Page 38
He led the way to the car. Kira glanced around. “I wonder if someone is watching the place,” she said. “We have to assume that someone knows we visited with Derek and Theo. If they’re watching, they now know we visited your father. I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I. But I didn’t see anyone follow us out of DC. I even checked for trackers on the car first.” Had he not been careful enough? Bryce started the car, and once Kira closed her door his adrenaline slowed. “Did I just bring trouble to my dad’s doorstep?”
Kira buckled her seat belt. “You didn’t bring the trouble, but I hate to say it—it means that your grandfather was onto something. These people are connecting the dots like we are, and it led them to the journals.”
Bryce made a three-point turn in his father’s dirt driveway and headed back to the main road. Kira settled in for the ride back to DC and took out her iPad. “I’m emailing Turner our update.”
“Perfect.” The sky opened up and rain pelted the windshield. The weather would make it harder to navigate some of the passes through the mountains.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ve emailed Turner and also looped Everly in so she can work on tracking this mysterious Victor who keeps showing up. Now, for a few calls.”
“Calls?”
“Yep. I got this. You can just listen in.” Kira placed calls to several organizations in the area, requesting them to check on his father. Meals on Wheels agreed to deliver food. She found a cleaning service that worked with hoarders. And while his father wouldn’t be the worst they’d seen, at least they knew what to expect. Whether his dad would let them help was another matter entirely, but they’d tried. His heart swelled at Kira’s kind gesture of jumping on this ASAP.
“Thank you for taking care of all the arrangements for my dad. I really appreciate it.”
“Of course. Happy to do it.”
“Now that I don’t have to worry about him for the moment, we can focus on this Victor person and why he tried to question my father. How did this guy even know about the journals?”
“I have a feeling Theo the treasure hunter may be selling information. If he’s from the area, he may have even met your grandfather in the past. Maybe he knew the journals existed. Someone suspects your grandfather found something of interest. But the journals were still there where you left them, so they obviously didn’t get to them.” She shifted in her seat to look at him. “Speaking of questions, why didn’t you tell me you were divorced? You grilled me about my engagement but failed to mention you’ve been married before.”
Ouch. “There’s not much to tell. The marriage lasted two months. Adelaide and I met in college, and it was a whirlwind romance. We got married the day after we graduated. I was young and just wanted to be with someone. I never noticed the red flags in our relationship.” Did he have to continue or would she leave the subject alone?
“Like what?”
Guess he was continuing. He gritted his teeth, then blew out a low breath. Fine. She might be the one person who could relate after her own failed relationship. “Addie had been in a bad car accident when she was a freshman. I didn’t see the signs of her addiction to painkillers. When I realized what was going on, I drained our savings account to get her into rehab.”
The memories danced at the forefront of his mind. Memories he’d tried to forget. “She went into rehab and promptly checked herself out. Addie left me. I would have taken care of her, gotten her through it, but she chose to leave. I tried to track her down, but six months later, she sent me divorce papers.” He couldn’t save her.
And just like that he found himself divorced. A carbon copy of his mother and father’s failed relationship. He couldn’t save them either.
Some hero he turned out to be.
A hand grasped his shoulder. “Believe me, I know the sting of betrayal. And based on meeting your father, I can see how much you’ve overcome. You couldn’t help Addie any more than you could make your father accept your support.”
“I’ll take some of the blame for the failed marriage. I wanted to find someone, and I glamorized our relationship. She was beautiful, the life of the party. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize she was high most of the time—and had no desire to accept responsibility or recognize she needed help.”
Her hand slid down around his bicep. “It’s not your fault she left.”
“Well, it didn’t help that I had my father’s voice in my head, telling me I’d never amount to anything. But I’ve always regretted not doing more to find Addie, pushing harder for her to come home. I’ll admit I was angry when the divorce papers finally came and signed them almost without reading them. The regrets came later.”
Kira squeezed his arm. “Thank you for sharing with me. I know this sounds cliché, but I get it. I really do.”
Their unspoken connection—not to mention her physical touch—shot an electrical current through him. She understood in ways most people couldn’t comprehend. When she released his arm, he missed the warmth of her touch. Why was his body short-circuiting around this woman?
“My past is what drives me,” he said, redirecting his brain back to the conversation and not the beautiful woman sitting next to him. “I want to be a better person than my father. I want to care for people and show love and gratitude. I’m not going to let the negativity of others shape my future.” What had his pastor told him? “God created something from nothing.”
“What?”
Oh. Had he said that out loud? “Nothing. It’s just something my pastor in college told me, and it stuck with me. God created the earth out of nothing. Spoke it into existence. And if he has that kind of power, he can shape my life into something new from all of my past broken experiences.”
She focused on her iPhone screen. Had he shared too much? Maybe she hadn’t experienced the strong connection like he had. After about a minute of silence, she put the screen down and said, “I’ve never really thought about that perspective before. Thank you for sharing with me.”
At least she hadn’t shut him down. “Well, it’s the only thing that’s helped me destroy the lies and replace them with the truth.”
The road narrowed as they headed down the mountain. The single lane had always been a dangerous spot, with small patches of gravel to allow someone to pull off for passing. But in the rain, it was even more treacherous.
