I knew there was a great possibility we were really brothers and I kept it from you.”
“Jesse, I understand. I would have done the same thing until I knew for sure. The world kind of exploded. You thought you were protecting all of us.”
“But I should have said something. I tried to figure it out…and I did tell you about it.”
“You did?”
“Your second night in the hospital. You were no help at all.”
“Next time I’m in a coma, I’ll try not to ignore you. It was terribly self centered and rude.”
“It would be greatly appreciated.” Jesse reached in his breast pocket and pulled out a silver key chain with a key. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“A key to this place. Leave a tie on the door if you’re getting laid.”
Ian laughed as he took the key. “Yeah. That’ll happen.”
“Ian, this is the place I always come when I need time to myself. Time to think…”
“Time to get some…”
Jesse grinned. “Yeah…well…I’ve only brought a couple of people here, so anytime you need to get away and think, this is the place. Promise me you’ll use it.”
“Why Jesse?”
“Because, things have been awful for you, and I not only know what went down today but what you’re planning. I know you may need an escape. Even if you don’t trust me enough to tell me about stuff, I know the time is coming where you’ll need to just get away. It will help me to know you’re safe, if there’s a possibility I know where you are.”
“Oh my God.” Ian moaned and lay flat on his back, feet still dangling over the edge. “Why do the pipe bombs always come in twos?”
Jesse shrugged and lay back, mocking Ian’s stance, putting his hands behind his head. “I didn’t know what Miss Elizabeth had done. I swear.”
“I believe you.” Ian said. “That explosion is my fault. I should have read the contract thoroughly. I was just so excited I only looked for all the spots with an ‘X’. It’s the second one that always really gets me.”
“At least this time, no one got hurt. I mean it’s hard to get hurt when the bombs explode and it starts raining money.” Ian was silent and Jesse chewed his lip a moment. “Of course, it’s raining enough money on you to actually smother you to death.”
“But why Jesse?” Ian stayed focused on the sky. “Why would Miss Elizabeth do that? And where did all that other money come from? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“You’re life would have been so much different. So many questions…”
Ian sat up quickly. “But this time, a lot of answers. Well at least a lot of things make sense.”
“Like?”
“Why Uncle Nate treated me the way he did. Why he never got rid of me. And why he never seemed to worry we’d lose the farm. I’d always wondered why that was the only thing he never threatened me with. Of course, after he died and I learned the property never belonged to him.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder how the taxes got paid?”
“Well, I knew there was a trust set up to take care of that until I turned thirty. As I understood it, there was a separate account set up for just that. I just assumed that Uncle Nate drank the other account dry.”
“Why weren’t you told about it then? I mean about how much money there actually was?”
“Welcome to my world, little brother, one answer, another bigger question.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Ian looked down at Jesse, who had rolled over and was up on one elbow. “Tonight, I give Clare her choice, but I have to talk to Miss Glo first.”
“Why Miss Glo?”
“Because she may actually have a piece to that puzzle.” Ian drummed his fingers on the decking. “Her husband, as president of the bank, was trustee of the fund.”
Jesse sat up. “That would explain a lot.”
Ian nodded in agreement. “If nothing else, maybe she may have an idea where it all came from. The Ransom’s didn’t have that kind of money.”
“Obviously they did.”
“I get the feeling that everything, and I mean everything is all connected to something I inadvertently started when I came to California. Life was tough, but shortly after I showed up here people started stepping on land mines trying to get close to me. This all has to be connected.”
“You think this is about you coming to California?”
“Maybe, but I think this started a long time ago. Jude told me that Aunt Hil knew nothing about my mother, or said nothing about my mother for protection.”
“That sounds stupid.”
“To me too, but if you look at what’s happened since January and what happened in my life before HRT it makes sense.”
“You think that as long as you stayed in Virginia…?”
“Before I came here, anyone in my life who died died of natural causes.”
“Except maybe your mother…”
Ian looked at Jesse again. “I think that may be the best place to start. I don’t know where the beginning of the mess is, but obviously it was before I came to Hollywood and everything seems to point to a time before I was born.”
Jesse nodded and stood up. “If you need to speak with Miss Glo, we’d better get started back.”
Brushing themselves off, they headed for inside the bungalow. “So no one knows about this place.”
“Just you, me and a few people I brought up here to have a little privacy with.”
“I won’t ask.”
Jesse smiled as he walked out on the porch. “Good cause I’m a gentleman. I’ll fax you a list of conquests.”
Ian followed Jesse out to the porch. He stopped Jesse just before he locked the door. “Is that your mail?” Ian pointed to a large plastic box.
“Oh.” Jesse glanced at the large blue container. “Guess so. The mail main just piles it all there for me. Grab it and throw it in the back of the Jeep.”
Ian hefted the container up. “When was the last time you were here?”
“About a month before you…you know.”
“Yup. I know.”
Jesse stopped just short of the last step, turning to Ian. “I just remembered something.”
“What?”
“Ella, Ella was the last person I brought up here.”
“Ella?” Ian looked at Jesse. “You and Ella….?”
“No.” Jesse looked at his feet and blushed. “Well, not that time. Just before Thanksgiving she called me, all upset. I went a picked her up at her apartment and brought her here for a few days.”
“I didn’t realize you two were close.”
“Yes and no.” Jesse walked down the rock path. “I let her pick me up in a bar shortly after she moved to town. Actually I’m the one who talked Miss Elizabeth into getting her a job at HRT.”
“Do you remember what she was upset about?”
Jesse split off and rounded to the driver’s side of the Jeep and opened the door. “She had just started dating Blue and I think they had a big fight. I’m not really sure. I didn’t ask. I just brought her up here and told her she was welcomed to stay as long as she needed.”
“How long was she here?” Ian sat the blue box behind the passenger’s seat.
“She called me a few days later and thanked me, so probably just the weekend.” Jesse waited for Ian the push the seat back in place, get in and snap his seatbelt closed before putting the key in the ignition.
“Do you think that might be important?”
“Probably not.” Ian rubbed his hands together and brushed off the sand. “But why don’t you tell Kellen about it and see what he thinks.”
“I’ll catch him tonight.”
Jesse started the Jeep and pulled out, heading toward the dirt path back down the dunes. Several manila envelopes addressed with Ella’s handwriting jiggled in the box in the back as they headed toward the highway.
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