Chapter 17
Bree stood at the upstairs window and watched Jason’s truck pull away from the curb. Brian and Colby lingered on the sidewalk, still talking, their gestures big and animated. Hank leaned against the warehouse’s brick wall, arms folded, listening.
From this height, with the harbor spread out beyond them, they looked like pieces in a sketch she hadn’t finished.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Mom.
She hesitated only a second before answering. “Hey.”
“Hi, sweetheart,” her mom said. “We just left the cemetery. Your father insisted on telling your sister you’re talking about moving. As if she doesn’t already know.”
Bree’s throat tightened. “Thank you,” she said. “For telling her. I know…”
“I know it’s not how it works,” her mom finished. “We say it anyway.”
Bree leaned her shoulder against the window frame. The light was warm on her face, smelling faintly of dust and salt. “How are you?” she asked.
“Tired,” her mom said. “The good kind, where you’ve cried it out, and your husband made you sit on a bench and eat half his granola bar. Your father wishes me to inform you that the grounds crew needs to mow the north slope more often.”
Bree smiled. “Of course he does.”
“How are you?” her mom asked. “And don’t say ‘fine.’”
“I’m… hopeful,” Bree said slowly. “Scared. But hopeful.”
“Tell me about this place,” her mom said. “The building. I’ve been picturing some kind of haunted shack by the docks.”
“It’s not haunted,” Bree said. “It’s old.
Brick warehouse on Bay Street, two blocks from the harbor.
Ground floor’s going to be the performance shop.
High ceilings, concrete floor, lots of space for lifts and whatever mechanical wizardry Hank and the guys need.
Upstairs…” She turned, letting her gaze travel over the room.
“Upstairs is big. Wood floors, tall windows facing the water. It’s rough right now, but you can see what it wants to be. ”
“Which is?” her mom asked softly.
“A studio,” Bree said. “And a small gallery. I can see easels, canvases, and a big table in the middle for messy work. A corner where I can just sit and stare at things when I forget how to be a person.” Her throat got tight. “And a wall dedicated to Bryn.”
There was a quiet sound on the other end of the line; she knew that inhale, that small intake that meant her mom was holding back tears.
“She’d like that,” her mom said. “What kind of wall?”
“Not portraits,” Bree said. “Not just her face. Pieces of her. Her Doc Martens under a bench. The coffee mug she stole from that diner. The paint on her knuckles. The way she’d leave smudges on doorframes like little fingerprints of color everywhere she went.”
“She did make a mess,” her mom said, a watery laugh threading through the words.
“A beautiful one,” Bree said. “I want people who never knew her to stand here and feel like they’re meeting her anyway.”
“I can’t decide if that makes me want to cry or clap,” her mom said. “Maybe both.”
“Same,” Bree admitted.
“Do you have to decide about the money now?” her mom asked quietly. “The insurance.”
“No,” Bree said. “But I want to. I’ve been letting it sit like a stone in my pocket for a year.
It feels heavier every day I don’t use it.
Hank said something this morning that stuck, about money not knowing where it came from, only what we use it for.
I think I want to turn some of it into walls and light and paintings instead of letting it gather dust in a bank account. ”
Her mom was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice had steadied. “Then that’s what you should do,” she said. “We gave it to you for your future, not for guilt.”
“I know,” Bree said. “I just had to catch up to the idea.”
“Is it safe?” her mom asked suddenly. “This warehouse. This town. You said there was cheating at the race. People being shady.”
“There was,” Bree said. She glanced out the window at the street. Hank stood with his back to the wall, his gaze sweeping the block, automatic and practiced.
“And?” her mom prompted.
“And we spoke up,” Bree said. “Hank turned in the illegal kit. The police are on it. There’s some fallout there; Sergeant Diaz said the people who were profiting from it aren’t thrilled.
But the mayor’s on our side. The cop in charge knows what she’s doing.
They’re putting cameras in the area. We’re not walking into this blind. ”
Her mom let out a low sound. “I don’t like the idea of you being anywhere near people who make money by hurting others.”
“Nobody does,” Bree said. “But pretending they don’t exist doesn’t make them go away. At least here we’re surrounded by people who give a damn. Hank’s not going to ignore it. Neither is Diaz.”
“And you,” her mom said.
“And me,” Bree agreed.
She noticed movement across the street; a silver sedan had eased to the curb, idling. A man in a ball cap sat behind the wheel, his posture just a little too stiff for someone taking a phone call. He looked toward the warehouse, then down the block.
