Free Out of the Dark (The Brethren Series) by Sara Reinke Page A

building, so there was no public listing of his name , even though he went by an alias, Aaron Broughman. He also never gave out the apartment address, which meant he never received certified letters, packages, parcels or other deliveries. He paid his lease promptly, upfront, in cash and in full, and his landlord never had reason to bother him.
    Thus the ringing doorbell alarmed him more than piqued his curiosity.
    Thumbing off the safety on the .45, he cut a glance through the peephole and surveyed the hallway beyond his front door.
    He saw nothing.
    With a frown, he opened the door. A manila envelope, the kind lined with bubble wrap to protect delicate contents, had apparently been propped against the outside, and fell obligingly in now, slapping lightly against his feet.
    His frown deepened. He didn’t avert his gaze, or the barrel of his pistol, from the corridor as he leaned down, hooking the envelope with his free hand. Stepping cautiously past his threshold, he looked left, then right. Still, he saw no one.
    He glanced down at the envelope. No clues there. Nothing had been written on it, not his name—or any other—or an apartment number, a return address. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
    What the fuck? he thought. Moving swiftly but quietly, the envelope tucked beneath his arm, he followed the hall down toward the elevator bank. No one was there. He opened the nearby stairwell door and paused for a long moment, listening. No footsteps, not even distant ones.
    Still frowning, now definitely on edge as well as on guard, Aaron returned to his apartment. Sitting on a black leather sofa in his living room, he tore open the envelope and upended it over his coffee table. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to be inside; it had been lightweight, and although he’d heard something rustling softly inside when he’d given the packet an experimental shake, he hadn’t been able to make out much by way of an outline of the item just by pressing on the outside of the envelope.
    To his surprise, a necklace fell out.
    He first checked the envelope to make sure that was all, then lifted the necklace in hand and examined it. A silver pendant, no bigger than a nickel, dangled from a slim chain. Circular in shape, it bore the likeness of a man leaning on a walking stick, carrying a little boy on his shoulders. Behold St. Christopher and Go Your Way in Safety had been engraved in a semi-circle above them.
    The moment he saw the inscription, his eyes flew wide; his breath tangled in his throat. In that moment, he knew all of the color must have drained from his face; he felt as cold and leaden as a block of ice. He stared, stricken, bewildered, at the necklace.
    And remembered.
    ***
    Lamar had seven sons. Victor and Vidal had been the oldest, born little more than a year after one another. Next had come Allistair, then Julien, Jean-Luc, Jerard and Aaron. For some reason, Lamar had always insisted on naming his sons based on the first letter of their mother’s given name. Probably so he can keep straight who is who, and which one of us came from where, Julien had often remarked drily. His, Jerard’s and Jean-Luc’s mother’s name, for example, was Jeanne; Aaron and Allistair’s mother was named Annette, while Victor and Vidal’s mother, Veronique, had been Lamar’s first—and favorite—wife. He’d had daughters, as well—Larissa, Lisette, Lenore, and Lorelle—all given L- names in honor of Lamar.
    He remembered a party, some sort of celebratory affair. It had been from his youth; based on the clothing styles, maybe no later than the early 1800s. He remembered standing in a crowded ballroom, watching people hopping back and forth, then twirling around, parading in parallel lines on a closely knit dance floor.  Someone somewhere was playing a fiddle, and someone else a fife, while others danced. Voices overlapped, laughter and singing.
    He remembered despite the obvious gaiety of the circumstances that he’d been anxious, though about