The Way Back Home

by Barbara Freethy

  “You do?”

  “It was in a waterproof bag. Someone gave it to me after the trip, and I just stuck it in my closet. I didn’t want to be reminded of what had happened. We need to look at the camera.”

  “Maybe you want to do that in private?”

  “I don’t think I can do it alone. Come on.” She led him into the house and up the stairs to her attic room.

  He looked around with interest. “This is where you used to sleep?”

  She was a little embarrassed by her girlish décor, some of it left over from her teen days. Brian had made fun of her when he’d first seen the room, telling her it was time to move out of her childhood bedroom, which was why she’d moved in with him, probably a little sooner than she should have. Her mother had not been happy about it. She’d liked Brian, but she was old-fashioned when it came to living together before marriage.

  “It’s kind of a mess,” Kelly said as Jared checked out her photographs.

  “I like it. It’s you,” he said with a grin. “The you no one ever gets to see.”

  “Brian wasn’t too impressed. He did not want to spend the night here.”

  “Seriously? I’d spend the night anywhere with you, Kelly.”

  His words sent an unexpected tingle down her spine. “You’re flirting again. You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

  “Is it getting me anywhere?”

  “No.”

  “Too soon?”

  For some reason, this question seemed more serious than the previous one. “Yes,” she said.

  He nodded. “With you, Kelly, it’s either too soon or too late.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Timing,” he said. “Every time I was free, you had a boyfriend or a date to a dance. And every time I was with someone, you were suddenly single.”

  “I didn’t know you were paying attention.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “I thought I rubbed you the wrong way.”

  “Because I wanted you to rub me the right way,” he said with a smile.

  She smiled back, glad to see the tension lightening. “I think you just look at me when you’re bored and lonely. And the rest of the time, you have your eyes on someone else, usually someone blond, as I recall.”

  “And you liked the guys who talked a lot, probably so you wouldn’t have to bother.”

  “Okay, enough with the psychoanalysis. Let’s just say we’ve both made some good choices and some bad ones.”

  “And we can also agree that we’re both single.”

  “But it’s still too soon,” she said, not sure if she was repeating the warning for Jared or for herself. It was far too early to contemplate getting involved with someone else. She went to her closet and dug around through the boxes she’d dumped there when she moved out of the apartment she’d shared with Brian. She found the bag at the back, still zippered as tightly as it had been when she’d received it.

  She pulled it out of the closet and set it on the bed, staring at it for a long moment.

  Jared sat down on the bed, watching her, waiting.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” she said. “It’s the last thing he touched. I can see his smile, his laugh, the joy he experienced every time he took a picture. He loved it so much.”

  “You don’t have to do this. It probably won’t prove a damn thing.”

  “But I can’t keep putting my head in the sand. Maybe that’s how this all got out of control. If I had stayed here, if I had kept in touch with Russell and Ian, perhaps they wouldn’t be so filled with anger and recklessness.”

  “You’re not responsible for how they act. And you don’t even know if either of them has done anything wrong.”

  “I feel it in my gut.”

  “You want me to open the bag?”

  “It’s stupid that I can’t.”

  He reached for the bag, but she stopped him. “No, I’ll do it.” Taking a breath, she unzipped the bag and pulled out the waterproof plastic container that held the camera. “It’s strange to think that his camera made it to safety but not him.”

  Jared put his hand over hers. She gazed into his eyes, finding warmth and reassurance there.

  “Brian would be happy that you have his camera,” he said.

  She nodded, then opened the container and pulled out the camera. Amazingly, it still had enough charge to turn on. She flipped to the photos, seeing the last moments of Brian’s life flash in front of her eyes. Sinking onto the bed, she felt too weak to stand, too scared to see what might come next.

  Jared sat down next to her, and as her hand shook, he took the camera from her and moved to the next shot. There were a lot of pictures before they got on the rafts. The men were all smiling, laughing, making faces into the camera. There were some shots taken from the raft during the early part of the trip, where the river was calm and peaceful.

  “He had no idea what was coming,” she murmured.

  “Yes, he did,” Jared countered. “We all knew what was coming, and we were looking forward to the challenge. Don’t ever think that Brian wasn’t exactly where he wanted to be. That trip was as much his idea as Russell’s. They loved rafting.”

  “Almost as much as Alicia loved it. Brian really liked Alicia. He used to tell me how much he admired her for being a strong single mother.” She glanced down at the camera. “Keep going.”

  Five more shots, and then they both stiffened. There was a shot of Brian and Marco taken during the lunch break. They were clicking plastic water bottles together and laughing. The next shot was of them chugging the liquid in the bottles. It could have been water, but there was something about the way they were drinking.

  And then there was nothing. The story stopped there.

  She stared at Jared. “Was it vodka or water?”

  He shrugged. “How the hell would we know?”

  “Marco would know. I have to call him again. I have to get him to tell me the truth—the truth he should have told me before.”

  She started to get up, but Jared grabbed her arm. “Kelly, even if that was vodka or something else, it doesn’t mean that it affected the outcome.”

