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“I do. I’ve had them since before the accident.”
I was stunned. Almost too much to speak. “What are you talking about?”
“As young as I was, I still knew what was going on. I knew Dad was drinking way too much. One night, Mom made me go in and say goodnight to him. He was sitting at his desk, staring at all these papers, and crying. I almost left, but he called my name, so I went over to him.”
“Then what happened?”
“He turned his chair so I could sit on his knee. I asked what he was doing, and he pointed to all of it. He said it was his life’s work and it was all worthless. He said he was worthless. He started to ball them all up and throw them away, but I begged him not to. I told him to give them to me.” Luisa smiled.
“What?”
“You know I was named for his mother?”
“Yeah?”
“He said I sounded exactly like her, so he gave them to me.”
I didn’t need to look at my watch to know that unless she had them with her, which I knew she didn’t, I wouldn’t have enough time to go and get them before Noah and his dad arrived. “Where are they?”
“In the old cigar box.”
“What old cigar box?”
“I think it’s on one of the shelves in the living room.”
I grabbed her wrist. “How come Mom never knew? She never opened it? You never thought to tell her you had them?”
When Luisa pulled away from me, I realized I was frightening her.
“I’m sorry. You didn’t know. How could you? I didn’t.”
“It has an insert. I put them underneath it.”
“Okay. Good. At least we know where they are.”
It dawned on me that if this wasn’t about the formulas, what reason did Hewitt Ridge have to want to talk to Noah, my mom, and me in person? What the hell else had happened?
I was on my way out the door to look for my mom when Noah and Hewitt drove up.
“I’ll see if I can find her,” Luisa offered.
“Are you sure?”
“How far could she have gotten? She left less than fifteen minutes ago.”
“Hi,” I said when Noah got out of the car. “Sorry, um, my mom went for a walk and hasn’t come back yet.”
“It’s okay. We can wait.” Noah reached out and held my hand.
His father walked over to us.
“Dad, this is Seraphina Reeve. Sera, meet my father.”
“It’s a pleasure,” he said. “And I want you to know how sorry I am about all this.”
I looked from him to his son. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I found out we have the formulas. Luisa had them all this time.”
“Formulas?” Hewitt asked.
