Fenton eased the door shut and hurried back downstairs. "Are they coming?" Frank asked, a slight frown on his face when his dad entered the dining room and took a seat at the table.

"No," he replied with a shake of his head. He told them what he had overheard about them being sick and the kids having chicken pox. "But at least Joe still feels he can turn to us when he has no other choice," he added brightly.

"Does he?" demanded Frank, scowling. "Sounds more like he would rather have asked a stranger for help than us."

"Which is a good thing," pointed out Callie. "It means he isn’t as indifferent as he wants you to believe."

"Or as he believes," Fenton said, absently stroking his chin.

"What do you mean?" Laura asked, giving up the pretense of eating and laying her fork down.

"Maybe Joe only thinks he doesn’t care about us," Fenton put forth his hypothesis. "He’s put up a wall to keep us at bay," he acknowledged. "But maybe it’s more than that. Maybe it’s to keep him away from us as well."

"You’re saying he’s this way because he’s afraid we will hurt him again?" Frank asked, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully on his dad.

"Or maybe, he’s afraid we hurt him on purpose," Laura whispered. "He... he got very upset when he thought I had called his children a burden. Maybe he believes we think he is one."

"That’s ridiculous!" Frank declared, scowling at the absurdity of the idea.

"Is it?" Callie demanded, looking thoughtful. "Let’s face it, through no fault of his own he was always in one scrape or another that you had to get him out of until..."

"Until he was arrested and we didn’t do everything we should have done," Frank continued for her. "And you think he believes, on some level, that we did it on purpose."

"We have to convince him we didn’t," Laura insisted.

"And we will," Fenton declared, a determined look in his eyes. "We are not leaving here until Joe acknowledges he is a part of our family."

"And we can start showing him by taking care of him and his new family while they are sick," Frank said, standing up. He headed into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. Scrounging around until he located a bottle of 7-Up, he pulled it out and closed the fridge. Setting the drink down, he took two glasses from the cabinet and divided the drink between the two. Next, he opened the cabinets until he located a box of saltine crackers and removed a bag. Reaching for the drinks he froze as the kitchen door opened and the only man Frank had continually fantasized about killing stood framed against the whirling white backdrop.

"Well, now," Pierce said, aiming a revolver at Frank. "I can think of only one other person I would enjoy killing more."