Chapter Eighteen
Elise
I’d heard Brady’s Chevy Nova pulling out of the lot and woken to find a note announcing he’d be back soon with bagels. I was still processing the simple kindness of his gesture when my phone chimed.
Keaton: Are you back?
Elise: I am.
Keaton: You were supposed to text me last night.
Elise: I forgot.
Keaton: You don’t do that.
I felt the familiar spike of irritation. I loved my brother, but the Steele family didn’t just have boundaries; we had digital confinement procedures I was growing less and less fond of.
Elise: Keaton, we have an agreement. We respect each other’s time away.
Keaton: Yes, but you don’t usually vanish for twelve hours without a signal. Where were you?
Elise: I am allowed to have a private life. My time in town is my time. My space. I don’t need to explain it and I won’t have you watching me while I’m here.
Keaton: I’m your brother. I’m sorry if I care if you’re alive or dead.
Elise: Well, I’m alive, but I’m also annoyed. Stop checking on me unless you want me tracking everything you do when you’re traveling.
Keaton: When are you coming back to the compound?
Elise: I’ll text you when I know for sure, but I might take a week. You’re not making me eager to rush back. All I’m asking for is room to breathe.
I hit send with a little more force than necessary. It was the stronger side of me, the side that had negotiated for this apartment and the shred of independence it represented. I wasn’t a data point to be tracked. Not anymore.
Keaton: Okay.
By the time I heard Brady’s footsteps in the hallway, I had cleared the kitchen table and started on the wall. When things felt out of control, doing something calmed me.
When he walked in, carrying a bag that smelled like sesame and high-quality roast, he stopped dead. “Elise?” he asked, eyes widening. “What’s . . . all this?”
I had used a roll of butcher paper I’d kept in the closet for hardware schematics, taping it across the main wall of the living room.
In the center, I’d written THOMAS STEELE in sharp black marker.
Radiating out from it were the names he’d mentioned last night: Gabe Holliston, Cody Burke, Celia Burke.
“I’ve decided to help you,” I said, stepping back to look at the board. I had a red string in my hand, ready to connect the dots. “If you’ll have me, I’m joining the mission.”
The truth was more complex. Partnering with him was the only way to cover my bases.
If I helped him, I could control the flow of information.
If he found something that threatened my family, I’d have time to understand it first. And, more importantly, it bought me time.
Time with him. Time to unravel how he made me feel.
Brady set the bagels down, a slow, radiant grin spreading across his face. “You’re serious? You’re in?”
“I’m in,” I said, though my heart did a strange, unmapped skip at the excitement in his voice. “But I need you to walk me through the players again. Every detail. No matter how small.”
He looked so genuinely pleased that guilt nipped at me. But I told myself that just because I wasn’t being completely honest with him didn’t mean I wouldn’t help him. If he really was everything he presented himself to be, I could give him the ultimate goal assist by introducing him to my father.
Only not yet.
Not until I was sure it was the right thing to do.
“Wait,” he said, pausing. “Don’t you have to go to work? I don’t want to mess up your schedule.”
Part of moving forward with him would be choosing to be as honest as I could be.
“I have enough in savings. I’m fine.” I still needed to be careful.
I’d known this man for only a few days. A few “zings” didn’t outweigh my loyalty to my family.
“Focus, Brady,” I said, pointing to the wall to hide the flush in my cheeks.
“Thomas Steele. Why is he a jar of pickles in your story, and how do we find the real man?”
For the next hour, the apartment transformed. We were a think tank, two minds colliding over a thirty-year-old mystery. Brady paced, acting out the “pissing contest” between Gabe and Cody, while I pinned up notes about the “Mountain Oracle” and the college they’d all attended.
I watched him as he talked, my analytical brain working overtime. I was curious about what had happened between my father and these men. My father was meticulous when it came to not having a digital footprint and keeping all of our operating systems closed. Had he been burned by these men?
“If we can’t find him through the present,” Brady said, studying the map of red string, “we have to go back. The college. The love triangle. Whatever caused the break. There has to be something left from that time.”
If there was anything left from back then, where would my father keep it?
On the other side of town was a house my father and I used to design and test security systems. Firefighters use controlled burns to test their skills.
My father, Keaton, and I used that house as our sandbox for commercial prototypes.
Some families went to zoos together for entertainment; we would test each other’s skills by one of us installing a system that the others would have to navigate through.
The ultimate brain puzzle. So many good memories.
Sad that we’d ever stopped.
As far as I knew the house was still there.
If so, I could set up a test. See if Brady was holding back skills he was pretending not to have. And maybe, if I was lucky, I might find a piece of the past there.
No.
No, I wasn’t adopting Brady’s hope and try methodology, was I?
Brady looked at the board, then back at me, his eyes lighting up. “You’re incredible, do you know that? And I am so glad to have you on my team.”
He leaned in and kissed me, and the zing nearly made me forget that I wasn’t.
Not yet.