Chapter 13 #3
“Should I be worried that you’re so good at this?” I asked, pulling my baseball hat lower on my head. Taryn had brought me a black shirt, and a hat. My sister wore similar clothing to help conceal us.
Once we were near the neighbors’, Taryn slipped into the shadows between the two houses. I quickly followed her as she jumped over Ford’s side fence and jogged toward the siding where a few basement windows were visible.
“Taryn,” I hissed, ducking low to try to keep up.
She pulled open one of the windows while glancing back at me. “Stop saying my name.”
Dammit, we hadn’t discussed code names. Instead of asking my question that I had for her, I blindly shadowed her. She jumped down into the basement, completely unafraid that there might be snakes or spiders…or dead bodies. Who the hell knew what Ford Ryan had in his basement.
Regardless, I’d never let my baby sister jump into the dark alone.
Crouching low, I got onto my hands and knees and slipped my feet in through the window. Sliding on my belly, I moved backward until my legs and waist were inside.
“There’s a table under you.” Taryn guided my legs until I was dropping down to the desk. Once my feet were solid, I crouched down again and jumped to the floor.
“Now what?” I whispered.
The room in front of us was dark, but the lights from the street filtered in from the windows. Cement ran under my feet, with a few worn rugs tossed down, a worktable sat on the far side of the room, a few shelves, and an old vacuum, nothing out of the ordinary.
Taryn didn’t waste any time moving to the stairs. My stomach rolled nervously as she climbed each step. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this. What if Ford thinks we’re breaking in and shoots us?”
I knew he had a firearm, I’d seen it holstered at his hip a few times and tucked into the back part of his jeans.
“We’re going to be careful, don’t worry.” Taryn promised while turning the knob. “Also, he’s not even home right now.”
She pushed through the door, and I followed as closely as possible.
“How do you know?” I asked as anxiety hummed through my chest.
Ford had a few lights on, illuminating the laminate flooring. White, rustic cabinets hung in his kitchen, with Formica counters that looked almost purple. Horrible.
Taryn softly replied, “Ellie has a big recital tonight, which means their whole family is there.”
I watched my feet, seeing the laminate on the floor was brown. There once was a time that all our families would be there for Ellie’s recitals. Back when our chosen family was all still here, and Dad didn’t force everyone to leave out of fear.
“My God, this is awful.” Taryn shook her head, making her way to the dining room.
I gasped. “Is that an outdoor patio table?”
The circular shape took up most of his dining room, and there in the center where an outdoor umbrella would slide into, he had a baton of some kind.
Curiosity got the best of me as I leaned over the table and pulled it out.
With my fingers around the base, I quickly snapped it down toward the floor, seeing several inches of thick rubber extend.
“He has a baton as the centerpiece on his table.”
Taryn made some sort of humming sound before taking it from me. “I guess you never know when you’re going to have to beat someone to death.” If she only knew how close Ford had already come to that, and with no assistance from a rubber baton. His fists did the job just fine.
With a small shake of my head, I moved my gaze to the rest of the furniture. Taryn did as well, which had her groaning. “Oh my God, the lawn chairs… Have Callie and Wes even seen their son’s house?”
I ran my hand over the metal bar of one of the chairs. “There’s no way.”
Taryn suddenly stopped in her tracks as she made some sort of pained sound.
“It’s…wicker, Royce. He has a wicker couch,” Taryn said, like the couch was a mystical creature.
I came shoulder to shoulder with her and saw what she was seeing. Sure enough, the two-seater couch looked like something from the seventies. “Wicker and denim…how is that possible?”
She turned toward me with huge eyes as a smile spread over her face.
“I know you want the cat, but can we please do my idea?”
Shit, I was there for Gus, and I hadn’t even tried to find him. Searching corners of his house and around the floor, I aimlessly asked, “What’s your idea?”
“I’d need to see his bedroom first in order to tell you.”
My poor stomach rolled again. “I don’t think we should, let’s just steal some stuff and go. Gus? Here kitty kitty.”
Regardless of my protests, my sister continued through the house until we made it to a small hallway with two closed doors in front of us.
“You take that one—” she gestured to the side.
I shook my head. “Absolutely not, we go together into each one.”
With a sigh, Taryn grabbed the knob for the first door and pushed it open. The room was dark, but the curtains were open, so the streetlights helped illuminate the room.
My hand shot to the wall where I flicked on the light. “Gus?”
