The Billionaire Next Door. Jessica Bird

back over to the couch and lay down. As he put his arm under his head, a small voice he didn’t trust told him he was reading her wrong. He ignored the whisper, chalking it up to the fact that he was off-kilter because he was back in his father’s place.

      When his cell phone went off at 6:00 a.m., he was still awake, having watched the sun rise behind the veil of the old lace drapes.

      Sitting up, he grabbed his BlackBerry and checked the number. “Billy.”

      His brother’s low voice came through loud and clear. “I was crashed when you called and just woke up for practice. Are you okay—”

      “He’s dead, Billy.” He didn’t need to use any better word than he. There was only one him among the three O’Banyon brothers.

      As a long, slow exhale came over the phone, Sean wished he’d told Billy in person.

      “When?” Billy asked.

      “Last night. Heart attack.”

      “You call Mac?”

      “Yeah. But God knows when he’ll get the message.”

      “Where are you?”

      “Home frickin’ sweet home.”

      There was a sharp inhale. “You shouldn’t be there. That’s not a good place.”

      Sean looked around and couldn’t agree more. “Trust me, I’m leaving as soon as I can.”

      “Is there anything I—”

      “Nah. There’s not much to do. Finnegan’s will handle the cremation and he’ll be interred next to Mom. I’ll go back and forth until I’ve packed everything up here and put the house on the market. I mean, I don’t want to keep this place.”

      “Neither do I. Mac’ll agree.”

      In the long silence that followed, Sean knew he and his brother were remembering exactly the same kinds of things.

      “I’m glad he’s gone,” Billy finally said.

      “Me, too.”

      After they hung up, Sean felt exhaustion settle on him like a suit of chain mail. Stretching out on the sofa, he closed his lids and gave up fighting the past, letting the memories fill the space behind his eyes. Though he was six foot four and worth about a billion dollars, in the dimness, on this couch, in the apartment that had been a hell for him and his brothers, he was as small as a child and just as powerless.

      So he was not at all surprised when two hours later he woke up screaming and covered in sweat. The nightmare, the one he’d had for years, had come for another visit.

      Jacking upright, he gasped and rubbed his face. The summer morning was bright and cheerful, the light barging into the living room through the windows like a four-year-old wanting to play.

      Amid the lovely sunshine, he felt positively elderly.

      In a desperate, misplaced bid to cleanse his mind, he took a shower. Didn’t help. No matter how hard he worked his body with soap, he couldn’t lose the head spins about the past. It felt as if he were trapped in a car on a closed track, going around and around without getting anywhere.

      As he stepped out of the water and toweled off, he knew his best hope was that his mind would run out of gas. Soon.

      Man, he couldn’t wait to get back to Manhattan tonight.