  “But it could have.” She rose from the bed, looking for her cell phone. As she crossed the room, headlights in the parking lot made her glance out the window. “Ian’s home. I should try to catch up with him.”

  “Go,” Jared said. “You can call Marco later—if you still want to.”

  Her brother was already heading upstairs when she walked into her mom’s cottage. Her mother’s door on the first floor was closed. She’d said she was going to have an early night before her surgery, and Kelly hoped she was asleep.

  She caught up to Ian on the second-floor landing. “Ian.”

  He jerked at the sound of his name. “What the fuck, Kelly? What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you. I’ve been calling you since yesterday. Where’s your phone?”

  “I don’t know. I lost it,” he said, heading into his room.

  She followed him inside and shut the door. “Where have you been? Mom and I have been worried about you.”

  “I was out. I’m an adult. I don’t need to check in with you.”

  She stared at his sullen face and didn’t just see anger; she saw fear. And suddenly, he wasn’t the twenty-year-old who now towered above her but her little brother, the brother she’d always protected. “What did you do, Ian?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That didn’t work when you were six, and it doesn’t work now. I know when you’re in trouble.”

  “Then where the fuck have you been the last six months?” he shouted.

  “Hiding,” she said honestly. “I’m sorry, Ian. I know I haven’t been here for you. I’ve just been—frozen.”

  The anger fled from his eyes and he sat on the bed. “Why are you apologizing to me? You’re the one who lost Brian.”

  “You were close to him, too.” She paused. “I’m here now. So talk to me.”r />
  He drew in a heavy breath. “It’s not your problem.”

  “We’re family. You can count on me.”

  He stared down at the floor. “I got into some trouble gambling. I owed some guys some money.”

  She wanted to ask him why he hadn’t learned his lesson the last time, but now that he was talking, she didn’t want him to stop.

  “Someone came to me with a deal. I just had to do one thing, and my debt would be canceled.”

  Her heart sank. “What did you do?” she asked again.

  He slowly lifted his head to meet her gaze. “I cut the gas line under Alicia’s car.”

  Her heart thumped against her chest. “Oh, Ian. Why?”

  “I just told you why. I needed the cash.”

  “Who paid you?”

  “They didn’t pay me. They paid my bookie. I didn’t ask any questions, Kelly.”

  “And the fire? Did you set that, too?”

  “No.” He immediately shook his head. “I swear I didn’t do that.”

  “I smelled gasoline on your jeans in the laundry room.”

  “That was from the car. I had to make it a slow leak, so she’d get out of the parking lot but not too much farther.”

  “You put her in danger.”

  “She just ran out of gas. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”

  “Oh, it’s a really big deal, Ian.” She couldn’t believe he was downplaying what he’d done.

  “Well, I didn’t set the fire. I don’t know who did that, but it wasn’t me.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “I was just walking around. I needed to think. I didn’t want to come back here. I had a feeling you were going to interrogate me.” He looked up at her. “I knew it was wrong. I was in a bind. I didn’t think it would matter, but then, when I heard about the fire, I started to worry that someone was going to pin it on me.”

  “What’s the name of your bookie?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”

  She sat down next to him. “Ian, you know you’re going to have to make this right. At the very least, you’re going to have to pay for Alicia’s car to be fixed. And you’re going to have to tell the cops what you told me.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “I know you’re scared, but we can fix this.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  She stared at him. “Is Russell behind what’s happening?”

  “I told you, I don’t know. The guy I make my bets with came to me with an offer, cut the fuel line, and we’d be good. I didn’t have any other way to pay him off. I didn’t want to tell Mom with her surgery coming up. And I couldn’t ask you for the money.”

  “You could have asked me for the money. Ian, you have to realize that you have a problem with gambling. I thought you’d learned your lesson the last time. What happened?”

  “I was in a bad place. I didn’t know what to do when I got kicked out of school.”

  “I thought you dropped out.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Ian, what’s going on with you? Was it a girl? Some other problem?”

  “School just didn’t make sense anymore. I don’t know what I want to do, so why am I sitting in a classroom learning about things I don’t care about?”

  “Maybe so you can figure out what you want to do.”

  “It’s different for you, Kelly. You always wanted to be a chef. And you were always good at it.”

  “Well, I want to help, but the first thing we have to do is take care of the car situation.”

  “If I turn over the other guy’s name, I’ll not only owe him the money again, but I’ll probably get the shit beat out of me for talking. I’m thinking about just leaving town. Maybe you could give me some money or let me stay in your place in Sacramento for a while? No one has to know.”

  As much as she wanted to protect him, she couldn’t let him run away. “You have to be honest about what you did.”

  “Why do you care about Alicia’s car? She killed Brian. Everyone knows that. She’s just getting what she deserves.” He gave her a pleading look. “Don’t turn me in, Kelly. Nothing happened to Alicia. She just ran out of gas. Big deal.”

  “That wasn’t the end of it.”