A basic queen-size bed sat in the center of the room, with a sheet and a singular, thin, scratchy-looking blanket. One pillow. No headboard. Gus would hate it here. There was no chance he was in the house anywhere. Surely, he’d run away if Ford ever tried to keep him here.
Across the room was a dresser with a flat-screen TV perched on top.
“How does he live like this?” Taryn sighed. “There’s not even a nightstand for his phone charger. It just sits on the floor, plugged into the wall like a little sad, pathetic wire.”
I stepped over the threshold and moved closer to the dresser, seeing a few framed pictures.
One was of him and Connor when they were kids.
Another was of his family. I traced his smile with my eyes, feeling a strange warmth in my stomach at the sight.
His grin was beautiful and full of life, like he had a whole secret identity inside that smile where he went to a bank job, came home to a loving wife and kids, with a dog.
He looked so complete…so unlike each time he looked at me. My mind suddenly served a memory of each time Ford had looked at me like that but I didn’t know what to make of it.
“Oh my freaking gawwwwwd.” Taryn practically shrieked behind me.
I turned around and found her looking inside of Ford’s top dresser drawer.
“Taryn,” I snapped, “that’s such an invasion of privacy.”
Her fingers plucked up a tiny bundle of photos while a huge smile stretched over her face. Her eyes were huge like she’d discovered the juiciest secret. I moved closer, now curious.
“What is it?”
In her hand were wallet-size pictures with blue backdrops.
“Wait.” I slid the top picture off the pile. My blond hair was curled to perfection, my lips were a glossy pink and my eyes had blue shadow, too intense for my skin tone, but I hadn’t listened to Taryn when she told me.
“That’s me, junior year of high school.”
Taryn made a victorious humming sound as she slid the next picture off the pile in front of me. “And here’s you, sophomore year.”
My hair was shorter and straight. I had braces on, but I hadn’t smiled with them showing, it was one of the few times I didn’t show my teeth when smiling.
She slid the next one in front of me. “And freshman year.”
There was only one person I had given every single school picture to, and that wasn’t Ford. I snatched them out of her hand and sifted through each one.
Eighth grade year. Seventh. Sixth. Fifth. Fourth. Third.
My fingers moved, seeing all the various years of my life flash literally before my eyes. Each and every one was of me.
Why did he have these?
“He must have others in here,” I said, shifting in front of where Taryn had been standing. She had an infuriating smirk stamped across her face.
He had a gun in the drawer, a roll of cash, a bag of weed, a tea bag for a sore throat, a video game, and more pictures. Then my fingers froze when I came across three flimsy thongs, all pink…and…mine.
My brows curved as I pulled them free. “I left these at Connor’s house. I know because—”
My sister was watching me like she was watching a murder documentary. My curiosity regarding her and Connor was officially piqued, so I did something reckless. I didn’t want to hurt her; I just wanted to see if she’d have a reaction to what I was about to say.
“Connor would pocket my panties whenever he’d slide them down my legs, and we’d…”
Taryn quickly spun around and moved to the closet before I could catch her reaction. I had no clue if she cared or not, but I decided not to push it.
Dropping the panties and the pictures, I migrated to the closet with her and inspected inside. There, on the top shelf of his closet was a simple, brown box.
Standing on my tiptoes, I yanked it down, and my confusion only worsened. A long-sleeved shirt, a few swimsuits, more framed photos. Chapstick, nail polish, and a few hats.
“This is my stuff. Everything I had at Connor’s. I had assumed it was tossed when he left.”
Taryn gently tugged at the sleeve of the shirt inside the box. “Why does Ford have it all?”
Searching the contents of the box, that anger swirled and amplified as I tried to come up with a reply. My sister seemed to understand my struggle and took over for me by shutting the box.
“Well, if this is all yours, then let’s take it back, I brought your old Jeep because I thought we were stealing Gus.”
I nodded, battling the burning in my nose.
He had no right to have these in his possession, especially after being so cruel to me. I scooped up every single picture he had of me and shut the drawer.
“I don’t care about Gus anymore, I just want these.”
Taryn moved with me as I exited the room. “But I was going to stage his house with nice things! I wanted to pull a Sweet Home Alabama on his ass.”
“No. Just this.” I said, storming toward the front door. I wasn’t using the damn basement window again.
“Wait, you can’t go through the front!” She tried to keep up with me.
I held the box close to my chest and yanked the door open. “Watch me.”