Chapter 13 #3
While he gets prepped in the kitchen, I grab my sketchbook and head for the great room.
Kit follows me. She brought along a backpack stuffed with books she stacks up on the table, but when she sees my sketchbook, she stops cold.
“Whoa, that’s legit. When you said you drew, I didn’t know you meant serious drawing.”
“I’m an artist,” I say shyly. My pride conflicts with my self-consciousness.
No matter how true that statement might be, I feel like I’m barely one step above true obscure starving artist status.
I’ve had my pieces in exhibitions. I’ve even sold custom creations to line the homes of McMansions, sure, but it still feels wrong to claim the title when I’m a tiny minnow in a great big pool of better talent.
Honestly, though, branding might be half the battle in this field.
“Can I see some of your stuff?”
“Sure.” I glance into the kitchen, where Holden sets ingredients neatly on the counter. Like always, when he cooks, he’s in his own little world.
Not that I care about his opinion or even if he knows I’m showing his daughter my art.
I open my sketch pad to the first page, a few random objects drawn when I was back at home, and hand it to her.
“They’re just ideas. Silly little sketches, whatever comes to mind to help spark bigger projects,” I say. “It’s a lot of practice. That’s why it looks like a jumbled mess.”
One page is just several sets of hands, reaching around, drawn with as much detail as I could manage. Another has eyes, noses, ears. All a bit random, almost resembling an abstract art scene.
Then come the sketches of my neighbor’s cute dog, a hyper little black dachshund, and a chubby grey tabby cat I sometimes see around, lounging on old brick walls like he owns them.
Random objects, too. A soda can tilted on its side with an interesting dent in the middle. Most of them are pencil, but I have a few in charcoal, heavily shadowed.
A slow, shadowy sunrise over Casco Bay in basic watercolor. The same sunrise in acrylics.
Most artists specialize in one medium, but I experiment until I find what feels like magic. Every scene, every subject is different.
“So cool. I love that day by day of the banana you did. Now that’s dedication, keeping it until it went black.” Kit laughs, tracing each one with her nail. “So you do this all the time?”
“Yeah. It’s how I like to de-stress.”
She turns the page.
There’s my dad, small and exaggerated, his face puffed up in cartoony rage. Not knowing who he is, Kit passes over him without any questions. Close call.
There’s treating her like an adult, and there’s trauma-dumping.
She pages toward the back and stops when she sees tinman Holden.
Oh crap. How could I forget about that one?
Her little eyes widen, dark desert sands just like her father’s. I stare at my little caricature of Holden in horror, dizzy from the rush of blood to my head.
If she calls me out—
Oof.
But maybe she won’t. She’s only ten and it’s not super-duper obvious… is it?
The second she starts laughing, my face burns.
I pry the sketch pad from her hands with a pained smile, knowing I’m just making this worse.
Now I look guilty, too. Awesome.
She mimes zipping her lips shut and throwing away the key, oddly unbothered.
That makes me wonder if this happens more often than I think. Has she seen other women indulging the dumbest fantasies about Holden Verity?
I don’t have time to wonder, to suffocate in the awkward silence for long. Holden calls out, asking for a hand with setting the table.
Kit jumps up and races off before I can move.
Right. Their routine.
Meals are sacrosanct.
“Plates,” Holden says, passing Kit a stack. “Come back for the forks and knives.”
“I’ve got it, Dad,” she says.
I walk to the edge of the kitchen and watch them. The way he swings into dad mode whenever she comes close, his eyes softly tracking her movements.
He’s a good father, even if he’s defective when it comes to having fun.
I’ve known it for a while, I think, but seeing it up close and personal makes my heart lurch. It’s almost painful, the relief I feel seeing this little girl get what I never had.
Also, I didn’t know I was into dads until very recently.
I can’t decide if it’s predictable or twisted that I get off on good parenting. Daddy issues absolutely mess with your head.
But there’s no denying the way I’m drawn to him now when he’s with her.
Laughing off her friendly jabs with ease, teasing her gently, a second love language you only learn with family.
I had it once with my grandfather. The thought breaks me.
Holden looks up and notices me moping around as he’s checking the stove.
“Care to get busy? The more hands on deck, the sooner we eat.”
