Traces of Guilt

FOURTEEN

Evie Blackwell

Evie heard Gabriel’s whistle as the door opened, noted he’d taken it up again, and had to admit the song fragment was growing on her. She could almost whistle it in harmony now.

“Thanksgiving, Evie. Shut it down for a couple hours for some good food.”

“Almost there,” she replied. She added another date to her timeline. “What are the odds you could park a camper someplace for twelve years and no one would mention it?”

“If the lot fees are paid on time, who cares how long a camper sits there?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Like an old bank box. So long as the fee is paid, and the automatic transfer from a savings or checking account clears, the box can go dormant and no one would know.”

“Are you thinking the cash is sitting in a bank box?”

She turned at the remark, startled. “What did you say?”

“The cash they were accumulating. Susan could have been storing it in one of the larger safe-deposit boxes rather than carrying it home. Forty thousand would fit.”

She beamed. “Yes!” She spun back to the wall, grabbed the green marker, and wrote Bank box! on the first open area of white paper.

Gabriel chuckled. “I think we just cross-communicated. What were you talking about?”

“I think they unhitched the camper and left it at the campground-either at their destination or farther north, away from where the search would have started. Or maybe they parked it at a storage lot. But my gut says they just parked it at a campground. Swap it with one that hasn’t been moved for a couple months, has grass growing up around it, slap on some bumper stickers, swap license plates, and hide the camper in plain sight. One camper basically looks the same as the next.”

“Who?”

“Either the Florist family making a clean getaway or whoever killed them.” She picked up her root beer from the table. “Or maybe someone else who followed the Florist family to the campground. I do lean toward the fact they arrived at their destination before trouble happened. Anyway, that bank-box comment of yours is brilliant. What do you want to bet there’s a bank account and safe-deposit box in the name of Simon or May Carnoff? Susan could have opened an account once they had the false IDs. She opened new accounts as a routine part of her job. Seed the account with five hundred dollars and pay the box rent automatically as an account transfer. She handled accessing the safe-deposit box room too as part of her job. The money is still sitting in the bank here. Why carry that much cash home when she could just store it in a bank box?”

“A great question,” Gabriel said, “but the bank is closed on Thanksgiving. You won’t get an answer until tomorrow.”

“The banker in the family-is he high enough up the chain to have keys? All we need is a check on the name to know if it’s something to pursue.”

“I’ll make a call. Now come on, Evie, close it down. Good turkey waits for no person, and I’m not giving up the wishbone without good cause-it’s my year to claim it.”

Evie laughed and closed the files. “Tell security to come on over. I’m done for now.” She had leads to tug on and that felt good. She was also in favor of a good meal that wasn’t pizza.

Joshua Thane

Josh closed the grill, satisfied the turkey was coming along. His phone chimed a message, and he glanced at it. “Ann’s here. I’ll walk down and meet her, Mom, see if she needs help carrying anything.”

“If you can carry it along with her stuff, bring me another bag of ice from the bait shop. Or if you see your father, he can bring it.”

“Will do.” Josh headed down the path toward the pier to meet Ann, figuring he could share a quick update with her and ask about the Dayton family.

He heard the ice cream truck’s jingle before he saw the vehicle in the parking lot. The campgrounds were full this holiday weekend with those who preferred a less traditional Thanksgiving celebration.

Josh saw Ann walking toward the pier, eating an ice cream cone. It was a nice sunny day, probably one of the last this warm for the year. He bought himself a vanilla cone and headed after Ann, looking forward to a few private minutes. A small group of people were on the pier, an older couple getting situated in a boat, one of his staff helping them out, and a girl probably six or seven, who was peering over the edge of the dock at the water, a chocolate ice cream cone dripping onto her hand.

Ann stopped beside her and said something to the girl, handed over extra napkins. Their laughter rippled out over the water. Josh stopped and watched. Ann hadn’t come here alone. He walked across the dock to join them, Ann glancing back over her shoulder as she felt the gentle sway of the boards. Her smile was calm and quiet and quintessential Ann. Another secret unfolding, he thought as he stopped beside the two. The child’s attention was on a sunfish just below the surface, producing an occasional bubble and flip of fin that caught the light.

“Hello.”

