Something New

by Cameron Dane

  A mother to go with the new father. Rodrigo had never even really had one parent—unless he counted the time he spent under Marisol’s temporary care—let alone two. Plus, Rodrigo had to think about the needs of two people now in his new relationship, and he wasn’t at all sure he had the skills necessary to keep all three of them happy as a unit. When the hell did my life get so fucking full of people I feel a responsibility to?

  “Mary would like you to come over for dinner one night,” Henry added. “Maybe you’d like to bring Abby too.”

  “I’ll think about it.” Politeness kept Rodrigo from completely rejecting Mary’s offer, but no way could Rodrigo take Abby to meet Henry and Mary and leave Braden out in the cold. “Let me get back to you later, at a better time.”

  A server in jeans and a Thomasine’s T-shirt brought their food to the table right then with apologies for the delay. She added a serving of platanos at no extra charge and told them to have a good meal.

  “So…” Rodrigo inhaled the tangy scent of the pico de gallo with black beans steaming up from his plate. “Tell me what you’re doing now. I take it you’re working in the area?”

  Henry nodded around a mouthful of Jonah’s sandwich. “We’re repainting the police station a couple of blocks away.”

  “Oh? I have a friend who is a detective in that building.” Maybe Rodrigo could share something about Braden without coming right out and revealing that he’d let the man fuck him last night.

  Henry had his brows raised, clearly waiting for Rodrigo to go on, so Rodrigo said, “He’s a hard-ass, but a pretty cool guy to have on your side…”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Abandoned.

  From the passenger seat of Rodrigo’s truck, Abby stared at the house she’d lived in the first eight years of her life, heartsick at the empty shell it had become. Her farmhouse had been soft yellow with white shutters and doors. Now the siding was a faded tan with muddy brown treatments. The porch looked dark and gloomy rather than cheerful, and weeds had taken over the yard and oak trees.

  Abby blinked away the threat of tears. It’s not my home at all. The clog in her throat made her feel like an absolute ninny. She hadn’t thought of this house as a home since the night her parents had been murdered, yet looking at it right now, the pull to run up and down the wide hallways while playing chase with her dad nearly had her looking over her shoulder and expecting to see his tall frame and red hair.

  Next to her, Braden touched her arm, and the sensation jerked her back into the truck. “Do you want to get out?” He kept his voice gentle, and Abby could see equal concern on Rodrigo’s face next to Braden.

  “Of course.” She opened the door and jumped out of the truck with a forced lightness in her step. “I need to go inside. I don’t think the outside is going to jog any memories of that day and night.”

  Braden climbed out behind Abby, reading from a note in a file. “The house has exchanged hands a couple of times since you lived here. The last owners went underwater with their mortgage and walked away from it three months ago. Right now”—he turned in a circle, taking in not only the home, but the buffer of land surrounding it—“the bank is just sitting on it. It’s empty and shouldn’t be too hard to get inside.”

  From the back of the truck, Rodrigo hauled a ladder out and settled it on his shoulder. “Looks like the previous owners gave up on it long before they moved out. At least on the yard.”

  Braden led the way up the porch to the door. As he extracted a small case from his jacket pocket, he looked over his shoulder with a twinkle in his eye. “You didn’t see me do this.” He handed Abby the case file. “It won’t be going into my official notes.”

  “I won’t say a word.” Abby held the file up to her mouth. “It’s locked in the vault.”

  Rodrigo trudged up the steps with his ladder in tow. “Your boss know you pick locks, Crenshaw?”

  “No.” Braden glanced over his shoulder and looked right into Rodrigo’s eyes. “He doesn’t know I fucked you last night either.” He took in Rodrigo’s tall, fit frame in jeans and a long-sleeved gray T-shirt and winked lewdly. “Some things are just for me, you know?”

  “Smug prick.” Red cut through Rodrigo’s dark coloring.

  Braden blew him a kiss. “And you know you love it.”

