Two
I nstead of flying out on Monday, I went on Sunday, the following day, arriving there before ten in the morning.
I was going to wait, but I’d started to worry.
What if Mr. Roarke was right and the single father and his three kids were in danger?
It didn’t seem all that likely since the ex-Mrs. Duchesne had shown the bad guys whom she actually cared about in big neon lights, but better safe than sorry.
When I flew into the airport, I was going to rent a car, but the drive was short, and since I was going to be there for at least a month—as long as Mr. Duchesne didn’t send me packing—I took an Uber.
A lovely young woman picked me up, and we had a nice talk about the best things to do in the area and where I should go on a date night.
“From the look on your face,” she said, chuckling, “I’m thinking there are no plans for that. Am I right?”
I nodded.
“That’s a pity. You’re nice and very easy on the eyes. There should be dating.”
I thanked her for the compliment but clarified I was there for work.
“And what is it that you do?”
Since I couldn’t really explain, I told her I was in security, which was technically true.
“Are you here to guard someone famous?”
“Sadly, no, but I do know Nick Madison.”
We were off to the races then. She wanted to know all about him, but mostly if he was as nice in real life as he appeared on his Netflix special and in all his interviews.
Since he was, it was easy to disclose the truth, that he was amazing, and how he played a lot of charity concerts and built shelters all across the country for people and animals.
“Have you met his husband? He’s gorgeous too.”
“Yes, they’re both disgustingly beautiful,” I grumbled, which made her laugh.
Dropped off in front of the two-story house, I turned both ways, examining the shaded, tree-lined street, loving the huge mature trees now in full fall colors of orange, yellow, and red.
There were ponderosa pines, white oaks, bigleaf maples, and ash.
In the Duchesnes’ front yard there was an enormous ginkgo tree that, probably like those in my courtyard back home, had gone yellow first and was now bare, already hibernating for winter.
The house with its gray-shingled gabled roof had a large front yard, and the cluster of snowball hydrangeas on both sides of the wide, covered front porch were lovely, even though they had faded to brown by this time of the year.
Still pretty, very autumn. I was also a fan of the black flagstone walkway, and more than anything, the pale olive-green walls with red trim.
Looking at it from the outside, it was warm and inviting, as most two-story Craftsman homes were.
Glancing around, I realized it was one of the most beautiful homes on the street.
I might have stood out there longer and squinted at the place, but suddenly an alarm went off inside the house. It sounded, as I took the six steps to the porch, like one for smoke.
Two things bothered me right away. First, the front door was unlocked.
I tried it before I even knocked—because, again, alarm—and was surprised it opened.
Second, the open-plan living room I stepped into was not just clean, it was immaculate.
Everything in its place. The built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases, painted white, sitting on the left side of the space belonged in a magazine.
Along with hardback books, there were small gilded frames, decorative lighting, and various knickknacks—too-small-to-hold-anything-in-them bud vases, Japanese teacups, and porcelain animals.
To the right was a gas fireplace with a stone seat in front of it, flanked by trees in enormous pots, and then farther away, more bookcases.
The room was beautiful, but almost like a shrine.
I was not expecting it in a house with three kids.
This must’ve been Caitlyn’s touch. It was the first impression of her home, and it was perfect.
I suspected nothing had been altered in over eighteen months, which was disconcerting.
I wondered who insisted that everything stayed exactly as she’d left it.
Was Mr. Duchesne unable to let go of the past, needing a visual reminder of the woman he probably still loved, or did it remain on the insistence of the children?
Did they need everything to remain exactly as it was?
Perhaps it was comforting? Either way, it wasn’t healthy.
Even if she’d died, it would be a concern.
To freeze time, leaving people moored in the past, was a recipe for stagnancy.
Life didn’t work that way. Whether you liked it or not, forward was the only way to go.
