Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
For a second, Nora thought she’d misunderstood her dad. But his expression remained unchanged, with no hint that he’d misspoken.
“You thought Uncle Roy was taking money behind our backs?”
Dad winced slightly at the old nickname. “At first. Kickbacks, maybe, or money under the table. I didn’t know exactly what to think.”
“From whom?” Austin asked.
“That was the problem. I couldn’t get a straight answer.”
Mom lowered herself into the chair across from him. “You told me you and Roy fought over the touring schedule. That you didn’t agree on how many dates to book.”
“That was part of it.” Dad rubbed his palms over his jeans. “Roy kept adding appearances that made no sense. Small churches hours out of our way. Stops that left us sitting in the same town an extra night before the next concert.”
“Why?” Nora asked.
“He claimed they were good opportunities. But whenever I said we couldn’t afford the detour, the expenses were suddenly covered. Someone paid for the hotel or reimbursed the fuel. Sometimes the guarantee increased enough to make the trip worthwhile.”
Austin’s attention sharpened. “Did that happen with every booking?”
“No. Only certain ones. Usually the ones Roy seemed determined not to turn down.”
“Did he tell you who was paying?”
“He always had an explanation. An anonymous donor wanted to bless us. A church had found extra money. A promoter had agreed to cover the hotel.” Dad’s mouth tightened.
“Maybe some of that was true. But it happened too many times, and Roy would never give me a name. Nobody covers that many hotel bills out of kindness. I figured somebody was paying Roy on the side. I thought he knew more than he was telling me.”
Nora tried to picture Roy the way she’d known him then. Always with a phone pressed to his ear. Always joking with them before concerts. Always finding a restaurant still open after a late performance.
Uncle Roy. He’d never actually been their uncle, but none of them had cared about that.
“You confronted him?” Nora asked.
Dad rubbed the back of his neck. “More than once.”
“And what did he say?” Mom stared at Dad, her expression unreadable.
“That I didn’t know what I was talking about.”
Marlowe tipped her head. “Did you?”
Nora gave her sister a look.
“What?” Marlowe lifted one shoulder. “It’s a fair question.”
“It is.” Dad stared at the table. “And, no, I didn’t. Not really. I had suspicions. I didn’t have proof.”
Silence settled over the kitchen as Mason sent his soccer ball rolling beneath the table. Bo immediately chased it, bumped his head against a chair leg, then backed up and stared at the chair as if it had attacked him.
Nobody laughed.
Austin stepped closer. “There has to be more.”
Dad hesitated. Then he nodded.
“After Christian disappeared, Roy came to see me. A few weeks later. Maybe a month. He said he’d finally figured out where the extra money was coming from.”
Nora’s pulse picked up. “Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Marlowe threw her hands in the air. “How can you not know?”
Dad’s shoulders sank. “Because I wouldn’t let him tell me.”
Everyone went quiet. Nora was certain she hadn’t heard her father correctly. But she had.
Dad stared down at his hands. “At that point, I didn’t care anymore. Christian was gone. Your mother could barely get out of bed. The three of you weren’t going to sing again. I didn’t want to hear about bookings or promoters or money or any of it.”
“But Roy must have said something,” Austin pressed. “Even if you cut him off.”
Dad swallowed. “He said I had the money backward.”
Austin went still. “What does that mean?”
“He said I kept looking at who was getting paid. I should have been looking at where the money sent us.”
A chill slipped down Nora’s spine. “Where did it send you?”
“I don’t know. I told him I didn’t want to hear another word.” Dad’s voice roughened. “Before he left, he said the person behind it was someone I’d never guess. Someone with access to money nobody knew he had. Then he said someday I’d wish I had listened.”
Nora remembered those months in pieces. Closed curtains. Casseroles stacked in the refrigerator. Her mother sleeping during the day and wandering the house at night.
Her father mostly gone. Looking for Christian, she’d always assumed.
Maybe sometimes he’d simply been trying not to come home.
Her stomach clenched.
Austin was quiet a moment before reaching inside his jacket for his phone. “There was something else in Dad’s car. A note he’d written with three things listed. The Renshaws. October eighteenth. And a question: Who added Fog Lake and why?”
Across the kitchen, a glass hit the granite countertop a little harder than necessary.
Nora turned and saw Christian standing beside the counter with one hand around his water glass.
Christian looked at her. “What?”
“Nothing.”
His fingers stayed curled around the glass.
Dad’s attention remained on Austin. “The Renshaws?”
Austin slipped his phone back into his pocket. “You know them?”
“Of course, I know them. We crossed paths for years.”
“They’re singing at Homecoming at church,” Wren said.
“I know.”
Nora looked at Christian again. His gaze had dropped to the counter.
“Christian?” she murmured.
His eyes lifted to hers. “Yeah?”
“Do you remember the Renshaws?”
He paused. “I don’t think so.”
Nora held his gaze another second. There was something he wasn’t saying. But what?
After dinner, Nora walked Austin to the door.
Behind them, everyone in the kitchen had started talking again in low voices. Wren was asking Dad another question about Roy, and Marlowe had already pulled out her phone, probably to research the Renshaws.
Christian had slunk upstairs, saying something about being tired.
She stepped onto the porch with Austin and pulled the door closed behind her.
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
Then Austin looked at her. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Driving. Making me eat. Letting me drag all of this into your house.”
“You didn’t drag anything in.”
His frown made it clear that he wasn’t sure about that.
Nora folded her arms against the cold. “What are you going to do now?”
Austin glanced at his SUV, his expression still somber. “Make some calls. Deal with the medical examiner.”
Nora hesitated before asking her next question. “Were you close to your father?”
“Sometimes.” Austin let out a breath. “Dad wasn’t an easy person to be close to when he was working on something. He could get . . . focused.”
“Obsessed?”
One corner of his mouth started to curl but stopped. “That too.”
Nora thought about everything she’d learned today. “He really never gave up on Christian, did he?”
“No, he didn’t.”
There was something in Austin’s voice she couldn’t read. Not anger exactly. Maybe something closer to resentment.
Nora shifted on the porch. “So you’re going to keep looking into Christian’s case.”
Austin studied her. “Yes. I plan on calling the special agent in charge tonight. If I can’t get on officially, then I’ll take some personal time.”
Nora looked at the house. Through the front window, she saw her mother moving around the kitchen. Dad was still at the table, with Wren sitting beside him.
She glanced at the window to Christian’s room. The curtain moved there.
He’d been watching them, hadn’t he? She couldn’t blame him for being curious.
Part of her wanted to leave his reappearance alone. To accept that he’d returned and be happy about it—despite her unanswered questions. But she knew she couldn’t do that.
When she looked back at Austin, he was still watching her.
“You want me to keep looking, don’t you?” he asked.
Nora opened her mouth to deny it but stopped. She wasn’t ready to say the words out loud. Not yet.
Instead, she said, “I want to know what your father found.”
Austin held her gaze for another second. Then he nodded. “So do I.”