by Lynn Cahoon
She carried the first box upstairs and set it on Michael’s desk. She turned it over, letting the jumble of notebooks and loose pages cover the desk. Then, she set the box next to her and slowly started reading through what appeared to be a madman’s ramblings.
When Seth found her, she’d gone through four boxes. And as he stood by the doorway, watching her, she burst into tears.
“You know you don’t have to do this to yourself. He’s dead. What he did, or didn’t do, doesn’t matter now. Why can’t you just leave it alone?” Seth’s voice echoed Dante’s last words in the study. And less than half way through the jumble, Cat wasn’t any closer to understanding what her husband had been working on than when she started.
“I feel like I’m stuck in quicksand. Every time I try to move forward, either with us or with my life, Michael comes back. Maybe moving back here was a mistake. Maybe I should have sold the house and stayed in California.” Cat pushed the rest of the unread notebooks off the desk and into the waiting box.
“No. You should be here. We’ll work through this.” He walked over and, taking her hands, lifted her out of the chair. “Look at me, being all understanding and crap. Anyway, come with me. Shauna called me and we have an assignment.”
“I don’t think I can do anything today. All I want to do is crawl back into bed and cover my head with my comforter.” She leaned on him as they walked out of the study. As she reached to close the door, he stilled her hand.
“Leave it open. We need to get some light into this room and the secrets it’s been holding on to for too long.” He kissed her gently. “Now go get your parka on. We’re leaving.”
She walked toward the front door, not wanting to go on an adventure, not today.
“What are we doing? Where are we going?” She pulled on her snow boots and her blue parka. Seth put her hat on her head.
He smiled. “We’re buying a Christmas tree. Shauna wants to host a decorating party tonight. She’s going to stop at the store on the way home and buy ornaments and lights. She figured you’d want new rather than using any from your past.”
“A Christmas tree? Why on earth does she want us to get a Christmas tree?” Cat squinted up at him.
“You are a scrooge. You know Thanksgiving is Thursday, right? And what holiday comes after Thanksgiving?”
“I know what comes after Thanksgiving, but …” She’d been about to say Christmas was months away. But she was wrong. She had less than a month, when you took out the week for the December retreat. She looked around the lobby and pointed. “There.”
“There what?” Seth looked confused.
Cat smiled, feeling the warm emotion seeping into her veins and throwing out the darkness that had surrounded her for too long. “We’ll put the tree there.”
As they walked out into the bright sunshine of the day, she felt even more of the darkness fall away. Keeping secrets didn’t keep away the darkness. Keeping secrets let the darkness fester and grow. She’d figure this out. Looking back at the house, she thought she saw Michael standing in one of the upstairs windows. He waved a hand at her, then disappeared.
“What are you looking at?” Seth put his arms around her and brought her next to him in a bear hug.
She looked up at him and kissed his neck. As they walked hand in hand to his truck, she realized how light she felt. She leaned toward him and said, “Nothing. Absolutely, nothing.”
Be sure to read
A Story to Kill
Available now from Kensington Books
To see how it all began.
And check out
The Tourist Trap Mysteries
Available now from
Lyrical Underground.
