“I’ll think about it.”
He was aware that she was making no promises. He was equally aware that he had no right to demand any from her.
“I want to see you again, Rachel.”
“When?”
Now, he wanted to answer. Instead, he said, “Tomorrow. Have dinner with me.”
Which, he realized, meant he’d just committed himself to another full day in Honoria.
“I would like to have dinner with you, Lucas.”
He nodded in satisfaction. They had just made an official date. He supposed it was about time.
“My grandmother is usually in bed by eight o’clock. I can meet you somewhere afterward, if you don’t mind waiting that late to eat.”
“You forget, I’ve lived in California for most of the past fifteen years. Eight o’clock doesn’t seem that late. And we don’t need to meet anywhere. I’ll pick you up.”
“What if someone sees us?”
“Then they see us.” He, for one, was tired of sneaking around.
“Fine. I’ll see you at eight, then.”
“Fine. Er...good night, Rachel.”
“Good night, Lucas.”
He hung up the phone, then leaned back in the chair with his hands behind his head, and gazed at the lights on the Christmas tree.
RACHEL KNEW Lucas wanted her to stay away from her uncle, and she had no real desire to spend time with Sam, anyway. But her discovery of that wallet nagged at her. It just didn’t make sense that her father would have buried the wallet and its contents. Lucas was probably right that she would find no explanations among her father’s things, but she had an almost overwhelming compulsion to see for herself.
After spending Saturday morning trying to talk herself out of doing so, she drove to her uncle’s house late that afternoon, thinking she would only stop by for a few minutes, and if the opportunity arose, she would ask about her father’s things. She was relatively sure she could bring it up in such a way that Sam wouldn’t find her request unusual.
It had been years since Rachel had been to her uncle’s house. As far as she could tell, he’d made few changes to the white-shuttered, redbrick farmhouse on the outskirts of town. Several outbuildings surrounded the house. There was a detached, three-car garage in addition to the two-car garage connected to the house. A workshop. Two metal storage buildings.
Her uncle, it appeared, was a pack rat.
He was also not home.
Rachel stood for some time on Sam’s front porch, trying to decide what to do. She shouldn’t even consider going into the storage buildings without her uncle’s permission, of course. But she was only interested in her father’s things—which her uncle had offered to save for her, after all.
The buildings were probably locked, she told herself, even as she walked toward the first one. Sure enough, there was a heavy padlock on the door. The second building was secured in the same manner.
“Dam.”
She really should wait for Sam, she thought, even as she made her way to the detached garage.
The big doors were locked. As was the smaller door on the side. Rachel peered through a dirty window. A couple of tarp-covered vehicles sat inside—as well as a stack of cardboard boxes against one wall.
She frowned, pushing her nose nearly against the side-hinged window. She gulped when it swung inward. Either Sam had forgotten to lock the window, or the old lock had just given way when Rachel leaned against it.
“No, Rachel,” she said aloud. “You are not climbing through this window. You have no right.”
But she couldn’t stop looking at those boxes. They looked a lot like the ones she’d found in her grandmother’s attic.
“You’re too old to climb through windows.”