She looked up at him. Six years old, he thought, without a doubt. He struggled for words after hello. To give himself a moment, he settled to her height and looked down into the water with her. “Nice fish.” There were half a dozen small sunfish in the group.

“I don’t want to catch them, just look.”

“Okay.”

He considered the little girl, saw her lick at her melting cone. “Try vanilla.” He held out his cone for her. She smiled and did so. “You’d be Little Grace. You’re adorable, like your mom.”

“Yes, I am.”

He grinned. “Like to swim?”

“Will the fish nibble at my toes? Andy says they will.”

He thought about how to answer. “Andy must like you a lot to tell you that secret.”

“He gave me a valentine. I didn’t give him one.”

“Maybe next year, if he’s still a friend, you can.”

The fish moved toward the end of the dock, and she went with them, back to licking her chocolate cone before it was a puddle on the dock.

“Major secret, Ann,” he whispered as he rose.

“Yes.”

They stood watching as the child finished her cone, then knelt down to watch the fish dart around the post of the dock. The boat was loaded with guests now and finally left the dock, its small motor sputtering away. The girl watched it go with interest.

“Single mom,” Ann said softly.

“A dad in the picture?”

“No. Never will be.”

Josh nodded, handed Ann his cone, and walked down the dock to join the girl. “Little Grace, come meet my mom. She’s fixing a feast, and we can sample if we’re quick about it.”

She giggled. “My name’s Angel.”

“Of course it is,” he said with a smile. “You can ride up top.” He swung her up to sit on his shoulders.

She held on to his hands rather than his hair-someone had given the child lessons in how to be a good passenger. Paul probably, he thought, seeing the comfortable look Ann shared with the child.

“Don’t forget to tell Josh about your vacation.”

The girl leaned over to see his face. “Do you like horses?”

“Yes.”

“I rode on one that belongs to a real cowboy.”

“Did you now, really?”

“I flew in a big plane with lots of people, and Quinn taught me to laugh from my belly and throw a lasso at a post, and I ran around with old Blue, he’s their dog, and chased a cow back into the corral, and Lisa fit me with chaps for my jeans so I could be official and everything, and my cowboy boots are beautiful like me, ’cause Quinn agreed it was okay for them to be pink ’cause I’m a girl.”

He grinned as he followed that report to interesting places. “Did you see any lambs while you were out there? My brother Will has a couple of those.”

“Can you show me?”

“Sure.”

“Do you have lots of brothers? ’Cause I’ve only got me and Mom, and I want brothers, lots of them, so they can be my posse when we go after bad guys and gold and stuff.”

“Are you a treasure hunter?”

“Well, not yet, but I want to be.”

“What else do you want to be?”

“Oh, chipmunks!” Her slender body twitched around as he stopped and she watched two of them chase each other. When they had disappeared, he set out walking again.

“I want to have adventures and see the sea, but I don’t think I want to go in caves, ’cause they’re creepy and dark and might have snakes, and the really old mines are grimy and might fall down on you, so I won’t go in those either, but old cellars and barns and dried riverbeds often hide stuff so I could look there for treasure.”

“That would be smart for an adventurer.”

She leaned over to look at him again. “I might want to go into space like Bishop, but you can’t tell Mom because she’s like ‘Keep your feet on the ground, Angel,’” she mimicked in a singsong voice, “but I think floating around without gravity would be a lot of fun.”

“That’s a big secret to keep. What do I get in return if I do?”

“What do you want?”

He thought about it. “Could you make me a valentine?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then we have our first secret that I won’t tell your mom. Though maybe we can only have three or four of those, because I like talking to your mom about stuff.”

“Okay. I only have a couple I could tell you.”

“What’s another one?”

“She thinks I don’t know her uncle made her sad.”

He gently rubbed her knee and tried to swallow the lump growing in his throat. “Yeah. That would be an okay secret not to tell your mom.” He shifted his grip to her tennis shoes as they reached the level ground. “Do you like turkey?”

“Yes. Is that what smells good?”

He smiled. “I cooked it.”

“You did? Really?”

He swung her down from his shoulders. “Come and see.” He took her over to the grill. “Hold your breath, it’s going to shoot out smoke at you,” he warned and lifted the lid. She waved her hand and giggled.

