Page 119 of Indigo Ridge (The Edens 1)

“Hey.” I stuffed my phone away and smiled, muffling a sigh when he waved me over.

His attitude toward Griffin at the hospital still grated on me, but this was Frank. This was my grandpa’s best friend and the guy who’d been there when I hadn’t been to drive Pops to the hospital.

“How are you?” I asked, stepping into the garage. The smell of metal and oil was so strong I scrunched up my nose.

“Oh, fine.” He tossed out a hand to the Jeep. “This vehicle might be the death of me. Especially if Rain keeps losing parts.”

I laughed. “How’d she lose parts?”

“Lord, if I had the answers to solve the mystery that is my beloved wife.” He laughed and kicked a tire with his boot.

“Frank—oh, Winnie!” Rain poked her head out the door that connected the house to the garage, and when she saw me, she rushed out, coming my way to pull me into a hug. She wore an apron tied tight and was holding a meat tenderizer.

“Hey, Rain.”

I’d seen her a few times since I’d moved to Quincy, each on my trips coming and going to visit Pops. She was one of those lucky women who didn’t seem to age. Her hair was the same light brown as I always remembered, her skin smooth except for a few fine lines around her eyes and mouth. Her hug was as fierce as those I remembered from my childhood.

Mom had always joked that for a slender woman, Rain was as strong as an ox.

“Are you cooking?” I nodded to the tenderizer mallet.

“I am.” She shook it and laughed. “Chicken fried steak. Frank’s favorite. How are you, little bird?”

“Good.” I smiled at the same nickname she’d called me since I was a kid. “Frank was just telling me about a few missing parts for the Jeep. Did you go wild cleaning the garage?”

“Never.” She laughed. “This is his mess.”

“Then how’d you lose a part?” I asked.

“Driving,” Frank answered. “Somehow this summer, she lost a hubcap.”

A hubcap. The tire he’d kicked was missing the cap. My eyes darted to the front wheel. It was capped with the hubcap I’d seen in the back of Griffin’s truck weeks ago on a grocery store run. The one he’d told me Mateo had found on the road to Indigo Ridge.

“I saw a hubcap like this . . .” I locked my gaze with Rain’s. “I didn’t realize that you drove the Jeep.”

Her smile faltered. “Well, sure. It’s my only car.”

Why would she go on the road to Indigo Ridge? That was private property.

Something prickled at the back of my neck. An uneasy feeling. I didn’t need a mirror to see the color drain from my face.

Rain must have noticed it too. “Frank, close the door.”

It took me three seconds too many to register that sentence. It took me three seconds too many to look between my lifelong friends and realize what I was seeing. Because in those three seconds, Frank punched the garage door opener clipped to the Jeep’s driver-side visor.

And Rain lifted the mallet.

It took me three seconds too many to shed my personal bias and grasp that these people—neighbors, friends—were not as they seemed.

Three seconds too many.

Before the lights went out.

Chapter Twenty-One

Griffin

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