“But look at it. The porch, the flowers, the wreath on the door. You can tell, even from the outside, that it’s a comfortable place.”
Luke couldn’t argue with that. “Wait until you get inside.”
They didn’t waste time making the short walk from the car. At any moment, Luke expected to hear the now-too-familiar pop of a rifle, but it never came. Luke opened the garage door using the keypad and was quick to close it behind them. He led Faith into the house, and her voice dropped to a whisper as they entered the empty home. “This feels so ... wrong.”
“Rose knows we’re here. It’s not like we’re sneaking in.”
“I know, but—” Faith stopped in the kitchen and turned in a circle, a satisfied smile on her face. “I knew it would be cozy.” Sheheld her hands in front of her, as if she were making a point. “This. This is a home. This is a place people live and are welcome to live. You wouldn’t have to perform in this house. And you wouldn’t have to tiptoe through your days.”
“How on earth can you tell that from an empty house?”
“It isn’t empty.” Faith pointed around the room. “Don’t you see it? Pictures on the walls, shoes in the corner. Homework on the counter. There’s life here. Good life.”
Her voice quavered, and Luke walked through the living room, looking everywhere but at Faith. “There is.”
“They didn’t deserve to lose their dad.”
“No. They didn’t.”
“Let’s find out why they did.” Faith’s voice was steel.
Two hours later, Luke had a startling appreciation for Faith and her work ethic. After a full day in the office, this woman was working him under the table. All he wanted to do was to close his eyes for a few minutes and maybe forget he’d lost his friends.
Faith was a machine. Methodical. Intentional. Possibly a bit manic. She had dismantled Thad’s office one piece of paper at a time and then returned everything to its place in a way that would make it impossible for Betsy or Bobby to know anyone had been there.
“Are you sure Thad didn’t have a secret compartment somewhere?” Faith rested her head in her hands. The first hint of fatigue she’d shown.
“If he did, he never told me. And he never told Rose either. She’s looked. We’ve inquired at every bank in town to see if he had a safe deposit box. We’ve checked the floors and the walls and the ceiling.”
Faith sat at Thad’s desk. Her eyes scanned the room in a slowprogression from floor to ceiling and then back down, as if she had X-ray vision and was using it to look for hidden files in the wall.
There’d been no guarantee they would find anything. It wasn’t like Rose hadn’t searched everything already. And even though they’d already done it twice in the past few months, Luke had spent part of his afternoon looking through Thad’s cubicle at the office, which remained much as he’d left it.
They were looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, with the added layer of complexity being that the needle might not even exist. But they had to look. TV versions of law enforcement never focused on the dead ends, the hours spent hunting for a lead and finding nothing. In real life, the dead ends were the majority of the work.
“It isn’t here.” Faith’s disappointment layered every word.
He didn’t want her to be right, but he was almost certain she was. “Whether it is or isn’t, we need to get out of here.” He pointed at the clock on the wall. “I do not want to incur Rose’s wrath.”
“Me neither.” Faith widened her eyes in mock terror, then favored him with a gentle smile. “I would never disrespect her that way. Let’s make sure everything is put back together.”
She pulled her phone from her pocket and scrolled through the photos she’d taken before they started. When she was satisfied that even the small handcuff paperweight was positioned exactly as it had been, they left the house. “Are you going to your house or the hotel?” she asked as they climbed into her sedan.
“The hotel.” Luke tried to sound like this was no big deal. He should be grateful for a safe place to rest his head, but he wanted to go home. He wanted to sleep in his own bed. He wanted to get up and have his own coffee from his own French press. He wanted to sit in his chair and start his morning with his Bible and end his day with a good book.
But he also didn’t want to die.
Faith’s hand on his arm startled him and chased all the negative thoughts away. “It’s the smart choice. Your team, your friends—none of them could handle losing you. You know that, right?” Faith’s fingers flexed on his forearm. Gentle pressure strategically placed in between bandages.
“I think it’s overkill.”
“Do it for Zane and Tessa and for your mom and sister. They would worry.”
“Yeah.” She wasn’t wrong, but was he imagining that she might be worried too? “My mom doesn’t want me to go home. She also doesn’t want me to go to work.”
“Moms can’t be expected to be anything other than biased in favor of their children surviving the day.”
“True.”