  Abby kept the file over her mouth to cover her laugh. She didn’t know why, but listening to these two men exchange suggestive insults wrapped itself around her like two strong pairs of arms holding her tightly so that she didn’t fall. Suddenly, stepping foot inside this house didn’t fill her with nearly so much dread as had been eating at her all morning.

  They’ll be here with me. They won’t let me break apart and lose my mind.

  “Ahh…” The door snicked as Braden successfully picked it open. “And there she is.” He reached in to flip a switch as the door swung open. “No electricity.” Using his shoulder and back, Braden pushed the door open and held it wide. “I didn’t figure there would be, but it was worth a shot.”

  Abby held her purse aloft with three fingers. “I have two flashlights in my bag.”

  “I have a couple in my truck too,” Rodrigo added. “If we need more.”

  Taking a cleansing breath, Abby walked into her old house, into an empty cave she barely recognized. Her memories of this house were attached to someone half her height who saw everything from a completely different angle. The hardwood floor squeaked under her sneakers as she moved, and that was definitely familiar. But where her mom had once stamped her own country-girl personality over every color painted on the walls or wallpaper border used, and her father had souvenirs from his hunting and fishing trips, this place had an impersonal modern taupe color on every wall Abby could see.

  I can’t feel even a hint of them here.

  “There used to be a huge marlin mounted here.” Abby pointed at an entry wall. “And then my mom had this little bench with hearts cut out of the wood. There was a big floor vase next to the bench with stalks of dried flowers in it.”

  “It’s tough to see things changed from the way we remember them.” Braden curled his hand around Abby’s arm and brought her attention back to him. He rubbed up to her shoulder, massaged her neck, and offered an encouraging smile. “You take this in whatever direction you need to go.” He took the file out of her hand. “You take the lead, and we’ll follow and listen.”

  Rodrigo leaned the ladder against the wall and pecked a kiss to the top of her head. “Just tell me when you need me.”

  Feeling lifted, Abby nodded and squeezed their hands. One of the first things that struck Abby as she moved through the living room to the dining area to finally the kitchen was how much smaller this house was in reality than she’d ever thought as a little girl. Abby never remembered her father dwarfing each room when he entered, yet every time Braden and Rodrigo followed her into a room, the space immediately felt like it shrank by a quarter. The personal touches in the kitchen—like the nicks in the wood indicating her growth, and her mother’s mural of a cottage in a wildflower meadow—were long gone, and the walk-in pantry was now a tiny bathroom.

  Nothing left to show we ever lived here.

  Picking up her pace, Abby backtracked to the foyer and went down the hallway, racing for her old bedroom. More of that taupe color coated the walls, but by this point, Abby had no illusions that the multicolored pastel dream room she’d spent her nights in as a little girl would have remained. Logically, she’d known the house would look entirely different. Eighteen years had gone by. Even if her parents had survived and still lived here, they would have made changes to reflect their life and the times. As a teenager, Abby certainly would have nagged for an upgrade from the soft, childlike room to something bolder and more in line with her emerging personality.

  Still, Abby had not expected to feel as disconnected to this place as she did right now.

  There is still one room to check.

  Backing out into the hallway, Abby took a half dozen more steps and
came upon the only room in the house with the door firmly closed.

  Seems fitting somehow.

  The frantic heartbeat she’d not had to deal with before kicked in and pumped blood so fast it deafened her hearing.

  Facing the demon, Abby exhaled and said, “This was my parents’ bedroom.” And just as when ripping off a Band-Aid, Abby pushed the door wide open in one fell swoop.

  The space had no furniture, and the walls were not her mother’s favorite peach color any longer, but in here Abby could somehow envision the soft, warm shade through the tan…and she could also see blood spatter coating it grotesquely and her father as he lay slumped against it.

  You can do this. Almost outside herself, Abby watched her breasts lift as her breathing quickened. Pull it together. This is why you’re here.

