Chet waved at her like he was asking her to leave rather than giving her permission. Ellie’s heart was pounding fast and hard, and this time there was no hesitation. She breezed past Travis, who had been watching from the doorway with his sad eyes and unreadable features, and stomped across the lawn to the police car in the driveway.
Once they were inside the car, Travis turned on the engine, backed out of the driveway, and pointed the car toward Frampton and the hospital there. He didn’t ask what her father had said, though she knew he wanted to. She was mute because it saved her from lying. They drove in silence, but for Ellie the car ride was loud, blaring even. As they drove through the dark, past houses of sleeping people and fields of newly planted grain, Ellie could hear it, her father’s last message, clear and pure:
“Caleb is a murderer.”
CHAPTER 26
AMELIA
Tuesday, May 3
One week earlier
“Tired” was the wrong word. Yes, Amelia was tired, but there was something more there, exhaustion or devastation or a complete loss on how to keep moving forward in her life. At least her father was at the senior center for the day. Well, they called it that, but it really was an elder-care facility where Ellie and Amelia could feel safe putting their dad on the days when they both had other obligations. It was always with a wave of relief followed quickly by another wave of guilt that she left him there.
Usually, she had a day of chores or errands or practicing for a gig, but today she was headed over to the firehouse to pick up Ellie and head out to lunch. She didn’t know what she was going to tell her. Ellie thought they were meeting to discuss venues for her wedding, not the bombshell that Steve had laid at her feet more than a week earlier.
After she presented him with the check from Susan at Country Life, Steve slowly explained that he was in trouble because he was in debt. But not because of the business or the vandalism around the house—he’d started taking bets again. Amelia was both shocked and relieved. Steve had been running a small sports-booking business when they started dating. She hated it and made him quit eventually, but at least it wasn’t an affair.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. Steve’s father had always run a sports-booking business that the local law enforcement in their hometown of Chadwick, Tennessee, overlooked because many of them participated. Steve learned from his dad and brought the time-honored tradition to Broadlands with him as a young firefighter. By the time she and Steve got married, he’d built a complicated network that reached all the way to the University of Illinois campus and brought in three times as much cash as anything he made as a public servant.
At first Amelia did what everyone in the firehouse, police station, and town seemed to do—ignore it. And when she did get the courage to ask him about the “business,” Steve explained that he would keep it going only until he had enough to retire as a firefighter and start his own legitimate business.
By the time Cora was born, he did just that. It was hard at first to live without the steady, albeit dishonest stream of income, but Amelia slept better at night and soon the jobs started pouring in, and running an illegal gambling business on the side would’ve been downright inconvenient. But in the past few years, the jobs were sparser, the workers needed more money, and things just kept going wrong.
When Steve explained his reasoning for starting up the business again, she could almost see the logic in it. It was tempting to go back to something that used to bring instant money and security, especially when at first it brought in tons of cash. But then, Steve explained, everything went wrong. He wasn’t super clear on why, but he was losing money hand over fist and that was when the vandalism started.
He didn’t have the cash to pay out a big client, and . . . soon things started to disappear off the work site. And then the tires were slashed, and even more recently a small warehouse several towns over that was insured in Amelia’s name burned down. Even with the insurance payout that just came in the mail, Steve couldn’t make up the loss from the accidental fire.
But no matter what he did, Steve’s luck never turned around. And now he was in a hole that included not just the business, for which he could at least declare bankruptcy and save a little face, but also in a more dangerous game of owing money to the wrong people. Lots of money. And that was where he left off; they were on the cusp of declaring bankruptcy, and he had no idea how to ever pay back the money he owed.
What was she supposed to say to any of that? Amelia wondered. And what would she say to Ellie? Poor Ellie, who thought her brother-in-law was the best guy on the planet, who had no idea that Steve had ever done anything illegal now or in the past. But Amelia needed to talk to someone. This sorrow was too much to keep and carry on her own.
When Steve dropped the bomb, she nearly said the first words that came into her mind: I’m leaving you or How dare you do this to us? or I’ll never forgive you. But instead she said, “It’s okay. We will figure this out. I forgive you.”
Why? Why did her mouth continuously say things her mind didn’t agree with? Well, today when she talked to Ellie, she was determined to tell the truth or at least as much of it as she could bear. Ellie would know what to do and was strong enough to help Amelia stand up to Steve.
Ellie was sitting on the steps outside of the station. The building was old; a simple stone carving at the crest of the three-door garage spelled out 1901. Ever since she was a little girl, the tan bricks and triple-wide driveway made her feel nearly brand-new.
Inside, the tile floor was black and white and always sparkling clean. Her father had always been fastidious about the firehouse, and though he knew how to encourage his men with friendship and humor, he had high standards and was willing to help out to keep the place in good shape. Even with his seven-month absence, his years of attention to detail still showed.
Amelia didn’t know how Ellie came here every day. There were too many memories creeping out from behind the well-built walls when she saw this place, like her first time sliding down the brass fire pole with her father’s hands keeping her safe from falling, or when at seventeen she walked into the lounge and saw a handsome young Steve sitting there and he fell into her life like he belonged there.