“Okay, what do you think?” He lifted her up so she could see the browning bird.

She studied it. “It looks really good,” she declared.

He kissed her cheek and set her back on the ground. “Compliments are accepted.” His mother, seated at the patio table, was watching them with great curiosity. “Angel, this is my mother, Marie.”

Angel turned shy, keeping a hand on his jeans as she greeted the woman. “Hello.”

His mom leaned forward and offered her hand. “Hello back to you.”

They carefully shook. The girl tipped her head to look up at Josh. “She’s tiny,” she whispered. “How did she have you?”

His mother laughed. “I have lots of photos of him and his brothers when they were small. Would you like to see some of them?”

“Smaller than me?”

“A lot smaller.”

“Yes, please-then I can believe it.”

Marie offered her hand. “Some of the pictures are on the walls inside. And I need to check pumpkin pies in the oven. Would you like to help me do that?”

“Sure. Do you have that white stuff for on top of the pie? Because ice cream is okay, but that fluffy white is better.”

“If I don’t, I will send Josh to get us some.”

“That would be good.” The little girl slid her hand into his mother’s and they disappeared into the house together.

Josh could think of a dozen questions, but he cleared up a fairly major one first. “Space?” he queried Ann, glancing over as she took a seat at the patio table.

Ann smiled. “She’s spent time this last year over at Bishop Space Repair, Inc. with Jim Bishop. Grace works there on occasion when they need small hands to build one of their space bots. Angel hangs out in the workshop, helping out Jim, or Kelly Gold, his number two.”

He knew astronaut Jim Bishop had retired after the last shuttle launch, but he hadn’t heard about the company. “They’re going to make it back into space as a private venture?”

“Gina Bishop figured out how to 3-D print a rocket made of solid rocket fuels. They’ve been launching small-scale versions of it for months in all kinds of weather and wind conditions. You’ll see a big one launch into space next month on a test flight with the Navy. It’s dropped the costs from several million for a space launch to about two hundred thousand.”

“That sounds like Gina.”

Ann laughed. “It does. The Bishop brothers are going into business to repair satellites that otherwise would enter orbital decay, tumble into the atmosphere, and burn up. A satellite costs three to four hundred million to build, minimum; they’ll charge five or six million to go fix it. They plan to send up a couple of spider-like robots and a repair box of supplies, catch up to the satellite in question, use the bots to replace gyroscopes, swap out electronic boards and instruments, add more fuel so the maneuvering thrusters can keep the satellite in position, then lift the satellite back to its normal orbit. To listen to Bryce and Jim Bishop talk, it’s going to be a viable business doing four to six repair flights a year within three years. When Mark Bishop retires from the Navy, he’s going to join them as president of the company.”

“The things being done in secret…”

Ann smiled. “It won’t be a secret much longer once the big rocket flies. I figure they’re going to pour the profits of the satellite repairs into building a capsule so that Jim can go back into space himself as a privately funded astronaut. Give it a decade and it’s likely Angel’s going to have astronaut friends coming to her high school graduation party. If she really wants to dream of space, there’s going to be a door waiting wide open for her to walk through.”

“A little girl should dream big,” he agreed. “I’m glad those dreams are being encouraged, Ann, rather than knocked down by events. Where’s Grace?”

Ann’s smile faded. “She’s talking with Paul. He’s going to bring her out this way when she’s ready. I told her not to hurry. If she needs a few hours on her own, I’ve got Angel here with me, and a plate from Thanksgiving will heat up fine.”

“Thanks, Ann, for giving her what she needs.”

“It’s what I can do. She’s wrapping this up, Josh. I don’t think she’ll be here after today. Angel wanted to see the lake her mom talks about, and I think Grace needed to give you the rest of the story, which is why she asked me to bring her daughter here. Grace didn’t have it in her to explain all this. Don’t think less of her for that.”

“I’m glad she let me in on the full picture. It doesn’t change things or push us apart. Probably the opposite.”

“I thought it might. She’s a good kid.”

“Grace without the shadows,” Josh murmured.

“Exactly,” Ann said.

He smiled. “It’s going to be easy to love both of them.”

“Those around her already do. You’re welcome to be part of that circle if you want in.”

