“I came here all alone.” The grief was as raw as that night, ripping at her soul, still hiding deep within. “You said you would meet me. That we would lay Andrew to rest together, the way it should have been. Not the showy funeral my father allowed the church to give him. Not the stares of the onlookers who made me feel like it was our fault Andrew died. We were going to tell him goodbye together.” Ivy faced him, the way she’d wished she could have so many times before. “So I knelt in the mud and the cold and I waited. All night I waited. And in the morning, when I went to find you at the home, Mr. Casey said you were leaving on the morning train, that you were leaving on a grand adventure. It was as if you’d already forgotten Andrew.”
“Forgotten him?” The pain in Joel’s voice brought a twinge of guilt to Ivy. “Never.”
Ivy moved from the bench and bent by Andrew’s stone. She reached out and traced his name with her hand, the purple silk of her sleeve stark against the cold, gray stone. Green lichen was growing in the carved letters, melted ice formed tiny pools on the base, and last year’s dead flowers were squashed into the ground. “Then it wasn’t a grand adventure?”
Joel shook his head. “I spent three of those years begging for work, until I landed myself in jail after stealing one too many times. I was a bona fide street rat. If it weren’t for the attention of a God-fearing police captain who whipped me into shape with some hard work and dragged me to church on Sundays, I’d probably be wearing metal bracelets about now.” Joel leaned back against the bench. “If I learned anything in my ‘grand adventure,’ it was that without those you care about to urge you on in your life and in your faith, you shrivel into yourself.”
Ivy raised her eyes to him. “And without those you care about in your life, you become alone.” She was talking about herself now. Vulnerable. Admitting what Joel’s absence had done to her, good reason for leaving or not. “I am alone.”
“No.” Joel squatted beside her. More explanation could come later, but for now, his fingers brushed hers. When she didn’t pull away, he gripped her hand. “You’re not alone,” he whispered. “I came home.”
Chapter 24
Kaine
Kaine wedged the crowbar beneath another floorboard and pulled with the collective force of her anger, her disappointment, and her guilt. Joy and Megan had left shortly after Detective Hanson’s call, giving her looks of concern as Kaine fell into uncharacteristic silence. Grant lagged behind, but Kaine wasn’t even sure where to begin to explain the call stating her husband’s case had been categorized as sloppy police work. Part of her wanted to be grateful it was finally reopened, and another part, the one Kaine was warring with the most, wanted to send the crowbar flying through the window with a scream of pent-up emotion. After a few tense moments watching Kaine rip away at the floor, Grant excused himself to take Olive outside for a walk in the dusk. It was obvious he had no intention of leaving her alone in Foster Hill House. He would either see her back to her motel or she’d crash on his couch again.
To be honest, Kaine preferred that, yet sleeping on Grant’s couch was asking for more trouble. Once her anger wore off, she knew herself well enough to know she’d be a puddled mess, and when Kaine was like that, she craved affection. That need had landed her in heaps of trouble before. Before Danny and before she’d had the sense to stand on her own two feet.
While working to remove a stubborn plank, the lightbulbs of the nearby floor lamp flickered. No doubt the house was poorly wired, yet another thing that needed updating. Kaine didn’t even like the lamp, but it’d been cheap at Walmart and served the purpose—along with the construction-grade work light Grant had bought and plugged in. She was alone for a much-needed moment and there was nothing else to do but take out her frustration over Danny’s case on the floor. Ripping up the floorboards was as effective at preserving Foster Hill House as Detective Hanson’s questions were at solving Danny’s death. Everything in Kaine’s life was like a Band-Aid. It covered the wounds and their bleeding but did little to heal them. Not even the old wounds no one knew about.
The board released from the floor with a snap and a spray of dirt up her nose. Kaine buried her face in her elbow and sneezed.
“Drat.” She dropped the crowbar to the floor and marched over to the box of face masks. Ripping it open, she tugged a white mask from inside. It tore from the force of her pull. “Drat!” Kaine threw it aside and yanked on another one. This time the rubber band for securing it around the wearer’s head snapped from the side of the mask. “Are you kidding me?” she growled at the empty room. Kaine sent the second face mask to join the other on the floor.
This had to end. It all just needed to be over. As much as she hated the fact that Danny’s death had been ruled an accident, she despised the idea of revisiting it over and over again if nothing was going to be resolved. But, until his killer was brought to justice, she’d need a bodyguard just to maintain her sanity. In the meantime, here she was ripping up floorboards in a house that had almost killed her great-great-grandmother and held dirty little secrets that seemed to want to be revived right alongside Danny’s case file.
Kaine maneuvered a third mask from the box. This one was defective, and the hole in the front of it served as Kaine’s undoing. She crumpled to the floor, releasing a string of curses that made her cast a nervous glance toward the bedroom door for fear Grant had come up the stairs and witnessed her backslidden soul’s darkness. Kaine pulled her knees up to her chin and buried her face in them.
She wouldn’t cry. Not over stupid face masks. Not over a house so in ruins it was foolish for her to waste time ripping up this floor. Not over a case gone cold, or a man who toyed with her mind like a puppet master pulled strings. Tears were for those who couldn’t handle tough times. She was a fighter. She could do this. She could do this!
“Why?” Kaine lifted her face to the ceiling as if her eyes could penetrate the cracked plaster and see into heaven. “Seriously?”
Through everything, she had been faithful. She had copied Job and not cursed God. Cursed, yes, but God? No. Sure, she hadn’t buried herself in prayer or in Scripture, but she’d remained steadfast and pushed forward. Wasn’t that why she’d come to Oakwood—to return to her family’s roots, to honor her dead husband, to find hope to live again? So why would God thwart that now? There had to be some reward for her faithfulness.
Kaine kicked the box of masks with her foot.
Nothing.
No answer.
The heavens were silent.
Like always.
Forget it. Kaine scrambled to her feet. No mask then. She would breathe in the mold, the asbestos, and the hundred years’ worth of dirt embedded in that floor. At worst, she would contract sarcoidosis and die from it. At least then God would have to answer her, because she would be face-to-face with Him.