I walked out and flicked the umbrella open. Hugh took it and held it higher over our heads as I guided him through the connecting side gate and into my grandmother’s yard.
He took my hand and slipped his fingers through mine. I glanced up at him and frowned.
“If the groundskeeper thinks we’re together, that should keep him from asking too many questions.”
I stopped walking and turned to face him, slipping my hand free. “You're wrong.” I sighed. “Marcus would have a hell of a lot more questions if I brought a guy home. Especially when I shouldn’t be here at all.” I gestured to his arm. “I’m going to tell him you’re hurt, my place is flooded, and we need the car to get you to a hospital.”
“He’ll buy that?” Hugh asked, his look turning skeptical.
“He has no reason to doubt it. You are hurt, and my place is probably flooded.”
“Okay.” He sighed as if no other choice existed.
I led him to Marcus’s house. It was like our pool house, only bigger. It sat behind Gram’s place. Marcus had his own space that Grams had built just for him. There’d been a time when I thought he and Grams were secretly seeing each other. That thought had grown the way he’d taken care of her for years, and in the weeks before her decision to go into the nursing home, things had been strenuous between the two. Maybe that was her own way of hiding, just like my altered sleeping time. Maybe we were more alike than I cared to believe.
My Grams could be stubborn and had probably pushed Marcus away. But there was still love and light in the old man’s eyes.
Marcus pulled the door open as we approached, as if sensing someone on the property.
“Honor, what are you doing out in this weather?” Marcus said as his sharp gaze turned to Hugh.
“My place is flooding, and my friend was hurt. So, we hiked around the lake and spent the night in my parents’ pool house. I need to get Hugh to a doctor and was hoping I could borrow Gram’s car.”
“You mean you slept during the day?” Marcus asked lifting a brow.
“Day, night. You know I’m still on that weird sleep schedule.” I offered. “So, is it okay if I borrow Gram’s car?”
Marcus’s brows dipped as if he wasn’t totally buying my claim but if he had reservations, he thankfully kept them to himself. “Of course.”
He stepped back inside and grabbed his jacket and returned with a set of keys that he dangled for me to see.
“The roads are bad,” Marcus called out and jogged toward the garage. He jabbed the key into the lock and shoved the door open and then flicked the lights on.
“Why do you have lights if the pool house doesn’t?” Honor asked.
“Generator and solar panels. You know Molly was all about the environment,” Marcus answered.
“Grams was always trying to save the world.” I patted Marcus’s shoulder in passing and stepped into the garage.
“You have your pick, although I might suggest you take the SUV or something with four-wheel drive. Limbs and trees are down, and the roads are nasty.”
My gaze landed on the black sports utility at the end of the row. We’d teased Gram’s she wasn’t tall enough to see over the dash, but she’d countered with the fact that she wouldn’t be driving it.
“I’ll take the black-eyed monster,” I said.
Marcus turned to the hanging rack, grabbed a set of keys, and tossed them into the air. “Excellent choice, don’t forget we’re under curfew. You only have an hour to get to the hospital, and then you’ll probably be stuck there until they lift the curfew again.”
Curfew. I sighed and glanced at Hugh in understanding.
“I haven’t listened to the radio. How’s Mercy’s neighborhood faring?”
“Jimbo stopped by to check in on me. He told me that she’s got trees down, blocking in the subdivision. Most of your sisters are out of commission, but he’s checked on them all.”
“Thanks,” I said, heading toward the SUV as Marcus hit the garage door button.
I climbed into the driver’s seat and let out a shaky breath as Hugh climbed in. He probably would have been the better driver had it not been for an injured arm. Get the book, give it to him, and then drop him at the nearest corner, and he’d be gone. I could do that all within an hour, right?
Wrong.
The surrounding devastation hadn’t registered in my mind as we headed toward downtown. Downed power lines and trees were in the midst of repair and being moved from to the sides of the road. Work crews hustled on the sides of the streets and in electric company trucks.
There were only a few cars on the roads like ours. Sightseers, if I’d had to guess. Police were blocking different roads, creating detours. The five-minute drive to the storage locker took thirty.
I waved at the guard as I passed and drove straight up to the building that housed my locker.
“Do you need a key?” he asked.
“No, looks like the power is still on here. I can use the keypad to get in.”
He followed behind me inside the quiet building. The overhead lights flickered around us, casting shadows off the walls. The scent of things forgotten drifted in the air.
This is the place where things went to die. Like a cemetery for personal belongings.
I knew the route like the back of my hand, twisting and turning down the corridors until I came to my unit.
The lock keeping my things safe came from my high school locker. The combination through the years had been etched into my brain as useless information.
I twisted and turned the dial several times, hitting all the right numbers and turning it all the right times. I yanked hard, and the base unclicked, letting me in.
I slid the lock clear then lifted the door, shoving it above my head. Hugh pushed it higher, and I flicked the light switch.
Chapter Thirteen
Fluorescent lights buzzed to life over our heads, thrusting the room into view. Boxes were stacked neatly against the back wall. Teddy’s guitar was sitting in the stand covered by the blanket I’d put over it. That was his prized possession.
I pulled the blanket free as Hugh headed straight for the boxes. I strummed the string. The sound broke through the silence.
“He used to love that thing,” Hugh said as he ripped the tape off of one of the boxes.
“He used to claim the music was the real him, but that accounting paid the bills. He used to play it every weekend. That’s how we met.”
Hugh pulled item after item out of one of the boxes, examining, then setting each piece aside.
“Growing up, he wanted to be a singer. He claimed the guitar was going to be his claim to fame to help him get there.”
I put the blanket back over the instrument. “That’s an intimate detail to share with a jail mate, no matter if you’re a cop or not.”
Hugh pressed his lips together into a stern line but didn’t explain. I don’t know why Hugh knowing that intimate detail irked me. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Teddy had shared that with me as a secret. Had he been telling his secrets to everyone?
“Let’s get this over with. I’ll start at this end, and we’ll meet in the middle.”
Hugh was working through his second box while I was still digging through the first.