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With love, Jenny

CHAPTER 40

The Homefront

Harper

Mom sits on the couch at Jack’s house, holding the multi-tool in her hand. Her face is pale. I sit next to her. What does this mean to her?

“Where did you find this?” Her voice trembles, but her eyes are dry.

“At the quarry.” Caden sits across from us in the chair. He glances at the time on his phone. They need to leave for practice soon. “We checked around for any other evidence, but that was the only thing there.”

He means they checked for a body or bones. I swallow back the bile that rises in my throat. They don’t need to say it. It almost would have been good closure for us if they found something that would prove that my dad was dead. Maybe even evidence of foul play.

“He always kept this with him.” A small smile plays on her lips. She turns it over in her hand. “It’s actually a replacement. His father gave him one when he was a teenager, but they had a falling out.”

We’ve never really talked about his parents. I think they died at some point, but I don’t remember ever meeting them when I was growing up.

“It’s not really evidence or anything new. We knew he was out there more than once. It’s possible he could have lost it on any number of occasions.” Eli brushes his hand through his hair.

Mom shakes her head. “No, he had this that morning when he left. It was a habit. He set it on his chest of drawers every night and put it in his pocket every morning. It had a leather case though.”

“We didn’t find one with it. Nothing around it either.” Luke stands and gives me a look that says he wishes he didn’t have to go. “We need to get to practice.”

Caden and Eli rise. They’ve all taken showers and changed. We dropped Nico off at home. He wanted to check on his mother and needed some rest before physical therapy.

“We can go back and check again another time.” Eli nods toward the multi-tool. “Our search was hurried today.”

“Maybe.” Mom reaches out and takes my hand before looking at the guys. “Thank you.”

They nod and head out. Jack sits next to me. We decided he’d stay here and miss practice. They didn’t want to leave me alone, even though my mom would be in the same house.

Everything is still too fresh for them. I’m still dealing with the stress from Friday night and then worrying most of Saturday.

And now this. It feels like we’re on the verge of finding out what happened to my dad all those years ago. But we still don’t know much more. We have evidence that he was there, and the tool means he left it behind and didn’t come back for it. We have dates now to correspond with the trail camera pictures.

“You have to work tonight?” I ask my mom. Not sure what else to say about the tool we found. It’s obviously my dad’s and a gift from my mom. Will she need time? Comfort?

“Yeah,” she says almost absentmindedly. She squeezes my hand. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes search mine. She’s probably hoping for more from me, but I don’t have much at this point.

“I’m good, Mom.” And I am. Learning about what we went through eases my mind a little. “Trying to force myself to remember doesn’t seem to be helping.”

She gives me a small smile. “It usually doesn’t. Therapy should help with dealing with that fact. Sometimes we may not remember the trauma, but our bodies will. You all set up a time with the counselor?”

I nod. “Next Saturday. With the guys’ practices after school, we had to find a time that would work for all of us.”

The guys want to be with me, and I’m sure they need to work through all this too. They obviously have some guilt if they decided to beat each other up today.

“Good.” She looks down at the multi-tool and straightens. “I need to get some sleep for tonight.”

She stands and leaves Jack and me alone.

He tips my chin his way and searches my eyes. “Movie?”

It will help take my mind off everything. Hopefully.