Fortunately, Andi took after her father.
She shrugged. “Probably the usual things. Cash, jewelry, anything that can be pawned quickly. Empty houses make easy targets.”
She pushed herself to her feet. When he hurried to help her, she waved away his hand. She seemed steadier than when she’d let him lead her into the room. She also knew who he was.
She moved away from him, arms extended for balance. “I think I walked in on them before they got very far. Nothing’s disturbed here or in my room. I haven’t checked the others.”
He followed her down the hall. “Your dad didn’t come with you?”
The glance she cast over her shoulder was brief, but the pain on her face shot straight to his heart.
“My dad—”
Her words ended in a gasp. She’d stopped at an open doorway and stood staring into the room, mouth agape.
“What is it?” He rushed up next to her and stifled his own gasp.
It was Dennis Wheaton’s office. Someone had trashed it.
Every book had been pulled from the shelves. The empty bookcase lay on top. Desk drawers added to the mess, their contents strewn about, the drawers themselves upside down on the mound. The telescope that had occupied the corner of the room lay on its side. The closet had been ransacked, too. Years’ worth of Christmas decorations lay in a heap, the empty boxes tossed aside.
Andi slumped against the doorjamb, and he resisted the urge to pull her into his arms. Twelve years ago, she’d have appreciated it. Not now.
“This was uncalled for.” She swept one arm toward the mess. “They obviously weren’t happy to find nothing more valuable than an old telescope.”
Bryce frowned. She was probably right. What house in the twenty-first century didn’t have an array of televisions, laptops, iPads and game consoles?
He looked around the office and shook his head. Hobby room would have been a more appropriate name. The space had never held Dennis’s accounting, financial-planning or business books. Instead, the items that littered the floor bore titles such as Astronomy 101, The Elegant Universe and Earth, Space and Beyond, along with numerous art-related books.
Art had been Andi’s passion, astronomy all of theirs. Many nights, her dad had set up the telescope on the back deck, and the three of them had studied the sky. Stargazing had been one of many activities he’d shared with Dennis Wheaton. Andi’s dad was the father he’d never had.
Well, he had a father. Bryce just hadn’t seen him often enough for it to count. On those rare occasions when the old man did pop in, the visits had done more harm than good. If it weren’t for Dennis Wheaton’s influence, Bryce’s life would have taken a different turn.
“I need to call your dad.”
She looked at him, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “You can’t. He was killed in a car accident on Thanksgiving Day.”
His breath whooshed out and he slumped against the wall. A sense of emptiness swept through him, as cold and dark as space itself. “How?”
“I don’t know. He missed a curve and drove off a cliff.”
Bryce slid down the wall until he came to a seated position against it. Dennis Wheaton was gone. He couldn’t be. This had to be a bad dream.
But it was real, just like the woman standing in front of him, looking as broken as he felt.
He shook his head. “That’s why he didn’t come.”
“What?”
Sirens sounded in the distance. The police would be there shortly. He crossed his arms, trying to stave off a sudden chill.
“Your dad was here the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. The next day, he called and said he wanted to meet with me that weekend. When he didn’t show up, I figured he’d gotten busy.”
Andi righted the desk chair and lowered herself into it. “Did he say why he wanted to meet?”
“Just that he wanted to talk with me. He sounded like a man ready to unload a heavy burden. I asked him if everything was okay. He said, ‘It will be soon.’”
Her eyebrows lifted and her jaw dropped as the color drained from her face.
“Andi?” He rose to put a hand on her shoulder.
“Living with my mother wasn’t easy, but he always seemed to not let her criticism bother him. For the past few months, though, things were different.”
“Different how?”
“Something had been weighing him down. He seemed preoccupied, even depressed. I tried to talk to him, but he kept denying anything was wrong.” She crossed her arms over her stomach. “The signs were there, and I didn’t recognize them.”
“What signs? What are you talking about?”
“Depression, withdrawal. Losing interest in activities he’d always enjoyed, like coming up here.” She lifted her head, and her gaze locked with his. “The comment he made to you—that everything was going to be okay soon. It’s all clear now. I should have seen it.”
Now he knew where her thoughts had gone. And how much sense they made. Maybe Dennis had called him to talk about his struggles, guy-to-guy, not wanting to unload on Andi, then hadn’t been able to hold out any longer. Or maybe he’d gotten involved in something he regretted and wanted to clear his conscience but hadn’t had what it took to face the consequences.
No, not Dennis. He had too much integrity. And he loved life too much.
Andi’s brows drew together, and her eyes filled with pain. “When I add it all together, I’m afraid my dad drove off that mountain intentionally. And he took my mother with him.”
Andrea tipped back her head and stared into the endless expanse. Stars were strewn across the sky from horizon to horizon, like rhinestones against black velvet. She tightened her hands around the steaming mug of herbal tea, soaking in the heat.
She’d gotten enough accomplished today to feel good about sitting on the back deck and doing nothing. She’d given the place a deep cleaning and put everything back in its proper place. Then she’d made a list of repairs to be done, whether she sold the house or kept it. Most important, she’d had a handyman replace the broken pane in the living room window. It was how the assailants had gained access. Though the missing piece of glass was obvious in the daylight, she hadn’t noticed it last night.
She’d hoped her cleaning would uncover some clue about what had been going on in her dad’s life. The only thing she’d found raised more questions than it answered. It was a simple two-line poem, scrawled on a sheet of yellow paper torn from a legal pad—“When a secret is too heavy to keep, it’s always best to bury it deep.”
What was that supposed to mean? Was the secret what he’d wanted to talk to Bryce about? Was the weight of what he’d carried so heavy he’d felt he had no way out?
She sipped the tea, relishing the heat as it traveled down her throat. The temperature had dipped as soon as the sun went down. But there was something soothing about sitting under the stars, holding the hot cup, with peaceful silence all around her.
There was a party going on right next door. Bryce and his two best friends had had a cookout and were now watching a movie. He’d invited her, even assured her she wouldn’t be the only woman. One of his friends was married, the other engaged. She’d passed.
When he’d told the dispatcher his name last night, she’d almost fallen off the couch.