THE TEN BROTHERS WHO FELL FROM THE SKY

CHAPTER 001

I have a bad habit. I say sorry to things that can't hear me.

That morning it was a steel stool. I bumped it with my hip, and the words were out of my mouth before my brain even woke up.

"Sorry."

Next to me, Ruth snorted. "Kiddo, you just apologized to a stool."

"I did not."

"You did. Loud and clear. He accepts, by the way."

I laughed, but it came out thin. My hands were numb from the ice. It was a gray October morning at Lindgren Seafood, and the cold line smelled like salt, fish, and wet cement. The big fans hummed above us. Down the line, Marcy was singing along to a radio that only got two stations.

I was checking ice weights on the salmon bins. I had checked them twice already. I checked them a third time, because checking things felt like doing something.

"You're staring at that scale like it owes you money," Ruth said.

"It kind of does."

"Everything owes you money. Eat something."

She pulled a granola bar from her apron pocket and pushed it into my palm. Ruth was sixty-eight, with arms like rope and a voice like gravel in a bucket. She had been on this floor since before I was born. She had been feeding me since I was fourteen.

"I'm not hungry," I said.

"That's not what I asked."

I unwrapped it. She watched me take a bite, then nodded and went back to work.

That was how it went with Ruth. She never told me she cared. She just kept handing me socks and snacks until I got the message.

I chewed slowly and looked around the plant. The paint on the pillars was peeling. One of the freezer doors had a patch of duct tape on it that was older than some of my crew. Dale was fixing the same conveyor belt he fixed every week. His bad knee made a tiny clicking noise when he bent down.

I loved this place. I know that sounds strange for a building that smells like fish. But it was the only room in the world where people said my name like it mattered.

"Piper," Marcy called. "Did the checks go out yet?"

My stomach dropped.

"They'll be there by Friday," I said. "I promise."

"You said that last Friday, hon."

"I know." I made myself smile. "This time I mean it."

She didn't push. She just gave me a tired little nod and turned back to her bin. That nod hurt worse than yelling would have.

Here is the truth. We hadn't paid the crew on time in two weeks. We had lost our third big client this year. The newest one had left on Monday with a polite email and no goodbye. And for fourteen days, I had been covering the gap with my own savings.

It wasn't much. Eleven hundred dollars, from jars and envelopes and one old account I'd opened when I was sixteen. I had spent every dollar of it on grocery runs and gas money for people who couldn't afford to be late.

I never told anyone. If I said it out loud, it would sound like I wanted a medal.

"Hey," Ruth said, lower now. "You look like you swallowed a rock."

"I'm fine."

"That's two lies before ten a.m."

"I'm just tired."

"That's three."

I opened my mouth to argue. Then I stopped, because something moved at the edge of my eye.

A man was crossing the loading dock.

He wore a camel coat that cost more than my rent. He held a thick folder against his chest like a shield. His shoes were so clean they shone, even in the gray light. They clicked on the wet concrete in a steady, bored rhythm.

Click. Click. Click.

I knew that folder. I knew the logo stamped on the corner. It was the bank.

My blood went cold, and it had nothing to do with the freezer.

"Ruth," I whispered.

"I see him."

"Why is he here? Dad said the next meeting wasn't until December."

"Maybe your dad was wrong."

"Dad's never wrong about money. He's just scared of it."

Ruth made a sound in her throat that wasn't quite a laugh. She wiped her hands on her apron and stepped closer to me, until her shoulder touched mine.

The man in the coat reached the office door. He did not slow down. He did not look at the crew. He did not look at the fish.

I did something stupid then. I couldn't help it. I jogged across the floor and caught him at the edge of the dock, breathless, with my hands still wet.

"Mr. Dunning? Hi. I'm Piper. Arne's daughter."

He didn't stop walking. "I know who you are."

"Can I get you some coffee? We have a fresh pot. It's not fancy, but it's hot."

"No."

"Or tea? Or water? We have bottled water."

"Miss Lindgren." He finally glanced at me. His eyes went right past my face, as if I were a poster on a wall. "I'm here to see your father. Alone."

Then he pushed open the office door and stepped inside.

For one second, before it swung shut, I heard a laugh.

It was light and silky and cheerful. It was Dee's laugh.

I knew that laugh better than I knew my own. It was the one she used when she was winning.

The door clicked closed.

I stood there with my hand halfway out, like a kid waiting for a high five that never came. Ice water dripped off my fingers and hit the concrete.

"Sorry," I whispered.

To the door. To nobody. To the cold.

My mom would have found that funny. I think about her more than I admit. She died when I was nine, in the middle of a January night, and I've been saying sorry ever since. Like I was the one who left. Like somehow, if I had been quieter or better or easier, she would have stayed.

That's not logical. I know that. But the heart doesn't care about logic.

I walked back to Ruth on legs that didn't feel like mine.

"He didn't want coffee," I said.

"I noticed."

"He didn't even look at me."

"I noticed that too."

I stared at the office door. Through the thin wall, I could hear Dee's voice rise and fall like a song. I couldn't catch the words. I didn't need to. Dee always sounded sweetest right before she took something from you.

"Ruth," I said. "What if it's the plant?"

"It's the plant."

"What if we lose it?"

"Then we lose it."

"But all these people." My voice cracked. I hated it. "Marcy's got two kids. Dale's knee. Wyatt just started. Where do they go?"

Ruth turned and put both hands on my shoulders. Her grip was rough and warm.

"Listen to me. You are not responsible for every soul in this building."

"Then who is?"

She didn't answer. She just looked at me with her old, tired eyes.

That was the moment I understood something awful. Nobody else was going to catch us. Dad was hiding. Dee was smiling. And I was the one who kept saying sorry.

My first thought was not that someone was stealing from us. It was that I should have worked harder.

Isn't that sick? A man in a nice coat walks in to take everything, and I stand there thinking I didn't try enough.

"Piper," Ruth said. "Look at me."

I did.

"Whatever happens in there, you don't take the blame. You hear me? Not one ounce of it."

"I hear you."

"Say it back."

"I don't take the blame."

"Louder."

"I don't take the blame."

She nodded. But I could see she didn't believe me. And honestly? Neither did I.

Down the line, the radio switched to a slow country song. Marcy stopped singing. One by one, the crew went quiet. They could feel it too. You can't hide a storm from people who work on the water.

I wiped my hands on my jeans and looked at the office window. The blinds were half closed. Behind them, two shadows sat close together at my father's desk. A third shape stood a little apart, tall and still.

Three people. Not two.

My dad. My stepmother. And someone else.

"Ruth," I said slowly. "Who is that standing behind them?"

She squinted. Her face changed.

"I don't know," she said. "But he wasn't here when the banker walked in."

My heart began to pound.

Then Ruth squeezed my arm, hard, and her voice dropped to almost nothing.

"Kiddo. That's not a loan meeting. That's a funeral."

Behind the glass, the stranger turned his head and looked straight at me.

Who is he, and why does he already know my name?