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I looked around to see if anyone was noticing who was talking to the pretty tourist, but no one seemed to be paying us any attention. All of them were focused on walking and not falling on their ass thanks to the sidewalks not having been shoveled yet.

“What is it that you wanted to talk about?”

“I wanted to talk to you about your brother.”

My face went completely flat. “What about him?”

I wish she’d wanted to talk to be about anything else but him.

I hated thinking about him.

“He, uh…”

A thought occurred to me, and I barely contained a wince.

“If he’s had sex with you then tried to kill you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

She stared at me in shock. “Um, no. That’s not what happened.”

My shoulders wilted slightly. “Then what happened?”

She shifted on a foot, then looked around her with worry. “My son, I think he’s like your brother.”

I froze. “W-what?”

She fidgeted nervously.

Her gaze went distant as she stared at something only she could see.

Then she launched in, telling me about her son.

“From the age of one year old, I knew that he was different. And not in a good way different,” she started. “He didn’t smile. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t watch television and get excited about songs. Then he started to grow up. And, let me tell you something, this kid was a freakin’ genius. He could solve a puzzle, ones that were meant for ten-year-olds, in minutes. He sees patterns that no one else would see. But it’s like something is missing.”

“What do you think he’s missing?” I wondered.

“His personality? Whatever makes it to where he has a soul. I don’t know.” She scrubbed at her face. “When he was a baby, the only time that I saw him laugh was when he’d bitten my nipple nearly all the way off. He laughed when I cried.” She cleared her throat. “That wasn’t the last instance. But it was the beginning of a long slew of things that happened that weren’t right. I brought up my concerns with his father, who only saw him once during the week and every other weekend. And it’s like he just thought I was lying. So I gave my son to him and pretty much said that I couldn’t do it anymore. Thomas took him in full-time. Thomas never exactly said that he was tough to handle, but there were signs from the outside.”

“That couldn’t have been easy,” I said. “Giving up your son.”

Zee continued, “I didn’t give him up, per se. I was there a lot to see him. But Robert couldn’t care less if I was there. Didn’t cry when I left. Didn’t get excited when I showed. And get this. Thomas went through sixteen nannies before he died.”

“He died?” I asked.

She nodded. “And I think that Robby did it.”

“Whoa,” I said. “So what are you going to do?”

She shifted. “I took him to Camp Grizzly.”

“Ahh,” I said.

“I’ve exhausted all of my efforts. Short of giving him up, which my father will never let me do, I’m stuck. Camp Grizzly is my only option.”

“I’ve heard great things about Camp Grizzly,” I admitted. “My brother was there for four years. Black, the town sheriff, really likes the guy that runs the camp, Milo. He has nothing but great things to share about him and the camp. But I fail to see why you’re telling me any of this.”

She shifted from foot to foot. “I guess I just wanted to know that I wasn’t alone. That there was someone else out there struggling just like I am.”

I laughed. “Sadly, you can’t just say ‘I don’t want anything to do with him’ like I was able to do after my parents died.”