“He acted a little shady in the days after the death. Cleaned out his shed. Piled his truck high with stuff to throw away but didn't bring it to the convenience center. Drove out of town with it and came back late that night without anything. My father's favorite cup went missing the day before he got sick. We didn't think a whole lot of it at the time. We were worried about other things. But once we did notice, it was all we could think about. He drank out of that cup every single day of his life. Then it just up and disappeared right as he's getting sent into his deathbed? Seems like too much of a coincidence to me.” He shrugs again. “But LaRoche Senior didn't put any man-hours into it. He said it was just a cup, nothing that mattered. My father probably left it behind somewhere, or it got broken. We were putting too much thought and emphasis on it. He slammed that case shut just as fast as he possibly could.”
Everything happening around me since I got here swirls around in fractured thoughts and ideas in my head. They're trying to fall into place. One stands out to me.
“Jake, does Chief LaRoche have a dog?” I ask.
He looks for me strangely as he reaches for one of the truffles piled on the coffee table. I'm still holding the one I chose, the foil half-twisted out of place. My fingers go back to it like they need something to do to aid my mind in processing the thoughts.
“A dog?” he asks. “Yeah. He has a big hound dog. Used to be a tracker for the force but has retired. Sometimes he takes her up through the woods for walks. Why?”
I shake my head and pop the chocolate into my mouth. My teeth have just cracked through the shiny shell when the lights in the cabin flicker.
“Oh, no,” I sigh.
“Nothing to worry about,” Jake soothes me. “It's just a flicker. The weather has been hard on the wires the last few days. Just give it a second.” An instant later, the cabin descends into pitch blackness. “See, what did I tell you? It just needed a second.”
I laugh. “Yeah, this is perfect. Nothing like the power going out in the freezing cold weather.”
“It happens all the time out here. That's why most people around town have a generator. Rain, wind, snow, ice, heat wave. Power goes out, and those things automatically kick on. Anything can happen, and they just go right on with their football games and cooking chili.”
“Speaking from personal experience?” I ask.
“I might have delayed jumping on the generator bandwagon for a while and ended up huddling around a half-ass fire eating partially cooked chili.”
“Sounds like fun times.”
“Good memories. The thing to remember is sometimes these old places have the power kick off just because. The power isn't actually out; the circuit just gets tripped for one reason or another. Give me a second, and I'll just flip the breaker,” he says.
Using the glow of his phone screen for light, Jake makes his way toward the back of the cabin. He's gone for a couple of minutes, and the lights suddenly burst back on. Relief washes over me, and he gives me a smile as he comes back into the room.
“See? I told you it was nothing to be worried about,” he tells me.
“Thank you. I was really not looking forward to the possibility of spending the night in the dark and cold,” I say.
“Don't worry,” Jake says. “I wouldn't have let you be out here all by yourself.”
“I appreciate it.”
He leans toward me across the couch, and I shift forward enough to meet his lips. His forehead rests against mine when the kiss breaks, and he lets out a long breath.
“Thank you for being here for me through all this. I know you came here to get some rest and relaxation and got swept up into this insanity,” he murmurs.
“I don't mind,” I tell him.
“That's hard to believe. On the other hand, most people would have gotten out of town as fast as they could after finding a dead guy on their porch the first night they came. But you didn't. Maybe I'm underestimating you.”
There's flirtation in his voice, but for some reason, the words send a chill down my spine.
“Maybe,” I say.
He kisses me again and leans back against the couch. “Is it weird that I'm almost relieved?”
“Relieved about what?”
“Cole. He stayed under the radar all these years, kept out of suspicion, and just lived his life. But he couldn't stay away. He just had to torment my father a little bit more. I'm sure he thought he would get away with it. No one has put any thought into my father's death in so many years. Cole thought he could add one more humiliation, one more horror, to my father's death, and no one would ever think of him. But now he's going to finally have to answer for what he did. And I feel… relieved. It was horrible to see that, and I hate him for doing it, but maybe I'll finally get some closure.”
Chapter Fourteen
Then
Where are you from?
It's one of the first questions people tend to ask each other. When they're in that wispy, tenuous period of trying to make connections that might solidify a link between them, people go back to the most basic elements of each other. Finding out origins provides structure and context. That one detail can give a glimpse into a person's culture and life experiences. It helps make the other person real.
She never had a real answer to that question. Not that there was ever a time when she didn't have a home. There was always somewhere she went back to. Always somewhere to tuck in at night and to write down on forms. That was supposed to be home. But she never knew what to say when someone asked her where she was from because she couldn't remember.
For as long as she knew, they were moving. Sometimes she knew it was coming. Her parents would tell her a few weeks ahead. She would have the chance to wonder where they were going and if there was anything she was going to miss. There rarely was. Unless it was the palm trees in the wind and the concrete burning her feet. Then she knew she would ache for it and hope there would be a time when they'd come back.
Other times she had no warning at all. In an instant, life simply changed, and she had no choice but to go along with it. She woke up in the morning in one place and went to bed in another. Sometimes only to wake in a third.
She had no idea where it started.
In a way, it didn't really matter. She couldn't really get to know people. There was always something she wasn't allowed to say or something she was supposed to know. On the way to the next stop, the next home, she'd find out the new details of her life. After a while, they all started to blend. That's when she stopped talking to people. She didn't want to say the wrong thing or give the wrong details. She didn't know who was asking or why. It was easier to be quiet.
The only thing that stayed consistent in her life was her martial arts training. No matter where they were, she didn't go more than a few days without training.
She was training that day. If she hadn't been, she would have been home. She was in the gym rather than there with her mother. It often crossed her mind that things could have turned out so differently. Just one choice, one move along a different path, and she could have been lying there right beside her mother, and it would have been her father to first walk through the blood.
That was the day moving turned to running. Danger defined her life. Even when she didn't know it. Even when she thought everything was exactly as it should be. She was always running. She kept running even after her mother's murder. That day everything in her changed. She didn't care about the art that she thought would pull her out of the chaotic world she knew and give her a life of her own. Her focus changed to only one thing. Understanding who killed her mother and why.