“Well, I was quite the ladies’ man back in the day. Your dad can attest to that.” Chet brushed his mustache down with one finger and gave a wink to Tracey as they passed her lane.
“Ew, I’d rather not know, thank you very much.” She faked a gag and walked out the front doors into the early-spring sun. It was warm during the days, but cold enough in the evenings that Ellie had to keep a coat in the rig. The sun was low in the sky, a few storm clouds inching in and threatening to turn the day frigid. Her stomach grumbled. She’d skipped breakfast like most mornings, still trying to drop a few pounds before she gave the agility test another go. Ellie was starting to think of that grumble as a sign she was burning calories.
As Chet rambled on about his days as a ladies’ man, a voice crackled over the radio—dispatch. Both Ellie and Chet stopped in their tracks.
Ambulance Twenty-One delta response, [crackle] Lane, Broadlands. Possible shooting [crackle] AS-One. Police responding. Have not arrived.
Chet picked up the radio clipped to his lapel. “Dispatch, Ambulance Twenty-One responding. Please repeat.”
“Shooting?” Ellie mouthed to Chet, who was holding the radio up to his ear. It had to be a mistake. There’d never been a shooting in Broadlands, not that she remembered anyway. Maybe it was a hunting accident. Maybe a kid found his dad’s gun. Maybe . . . The possible scenarios flashed through Ellie’s mind. Chet grabbed the cart and pointed to the rig.
“I’ll have Tracey hold this. You check the CAD. Reception’s a little spotty today.” Chet might have a hundred years’ more experience than Ellie, but the computer in the ambulance still confused him. Nerves on edge, especially since the idea of a pediatric emergency crossed her mind, Ellie dashed to the rig.
She unlocked the passenger-side door and hefted herself into the seat, then swiveled the computer-aided dispatch screen to face her. When she hit the Responding button, a map and lines of information stared back at her. She read through the sentences on the screen, eyes flitting from one line to the next. Description of the call. A few codes she was pretty sure meant serious business. Then the address, just two miles away from her dad’s house:
2318 Lark Lane, Broadlands
No.
She read the address again, and again. She didn’t even need to check the map on the left side of the screen. She’d been to 2318 Lark Lane countless times, eaten dinner there, held new babies, swum in the backyard pool, cried into a soft shoulder when it became clear her father would never recover.
It can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t be.
But it was.
2318 Lark Lane was her sister’s house.
CHAPTER 2
AMELIA
Monday, April 4
Five weeks earlier
“Cora and Kate on the bus. Check. Dinner in the Crock-Pot. Check. Caleb is covering the front desk. Check. Dad at Ellie’s. Check.” Amelia ran through the list as she applied a second coat of plum-colored lip gloss before dropping it into the overflowing makeup bag on the counter. Not that anyone actually looked at the faces of a string quartet, but she still liked to try to break up the monotony of her all-black “uniform” with a splash of color. With her dark hair and eyes, she sometimes felt like she was fading into the background.
She stepped back from the mirror and examined her hastily applied makeup, squinting through the fingerprint-smudged mirror. One eye had too much eye shadow and the other too much eyeliner, but it was going to have to be good enough. A once-over with Aqua Net and then, despite the inconsistencies with her makeup and just a bit too much volume to her hair, she was ready. Besides, she still had the forty minutes in the car to Chandler for her hair to de-poof. Forty minutes. She checked her watch. She’d either have to speed or bend time, because the reception for the new hospital’s fancy ribbon cutting was starting in thirty.
Amelia rushed out of the bathroom, then ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, where she snagged her purse off the back of a kitchen chair. After rummaging through some loose receipts, candy wrappers, and a few pennies, she still couldn’t locate her keys.
Dang it. Why didn’t she ever put them back on the key hooks Steve had installed right by the office door? She glanced over at the hooks just in case she’d remembered to put them there. Empty. No time to search; she’d just have to take the truck. But the keys were on the company key chain, which, dang it again, she’d given to Caleb last night.
“Caleb! Caleb!” Amelia shouted. She knocked and then peeked through the heavy steel door on the side of the kitchen that connected the house to the home office of Broadlands Roofing. Caleb, a tall, nearly bald man with fair skin, tightly cropped reddish hair on the sides of his head, and a sharply angled nose, stood up, shoving a filing cabinet closed with his foot. He smiled nervously.
“Hey, Amelia. Thought you were doin’ your music stuff today.” He scratched the top of his head and leaned against the filing cabinet.
“I am, I mean, I will once I find my keys.”
“Oh, those keys walked away on you again?” Caleb started scanning the room. “You think they’re in here somewhere?” He shuffled some papers on the desk next to the cabinet, lifting stack by stack as though they’d suddenly appear like a ball in the magician’s cup trick. “You need one of them tracking devices I saw on TV. Beeps when you push a button. Unless you lose the button . . . Then you have a real problem.”
Amelia sighed. She’d always been scatterbrained, which had driven organized Steve crazy from day one, but the more activities the kids were in, and the bigger the business got, and now that she was helping out with Dad, she felt like she was losing her mind.
“I don’t have time to track my set down. I’m gonna take the truck. Can I grab the key from you?”
“Uh, sure. Sure.” Caleb patted the pockets of his worn jeans and then fished the loaded key ring out. “Steve had me fill the tank last night, so there should be plenty for you to make it to Chandler.” The key slid off the ring with a click. Amelia was always a little surprised at how well Caleb kept track of her schedule. If he weren’t so genuine, it’d be creepy. “Here you go.”
“Thank you. Keep your fingers crossed that there’s no traffic, accidents, or rogue traffic cops on the way.”