Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
ARLOW
Two weeks after that terrifying night that changed everything, the snow and ice have finally disappeared, giving us a good view of the graveyard. As I’d hoped, the top of the grave looks no different than the many other bare patches this time of winter.
Calli points her finger toward it, drawing a line through the air. “You plan to plant the bushes down this way?”
“Yes, I should be able to get them planted in late March or early April, depending on the weather.”
Her phone buzzes, and she checks it as we walk back toward my house. “It’s Silver. I’m supposed to meet the realtor with her and Mona. Her eyebrows raise as she peeks up at me. “Are you sure you want me for a neighbor permanently before I do this?”
“I want you in my house permanently, but I’ll settle for next door.”
Her grin dismisses my statement as a joke. Because of course I wouldn’t be asking her to move in with me after a whole two weeks of officially being together. That’d be crazy despite it being exactly what I want.
“Okay, I’m going to go. Don’t wait on me for dinner. I’m going to shop for new furniture with Silver and then go to the gym. You’ll probably be in the barn when I get back. You’re livestreaming tonight, right?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her screw the livestream, that I’ll skip it to shop with her or make us a late dinner, but I restrain myself and drop a kiss on her lips. “Yep. Back to work. Be careful and have fun.”
If she had any idea how obsessed I am with her, she’d probably want to rethink this relationship. She waited for me to be ready and I’m not going to ruin things by smothering her, as hard as it might be not to. We need our own lives too.
Before she can get into her car, a squad car pulls into the driveway. She turns to me, wide eyed, and I slip my hand into hers, giving it a quick squeeze. “It’s okay. Deep breath. They don’t know anything. We don’t have to answer any questions we don’t want to.”
Nodding, she releases my hand.
I’m glad to see it’s officer Anderson at least, not the asshole. He nods at us. “Mr. Shaw, Ms. Barnes. Have you had any more trouble?”
“No,” Calli replies, her voice calm and even. “So far so good.”
“Do you have any updates for us?” I ask. There’s a lawyer on retainer for both of us now. One wrong word, and I’ll end this conversation quick to call him.
The officer pulls out a notebook. “Do you recognize the name Mariah Kenneth?”
“No, it doesn’t sound familiar,” Calli says as I shake my head.
Officer Anderson nods. “The account number you were given traces back to the name Mariah Kenneth. She’s deceased but the account was never closed. She has no next of kin as far as we can tell.” He looks from me to Calli and back again. “Do you have any idea who might have access to her bank information?”
“No, I’ve never heard of her.”
“Also, the man you informed us about.” He looks at his notebook again. “Christopher Handleman was arrested on violation of parole eight days ago in Eastern Tennessee. Neighbors say he’s been staying there for more than a month.”
“It wasn’t him then,” Calli replies. “That’s good to know.”
“We haven’t been able to locate the other man you mentioned, Carl Becker. The last address we have for him is in Indianapolis, but he no longer resides there. There’s no car registered to him or forwarding address. If he’s the one who has access to the bank account, there’s no record of it. We’ll continue monitoring the account for any new activity.”
They’ll be wasting their time. The man responsible is currently feeding the worms and beetles not far away.
“Alright.” He tucks his notebook back in his pocket. “If you have any more issues or think of anything else, please report it. There’s not much else to be done at this juncture.”
“I understand,” I tell him. “Hopefully they’ve given up since it didn’t work for them.”
“If they’re smart,” he agrees. “You all have a good day.”
Calli lets out a long breath after the squad car pulls out of the driveway. “The Kenneth’s were an elderly couple who lived next door to Mom and Carl years ago. They probably stole her bank information when she died.”
I take her hand in mine, feeling the slight tremble in her fingers. “There won’t be any more demands, or further activity on that account. There’s nothing else for them to investigate. We’re good.” She looks up at me when I squeeze her hand. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I think so. I just want to move on and put all this behind us.” She gives me a quick hug. “I’m going to go meet Silver.”
As I watch her drive away, it hits me again how extraordinary she is. So resilient and determined to get her life back when I know she’s constantly battling an undercurrent of anxiety and fear to do it.
And she does. Over the next few weeks, we return to our lives. Calli gets her cabin refurnished and inhabitable again. She joins a poetry club at the library and enjoys her walks in the woods like she used to, cutting them a little short due to the cold. I work around the property, spend a couple of days with Lee, fishing and helping him paint a vacant lake house, and return to drawing at night. Calli and I trade house keys, and each night finds her in my bed or me in hers. We spend Christmas high on my couch, eating cookies and watching movies—when we can pull our naked bodies apart for long enough.