“Nobody gets his food for free!” Kit yells, her face shining.
“Nope. Just the freeloading cats,” he mutters.
Kit laughs.
“You guys have cats?” I don’t know why that surprises me. Another thing I actually can’t imagine, this buttoned-down brawler with a purring furball curled on his lap.
“Grandma does,” he says, slipping back to Kit-speak. “My parents love their cats. Most pampered little beasts in all of Portland.”
I grin.
“Yeah, I’m basically third on their list of favorites after Whisk and Masher,” Kit says, mock-seriously. “Uh, sorry, Dad. You’re fourth place.”
“No need to apologize when it’s true. My old man likes watching football with someone who won’t get on his case about sports betting. The betting apps are eating social security checks alive these days.”
“Even when they steal fries off his plate! You literally said they love the cats more than they love you.”
Holden gives this big, dramatic-ass shrug that makes me lose it. They’re so quirky yet normal and I love it.
After a few days of this banter, will I see the tinman anymore?
“The cats are okay. Just spoiled rotten,” he admits, looking at me.
I grab a carafe of black iced tea from the fridge I threw together this morning and join them, a little nervous.
Technically, this is my first real family dinner since the little brunch gathering at Margot’s wedding.
Nervous or not, I’m glad, knowing I’m in good company.
Oh shit, it’s late.
That’s the first thing I notice when I jerk awake, my heart rabbiting in my throat.
Still dark.
I listen intently, but there’s nothing obviously wrong. It’s not like leaping out of a nightmare, either.
Only the ragged, heavy sound of my own breathing and the slight wind coming from the window I left cracked.
But that doesn’t explain the goosebumps running up my arms.
My stomach twists.
My sixth sense whispers something’s wrong.
That prickling imminent spider feeling intensifies as I stumble out of bed, stubbing my toe in the darkness. I bite my tongue, then rip my phone from its charger and switch on the flashlight app.
Cold, clinical white light splashes across the floor.
My eyes scan slowly, deeply into the shadows. Nothing looks out of place in here.
Everything’s right where it should be.
Some instinct tells me to move. Move!
Just because everything seems okay doesn’t mean it is.
Holding my breath, I pad to my bedroom door and open it very cautiously.
Heavy footsteps come charging down the hallway.
What the—
I shriek, falling back, but it’s Holden. I think?
He’s a massive blur, sprinting like a mad bull, bellowing through the darkness after someone.
My heart jumps up my throat so fast I nearly gag.
What’s going on?
My flashlight catches the fierce concentration on his face, and something darker. Something scarier.
I recover quickly, slipping out and jogging after him—and stopping just short of smacking into Kit as she stumbles out of her room.
We both freeze and squeal before I grab her.
“You’re okay! It’s just me.”
“Cleo? What’s going on?” Her eyes are wide and glassy.
I grab her shoulders. “I don’t know yet, kiddo. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Where’s Dad?”
My lips purse. Jesus, what do I say?
If I take her downstairs, where there’s potential danger, Holden will kill me if some prowler doesn’t do it first.
“I don’t know. Stay with me,” I say, tucking her against my side.
My pulse chugs on, so hard and so fast I feel faint.
“But Dad—”
“Just stay.” I turn on my grown-up voice, wrapping my arm more tightly around her thin shoulders.
She’s shaking like a leaf.
The sight of Holden charging like a wolf must have left her as petrified as me. I didn’t even know he could move that fast.
But why? What did he see? What’s wrong?
My spine glazes over.
We’re in danger. That’s the only reasonable explanation.
It’s a weird feeling, suddenly being responsible for this lovely girl.
I walk her back to my room, not knowing what else to do or even if the house is safe anymore.
Sweeping the curtain aside, I glance out the window just in time to see two slim figures in the early morning fog pounding over the lawn.
Two mystery men disappear into the heavy mist drifting up from the shore with Holden on their heels. Is that a gun swinging in his hand?
Holy crap!
Jasper Fairfax’s warning storms back into my mind.
Before, I didn’t take it that seriously, and I realize I haven’t given Holden the respect he deserves. This is real, the dark side of digging up lost treasure.
My heart drops into my ankles as the full backbreaking weight of my inheritance comes home.