  “I came down from the attic through that closet and my mother was here”—with two steps, Abby pointed at the floor—“and my father was there.” She lifted her arm in the direction of the wall straight ahead.

  Braden circled Abby and crouched down so he could look up at her downturned face. “What do you remember first? Can you tell me?”

  For a good long minute, Abby stood there mute, her mind a blank. Or rather, too much data from that day and night rushed at her, and she couldn’t sort it out. Then her nose tingled, and she nodded, almost to herself. “I remember I couldn’t smell the oranges.” She rushed to the built-in seating and leaned over it to unlock and raise the glass. “The window was cracked open but I couldn’t smell the oranges.” She saw the question on both men’s faces from across the room. “One of the orchards we drove past on our way out here butts up against our backyard. Back then, when the windows were open, I could always smell oranges.”

  “But you couldn’t that day,” Braden prompted.

  “No.” This time, flashing back made Abby crinkle her nose and swallow down the acrid taste of bile. “I smelled blood—this sharp, coppery smell—and…excrement.”

  Braden turned to Rodrigo. “Bodies empty out when people die.”

  His arms crossed, looking like a guard, Rodrigo nodded. “I know.”

  Moving across the room, Braden came to sit at Abby’s side. “Do you remember anything else?”

  “I remember wishing my mother would wake up. Somewhere inside me I knew they were dead, but they were my parents, you know, so there was this big chunk of me hoping that somehow they weren’t and would be fine if someone would come help them.” Abby swiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands and was surprised to find them dry today. “I’m told I was screaming endlessly, but I don’t recall doing that.”

  “Can you remember if you looked around the room?” Braden flipped through the pages of his file. “Was there anything out of place or missing? Something beyond the obvious that wasn’t right? It might help if you walked around.”

  “No. Well…” Abby’s fingers shook, but she let them run along the perimeter of the room as she walked. Abruptly, she came to a stop. “This was my mom’s side of the bed.” Using her hands, Abby framed out a small table. “She had a picture of me and my dad on her nightstand. I was a baby, and he was holding me at the hospital. I always used to touch it when I came into their room. I think I looked up for it when I knelt down next to my mom.” Rushing to the exact spot where her mom had lain, Abby crouched and stared at the emptiness where the picture would have been. “But it was gone. It was definitely gone.”

  Braden thumbed through his file again, made an affirmative noise, and then stooped by Abby’s side. “Moved but not taken. It’s here on the floor in one of the evidence photos.” He showed her a picture that had no blood or body in it, just a depiction of the photo frame, the glass shattered, against a wall. “It must have become part of the casualties in the struggle with the killer.”

  “That’s it.” Abby fingered the small depiction of her vibrant, smiling dad. “I loved that picture. I don’t have one for myself.”

  “I’m sorry.” Braden rubbed her shoulder. “Evidence wouldn’t have kept a picture all these years. Otherwise, I’d see if I could get it for you.”

  Brushing aside the whisper of old longing, Abby said, “It’s all right.” Abby’s hiding place loomed behind an accordion wall of slatted white wood. “I want to go up in the attic now.”

  “Wait.” Rodrigo put a hand on Abby’s shoulder before she even got to her feet. “Let me go up there first and check it out. Braden,” he said as he moved and jimmied open the closet, “can you get the ladder for me?”

  Braden leaned the file against the wall by the door. “Be right back.”

  Abby matched Rodrigo’s stance of hands clasped at his back where he blocked access to the closet. “I’ll be all right,” she told him, nudging right up against his immovable force. “I know it’s going to be a lot tighter up there than I remember, and probably a mess too.”

  “It’s also possibly less structurally sound,” Rodrigo said, no negotiation or wiggle room in his voice. “Let me crawl around up there first, and if I think it’s all right, you can go up. I’m not trying to stop you, Bit.” He planted his hand on the wall, dipped down, and invaded some of her space. “I just don’t want you falling through the ceiling and getting hurt.”

