“Is there anything more you can do right now regarding Bernie’s future?” she asked.
“Since I’m not trained to work with her, I need to talk to somebody about learning the proper orders to get her to work more efficiently,” he murmured. “I don’t know what Rodney’s got in mind, as far as Bernie working for him. I’ll talk to him in a little bit, when it’s not quite so early.”
But then his phone rang. He looked at it and frowned and said, “Apparently Rodney’s up early too. “Hey, Rodney. What’s going on?”
Addie sat there quietly, listening to Tucker’s side of the conversation. “I know. I thought somebody was around here,” he said. “Have you checked in with the police this morning to see if they found anything in the area? … Ah.”
She frowned as she heard his tone changing. She realized that their discussion was about going back during daylight to see if they could find any clues surrounding the attack on Tucker. It wasn’t a bad idea. It just wasn’t really how she wanted to spend her day, but still she would rather be doing that than staying here and worrying.
When he finally hung up from the phone call, she asked, “Can I come?”
“Are you sure? It’s that long drive again.”
“Well, if we leave now,” she said, “it wouldn’t be too bad. And you’re not going all the way to the site, right? Just to the restaurant?”
He frowned at that and then nodded. “No need to return to the arson site. At least I don’t think so. Just the restaurant.”
“In that case,” she said, “we might as well have breakfast there. It’s not that far away, and I can wait on breakfast.”
He laughed. “Quite true,” he said. “We can do that.”
She grinned. “Then let’s go.” And, with that, she stood and said, “We’ll hit the hotel on the way, so you can change your clothes.”
“We can do that,” he said, “and I can grab a shower and check out at the same time.”
“So after we visit the attack site, we’ll come back here to get ready for the rehearsal?”
Tucker nodded. “You got it,” he said. “Okay, hotel first. Then a visit to the scene of the latest crime. That can take over an hour or two. But we’re still good on timing to make it to the rehearsal.”
Tucker drove, even though he was sore and tired, but he’d been in recovery for a long time now, and he valued his independence. He certainly trusted her to drive, as he had the previous night, but he felt just that much better to take the wheel himself. She didn’t give him any argument, for which he was grateful. She trusted that he knew what he could handle and what he couldn’t. Maybe because of that he said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll probably get you to drive home.” She nodded. They arrived at his hotel soon afterward. “Do you mind waiting with Bernie, while I take a quick shower and change at my hotel room?”
“No problem. I’ll take her for a walk.”
True to his word, Tucker was back in less than fifteen minutes, and they all regrouped in his rental truck, with Tucker again in the driver’s seat.
“It’s probably a good idea for you to drive now, early in the day,” she said quietly. “I get that you want to test how you are doing,” she said, “but, by the end of the day, you’ll feel it even more.”
“Very true,” he said. “Great painkillers though.”
She laughed. “Modern medicine at its best.”
“I didn’t take the time to check out yet, and I didn’t dare bring my suit with me. Not with all the attacks. We’ll have to return for that.” Addie nodded. He grinned and reached down a hand to nuzzle Bernie’s head. “No contact with your sister yet?”
“No, not at all,” she said, “and I’m okay with that too.”
“Do you think she knows that the dog escaped the death chamber?”
“By now probably so. She’s either plotting more, or she’s giving up.”
“And if she were to give up, what would that look like?”
“It would mean I would be suffering for a long time, if she had anything to do with that.”
“So she thinks you’re behind it?”
“I’m sure she does,” she said, “and I’m okay with that too.”
“And how much distress will this cause you?”
“I’m fine with whatever she does, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else. I have to care to be hurt, and I’m pretty good at walking away from that drama now,” she said with a laugh. “My sister is who she is, and I can’t change that, but neither do I have to be around her to deal with it either.”
“I agree. She has to understand how much she has brought on in her own life at this point.”
“Except she won’t care,” Addie said. “When you think about it, all she cares about is what her life looks like. So the rest of it won’t matter.”
“Very superficial and selfish of her.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said, laughing. “But again it’s who she is, so not a whole lot I can do about it.”
“Got it,” he said. “Still sucks though.”
“It does in a big way, but again she is who she is.”
He heard her repeating that phrase over and over again, almost as if she hoped that she’d believe it eventually. But no way one walked away from a family member this manipulative and vicious as that sister of hers and came away unscathed. He could only hope that whatever they did in the end here would help Addie deal with the outcome in case of a fallout. “Hopefully she’ll learn to change,” he said.
“I wonder how long something like that takes?” she murmured.
“Probably a long time.”
“Yeah, that was my thought too,” she said. “And how sad is that?”
“The restaurant turnoff is just up ahead,” he said, and he looked down at the dog. “What got me into trouble last time,” he said, “was the fact that I came out to check on the dog.”
“Ah, right,” she said, “so maybe …” Then she stopped.
“What?”
“I was just thinking about me going in and picking up our breakfast and bringing it out. We could have some sandwiches or something, you know, maybe egg and bacon sandwiches.”
“I’m okay with that.” He took the turn off the highway and into the parking lot. As he pulled in and parked, he said, “I really like those.”
“Me too.” She smiled and said, “Good, I’ll be right back.” She stopped and looked at the dog and asked, “Do I need to get her anything?”
“Probably better if we don’t,” he said. “We fed her this morning.”
With that, she nodded and walked inside the restaurant. He sat in the driver’s seat, studying the parking lot. He was still trying to remember the little bits and pieces from yesterday, but, of course, the blow had come out of nowhere, and, when he’d woken up, he’d been out in the brush already. He looked down at Bernie. “It’s okay, girl. We’ll go take a closer look, but let’s just wait for breakfast, okay?”