Chapter Fifteen
Early Sunday afternoon, Rachel pulled up the long driveway to the two-story house.
She parked beneath the netless basketball hoop, which had become just a turnaround for cars in recent years.
Then she took a long look at the house. Its beige aluminum siding above the brick had a yellow cast now.
The shingles at the edge of the roof had begun to curl.
Like she had a dozen times during her drive over, she glanced in the rearview mirror.
Not a single white SUV in sight. But if she didn’t stop looking over her shoulder, she’d never make it through this information-finding mission.
She shouldn’t have lied to Mick about waiting until Monday to look for answers in her dad’s home, but some things a gal had to do alone.
Visiting all the ghosts inside her parents’ place was one of them.
She could count on one hand the number of times she’d been inside the house in the past seven months.
Okay, she needed a few extra fingers, but most of the stops had involved helping an inebriated Riley to his room after she’d rolled him out of Lou’s Corner Pub.
On those occasions, she’d been too busy to think about how different the place was without their father there.
Now his absence would swallow her whole.
After taking a few deep breaths for courage, she climbed out of the minivan and stomped through the mixture of snow and slush to the steps. From the zipper pocket of her purse, she pulled out the spare key. Her hand trembled as she slid it into the dead bolt.
Yes, they’d built some happy memories there with the twins, but there were still rooms she couldn’t enter without thinking about her mom. Now her dad’s presence would fill all of them as well.
As she started to turn the key, her phone buzzed.
She dug around in her purse’s main compartment and pulled out her cell.
Mick’s name appeared on the screen. She considered letting it go to voice mail, but from what she’d already learned about him, she knew he’d only call again.
With a sigh, she tapped the screen to answer.
“Hi, Mick.” She coughed into her sleeve and then tried again. “Have you enjoyed your day off? Sorry you lost an hour of it with the whole ‘spring forward’ thing.”
He chuckled into the line. “Doing great. Just driving around and trying to get to know my new community better. How about you? You’re not coming down with anything, are you?”
“I’m fine.” But she couldn’t resist clearing her throat. “All that dry air must be getting to me.”
“Why? Are you outside?”
Rachel shuffled her feet on the step and pulled her arms closer to her body before looking again over her shoulder. Still, no one was there. “Um, I’m—”
“Standing on the back step at your dad’s house?”
“What?” She jerked her head back and forth, looking for him. “How do you—”
“Know that you’re there? I’m good at guessing. Even better at reading people.”
Just then, something squeaked near her dad’s massive, detached garage, causing the thuds of her heartbeat to trample over each other.
The side door popped open with another creak, and Mick stepped outside, his coat unzipped over his regular zipper hoodie.
He pulled his cell away from his ear, tapped the screen to end the call and strode toward her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she pulled out the key. “Are you stalking me? Because I don’t appreciate—”
He shook his head when she reached the bottom of the steps, but she could tell from his pinched expression that her words had hit their mark. Good enough for him. He’d scared the crap out of her.
Mick must have remembered he was angry as his jaw flexed, his eyes narrowing.
“I knew you wouldn’t wait until Monday to search here. And that you’d come here without me even after we’d agreed to collaborate. You might be willing to put yourself—and your girls—at risk by being here, but I’m not. I’m going to keep my end of the bargain.”
“There’s only one problem with your premise. Do you see Carly and Carissa anywhere?”
He pointed to the minivan in the drive.
“They’re not in there, either.”
“But where…?”
“They’re kids,” she said with a sigh. “They do occasionally have playdates. I scheduled one for them today at my friend Stacy Kellman’s. They’re staying there for dinner. Stacy’s even a nurse, so she can fix them right up if they get any cuts or scrapes.”
Mick nodded, but he didn’t apologize or even step away from her.
“Now aren’t you sorry you wasted your Sunday afternoon, racing over here to protect…my girls?” Uneasiness filled her as she’d nearly said me. “How did you know I didn’t already come yesterday?”
“From the snow still on the roof of your minivan, I figured you hadn’t left the house all day. I know. Stalker.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Now that you can see that the girls aren’t here, you can go watch football or nap on your sofa or whatever else you had planned for your day off.”