Living had to be done with momentum and purpose, and having seen many, many friends through therapy for everything from PTSD to drugs, having been responsible for the lives of the people under my command as a master sergeant in the Army, and more importantly, having walked into many such homes as a fixer over the years, I knew static when I saw it.
The house, at least this front room, was a monument to a life that was over.
The alarm was still blaring, and I smelled something burning. I had to find the kitchen—always the first place to check.
Dropping my Army duffel and my laptop bag, I charged from the living room into the dining area, which held a large picnic-style table, but with a bench on one side, chairs on the other.
On the left, running the length of the long wall, was the kitchen.
There was a large island that broke up the space, and once I could see what was happening on the stove, the problem became obvious.
Pancakes. Now charcoal briquettes, which was not surprising, given the height of the fire under and inside the pan.
Darting around the island, I found a girl sitting by the dishwasher on the floor, hands covering her ears, shaking like a leaf, and chanting the word no .
Grabbing the dish towel hanging on the double-oven door, I wrapped the metal handle of the pan, lifted it off the burner, and seeing the lid near the sink, covered the flaming mess.
Once the stove was off and the pan moved, I shifted my focus to the shrieking coming from the ceiling.
Of course, simply the absence of fire or smoke now didn’t appease the alarm.
I retrieved a chair from the living room, having not seen a stepladder at first glance, and used it to reach the sensor.
And yes, these were awesome warning-and-detection systems, but they were also annoying as hell.
My favorite was when the batteries ran low and they chirped at you at one in the morning.
Finding which one it was could take some time, and meanwhile, you were losing your mind.
Once the racket stopped, I left the alarm casing dangling and started opening the double-hung windows.
There were many in the kitchen/dining area that faced the back deck and large backyard.
I then returned to the living room, opened all of those, and in moments, I had a nice cross breeze going, the smoke replaced by the scent of rain, wet earth, and crisp lake air.
When I reached the kitchen again, I crouched down beside the little girl, and she scrambled up off the hardwood floor and hurled herself into my arms.
As a rule, I was not great with children.
I spoke to them like they were adults, as I had no experience with any.
I was an only child, and after my mother passed when I was three, there was just my father and me.
She had been the light of his life, as he was orphaned young and had been—as his friends liked to say when it was late and they were drunk—a right sonofabitch.
He had a quick temper, growled at everyone, but my mother, Nina Miller, saw a diamond in the rough.
She loved him madly, desperately, and completely.
Because of that, because she had showered him with her great heart, he had enough in reserve after she was killed in a car accident to love me with that same fierce and complete devotion until he died of a heart attack in his early fifties.
He had been so young, and his absence from my life left a hole that would never be filled.
What had been a comfort then, and remained so, was him telling me every day growing up that I was his ride or die.
Never, ever, had I doubted that I was loved, and the life lessons he imparted had stuck with me and helped not only me, but others I shared his knowledge with.
Rais had said years ago that my father’s love lived in me, and that was probably the best observation I’d ever had directed my way.
But, as a result of growing up alone with my father, no grandparents, aunts, uncles, or anyone else—my mother had been a foster kid just like him—once he was gone, there was no one.
At least, no relatives. But my friends were my family, and I had them all over the world.
My closest ones, Rais, Jared, Shaw, Cooper, all worked with me, and I saw them often, which was a gift.
Rais especially, as we’d served together before he became an Army Ranger.
Because of all that, I had no idea what to do with a ten-year-old girl—Tatum, Luke Duchesne’s youngest child—who’d launched herself at me and held on for dear life.
All I did know, because my father had taught me, was that you held a kid until they let go.
I had always been the one to release him first.
“Listen,” I said softly, holding her tight, left arm around her back, right hand in her hair. “Burning something is not the end of the world. I burn stuff all the time.”
She nodded and exhaled sharply.
“On all those cooking shows on TV, fire is always shooting up outta the pans, and those folks are all professionals. You gotta think about that.”
More nodding.
“You better?”
“Yeah,” came the tiny voice.