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My brows shoot up as she pauses for effect. How have I never heard this story before?
“Turns out, I was right! Nothing but a funny rock formation spat up by the lake that year. We were having a bad drought and the water was so low. I think they kept those rocks as a funny memory anyway. Doug’s is still down in the basement.”
“Larry’s went to Grady, I think, but he didn’t want them hanging around the girls in case they started throwing them around or something,” Faye says. “He gave his to me years ago. They’ve sat on that old bookshelf I had Weston carry out to the garage ever since, and I’ll bet Bella Larkin has the one Jonah found. Or maybe it’s still at Earhart Oil for all I know. Jonah kept it in his office, you know. The three of them laughed their butts off about bringing home those rocks all the time.”
“I remember!” Gram yells. “It was always something when those guys got together. That time it was just rocks. Nothing like the time they all brought home motorcycles...”
“Like the old one in the garage?” I ask with a smile.
“The one and only. The other two sold theirs, I think. Doug never did, but we rode it every so often in the summertime.” Gram sighs. “I truly don’t know what I’d do without Weston taking care of Doug’s cars. They meant so much to him.”
She still misses him.
Every freaking day.
Hearing it breaks my heart, but I’m so grateful for the memories. It also reminds me just how much West has always helped our family.
I carry the book back to the couch and sit down again, but it’s too hard to get back into reading, straining to make out faded newspaper clippings.
For whatever reason, that fake meteorite story doesn’t sit right with me.
Almost feels like I’m forgetting something...
Who else mentioned meteorites lately?
Wait.
Didn’t Creepy Carson blab something about it? Something about an uncle who was deep into them in between trying to impress me with all his other crap?
On a whim, I walk to the front desk and wake the computer. I open my social media, swearing at a certain Facebooger for flagging my latest post about Amelia Earhart visiting Dallas as misinformation.
I don’t use social media very often outside managing Amelia’s business page and Insta, but I pull up Faye’s name and find her old For Sale posts, which I know she cross-posted there.
They aren’t just local.
She must’ve slipped up somehow and posted her items for sale in a national antiques group.
I pull up her pictures, twisting my lips.
They’re bigger and more detailed on the computer than when I’d looked at them on her phone.
I still don’t see the old rifle anywhere, but I do notice the not-meteorites on the bookshelf she posted for sale. Hmm.
There’s even a tiny sign in front of the rock that says, Larry’s Meteorite and a date. 1975.
A slamming car door causes me to look out the window.
My stomach sinks.
Yep, speak of the devil. It’s Carson, finally dragging himself back to his room after a long day of knocking around town for collectibles.
He really doesn’t fit around here.
Not with his immaculate electric car or the dinner jacket that seems like it’s superglued to his shoulders. The same one he had on when he took me out.
Come to think of it, the only jacket I’ve ever seen him wear.
I move away from the desk and dart into the dining room before peeking around the corner, watching him enter through the front door.
