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“Maybe she couldn’t or wouldn’t accept that.”
“And that’s why we need to find my old phones today. And anything else from that time that’ll help. Maybe something will be buried in there.”
“We’ll find something.”
What she hadn’t told him was that she’d peeked on social media to see that Jennifer had done an excellent job of victimizing herself. The good news—if she could call it that—was that a lot of people were skeptical of Jennifer’s claims. Many former teammates and skating colleagues had quickly come to Reese’s defense, but a lot of others were horrified by what Reese had done and said as a teen. Reese knew time was running out if she wanted to salvage her reputation, but as they pulled into her mother’s driveway, all her anxiety came at her in waves. Not only was she dealing with Jennifer, she was now going to have to deal with her mother.
“It’ll be fine,” Cam said, rubbing her back as they walked up the front steps to the door. “I’ll keep your mom distracted.”
Reese took one last deep breath before reaching for the door handle. She opened the door and called out to her mother. She got silence in return. Her car was out front, so she had to be somewhere.
“She’s probably outside,” Cam said.
Right. She’d always been more attentive to her flowers and garden than she’d ever been to Reese. She and Cam made their way through the house and out the patio doors. Fran Beresford was in the corner of the yard, weeding a section of her vegetable garden.
“Hey, Mom,” Reese called out.
Fran jumped at hearing her daughter’s voice. She stood up and walked over to them, brushing some dirt from her gardening gloves, then gave Cam a huge hug. She didn’t hug her daughter as enthusiastically.
“What brings you both by?” Fran asked.
“I was wondering if you had any luck looking for my old phones. Any old papers? Notes? Cards?”
“I did look, but I didn’t find anything. Is that why you’re here? You don’t trust me to look?”
Reese kept a pleasant smile plastered on her face. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that I know exactly what to look for, and Cam offered to help.”
“Fine. Whatever. And I see you’ve finally cut your hair. About time. It’s too bad you didn’t get bangs, though. You always looked better with bangs.” Reese hadn’t had bangs since she was fourteen years old.” Fran then turned her attention to Cam. “Honey, did you want something to drink? I could make you a quick lunch.”
“I’m fine, Fran. Maybe later. We should probably get started.”
“I’ll be out here if you need me,” she said with a smile to her “adopted” son.
Reese ignored it all and grabbed Cam’s arm. “Let’s start with my old room.” They went up the stairs to the second floor. The door to her bedroom was closed, and when she opened it, she gasped. The room was brimming with stuff. Mostly piles of clothes and several stacked boxes. Reese couldn’t even see her old twin bed. The hoarding was getting to the point where every bit of space was filled with random stuff.
“This is a lot of things,” Cam said, his eyes scanning the room.
“Obviously we’ll ignore the clothes. Let’s start on the boxes, then move to the closet.”
Two hours later they’d come up with nothing of interest other than clothes from Reese’s middle school days and boxes of knickknacks.
“Now what?” Cam asked.
“We tackle the basement.”
The most dreaded place in the house. Even as a kid, Reese rarely ventured down there. It had become a repository for old furniture, more clothes, broken or unused appliances, dishes, linens, and, when her father was still around, his tools and books. The one thing that was never around: any of Reese’s skating trophies. If Reese hadn’t taken and stored them herself, they would have been long gone. Fran didn’t like to keep things that were important to other people. That was why she got rid of all her husband’s things the moment he’d walked out. But Reese’s clothes from middle school? Those were keepers. Reese couldn’t help rolling her eyes at the insanity of it all.
She flipped on the basement lights and slowly descended the stairs. Reese groaned. Her old room was a sampler of what the basement was. Boxes and boxes of junk along with rack after rack of clothing. On top of an old glass dining room table they hadn’t used since she was a kid, was an old bread maker, a rice cooker, various sizes of unusable pots and pans, and some kind of grill. All garbage.
“Maybe we should offer to haul this stuff out,” Cam suggested.
Reese chuckled. “She won’t let you. She’ll tell you there is nothing wrong with this stuff, and that she can fix it. So don’t bother.”
Cam grimaced. “All right, then we should stick to boxes.”
“As you can see, my mom hasn’t labeled anything, so it’s all a mystery.”
“I love mysteries,” Cam said with his lopsided smile.
