This girl was mine. She’d always been mine.
“Is it weird for you, coming back here?”
I shrugged. “Sort of,” I said. “Not really. I mean, I came back to my mom’s house when I got back to West Bend, for a little bit. And we came back here after the funeral and shit. I was going to poke around here a few weeks ago too.”
“But you got arrested,” Tempest said.
“Yeah, before I even had a chance to go inside,” I said. “And since then, well…”
“Well.” Tempest tucked her hair behind her ear and licked her lip. That damn lip. My cock stirred watching her, and I had to tell myself to cut that shit out.
“Yeah,” I said. “Since then I’ve been with you.” I opened the car door. “Let’s go.”
Before I put the key in the front door, I warned her. “It’s - not what you’re used to, you know. I mean, we were poor and-”
Tempest put her hand on my arm. “Silas,” she said. “You don’t have to explain anything to me about your childhood. I understand. And I’ve been to your house before.”
“Oh yeah.” I’d forgotten about that.
“Yeah,” she said. Inside the door, she looked around. “So, we’re looking for anything that might link your mom and the mining company.”
“Or Jed,” I said. “Or the Mayor. Elias said someone made a comment about her sleeping with the mayor.”
Tempest drew in a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “You start on one side of the house and I’ll start on the other?”
“Thank you for doing this.” I couldn’t put into words what I felt, why it meant something that Tempest was here with me. I knew it was a big deal, the fact that she’d taken me to meet her grandmother, despite her protests to the contrary.
She looked behind her as she headed down the hall. “I’m glad you brought me here,” she said.
It wasn’t more than thirty minutes later that Tempest yelled from the other side of the house. “Silas,” she said. “I found what we’re looking for.”
I followed her voice to my mother’s bedroom, where she stood holding a small book. “What is it?”
“Your mom’s journal,” she said. “I just started paging through it, looking for what was around the time of her death.”
“Luke came through here and didn’t see anything,” I said. “Where was it?”
Tempest pointed to the wall. “I took the grate off the wall, there,” she said.
“How’d you know to look there?”
Tempest shrugged. “I figured if there was anything that might link the sheriff to something hinky, he’d have probably already been here and taken something if it were hidden in a place that was obvious, like under the mattress or in a drawer. The place doesn’t look like it’s been tossed, but if he’s smart, that’s what he would have done. The grate is where I’d stash something if I needed to hide it. Or under a floorboard. Or outside, under a crawlspace. Or -”
I interrupted her. “Okay, I get the picture. Did you read it?”
She opened to a page. “Only a little bit,” she said. “Just to see if there was anything there.”
“Is there?”
She nodded. “You probably should sit down.”
“Well, fuck,” I said. “So, Luke and I were right. There was something going on, and Jed and his dad are both dirty. That’s no big fucking surprise.”
“Now you have answers, at least,” Tempest said. “How do you feel about your mom?”
“You mean, reading her confession to killing my father?” I asked, shaking my head. “Pissed off.”
“I’m sorry, Silas,” she said.
“It’s not even the fact that she’s the one who killed him,” I said. “I mean, he’s been a dickhead my whole life. He beat on all of us. It’s the fact that she killed him now instead of years ago, when we were kids.”
“Back when he was terrorizing you,” Tempest said.
“Exactly,” I said. “I mean, he beat on us right in front of her, you know? You’re going to watch your kids get the shit kicked out of them, going to let that monster kick the shit out of you, and not do anything about it? But you’ll kill him over money? That’s fucked up.”
Tempest shook her head. “It’s a shit deal, Silas.”
I shrugged. “It is what it is, I guess,” I said. “I didn’t shed any tears for her before, and I feel a hell of a lot less inclined to do so now.”
“We also know what’s going on in the town,” she said. “And we have an idea of who killed her.”
“We should bring this to my brothers,” I said.
Tempest’s face looked drawn. “I don’t know if I should go with you,” she said.
I covered her hand with mine. “You think Elias hates you,” I said.
“I know he wouldn’t have been happy about what happened, Silas,” she said. “Me leaving and all. Yeah. I’d guess he hates me.”
I smiled. “And you care what he thinks?” I asked. “This Tempest who gives a shit is really endearing. This nervous Tempest is pretty cute too.”
“Shut up, Silas,” she said. “I didn’t even say I would go.”
“I have the car,” I said. “You’re going.”