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Despite the rutted dirt road, the ride along the river was soothing. She wouldn’t think about what it might look like lined with huge houses that would stand empty for months at a time. She’d only think of her dad standing hip-deep in that cold river, stained fishing cap pulled low on his brow, hands flicking the delicate fly in and out of the water.
She could almost see him, so at first she wasn’t surprised to see an ancient pickup pulled off to the side of the lane, its tires nearly hidden by deep grass. For a moment, as she slowed and pulled her truck in behind it, she thought that she would get out and really see him there. Not a visiting ghost, but real life after a bad dream.
But when she switched off the ignition, she came back to herself. Itwashis old truck, but he hadn’t driven it here. She’d given Joe that truck five years before and he’d been driving it longer than that.
Lori stared at the open tailgate in surprise. When she’d had to shut down the garage, Joe had told her he was going camping. No surprise. Joe camped a lot. But she had no idea he’d been camping here.
She slid out of her truck and walked on down the road until it narrowed to nothing more than a trail. The narrow path through the grass rose up a hill before curving out toward the river. Thunder rumbled as she edged carefully along the cliff. The water jumped and swirled below her. About a hundred feet on, the land opened up again and the trail dipped back down to the meadow that stretched out from the riverbank. When Lori spotted the small tent near the water, she felt her throat close up. She was glad Joe had been spending time here, since she hadn’t.
A narrow spiral of smoke drifted up from the side of the tent. As she drew nearer, she saw Joe, hunched over the fire, a whole fish roasting on a stick.
He glanced up at her approach, eyebrows not even rising in surprise.
“Lori,” he said. “What are you doing out here?”
“I didn’t know you camped here, Joe.”
He shrugged. “It’s a beautiful place. Your dad sure knew this river. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. I’m glad someone’s getting pleasure out of it.”
Joe pulled another stump close to the fire and motioned her to it. A wave of contentment crept over her as she took a seat and lapsed into silence. Sitting with him here was almost like sitting with her dad. This was what it would have been like had he still been alive.
Joe shifted in his seat. “No more trouble, I hope.”
“No,” she answered. “None.”
“How’s your hand?”
“It’s good.” Actually, she hadn’t thought about it once today, aside from the inconvenience of trying to help wash dishes, so it was obviously healing.
“Chief Lawson find anything?”
Lori stretched out her legs with a sigh. “Nothing. But I think I know what it’s all been about. The land.”
He turned slowly to face her. “The land? Why would you say that?”
“Someone wants me to sell. Quickly.”
His lips parted, jaw hanging open for a moment before he shook his head and closed it.
“I can’t be sure,” she assured him. “I heard a rumor. Ben’s trying to chase it down now.”
Joe sighed and looked up at the sky, then he swept a long, lingering glance around them. He looked at the campsite, the meadow, the wide sprawl of river. Then he nodded. “I’m sorry, Lori. I’m sorry for everything.”
“Thanks, Joe.”
He pulled the charred fish out of the flames and set it carefully on a rock. “It’s not right the way you’ve been living here, and I couldn’t seem to convince you to go. I thought you needed a little nudge out of the nest, you know?”
She paused in midnod, frozen solid as ice. Unease prickled up her arms like an army of fire ants. “What…what do you mean, Joe?”
“I could hardly bear watching you take care of him for all those years, but I kept telling myself you’d be fine. Eventually, you’d be fine. After he died, I thought you’d go back to school, but you didn’t even want to talk about it. You should never have gotten caught up in all of this. I had to do something.”
“Joe,” she breathed. Her head buzzed with adrenaline. “Joe, are you saying…Were you the one vandalizing my garage?”
His white hair whipped across his forehead in the wind, then pressed back close to his scalp, the pink showing through. “It was just small stuff. The hydraulic lift. The torque guns. The doors. And then…I never thought you’d get hurt in the oil spill. I liked to have died when I heard that, Lori. I just thought if things got a little more dire, if your bills were too much, you’d have to sell the land to me. Then you could pay off that debt and move on. I even thought maybe you’d leave the garage in my care. I could keep running it, and you wouldn’t have to worry about a thing.” He gave her a pained smile. “You’ve got to fly away, little bird.”
Little bird. He hadn’t called her that since she was twelve. Tears burned her eyes. This made no sense. Joe loved her. How could he have done these things? “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “You wanted me to sell the land to you? Give you the garage? That’s what you wanted?”