  “It was the end of it for me.”

  “You must have some idea—”

  “I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t want to know.” He took a breath. “What are you going to do?”

  That was a hell of a question and one to which she didn’t have an answer. “I need to think.”

  “I’m your brother, Kelly. You can’t turn your back on me.”

  “You crossed a line, Ian.” She got to her feet. “We’ll talk in the morning. I can’t do this right now. Just don’t go anywhere. Promise me.”

  “As long as you promise not to turn me in without talking to me first.”

  “I promise.”

  Kelly felt completely shaken. Was he lying about the fire? But even if he didn’t set it, he’d still sabotaged Alicia’s car, and a lot of bad things could have happened. He needed to take responsibility.

  She left her mother’s cottage, crossed the quiet courtyard, and entered the inn, going up the stairs to her attic room. When she pushed open the door, she was surprised to see Jared stretched out on her bed, sound asleep. She stared at him for a long minute and then sat down next to him. After a minute, she stretched onto her side.

  Another minute, and he lifted his arm, inviting her to move closer. She slid into the crook of his body, resting her head on his shoulder.

  He was the wrong man at the wrong time … or maybe he was the right man at the right time.

  She needed a shoulder, and his suited her just right. She’d kick him out in a minute … or two.

  Eighteen

  Alicia woke up to the sound of hammering. After getting dressed, she made coffee and took a cup down the lawn to Gabe, who had apparently decided to get an early start on the day. She was shocked at how much progress he’d already made.

  “Coffee?” she said, holding out the mug as he paused.

  He set down his hammer and came over to her. “Thanks.”

  “You’ve really done a lot. Where did you learn construction?”

  “In the Marines, of course,” he said, taking a sip of coffee. “Sometimes we help communities rebuild. It’s goodwill, and I’ve picked up some tips along the way. It won’t be perfect, but it should work until you get a real construction crew in here.”

  “Maybe I won’t need one. We don’t use the office for that much. It’s more the boatyard.”

  He nodded. “I talked to your dad about that last night. You can buy some preconstructed metal storage sheds that might do the trick for you as a stopgap measure.”

  “So, we’re putting this business together with tape and glue.”

  “Whatever it takes. Come with me to the garage for a minute.”

  She reluctantly followed. The garage door was open. It soon became clear what he’d wanted her to see. He’d blown up one of the inflatable rafts they’d used on family trips.

  “I thought I’d see if this was river-worthy,” he said. “That’s just for family stuff; we don’t use it in the business.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about the business but about you. We need to get you in a raft, Alicia, and out on the water.”

  “There are a lot of other things to do first.”

  “Are there? If you can’t guide, then you’re going to need someone to replace you, and it seems like you’re a little short on guides as it is.”

  “I just came out to give you some coffee,” she said, feeling too much anxiety for this early in the morning. “We’re not going to fix everything in a day.”

  “Why leave for tomorrow what you can do today?”

  “Because I’m not ready.”

  He gave her a steady look. “I know. You went through a terrifying ordeal. A lot of people on that trip would think twice about putting themselves in the sa
me situation.”

  “But I ran that run before without any problems.”

  “That’s what you need to focus on. I’d love to go out on the river with you. Just around here. Nothing too challenging, just you and me in the boat.”

  When he put it like that, it sounded a lot more appealing.

  “I’ll think about it, but right now, I need to make breakfast.”

  An hour later, she dropped Justin off in front of the school and waved hello to a couple of mothers who seemed a little more friendly than usual. Since the fire, it seemed like people were starting to feel more sorry for her than angry.

  Her next stop was Jared’s garage. She found him in the office handling a customer. He gave her a smile and said he’d be right with her.

  As she waited, she thought that Jared was one of the few people who hadn’t been totally against her since the accident. Despite his friendship with the Farrs and with Kelly, he’d managed to stay amazingly neutral.

  “Hi,” he said when they were alone.

  “I’m hoping you have good news for me.”

  “I did a service on your car since it was here, no extra charge. I wanted to make sure everything was in good shape. I did notice a sensor that wasn’t operating correctly. I ordered a new one, and I should have it tomorrow if you can leave the car one more day.”

  “Of course, and I’m happy to pay for it. The car needed to be looked at. The Check Engine light kept coming on.”

  “And you were ignoring it, right?”

  “Sort of hoping it would go away on its own,” she admitted. “It’s been a busy couple of weeks.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry about all the trouble you’ve been having.”

  “And I’m sorry that you saw the ugly scene with Kelly yesterday. I don’t think I even said hello to you.”

  “You were upset. I understand that. How are things coming along after the fire?”

  “Pretty good, actually. Gabe has been a huge help, and he’s already working on the building, and my dad and Bill have been ordering new equipment, so we’re regrouping.” She paused, realizing what she’d just said. “You probably don’t want to hear that.”

  “I never wanted to see you run out of business, Alicia. I don’t really know what happened last year, and I was there. But the more I think about it, the more I believe it was probably just an accident.”