“I should be so lucky. I told Scott to proceed with filing the divorce papers. She won’t expect me to act so quickly.”
Jane nodded. “She expects you to cave and offer her a bunch of money.”
“If I thought that would make it all go away, I’d do it. But it would still leave my neck on her chopping block.”
Jane wasn’t giving Reid any hint of their future. They both believed in the sanctity of marriage.
He buttered his bread. “Are you ready to tell me the rest of what Gabriel said to you? You were white and shaken when you got back on the boat. More so than him just saying he’s looking for something your mother hid.”
She sipped her sweet tea and eyed him over the rim of her glass for a long moment before she set it down. “Do you remember me disappearing with my mom for three days? It would have been about a month before Will was born.”
Reid didn’t have to think about it. “Sure, I remember. I worried about you the whole time you were gone. The two of you rolled off in the Jeep down a trail known for having rock slips. I kept imagining you and our baby buried by mud and debris.”
The color drained from her face, and she sat back in her chair. “Reid, I have no memory of that time at all. None. Gabriel mentioned the trip, but I thought he was trying to rattle me. Why wouldn’t I remember it?”
“Maybe your mother didn’t want you to remember. She might have given you drugs. It was a favorite tactic my dad used with people.”
She gasped. “But I was pregnant! Surely she wouldn’t have endangered the baby.”
He didn’t want to remind her how little her mother seemed to value her or her baby, but he didn’t have to bring it up. The pain in her eyes told him she knew full well where her mother’s loyalties had been.
“Why take me if she didn’t want me to remember? Where was my dad? And your dad?”
“They both went to Detroit to get supplies. They planned to be gone for a week, though they got home a day early.”
“Did they know we’d been gone?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t tell them. Dad wouldn’t have liked it, and I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”
“Someone else might have told them.”
“I don’t think anyone paid much attention. A lot was going on at the time. Was that all Gabriel said?”
“He wanted me to contact my mother and have her come here. When I said she was unlikely to listen, he said she wouldn’t want me involved. He clearly doesn’t care about me in any way.”
“Why does he want to see her?”
“He wants to know where she hid something. He was very cryptic.”
The conversation ended when the server approached to take their order. Jane wanted the diver scallops, and he ordered his favorite shrimp and grits. But even as he smiled and chatted with the friendly server, his mind wouldn’t let go of the Gabriel problem. His appearance here couldn’t be anything but ominous.
* * *
The scent of tonight’s seafood dinner still in her hair, Jane disarmed the alarm and walked into her dad’s house without knocking. Reid’s presence gave her the courage to face whatever she might find out. How did his broad shoulders and steady manner give her so much confidence? He’d be wealthy if he could bottle that.
The flicker of blue light from the large TV screen mounted on the wall illuminated the dark living room and revealed her father sleeping in the recliner. He wore his usual sleeping attire of running shorts and a T-shirt. Though white-headed, his knotty muscles and top-notch fitness would have fooled anyone who didn’t know he was in his early sixties.
He startled awake when she muted the television. “Jane?” He slammed the footrest down and stood. “What’s wrong?”
She walked deeper into the living room and dropped onto the leather sofa. “You’re slipping, Dad. You didn’t even budge when I opened the door.” Reid followed and sat beside her with his arm up on the back of the sofa as if to cradle her a bit.
Her prepper dad had more security than the White House, and he could usually tell if a cricket crossed the front porch.
She eyed his flushed face. “You feeling okay?”
“A bit of a cold,” he said in a raspy voice. “Want some tea or something?”
“We just finished dinner.” She lifted a takeout box. “I brought you the leftover scallops.”
“I didn’t eat dinner.”
“I’ll warm it up a bit.”
“I don’t mind it lukewarm.” He held out his hand, and she passed over the box and a packet of plastic tableware. He settled back in his chair and opened the box, smiling as the aroma of garlic and seafood hit his nose. “You were at Jesse’s.”
“Guilty as charged.”
He wolfed down the food that comprised more than half of her meal. Her appetite had vanished as she’d faced the situation she and Reid found themselves in. Lauren would be a thorn in their side for months yet.
And she was still wrestling with the thought of Reid getting a divorce.
Her dad wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You didn’t come to bring me dinner. What’s up?”
“Gabriel is in town, Dad.”
She watched the realization hit his eyes, though his jaw didn’t flicker. “He didn’t waste any time following us once we met him. He says Mom hid something that he wants back. He called it ‘stuff.’ Any idea what he’s talking about?”
Though she itched to ask him about the missing three days, she’d take it one question at a time.
Her dad said nothing for a long moment. “I thought it was a rumor.”
“What was a rumor?”
“There was talk around the camp of a stash of guns and other weapons. Even a bunker-busting bomb.” He tossed out the word like it was nothing.
Guns and bombs sounded far-fetched to her too. “What else could it be? Drugs?”
His hazel eyes sharpened. “Why would you think that?”
“He said Mom and I disappeared for three days. It was when you went to Detroit for supplies about a month before Will was born. I don’t remember it at all. How could it be erased completely from my memory?”
“I didn’t know about it. Maybe your mom drugged you.”
She nodded. “I hate to think she would have risked the life of my baby that way, but what other explanation could there be?”
A frown darkened his eyes. “Your mother hated drugs. She wouldn’t even consider the idea of giving you pain medication for childbirth. That would be so out of character for her. But then, I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did. Obviously.”
“So you never heard that we went off somewhere?”
He shook his head. “She was different when I got back from the trip to town though. Quiet, almost secretive. Several times she disappeared into the woods and wouldn’t tell me what she was doing.”
“Did you ever follow her?”
A tide of color washed up his neck. “Yeah. Not proud of it, but I followed her. I thought maybe she was meeting a man.”
“And was she?”
“No. She went to an old cabin. The second time I marched to the door and threw it open. She was sitting in an old rocker reading a book. A novel.” He spat out the word like it was dung.