“Should I come by after work?”
“When time do you get off?”
“Around five. Unless there’s a late-breaking story. But late-breaking around here is a cow getting out of its pasture at closing time.” She laughed. “I think I can handle that without staying too late.”
“Should I make dinner?”
“You cooked last night. Why don’t I bring pizza?”
Grace thought of the little boy who’d left her that endearing note and knew he’d probably come by to pick up his cookies. She wanted to be able to send home something extra, just in case his folks were as poor as her mother had once been. “No, I’ll make lasagna.”
“I love lasagna.”
“Should I drive by Mom’s duplex?” Grace asked, returning to her curious conversation with Irene. “See if there’s a car parked out front?”
“Mom wouldn’t be that obvious.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve already tried it,” she said. “Several times. There’s never any car.”
Grace moved away from the window and started peeling off her clothes in preparation for a shower. “You’re an investigative reporter. Can’t you find out who this guy is?”
“I suppose I could, but…to be honest, I’m torn between respecting her privacy and appeasing my own curiosity. And I’m also a little afraid of what I might find.”
“Sometimes ignorance is bliss,” Grace agreed, and wished Madeline could apply that to her father.
“True. Anyway, we’ll talk more about it this evening.”
“See you later.”
“Grace?”
“What?”
“Any chance you’d be willing to go over to the auto shop with me late tonight and poke around?”
Grace froze as she was sliding off her panties. “Late tonight? Why am I getting the impression you mean after Jed’s closed up?”
“Because I do.”
Her chest began to burn as she stepped out of her panties and kicked them aside. “You want to break in?”
“I just want to see what’s in the file drawer.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“When else would I be able to get inside? If he’s innocent, it won’t matter that I took a peek.”
“Except that breaking and entering is illegal! If we get caught doing something like that, we could go to jail. And I’d lose my job. Then you’d really have a story for your paper.”
“We won’t get caught,” Madeline said. “You know the police in this town sit at the coffee shop all night. Besides, I have a police scanner in the car. I can make sure they’re off doing their thing before we ever go in.”
“Maddy—”
“Just think about it, okay? I don’t want to do it alone.”
Grace turned off the fan because she suddenly couldn’t stand the constant motion. “What about Kirk?”
“He would’ve helped me last night, but I hadn’t made up my mind yet. And now it’s too late. There was a message on his answering machine. Della’s suffered a stroke. She’s never been much of a mother to him, but she’s in the hospital in Minnesota and he’s flying up there this morning to be with her.”
The lintel of the bathroom door offered Grace the support she needed. “So it’d just be you and me?”
“We can do it. I have to see what’s in that drawer. Before he moves it.”
Grace nibbled nervously at her lip. “But he knows Matt was snooping around. He’s probably moved it already.”
“It’s only been two days, and he has a lock on it. There’s a chance he hasn’t.”
“I don’t see what we have to gain, Maddy.”
“Are you kidding?” Madeline asked, incredulous. “We could learn the truth! Don’t you want to discover what happened to Dad? Aren’t you dying to know?”
Grace wished to heaven she didn’t know. “Of course, but—”
“Maybe this will finally provide us with some answers.”
“And maybe it won’t.”
“Not finding anything gives us information, too.”
“Such as?”
“You know what Lorna Martin said. The night Dad disappeared is the only time she remembers seeing Jed at his shop so late. What does that tell you?”
“That Lorna’s a nosy neighbor?” she said, stalling for a moment to think.
“That he did something out of the ordinary.”
Grace imagined searching through Jed’s shop and grimaced in distaste. She didn’t want to invade his privacy. Besides, he was odd. She wasn’t sure what he’d do if he happened to catch them. “Madeline—”
“Please, Grace? Will you do it? For me? I need to see what’s in that drawer, if only to reassure myself that there’s no connection.”
Tears had entered her stepsister’s voice. Grace pressed her knuckles to her lips, trying to decide what to do. “If—if we go there and we don’t find anything, will you give up on Jed?” she asked.
There was a long pause. “If I can.”
That was hardly a promise. Grace still wanted to say no. But she had to show some support. Otherwise, Madeline might start wondering about the real reason for her reluctance. “Okay, I can’t promise anything. But I’ll consider it,” she said and hung up.
Tossing the phone on the bathroom counter, she raked her fingers through her hair. Damn Matt Howton. Why’d he have to open his big mouth?
Breaking and entering was a crime. But Grace wasn’t afraid of getting caught as much as she feared having Madeline suspect the truth.
5
After her conversation with Madeline, Grace couldn’t shake a sense of apprehension. When her mother arrived, she went through the motions of making breakfast, but she felt as though the floor beneath her might give way, plunging her into a hole so deep she’d never get out.
Coming back to Stillwater would change her life. She’d known that all along, intuitively. It frightened her. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to leave again. Not yet. For the past thirteen years she’d been pretending she was someone other than she was. But she refused to live like that anymore. She wanted to be able to forgive herself, to move on emotionally.
She just wasn’t sure how to do that, or if it was even possible. And she definitely wasn’t convinced that breaking into Jed’s automotive shop would help anyone.