Chapter Nineteen
Brady
I wouldn’t say I was starting to get excited about finding Thomas Steele, but I can say the process became a lot more interesting once Elise decided my quest was worthy of her time.
We sat at her little kitchen table that next morning with coffee and the last of the bagels I had brought back.
She had already taped another sheet of butcher paper to the wall beside yesterday’s chart and was tapping a marker against her palm while she listened to me lay out the plan.
I kept it simple. Start at the beginning.
The college where my dad, Cody, and Thomas knew each other thirty-some years ago.
Yearbooks, old club rosters, anything that might still exist in a library archive.
Elise nodded once, then gave me one of those small half-smiles that always made my chest feel a little too full. “Your process,” she said. “We follow it. No shortcuts.”
I grinned. “You sure? Because I have been known to get sidetracked by a good cup of coffee and a random local or two.”
She stood and grabbed her keys, eyes sparkling. “I’m beginning to appreciate that side of you.” The words hit hard.
I would have responded with more, but she was already heading for the door. I followed, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
The state library was an hour’s drive away, a squat brick building that smelled like old paper and lemon polish the second we walked inside.
The woman at the reference desk took one look at us, heard the word “yearbooks,” and pointed us toward the microfilm room like she had been waiting for this exact request her whole career.
Elise and I claimed the last two reader machines side by side.
For the first twenty minutes we flipped through pages of black-and-white photos, heads bent close enough that our shoulders kept brushing. Every time she leaned in, I caught the faint scent of her shampoo, and I had to remind myself we were here for a reason.
A good one. An important one.
The reminder was becoming necessary more often than I liked.
Then Elise tapped the screen. “There.”
It was a group shot from the tennis team.
Three guys in terrible early-nineties shorts and even worse hair.
Gabe Holliston on the left, Cody Burke in the middle, Thomas Steele on the right.
All of them grinning like they had just won the whole damn world.
The caption underneath read: The Unreturnable Serve Trio – Holliston, Burke, Steele.
I let out a low whistle. “Look at that. They really were friends.”
Elise’s finger traced the edge of the photo, her arm brushing mine again. “Your dad had better hair than I expected.”
I laughed so loud the librarian shushed us from the next row. Elise’s eyes sparkled with the same mischief I was feeling. We bumped elbows while we scrolled forward, and neither of us moved away.
Researching dusty records in a state library should not have ranked anywhere near the top of my list of best days.
Somehow, it did.
Two rolls of microfilm later we hit the debate club. Another picture, same three guys at a podium, ties crooked, mouths open mid-argument. Caption: Steele, Holliston, and Burke – still arguing about everything.
Elise leaned her shoulder into mine and read it out loud in a mock-serious voice. “They look so happy.”
“I think they were.” I turned my head just enough that our faces were inches apart. “Just like we are.”
She didn’t deny it. Instead she reached over and turned the dial herself, so the next frame rolled into view, her fingers grazing mine on purpose this time.
Robotics club. The three of them stood in front of a clunky metal contraption that looked like it had been built from spare toaster parts.
Thomas was holding what appeared to be a giant remote control.
Underneath the photo someone had written: Tom, Gabe & Cody – Don’t Stop Believin’ we’ll win regionals.
We both froze.
“Don’t Stop Believin’,” I said slowly. “As in the song.” I kissed her in a moment of sheer excitement. That had to be a password.
We temporarily lost track of the task as the kiss deepened. She tasted so damn good. Was I a fool to think we needed to wait? She finally cleared her throat and kept scrolling.
I let her be the one to move us forward because I was learning that with Elise, not pulling away mattered as much as reaching.
Then we found it. A candid shot in the robotics club scrapbook section.
Thomas Steele sitting cross-legged on the floor at three in the morning, surrounded by empty Kraft Mac & Cheese boxes.
The handwritten note beside it read: Tom ‘Krafty’ Steele fueling another all-nighter. Brand loyalty or cry for help?
I stared. Elise stared. Then we both started laughing at the same time.
“Kraft mac and cheese,” I managed between breaths. “Is that nickname why he’s hiding from the world?”
Elise wiped at the corner of her eye. “It should be. I can’t imagine him eating that.”
I looked at her quickly.
She added, “I mean it doesn’t match the image of Thomas Steele we’ve built.”
I shook my head, still grinning. “I can’t believe my father was ever this carefree.”
We copied down every caption, every tiny note, every silly detail. My notebook filled up fast. Every time our hands brushed, reaching for the same pen or the same page, the air between us felt a little warmer.
I was suffering from a perma-smile and it was getting harder to remember what Basin Ridge had felt like before Elise.
When the librarian finally kicked us out at closing, we stepped into the late-afternoon light still buzzing. Elise pulled out her phone and started tapping at it while I unlocked the car.
“I ran the names and dates you gave me against public property records,” she said. “There is an old house on the very edge of town. Bought under Thomas Steele’s name about twenty-five years ago. It looks like it has been empty a long time. I bet he left something behind there.”
I stopped with the keys halfway to the ignition. “You found that just now?”
She shrugged, but her eyes were bright. “Public records. Nothing fancy. It probably has security on it now. If he is in cyber security, a very high-tech one. Might even be impenetrable.”
I started my car and the engine rumbled to life. “Everything seems impossible until you try.”
“Do you think we should try to break in?”
My heart thudded wildly in my chest. “Sounds illegal.”
She chewed her bottom lip, then said, “Only if we get caught.”
Despite how volatile my father was, or perhaps because of it, I usually played it safe when it came to the law. This was important, though, and if no one was living there . . .
I reached across the console and laced my fingers through hers. “Let’s do it.”
She squeezed back.
“Tomorrow?” she asked.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “You, me, and whatever security system Mr. Kraft Mac & Cheese left behind.”
She laughed again, and I realized something important. We had found photos. Nicknames. Leads. A house to investigate. More progress in two days than I’d made in weeks.
I should have been thinking about Thomas Steele.
Instead, I was thinking about Elise.
About how naturally her hand fit in mine. About the way she looked when she was trying not to laugh. About the fact that, somewhere between the first roll of microfilm and Krafty Steele’s orange-powdered all-nighter, the search had stopped feeling like something I was doing alone.
Maybe that was good.
Maybe it was risky.
Maybe both were true.
With Elise beside me, laughing at the same ridiculous details and holding my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world, the search felt like it was heading somewhere wonderful.