The sound of a door closing upstairs makes me smile. It feels like I’ve awakened to dawn after years of night. This is what love sounds like. It’s the tap of her footsteps, the way she hums when she’s baking, her voice singing in the shower, the little snort she makes when something funny catches her off guard.
My guilt for risking her heart because of mine hasn’t disappeared, but I’ve had an appointment with a therapist to try to overcome it. We’ll be meeting a few times per month. Calli was right. It helps having an outside perspective, another person to reassure me that I’m not doing the wrong thing.
“Good morning, sleepy. Do you—” My words die when I turn to see Calli’s tearful face. She makes a beeline into my arms, burying her face in my chest. I cup the back of her head, holding her tight. “Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?”
She sniffs, keeping her forehead against my shirt. “The private investigator called. My dad passed away.”
Fuck. She had such high hopes of finding him, the only family she had any desire to see again. “Oh darling. I’m so sorry.”
She nods, still keeping her face buried. “Over two years ago. He was using another name so there was no way for authorities to reach me. They didn’t even know who he was.” Her voice cracks. “He died in some cheap motel alone where no one knew who he was.”
All I can do is hold her tighter as she cries and murmur reassuring words that probably hold little comfort. After a couple of minutes, she looks up at me. “Will you go to Indianapolis with me? The hotel manager said she held onto some of his things, in case anyone ever came looking.”
“Of course I will.”
The next few days are hard for Calli after getting such shocking news, but she seems to be feeling a little better once we’re settled into a nice hotel on the north side of Indianapolis.
“I think I kind of expected it, you know? After all this time, he would’ve found a way to get in touch. He wouldn’t have cut contact with my brother either.”
“Are you going to let him know?”
She nods with a frown and pulls out an envelope. “I wrote him a letter to tell him. With no return address. I’ll mail it while we’re here, so the postmark won’t tell him my state—not that I expect him to try to contact me anyway.”
“At least he won’t be left wondering.”
“Yeah.” She checks the time on her phone. “We can go anytime. The hotel manager should be in. We might have come for nothing. His remains were disposed of by the city a long time ago and his personal effects are likely just a few old clothes.”
“No, sweetheart.” I reach out to take her hand. “We came so you can say goodbye.”
She nods, giving me a small smile. I’m surprised to see her pull the container with her mother’s ashes out of her bag. “I’m dumping these today. They aren’t coming home with me again.”
“Okay, we can go wherever you like after the hotel.”
As hard as this is, the trip will probably be good for her in the end. Maybe she’ll get some closure and be able to leave them both behind.
The hotel is everything she told me it would be. Small, rundown, and dirty, in a dangerous part of town. A man sits on the ground at the edge of the parking lot, his belongings piled around him.
Calli leaves the urn in the car when we enter the small office. It stinks of years of cigarette smoke and mildew. A bored looking guy looks up from the desk. “You need a room?”
Calli steps up closer. “No, I need to speak to Jill Tolin, please.”
“Jill!” he shouts toward the doorway behind him. “Someone’s here for you!”
A moment later, a woman who looks near my mother’s age pokes her head through the door. “Are you Calli?” She doesn’t give her a chance to answer before answering herself. “Of course you are. Look at your smile. Just like Harry’s.”
“You knew him?” Calli asks.
“I did. He stayed here for, oh, at least six months, I want to say. Sweet guy. I liked him. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. You said he left some stuff?”
She nods, digging under the counter. “I don’t usually hang onto stuff that gets left here for this long, but I didn’t want to throw out pictures. And the cops came back hoping he’d listed some emergency contact or something since his ID turned out to be fake. I figured when they tracked down his family, I could give them back.” The words are spoken matter-of-factly, without any judgement or surprise. I imagine it wouldn’t be the first time someone has used a fake ID here.
Calli’s eyes light up at the mention of photos. “Thank you so much for holding onto them.”
“You’re welcome.” She pushes a small carboard box across the counter. “This is everything. Excuse me.”
Two women are screaming at each other in the parking lot. The clerk sighs and accompanies Jill outside to break it up.
“Let’s take it to the car, alright?”
She agrees and walks past the scene outside without giving it a glance. The box gets deposited into the trunk. “I’ll wait until we get back to the hotel to go through it.” Instead of getting in to leave, she grabs the container of her mother’s ashes. “I just need to do one more thing.”
“Where are you going?” I ask as she heads for the alley that runs alongside the hotel.
“To throw this in the dumpster.”