He listened to the girl laughing inside with his mom. “I want in.”

Gabriel Thane

Gabriel watched the little girl laughing with Josh, and he thought Angel had transformed this Thanksgiving Day. Karen and Will looked quite content too, sharing an outdoor lounge chair and watching eagles soar over the lake. He saw Evie disappear down the hall with Ann, heard the two of them chuckling over something. The stress of the last two weeks was easing away, that was apparent. He didn’t see his father, Paul, or Grace, so the complete group had yet to arrive.

The shock of learning that Grace had a daughter had worn off rather abruptly with a simple introduction from Josh and a meaningful brother-to-brother glance. Since Gabriel rarely met a kid he didn’t like, and the girl had a smile that could make a stone heart smile back, he thought he’d done fine with the introductions.

He checked out the appetizers, picked up a cucumber slice with a green pepper mustache, red pepper lips, and black olive eyes. A spreadable cheese held the vegetables together. It was the first time he could remember laughing before he ate vegetables. Karen’s contribution, he was sure. He helped himself to a second one. Remarkably good, he decided.

Evie returned, and Gabriel blinked at the color splash. She’d changed her shirt to match Ann and Angel. They were now a vibrant neon yellow, hand-painted with what might be turkeys.

Evie plopped a shirt in his hands. “You’re messing up the dress code.”

He simply grinned. Why not? He stepped into Josh’s room and changed, looked in the mirror and winced. At least he wouldn’t have to look at himself. He found his mother in the kitchen, filling an ice bucket, sporting one of the yellow shirts, only this one had lots of feathers painted on it. Or maybe it was ears of corn.

Casserole dishes were in the oven keeping warm, three crock-pots were lined up on the counter, the stove top held pans with noodles, corn on the cob, potatoes and gravy, and, on the far counter, pies were cooling. A true Thane Thanksgiving Day feast. As soon as Josh declared the bird done, this meal would be ready. “Mom, what’s left?”

She glanced around. “You can set the tables, inside and out.”

He opened the cupboard to get down plates. Evie offered to help, and he handed her the plates and gathered glasses together. He smiled at the two coming into the kitchen. “Your vegetables are good enough to eat, Karen.”

“Thanks.” She saw what he was doing. “Will, you do the silverware.”

Will obliged while Karen got out napkins and holders for the corn on the cob.

His mom nodded her approval. “Karen.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ve got something I’d like to say.”

Karen looked over at Marie with a cautious smile. “I’d like to hear it. I think.”

“I appreciate you bringing those cute vegetables even my sons are eating without a fuss. It shows you put some time and effort into the dish, but didn’t want to show up other cooks in the house. You’ve got a nice, tactful side to you, given I know you’re the best cook to ever step into a Thane house.”

Karen blushed.

“I’ve got three sons,” Marie went on, “and it’s wonderful to see one of them settling down.” Will was turning red. “You don’t need to be cooking great meals and inviting family over on holidays, Karen. You just show up here hungry and bring whatever suits your fancy and you’ll fit in this family fine. But just remember one thing. You want peace with a man’s mother, you bring him to church every Sunday, and when the kids come along, you bring them too.”

“Mom-”

Karen sent Will a quelling look. “I can do that, Mrs. Thane,” she replied promptly.

Marie laughed. “You’ll be good for my son. He gives you trouble, you just tell me. And it’s ‘Marie’ from now on.”

Karen’s blush covered her face now, but her smile was real. “I can do that too, Marie.”

Gabriel watched the exchange, gave Will a glance, saw relief under the embarrassment. Mom’s approval would matter for so many reasons, just as his father’s would. He hadn’t expected her to be quite so forward about matters, but it was clear Karen had just been welcomed to the family in more than a passing manner.

“Gabriel, there’s your father,” Marie was saying. “He’s got more ice. Fill those glasses before you put them around.” Paul and Grace came in, both already in the yellow shirts. Gabriel saw his mom give Angel the job of carrying the salad bowls to the table and smiled at the girl’s concentration. Get assigned a job, you had a place in this family.

He waited at the door for Grace to bring through the hot bread basket and the salad dressing options, softly said, “Your daughter has stolen Mom’s heart. She’s been hoping for a decade for some grandkids to enjoy.”

