The Lake [Part 3]

The words weren’t all the way out and my father had him around the collar, slammed him back against the wall.

 “You think I give a shit if Dean Ryan finishes you off? You’re in my house now, and if I ever see so much as a scratch on my daughter again, I’ll break both your arms.”

Then he stepped back, folded his arms again, as if the moment had never happened. Everything felt still. The only sound was a fly buzzing against the window, loud and frantic.

Kyle stayed slumped against the wall a second, eyeing my father, indecision in his clenching and loosening fists. Then without another word he turned and left. Saw me there in the hallway and his eyes met mine, knowing I’d witnessed it, his moment of humiliation. 

He pushed past me roughly, shoving his shoulder into me. I felt a shiver of apprehension then. Not for myself, but my sister. My father had wounded him, and she would bleed for it. 

He left our house and went back to his. Driving fast up the long road which ran between us. He was tense when he got back, pacing and smoking in the kitchen. He and Taylor argued, she told the police.

They argued because he asked if she would leave town with him, and she said no. She didn’t want to leave her family. He told her if she really loved him, she would go with him. While they were arguing she tripped over, she hit her face against the bench and split her lip.

Later that day Kyle drove the short distance into town and went into the pub which Dean and Pete Ryan didn't drink at. He got drunk and he started talking big, saying he wasn’t scared of the Ryan brothers. He had a knife and he was ready to kill which ever one came for him first.

About nine in the evening the doorman kicked him out. He was marched outside and told to walk it off and come back for his car in the morning.

The doorman stood there and watched him leave. He was the last to see him before he was pulled bloated and broken boned from the water, his unsteady walk as he headed down the road which led to his own house, and past that my parents’ house, and if he kept going further still the lake.

The next morning the car was there on the street still, Kyle not in his bed, and my sister starting phoning around to see if anyone knew where he was.

Two days later his body rose up to the surface of the lake, and was spotted by a man out fishing. Both Ryan brothers were pulled in for questioning. People saw them escorted into the station.

After seeing Kyle at the Mobil, Pete Ryan had gone to spend the afternoon watching his son play cricket. He’d stood on the sideline and watched him make run after run, and after he’d taken him out for dinner. Then he’d dropped him back to his mother’s house and gone around to his brother Dean’s house.

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