“Bree?” her mom asked. “You still there?”
“Yeah,” Bree said. Her artist’s brain cataloged the angle of the man’s head, the way his hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Just… looking at the view. The harbor’s so close it feels like you could fall into it.”
“You always did like getting close to the edge of things,” her mom said. “You sure about this? Staying there. Building a life that isn’t two hours down the road.”
Bree watched Hank push off the wall and glance up, checking windows automatically. His gaze found her; he tipped his chin in question. She lifted a hand and gave a small wave, pointing subtly toward the street.
He turned, casual, like he was only stretching. His eyes tracked to the sedan. After a beat, the car pulled away, merging into light traffic and disappearing around the corner.
“I’m sure I need to try,” Bree said, pulling her focus back to the phone. “If I come back now, before I’ve given this a real shot, I think I’ll always wonder what would’ve happened if I’d stayed.”
“And if it doesn’t work?” her mom asked.
“Then I’ll figure something else out,” Bree said. “But right now, when I picture the future, it’s not just me in an apartment full of half-packed boxes and memories. It’s this building. The shop downstairs. The studio up here. Hank. People climbing stairs to see what I made of all this grief.”
“You always did make things out of what hurt,” her mom said softly.
Bree swallowed. “I learned from the best.”
Her mom made another small sound.
“Can you and Dad come down when we get closer?” Bree asked. “I’d like you to see it before it’s finished. Help me decide where the Bryn wall goes.”
“We’d like that,” her mom said. “Your father’s nodding. He says he’ll bring a level.”
Bree laughed. “Of course he will.”
“I know you’re going to be okay,” her mom said. “I just need a little time to catch up to it.”
“Take all the time you need,” Bree said. “I’m not going anywhere for a while.”
“We love you,” her mom said.
“I love you too,” Bree replied.
They hung up. Bree stood there a moment, phone slipping back into her pocket, listening to the building breathe.
Boot steps creaked on the stairs. Hank appeared in the doorway, the light behind him haloing his shoulders.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “They’re… adjusting. My mom’s picturing you and trying really hard not to ask if you have tattoos or a criminal record.”
He smiled. “Do you want to tell her the answer to one of those is yes?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I’ll let you scandalize her in person.”
He crossed the room and leaned his hip against the windowsill beside her. “Guy in the sedan,” he said quietly. “Anything feel off about him to you?”
“My stomach didn’t love it,” she admitted. “But that might’ve just been all the feelings.”
He nodded. “Could be nothing. Could be somebody curious about why four people are standing outside an old warehouse with blueprints. Either way, I got the plate. I’ll send it to Diaz.”
“Awareness, not paranoia,” she said.
“Exactly."
She looked at his profile, the way his jaw worked when he was thinking. “Do you ever get tired of feeling responsible for everything within a fifty-yard radius?”
“Constantly,” he said. “Doesn’t stop me.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m not asking you to change. Just… remember that I can also notice weird sedans.”
“I saw you clock him,” he said. “You went still without freezing. There’s a difference. I’m not trying to turn you into a porcelain doll I have to carry around.”
“Good,” she said. “Because I’d be terrible at that.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth; warmth flickered there, layered over the concern. “You’d be terrible at sitting still,” he agreed. “You did good with your parents.”
She let her head tip against his shoulder. “You did good with the mayor,” she said. “Very grown-up. There were terms and everything.”
He huffed a laugh. “Wait until you hear me talk depreciation schedules.”
“Sounds sexy,” she murmured.
He tilted her chin up with one knuckle. “Careful,” he said. “You keep saying things like that, I’m going to forget we’re standing in a room with broken boards and no curtains.”
She kissed him before she could talk herself out of it, slow and deliberate. Dust and light wrapped around them; the harbor scent drifted through the cracked glass.
“We should probably not christen the studio while your friends are downstairs,” she said against his mouth.
“Probably not,” he agreed. “But later…”
“Later,” she said.
They grabbed a late lunch at a little place on Main, then parted ways. Brian and Colby went back to the paddock to tie up loose ends with the team hauler. Hank and Bree returned to the hotel, the quiet of the hallway a strange contrast to the noise in her head.
Inside the room, Bree set her sketchbook on the small table by the window. Blank pages waited, daring her.
Hank tossed the folder onto the desk and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, scrubbing his hands over his face.