She tried to pull herself together. The man who’d made love to her the night before hadn’t seemed like he wanted to run from her. If anything, of late he’d insisted he was staying. The niggling doubt, though, had taken root in her brain.
Later. She’d deal with it later, she told herself, as she made the final turn onto a street containing row houses. They had probably been built a hundred years before to house the workers for the industrial part of Sheridan Falls. Most were dilapidated, showing signs of long-term neglect. They seemed deserted, with no signs of life. She pulled to the curb across the street from the house number she remembered from her research.
From her car, she studied the house. Nothing about it suggested someone lived there, except an envelope sticking out of the mailbox. The shutters were falling off, the paint was reduced to a dull gray, and the roof was patched with shingles in multiple colors. What had once been a fenced yard was open to the street, with weeds chaotically growing among untrimmed shrubs.
This was her only potential lead, though, and she was following it. She opened the car door and stepped onto the cracked concrete of the street. She picked her way across until she stood on the sidewalk in front of the house. Up close, it looked in even worse shape. Age and neglect had worn the place past the point of repair.
A sense of dread descended on her, and she had the unmistakable feeling that someone was watching her. She turned to scan the street around her. No one appeared, even though it was late afternoon, a busy time elsewhere in the city. Zach’s caution against putting herself in a dangerous situation echoed in her head, making her pause before approaching the house any further.
If her assumptions were right, she could be walking into a trap with a very dangerous person, someone willing to hire robbers and commit arson. She wanted answers, but it wasn’t worth her life. That’s what she had promised Zach the night before. She pivoted and jogged back to her car, slamming and locking the door before putting the car into gear and escaping from the street.
A few blocks away, she breathed easier and felt sure she’d done the right thing by retreating. She took the on-ramp to a road that bypassed the city’s center and was usually a faster way home. Not today, she realized when brake lights showed ahead of her and she stopped on the highway. She flipped on the radio, searching for a traffic report. An accident was blocking all lanes half a mile ahead. She was stuck, but she was safe, so she called her mom to let her know that she’d be late picking up Austin.
Rolling down the window, she shut off the engine and waited with the other motorists. Twenty minutes later, her phone rang.
“Hey, sweetheart, my office said you called earlier.” Zach’s voice was concerned.
“I was hoping you could help me with something, but I decided not to do it.”
“Okay…what was it?”
“I’ll explain when I get home,” she said, already dreading his reaction even though she hadn’t gone through with her plan. “I’m stuck in traffic on the bypass.”
“I’ll pick up Austin, then,” he said.
“That would be great.” It would make things easier for her, since she was running so late.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” He didn’t seem convinced, which said something about his perceptive abilities.
“I am. I’ll be home as soon as this accident is cleared up.” She hung up before he could ask more questions. She’d tell him everything: what motivated her to seek out the address, and what had her running back to her car. He wasn’t going to like any of it.
An hour later, she pulled into her garage. The door leading into the kitchen opened immediately, and Zach stood in the doorway.
“Where’s Austin?” she asked, concerned there was a problem.
“He was really tired. Your mom had him outside a lot today, so I put him down for a little nap before dinner. Hope that’s okay.”
“Sure,” she said, walking past him into the kitchen. It was just as well Austin didn’t witness what was probably going to be a disagreement between his parents.
“What were you doing on the bypass?” So he didn’t plan to beat around the bush. “I thought you were at the store today.”
“I was most of the day,” she said. “The fire inspector says it was arson, as you suspected.”
“Wish I was wrong about that. What else, Carolyn?”
She blew out a breath and got a glass of water before responding. “I went to the last known address for Marta Huntly, over on Decatur Street.”
“Not a nice part of town,” he observed, his tone dry. “Why’d you go?”
“I wanted to see if her son still lived there, if maybe he could give me some answers about all this. It was probably a crazy idea, but I don’t have much to go on.”
“I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to move on anything.” They faced each other across her kitchen, the tension thick between them.
“We did, which is why I didn’t knock on the door. I got to within ten feet and remembered your warning, so I left.” She hoped that would satisfy him, but from the look on his face, it hadn’t.
“You called me to join you there? That was your plan.” He was putting the pieces together.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“And when I wasn’t available, you went on your own. Jesus, Carolyn.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You could have been walking right into a trap. Did you think of that?”
“Like I said, I didn’t—”
He cut her off. “You shouldn’t have been in that neighborhood by yourself. It’s not a place where women should go alone.”
“Okay,” she said, “so I made a mistake, but it’s fine. Nothing happened.”
“It’s not fine. You promised me that you’d wait and let me handle this.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to apologize, but she stopped herself. She’d done the right thing by backing away. Why was he acting as though she’d thrown herself in the path of a speeding bus? Her sense of fear and self-preservation had kicked in at just the right time. They stood feet apart, staring at each other, and she had a flashback to the night she’d ended their engagement. The scene had played out in a similar way, but she’d been the one talking, and he’d been on the defensive.
“I need to go.” He pushed off the counter and walked to within a foot of her. His usually vibrant eyes were steely blue and unforgiving. She imagined this was how his adversaries saw him, an uncompromising, dangerous man.
“Zach, please…” She wanted understanding from him, but he wasn’t giving it to her.
“I cried for years for my mother,” he said, “but she never came back for me and my brothers. I don’t know why she left. I never will. But she made a choice to walk out on her kids and leave us behind.”
Why was he bringing up his mother? She struggled to understand his train of thought.
“You have choices as a mom, as well. I expected you to make the choice that was best for our son, but you didn’t.” His face was pained. She’d never seen him like this. “Today, I saw what sort of choice you’d make.”
He walked out of the kitchen without another word. A few seconds later, her front door slammed, and she was alone. She sagged into a chair, exhausted by their argument and his accusation. She had not forgotten or abandoned her son. She was not like his mother, who had left without a word or backward glance. It was Zach’s words from last night about how important she was to him and Austin that had prevented her from knocking on the door of that decrepit house.