“You might remember that I don’t currently have a sofa or a TV. Besides, you’re here.”
Rachel swallowed as he lifted his gaze to hers.
It was so warm that she couldn’t help shivering.
He didn’t have to say that he’d shown up at her father’s house as much to protect her as her daughters.
Relief she shouldn’t have been feeling flooded her insides.
She couldn’t let it take hold. There was a difference between letting him help her search for answers and allowing herself to really need him.
Though that line was blurring, she couldn’t let it disappear.
“I don’t need you to watch over me. I’m perfectly safe here.”
Even under the threat of torture, she wouldn’t confess how many times she’d checked to ensure she hadn’t been followed.
“But since I’m already here, and there’s not much to do at my apartment, mind if I stay? It would be a favor to me really. Something for the new guy to do on a lonely afternoon.”
“Fine. Anyone ever told you that you can be over-the-top?”
“My ex-wife, but she wasn’t my biggest fan,” he said with a grin.
“I won’t make you relive those days.”
“I appreciate that.”
“And I appreciate your help.”
His wide-eyed response to her comment told her she should have said that before now. He’d been under no obligation to support her or her brother. But he’d shown up, anyway. And he’d kept showing up, until she’d recognized that his assistance wasn’t such a bad thing.
To dodge the temptation to say more, she pointed to the garage. “What were you doing in there, anyway?”
She shot a look back at the driveway. “And where’s your truck?”
“I parked it not far from here.”
Mick gestured to the garage and then started back to it. Rachel stomped after him through snow that hadn’t been plowed since Riley checked in at the rehab center. Some of it had already melted into patches of ice.
“But why the garage?” she asked again from behind him.
“It was the only unlocked door I could find. And it’s cold out here.”
“It was unlocked?”
Without waiting for his answer, she marched past him. He caught up to her again just as she reached the entrance. She bent and checked the doorknob, the bolt and even the strike plate.
“I didn’t see any tampering, but then you’re the expert,” he said.
She frowned back at him. “Do you think Riley could’ve just forgotten to lock it?”
“People forget things all the time. Even those who aren’t possibly hitting rock bottom.”
Rachel blinked several times. She hadn’t thought about that.
“Have you been back here since he went inpatient?”
“Once. Just long enough to turn down the heat and put the water heater on vacation mode.” She didn’t mention that she’d left the van running with the girls in the back, making it in and out in five minutes. “I never thought to check the garage.”
“Your brother probably didn’t, either. Besides, I’ve had the chance to look around. I didn’t see anything of value. Except maybe tools.”
“You’re wrong. Engine 5’s in there.”
Rachel pushed the door open and stepped into the space that should have easily fit three cars with room to spare. Instead, overflowing shelves of boxes and containers lined the walls from floor to ceiling. She stepped past the first stall where Riley had managed to squeeze in his car.
“Dad was a bit of a hoarder. He never threw away anything.”
She moved past some of the chaos and gestured game show-host-style to the tarp-covered vehicle in the far corner.
“That’s what I was talking about. I give you Engine 5.”
“You mean that trash heap of a truck under there?”
“How can you say that about Dad’s pride and joy?” Then she shot a look back at him. “If you’ve already seen it, just how long have you been in here snooping?”
“An hour or so. I’ve peeked into several boxes but only found things like dishes and clothes. Not even books, let alone any sort of old newspapers or documents.”
“He kept all his books in the house. There are a lot of those, too.”
“I still don’t get the point of the truck.” He stepped closer to it and lifted the tarp to uncover the 1970s pickup with rust patterns decorating the front-quarter panel and widening the wheel wells. “Does this thing even run?”
“As a matter of fact, it doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean it’s not—”
“Has it run anytime in the twenty-first century?” He glanced back, grinning.
She pursed her lips but couldn’t hold that hard expression. “Maybe the first few years.”
He continued to pull the tarp until the truck bed was fully uncovered.
“But it’s not garbage. To our family, Engine 5 symbolizes the hard work and dedication of firefighters. It was priceless to my…dad.”