  “All right. That’s fine.” She beamed at him. “See? You know what you’re doing, and I don’t, so I don’t have a problem with your plan.” Leaning in, she pecked a kiss on his warm, stubbly cheek. “When you’re reasonable and explain yourself, I can work with you.”

  He snagged her lips with a fast kiss. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Braden returned with the ladder. “Here you go.”

  Murmuring a “thanks,” Rodrigo opened the short double-sided ladder under the covered hole in the closet ceiling, climbed up, and pushed the rectangle of wood aside. “Hold on to the ladder for me, will you?” he called down. “I’m going to climb through.”

  Braden steadied the metal with his arms and legs, and Rodrigo hoisted himself through the dark hole.

  “Hand me up a flashlight, Bit.” Rodrigo’s dark arm appeared through the opening. “It’s fucking dark as hell up here. Musty too.” She could hear him cough and clear his throat.

  Once Abby handed a flashlight up to him, Rodrigo disappeared from sight. The occasional groan of wood or a banging noise—sounded to Abby like Rodrigo using his hand to hit against the flooring—and an eternity later, Rodrigo poked his head through the opening again, his face smudged and cobwebs putting silver in his hair. “I feel confident the attic is still in good shape, but I don’t want more than one person up here at a time.” He lowered himself down feet first to the top rung on the ladder and joined Abby and Braden in the closet. “You go up.” With his hand on Abby’s back, Rodrigo put her in front of the ladder’s rungs. “There are bugs and droppings and all kinds of nasty stuff up there, so be careful. You shouldn’t be up there for more than a short time either. Braden and I will stand on the ladder and watch you from here.”

  After depositing her purse on the floor, Abby climbed up the ladder and pulled herself through to the attic. Shadows overtook the entire area, leaving Abby empty of nostalgia or a tug on her heart. Rodrigo appeared with flashlight in hand and passed it to her. Braden joined him a second later and used her second flashlight to direct a beam of light across the floorboards, creating a dust-filled streak of illumination in the darkness.

  Turning the light back on himself so Abby could clearly see his face, Braden said, “I’ll train this flashlight in whatever direction you crawl, and hopefully that will help to guide you too.”

  Her smile and her entire body feeling tight, Abby nodded. “Thanks.”

  Now. Here it is. Abby turned herself around, away from Rodrigo and Braden, and pointed her light into one corner of the musty space. As promised, Braden directed his flashlight alongside hers and doubled her ability to see. But to see what? What the heck am I hoping to find?

  Abby stalled in place, staring at nothing. Back in her rooms or in any of the dozen foster
homes she’d ever lived in, she could envision her attic playroom clear as day. She could always close her eyes, cover her ears to block out the world, and hear her parents’ voices and picture them crawling around so as not to bang their heads on the angled roof. Now, here she was, crouched in the very place, and she could not see either one of them, hear them, and didn’t have any idea what to do to help solve their murders.

  Behind her, Braden startled her, making her grab her chest, as he said, “You mentioned this morning that you needed to look in the den. Can you remember what that means now?”

  The vents. Right.

  The nudge from Braden got Abby out of her stupor. She started to crawl as remnants of her latest dream came back to her. “When I was hiding up here,” she talked back toward Braden and Rodrigo, needing to remind herself they were close by, “I was looking through these vents in the floor. I think I was hoping I’d see my mom or dad. I started at the kitchen but nobody was there.” Abby squeezed her eyes shut as her knee landed on something that crunched. Reaching the kitchen vent, just like that day, Abby looked through, down to an empty space. “Then, as I was going to the vent where I could see my dad’s den, the phone rang, so I crawled real fast to that vent so I could look down into the hallway.”

  As Abby repeated that pattern on her hands and knees, Braden’s voice reached her from across the attic. “They collected the machine as evidence. It was your neighbor calling because you’d run from her house when she was babysitting you. Do you remember that?”