Grace met his gaze and seemed to understand the deeper meaning. “I like your mom, I always have.”

“She’s always wanted to see Chicago at Christmastime-all those decorations and places to shop,” he added.

Grace smiled. “One holiday at a time, Gabriel.”

Josh joined them with a questioning look, but Grace moved on to the table with the bread. Gabriel thought it likely their family Christmas was going to be spread out this year. He worked Christmas Day so that his deputies could be with their families, just as his dad had always done, so the Thane family was used to getting together a day or two early or late. Some would find a reason to go north this year, he expected, to stop and see Grace and her daughter.

“Angel, come tell me if you think the turkey is done,” Josh called. He waited until the girl joined him before lifting the lid. He boosted her up to see, poked a long fork into it, watched the juice run clear. “What do you think, Angel?”

She nodded decisively. “It’s done.”

“Then I need you to bring me that big silver tray on the kitchen counter, the one with the turkey picture on it.”

She went to get it as Josh shut down the grill. Josh lifted the bird onto the plate, brought it over to the table, and handed the carving knife to Caleb. Dad said grace, a particularly meaningful one, sliced the turkey, and the feast officially began.

Gabriel wrapped the wishbone ends in two napkins and went to find Evie. She was sitting at the table on the deck with a piece of pumpkin pie, whipped cream on top, along with a side scoop of vanilla ice cream. Her conversation with Grace was mostly laughter. Gabriel almost hated to interrupt, but some things were important. He hunkered down beside her. “Make a wish.”

Evie considered the offer and took a good competitive hold of her end. She closed her eyes. “Okay.”

He tugged quick, having learned if he wanted to win, it took a swift break. But she must have had some experience in the matter too, and she twisted her wrist, grinning as she came up with the winning piece.

“A good wish?”

“One of the best,” she assured him.

“Better be. I don’t get the wishbone for another four years.”

She laughed.

“I got a call from the banker in the Florist family,” he said quietly. “There’s a bank account in the name Simon Carnoff and a safe-deposit box. We’ll have to drill the box, which requires a court order and a locksmith. I’m getting it arranged for eight a.m. tomorrow. There will be time to see what’s there before we head over to interview Phil Peters and his wife.”

Her sudden hug nearly toppled him. “Yes!” She grinned at him. “Have you told Paul? Your dad? They’re the ones who found the names.”

“I’ll tell them next.” He realized he was wearing some of the whipped cream from her fork.

“Oops,” she giggled as he wiped it off his shirt and licked his finger.

“Enjoy the rest of your pie.”

“It really is great news,” she told him again, her face alight.

“It is.” But he wasn’t letting work intrude any further into the day, so he simply smiled and left to get a piece of pie of his own.

Evie Blackwell

Evie noticed Ann on the pier and headed down to join her. Josh had taken Grace and Angel along with Karen out for a boat ride, and it didn’t take much to interpret the child’s laughter over the water. Josh was letting the child steer the boat as they came back toward the pier.

“I’ll be sad to see Grace leave,” Evie said, watching the boat head in. Grace and her daughter would be flying back to Chicago with Ann and Paul later tonight.

Ann waved at the little girl. “Grace handled her time here better than I thought she would. But she’s ready to go home, be with Angel, focus on Christmas plans. Josh will get the search of the land finished in another week, depending on the weather. Either way, I think Grace will be able to accept the news, whichever way it goes.”

Evie agreed with that assessment. “I’ll call you if the bank box yields anything interesting. If the Florist family ran, the box is empty, and if they didn’t, the box has something in it. I can’t decide which answer I want.”

“You’re making progress, Evie. You’ve still got three more days.”

Evie smiled. “Hope springs eternal that a cold case can get solved.”

“The task force is going to face a lot of days like this one,” Ann noted.

“I just wanted to impress him, you know? Pick the one. Governor Bliss, Gabriel, the other cops who are going to be on the task force. Solving the disappearance of a deputy and his family-my ambition has never been a problem.”

“You’ve still got the interview with the Peters tomorrow. I can come down this weekend to do a last review of the case if you like.”

