Ellie’s cheeks burned. She still couldn’t believe half of the things that had happened since she and Chet got the call from Lark Lane.
“Glad you’ve got my back, Rivera,” she said, laughing and faking a salute.
“One day you are telling me that story, deal?”
“Deal,” Ellie replied, and picked out the key to the ignition. “See you soon.”
“Sounds like a plan, Brown.” He stopped himself, twisting his lips up to one side. Ellie was pretty sure he was blushing. “Sounds like a plan . . . Ellie.” He completed the sentence, shook his head like he was laughing at himself, and then waved a good-bye before taking off across the back lot of Nancy’s to his truck. He hefted himself into the driver’s seat and started the engine with a loud roar. Ellie gave one last wave and climbed into the Jeep alone.
The car started, and everything about the experience was familiar at the same time as it was unfamiliar. The sound of the engine, the smell of the exhaust, the way the upholstery scratched against the back of her arms every time she readjusted her position, all things she’d come to find comforting over the past five years with Collin. They’d made love for the first time in the back of that Jeep. She cringed, wishing it sounded more romantic and less like a pair of amorous teenagers. But at the same time, she was the one in the driver’s seat now, and the wheel felt foreign to her touch. She wondered, briefly, if the car would even move with her pressing on the gas.
As she worked the car into reverse, she ran through what had just happened inside the Emporium. It was disturbing, this idea that her father had taken part in a grand deception. He’d always seemed so strong, so perfect, so full of unwavering integrity. She never wanted to let her dad down; it was why she became a paramedic at U of I on top of her already-packed course schedule, why she was determined to become a firefighter even after failing the agility test twice, and ultimately it was why she came home.
So what if Caleb’s stories were true and her father wasn’t the perfect superhero she had always thought he was? She’d decided that it didn’t make her love him less. In some ways, it made her love him more. He wasn’t a superhero—it turned out he was a man.
She still wanted answers from Steve, but for now she’d lean on this strange type of relief, that if her father wasn’t perfect, then she didn’t have to be either.
Ellie shifted the car back into drive and turned the corner that would take her to the front side of the Emporium and eventually to the road. Ahead, Travis’s truck sat at the edge of the parking lot, waiting, most likely, for Ellie to pass by so he could be sure of her safe exit. With a big wave, which Travis immediately returned, she turned left, hoping he wouldn’t follow her. She needed to get a few things for her dad, but they weren’t at his house. They were at Amelia’s. In her rearview mirror, she watched Travis take a right turn and get on the highway; she pressed on the gas, hoping to get to her sister’s house before the Broadlands police caught up with their day and headed over for further investigation. All she needed was Dad’s brush.
It never took more than five minutes in a car to get anywhere in Broadlands, and she was at Lark Lane within two. The house looked like it was decorated for Halloween with police tape strung across the driveway. She wasn’t supposed to be there, but at this point in her day she’d done enough things she wasn’t supposed to do that the nervous thrill that should’ve kept her from parking down the block and sneaking through the shrubs to the kitchen door disappeared.
She lifted up the edge of the welcome mat and pulled the black backing material away from the stiff fibers. A silver key fell out and clanked onto the cement step. As quickly as possible, Ellie unlocked the door and slipped inside the dark house.
The smell in the room was thick and heavy, the smell of day-old blood and that same gasoline smell from the day before mixed together. It was a strange scent and so different from the ones that usually greeted her inside that door. The room was still covered in blood, but numbered signs traced along the floor like yellow trail markers, and Ellie was relieved to know what areas to avoid. Her head spun, and her empty stomach turned with the smell and sight of browning blood. Fresh blood reminded her of her job, but old blood reminded her of death.
Ellie skirted the bloody footprints and evidence markers, pressing her body against the kitchen cabinets and remembering that her father’s brush was usually in the front room by his favorite TV chair. In an increasingly comfortable state of heightened stress, she tried to focus only on getting the brush and getting back to the hospital so that the images in front of her didn’t bring back any memories from her last visit to the house.
Once she’d passed the area of the house still under investigation, Ellie searched the side table by her father’s recliner and quickly grasped the brush. The wooden handle was reassuring in her palm, and when she slipped it into her back pocket, she finally felt like she’d done something helpful.
Following approximately the same path back to the kitchen, Ellie rushed toward the back door, ready to leave the crime scene and determined to never break the law again—not even for a good reason. Glad that she’d been working on her balance skills, she made it back to the kitchen door in less than a minute, slightly out of breath but also relieved to be done so quickly. Though she’d become accustomed to the feeling of adrenaline rushing through her veins, she still hadn’t acquired a taste for it.
As Ellie readjusted the brush to keep it from falling out, a thump sounded behind the steel door that led to the Broadlands Roofing office. Nerves shot, she jumped and let out a little yelp; then she peeked through the downturned blinds on the kitchen door to see if a squad car was parked outside. The driveway was empty, the yellow caution tape whipping in the spring air, the threat of more rain in the sky.
Another thump sounded from the other side of the wall, and Ellie pulled her hand away and pressed her back against the door. Part of her wanted to run away, take a chance, and dash across the gravel drive and into the safety of Collin’s Jeep. Then the rebellious part of her that was so tired of being scared wanted to fling open the door and confront what was sure to be a fallen file box. Ellie paused, holding her breath and listening.