I know I sure as hell didn’t.
“I will,” I promised. If it was the last thing I did, I would come back. Daddy hadn’t. He’d left that day like it was to any normal job. I’d barely looked up from the case file I’d been building and given him a distracted wave when he offered a hug or a kiss farewell. That was our habit. A hug or a kiss. Never both.
I’d just told him to bank them. He’d agreed and then he was gone.
And I never saw him again.
The pain exploding in my chest added blood to my silent oath to Rick. I wouldn’t do the same to him. I kissed him again, far more controlled and brief, then caressed his cheek. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
I just smiled. “For you.”
Then I pulled myself out of his arms and grabbed my things. I tried to pack away my feelings for him. My worries. My regrets.
My doubts.
I couldn’t take those with me.
It was time to go to work.
29
Vienna
The drive to the storage locker would take several hours and I half-expected Fletcher to fill the silence with chatter, but he didn’t. Instead, he leaned back in his seat with his sunglasses and didn’t say a word. Rick had added disposable cups of coffee and water at the last minute, so I could have another cup on the way.
I didn’t have to worry about jitters, since the drive would occupy most of my attention. Oddly, I’d expected Fletcher to also provide a distraction, even looked forward to it. Yet, his continued silence left me alone with the music I’d turned on low when we pulled out. Nudging up the volume some, I waited to see if he would comment and after another couple of miles when he didn’t, I sighed.
Maybe I’d wounded his pride, along with his fingers. Though the hand in question rested on his thigh and the fingers which had definitely pinkened, didn’t appear to be bruising. That was good. Maybe. I’d apologized, but he’d also put his hand on me without permission. Then again, his intentions had been innocent.
Should I bring it up? Should I wait for him to address it? Rick would have said something already. That was what he’d done when he was upset about Fletcher even being at the house. He brought it up, we discussed it, and that was good, right?
Honestly, this was another distraction. If Fletcher had a problem, he would tell me. We had another three hours of driving and I kept the speed pegged dead on at five over the speed limit and not a mile more. It was a happy zone between keeping up with the speed freaks and not pissing off the cops. In fact, one highway patrolman had already blown past me like I was sitting still.
With that, I could no longer ignore the fact we were on our way to a storage locker my father kept, that I’d never been to. Granted, this was based on Dion’s information, but I had no reason to question it. My father had been in the business long before I was born. He had plenty of bolt holes and storage spaces I didn’t know about.
In truth, I had one or two of my own. It was just…
The coffee was too cold to be much help against the lump in my throat, but I managed to swallow it. Secrets were not inherently bad. Just like a gun wasn’t. Or a knife.
It was how they were used and if they could be weaponized. Trying to retrace all of Daddy’s steps the last few months, to piece together what he’d been working on so I could find out who had betrayed him, who had taken him away from me, and why, had driven me. It had given me purpose. I worked on the list and I worked on the jobs we’d always done. Daddy would have insisted I focus on the tasks and not on him, but I couldn’t do that.
If I was the one who had been taken—if Uncle David told him about my death—Daddy would never have stopped. In my bones, this was a truth I could not, and would not, deny.
We were nearly three hours out from the house and maybe forty-five minutes from the storage place when Fletcher gave a little jerk and sat up. It was the first motion out of him in hours. I didn’t jump but I did glare over at him as he cracked his neck, stretched and straightened.
He’d been asleep.
Sitting up.
Without a hint of snoring.
I wasn’t sure if I was annoyed or impressed.
The past two hours of replaying every step I’d taken and every word Uncle David said when he brought me the news about Daddy had left me in a chilly place.
“We there yet?” Fletcher asked then cracked his jaw with a yawn.