Evie shook her head. “That’s okay, Ann. The Dayton case is solved, and I can live with one out of two. Gabriel and I will talk over the Florist case one more time during the drive back from the interview tomorrow, and I’ll be ready to let it go. If we don’t get a break and solve it now, it’s time to put it back in the box.”

“Has it been fun, Evie? The last couple of weeks?” Ann asked. “And I use the word fun deliberately.”

She thought about it and nodded. “It’s been a wide open case, where you can consider whatever you can come up with, and I’ve needed that, Ann. I wasn’t standing over a bloodstained dead body in a bedroom, trying to figure out if the husband did it or the son. As serious as this case is-a family of three missing-it didn’t have the weight that something more immediate would have. I needed the freedom a cold case gave me just to explore what might be answers without having to worry about what the idea sounded like in a daily progress report.”

Ann nodded. “That’s one reason I didn’t try very hard to talk you out of using your vacation time for this. The pace of your job, the immediacy of cases, has a different tempo than this kind of work. I think you’ll enjoy being on the task force, going after these unsolved cases. Some of them can be miserable, as the Dayton one became, but some of them can be like the Florists, a challenging puzzle to solve. And you will solve any number of them, Evie.”

“I’m becoming resigned to the fact that someone else is going to locate the missing piece of this one. I know it’s there. I also know I don’t have it yet. Maybe we get lucky with the safe-deposit box tomorrow, or the partner interview, but I’m probably clutching at straws.”

“I’d like to have lunch with you and debrief these two weeks sometime later in December, after you’ve gotten some distance from the work, both in time and space.”

“We’ll do that, Ann,” Evie said, pleased at the suggestion. She was having a hard time imagining life back on the job, being home in Springfield, and that was going to be her reality in just a few days. This working vacation had been a true break for her in that respect-it had pushed normal so far into the background, it was no longer a clear picture in her mind.

Gabriel’s life will get back to normal too, she realized, once their temporary work area was cleared and the cases boxed away again. She’d turn in her yellow convertible, pick up keys to her now-repaired car, and collect the dogs. Life was moving back toward its normal routine again. She’d adjust-a day or two back on the job and this would seem like a distant memory. But she’d miss Carin County, the people, and especially the Thanes.

She watched Gabriel and Will walk out of the bait shop with their father, talking with Paul. An interesting family, the Thanes. Saying she was going to miss them didn’t quite fit the emotions she was feeling.

“Friends don’t cease being friends,” Ann commented softly. Evie glanced over, realized Ann had noticed her gaze.

“You collect friends this way, don’t you?” Evie said. “A day or two in a place, put down a marker, come back again and fill in more of the picture with another day or two.” She was beginning to understand what had puzzled her about Ann.

“Sure.” Ann tipped her head toward Josh, who was getting ready to tie up the boat. “You didn’t spend much time with Josh the last couple of weeks, but I bet you have a pretty good sense of him. The same with Will.”

“I do. Mostly through what Gabriel has said, or times I’ve seen them as a family.”

“Just take that knowledge and start adding layers to it. People who know them mention something, adding to comments you hear about what’s going on in their lives. The Thanes are an easy family in which to form friendships because there isn’t tension within its members. You come in the door with one person and end up knowing the group if you pay attention to the details.”

“You do that so easily, Ann,” Evie remarked.

“It’s just practice, and listening,” Ann replied. “Gabriel isn’t sure how he wants things left with you. That was obvious today. He’s aware you’ve got a life away from here, don’t plan to come back this way, but he’s not inclined to simply accept a goodbye. I have a feeling he’ll let you decide that. That’s his way. For his brothers, Josh and Grace are renewing a childhood friendship that mattered to both of them. Will and Karen are falling in love. Back to Gabe-he would make room for you in his life, if you want that. He can be a good friend. If you see that in your future, or something more than that one day, he’s a safe and comfortable guy, Evie.”

“The ‘something more’ part, I don’t know that I do, at least not right now.”

Ann thoughtfully nodded. “Then accept some advice, friend, no matter what you conclude about Gabriel. Make a point to stop this way when business has you in the area, start layering in friendships with Marie, with Karen. They’re the kind of women who can appreciate who you are as a cop and yet give you room to breathe. You’ll never regret that kind of relationship.”

