“There are a lot of places to hide things out here, Brooks.” He glances at me as he speaks, so I nod.
“Have you hidden things out here?” I ask after several seconds pass without him saying another word. He glances at me again, and when our eyes meet, I sense that’s not something he will answer. Ever.
“Okay,” I say, swallowing hard.
After we drive east for about twenty minutes, Roddy pulls onto an unmarked dirt road that winds along a dry riverbed, pulling into some thick brush that shields my car from view. It’s barren land, and we’ve traveled far enough from the highway that I can’t hear the traffic, even if I hold my breath and try really hard.
“Let’s dig,” Roddy says, walking a few paces and glancing around the area.
“Are you expecting someone to be spying on us?” I ask.
He meets my gaze and shakes his head before pointing to the massive boulder lodged next to a petrified tree stump.
“About forty feet south of that. Remember it, just in case.” He drops his gaze to the earth, then stabs the dirt with his shovel.
“Why don’t we just burn it?” I ask.
He doesn’t look up, and he keeps moving the shovel, so I join him, moving dirt to the side as we dig into the soil.
“When money like that shows up in your life, odds are high someone is looking for it. You never know when you might need to give it back, and if you don’t have it to give?—”
He pauses his shovel but doesn’t look me in the eyes.
He doesn’t need to. I’m pretty sure I understand. If it comes down to my life, Holly’s life, Lindsey’s life . . . or the cash. I want to have the cash to give to whomever is asking for it.
We dig for thirty minutes, making a hole about four feet deep. The clay is hard once we break through the topsoil, so ifmany years pass, I wonder if I’d even be able to dig this cash back up once the dirt solidifies on top of it again.
We pat the earth down, then kick some brush around to mix up the terrain and cover our tracks. Roddy has me pull the SUV out and turn around as he destroys our tire tracks for several feet. He has me back up and form new tread marks that lead into the open field to my right, and I stop before my tires get too lodged in the mud.
I’m heavy on the pedal once we reach the highway, and Roddy clears his throat when I creep close to one hundred miles per hour.
“We don’t need to be pulled over right now,” he says.
I nod, easing off the gas. My heart is still pounding so hard I think it’s chipped my breastbone. My pulse doesn’t slow until we pull back into Roddy’s driveway. I follow my teammate into his garage, hooking my shovel onto the wall next to his, then stomping dirt from my shoes on the large rubber mat just outside the door that leads to his kitchen.
When we step inside, it’s as if the world turns to color once again. The scents of vanilla, cinnamon and maple permeate the air, and Daisy is standing at the griddle, humming a classic rock song while Holly plays with a stuffed bear on a quilt in the center of the room.
“Is that . . . yours?” I point to the bear. Roddy glares at it for a second, then looks at Daisy.
“She needed a toy. You need to learn how to share,” she says, holding out her finger, which is covered in what looks like sugar and syrup.
Roddy sucks it away, and my eyeballs nearly fall out of my head, so I head to the blanket and sit down to play with Roddy’s bear. I guess he and Daisy are making progress.
TWENTY-FOUR
LINDSEY
I’ve missed my sister. I think Brooks has also missed Hunter. When Renleigh called to let me know they’re coming to town for a few days, he lit up like he hasn’t in days.
Meeting with Pen was hard on him. He came back from his breakfast meet-up with this invisible weight on his shoulders. He was gone for a while, so I’m not sure how intense their conversation got, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. At least, not for the last three nights that he’s snuck into my room. He just wants to hold me to his chest and stroke my hair. I’m not complaining. But I still feel this vice grip on my chest, like something’s wrong.
It’s probably my anxiety leading to my divorce being finalized. Brandon has been radio silent since I chewed him out at the ballpark and told him to stop taking his jealousy out on our boys. He didn’t deny he was jealous. But he also made sure to tell me that Caitlyn was not living with him, despite anything I’d heard.
I hadn’t heard that, actually. I simply assumed since the boys always described her being in the house, sleeping in daddy’s bed with him, waking up in one of his T-shirts, and walking around in her underwear in front of them. Good thing they’re only four!
Thing is, I don’t even care if Caitlyn is living there. Not anymore. What I care about is the hypocrisy, that he can behave one way, yet I can’t. Truthfully? All of it is wearing me down. And all I want to do is tell my sister about Brooks, and what he said, and how I may be in love with him, too. But on the chance my battle with Brandon gets uglier, I don’t want my sister to have to lie for me. Right now, she has plausible deniability. As far as she knows, I’m the nanny. Full stop.
I’m not happy about how comfortable I’ve become with lying myself. It makes me feel dirty, and not in the fun way. I suspect that’s why I’ve had a few panic attacks lately. I start to think about what people see, what they assume, and the stories I need to make up to cover it all up. It’s too much. All of it.
