“Other things?” Matt’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, telling Mom about Beck?”
Seth forced himself to hold his brother’s gaze. “That’s hanging over my head. It’s not going to be easy. But I need to get through the next twenty-four hours without fucking everything up.”
“You will.” Matt watched him for another beat, clearly debating whether to push. Finally, he nodded. “But if something else is going on?—“
“I know where to find you.”
“You do.” Matt nodded. “Good luck.”
Seth’s mouth twisted into something between a grimace and a smile. “Yeah. Gonna need it.”
Matt stepped back toward his car. “See you after you’ve talked to Mom?”
“Yeah. One way…or the other.”
With a wave, Matt climbed into his truck and pulled away from the curb. Seth stood there for a second, watching the taillights disappear, before he slid into his mother’s SUV. He slid the key into the ignition and started the engine.
His hands were shaking.
He gripped the steering wheel and forced himself to breathe. The mini-mart was three blocks away. Orange juice. Simple errand.
Except…what followed might answer over a decade’s worth of questions…or fuck up his life forever.
Seth shut down that seditious train of thought and pulled out of the driveway.
The mini-mart appeared almost too quickly. He parked, grabbed a carton of orange juice from the cooler, and paid without making eye contact with the cashier. Two minutes, tops.
Back in the car, he set the plastic bag on the passenger seat and stared at it. He could go home now, rejoin what was left of the brunch, look toward the future, and stop giving the black yawning chasm of the past his attention.
Except…he couldn’t—not yet.
Seth pulled back onto the road, his pulse picking up again. The storage facility was less than a mile away. He damn near had to pass the place on his way back to the house.
Part of him hoped he’d find nothing but an empty unit. A dead end. That whatever proof his father had hidden was long gone. Then Seth could let it rest, focus on Heavenly and Beck, and their baby. A new house. Hudson. A future that wasn’t full of ghosts.
But the other part—the part that still mourned his dad, his first wife, his trusting infant son—couldn’t let it go, not if he could finally, finally learn who had killed Michael Cooper. And why.
His heart hammered. His hands felt unsteady on the wheel, but he kept driving.
Just grab whatever’s there and read it later. No lingering. Get back to Mom’s before anyone notices.
The storage facility sign came into view, faded letters on a rusted metal gate. The place had been here forever. Seth had driven past it a thousand times and never given it a second thought.
Today, it might change his life.
At the thought, Seth’s stomach plunged, seeming to free fall to his toes.
Anxiety spiked when he turned into the lot and punched in the gate code from the back of the card. Seth half-expected the code wouldn’t work after sixteen years.
The gate creaked open, slow and reluctant. A chill went up his spine, but he shoved it aside.
If someone suspected his dad had hidden something here before his death, they would’ve broken in by now. There’d be nothing left, right?
Right. Besides, almost no one knew he was here. The danger was low.
He could handle this. He wished he had his gun, just in case, but he really shouldn’t need it.
In theory.