It made sense what Ann was suggesting, staying tied into the dynamic here, and for so many reasons. Evie wanted the circles of friends Ann seemed to naturally form around her, and she was seeing how they could be built. She could start a circle of her own here in Carin. She’d be welcome, understood, and she was beginning to grasp the significance of having that in her life.

Paul strolled down to the dock to join them, and Ann went to meet him, slipping her arms under his for a hug. Evie watched them together, let herself consider that picture. Ann was a good cop who had decided a guy mattered. Evie knew her own world might be better off if she decided to go that way one day. But it isn’t today, she concluded. She looked back as Josh helped Angel hop out of the boat onto the dock, her smile turned up to his face. A child’s delight without shadows. Evie wished the world was all such joy.

Okay, it was time to get back to work, finish what she’d come here to do, and then pack to go home. Whatever Carin County was going to be to her in the future would sort itself out. She had a final three days, and she was determined to make the most of them.

Joshua Thane

“Grace has a daughter.”

Josh turned with a smile at the quiet words of his mother, patted the seat on the bench beside him. The evening was wrapping up as most holidays did, with leftovers boxed and distributed for family to take home, and with a few spare moments of time just to sit and think.

Marie took the seat beside him. “I thought for a moment I was seeing things, when you walked up the path with Angel riding on your shoulders, and I saw that smile she has, that joy. I remember Grace when she was five, when she still had that same smile. It was like being transported back in time.”

“I saw that in your expression, that fleeting sense of shock. Thanks for making the shift so quickly so Angel felt your welcome.”

“It’s impossible not to welcome that little girl,” his mom answered with a smile. “Are you doing okay, honey?”

“The news was a punch, I’ll admit that, but yeah, I’m good,” Josh replied. “In a way it’s easier, knowing Grace went on with her life, made some mistakes of her own, but at least let a guy love her once. She has a daughter. I was afraid she was going to be so off men after what she’d been through, no one would ever get close. As painful as it must be to have a relationship fail, to be a single mom, she at least was willing to let someone in.”

“Looking for love.”

Josh nodded his agreement with her quiet statement. “Yeah.” He didn’t try to sort out the rest of what he was feeling. Grace was working her way back from the pain of what had happened to her, the pain of what she’d done to herself, but she was facing it and dealing with it. He understood what courage looked like. “Angel is fascinating-has such a big view of life and loves her mom. She’s a wonderful girl. You see the two of them together and it’s a great picture.”

Marie patted his knee. “Which is one reason why I keep waiting for my sons to marry, give me grandkids. There’s a lifetime of those memories when you have children around.”

Josh smiled. “I’m thinking Will and Karen will give you those grandchildren in the next few years. Gabriel and I… we’re going to remain your problem sons for a while yet.”

Marie laughed. “My sons keep me young, which is as it should be.” She rested her hands on either side of his face, studied him closely, nodded at what she saw in his expression. “Grace returns to Chicago, and you finish the search she’s asked of you. That’s what a Thane does, for the girl he had a crush on in grade school. Then you call her, you talk, and this time she isn’t the girl who leaves and is gone. Yes?”

Josh had to smile at the way she worded it. “Yes.”

She rose to her feet. “Time will solve the rest. Don’t sit out so late tonight you catch yourself a cold.”

“Mom-”

She laughed at his protest that could make two syllables out of mom, waved goodbye.

Josh watched her walk down the path around the house and thought he was a most blessed son to have her as his mother. Wherever matters went with Grace and Angel, he’d have family around to share that journey.

He turned back to studying the fading sunset, content to have a stunning day of surprises now end quietly. Grace has a daughter. The world had tilted on its axis today and become a different shape. The door had now opened for him to get to know Angel too. He suspected Angel would share her life easily, while Grace would still hold on to layers of reserve for a considerable amount of time. He’d learned patience watching Will. He’d adapt. He had two good reasons to do so now.

He pushed his hands into his pockets, admitted to himself he was beginning to get chilled. Trust Mom to always be right. He gave himself a few more minutes, then rose to go inside. Grace and Angel would be arriving back in Chicago soon, and Grace had promised a text to say they were safely home. After that came through, he’d call it an early night himself. This day had taken enough turns, and it was time to have it behind him.