Straight ahead, the hallway led to the back of the duplex. Sarah headed that way, passing a bedroom on the left and a bathroom on the right. She ended at the master bedroom. Dustin had placed a mattress on the floor under the window with an end table next to that, but no other furniture. His clothes were stacked in neat piles against the wall nearest the closet. He’d tossed a pair of jeans onto the impeccably made-up mattress. She picked up the denim and buried her face in the fabric, inhaling.
“They still smell like him,” she whispered.
“Don’t do this to yourself,” Caden said, his voice husky.
“Wish he’d asked for help,” she muttered.
“I know.”
“Could have at least gotten him a dresser or something.”
“Sarah.”
She dropped the jeans back onto the bed and glanced at her brother, her emotions roiling near the surface. “What?”
“He wanted to do things his way. He was an adult. Interfering would have only caused him to distance himself.”
“Like I’ve done with the general?”
He shrugged. “If the shoe fits.”
Gavin stood in the doorway watching, the compassion in his eyes nearly her undoing.
Sarah headed for the master bathroom, her heart aching. How she missed Dustin. She’d missed him in a different way while they were in Afghanistan together, but at least she had the hope of seeing him at some point in the future. Now, his absence left a hole in her chest, like a piece of her heart was missing. And while the thought of seeing Dustin in heaven gave her comfort, the grief of the temporary earthly separation still hurt.
With a shaking hand, she opened the medicine cabinet.
“Need any help in here?” Gavin asked from the doorway.
“I’m looking for drugs,” she said. “I want to know every chemical he put in his body. Maybe he mixed up some medications and it messed up his thinking. Or something.”
He studied the contents of the cabinet. “Maybe.”
She pulled down three bottles. “Antidepressant, decongestant, prescription-strength Motrin, something I don’t recognize, and another something I’m not sure about. You know what they are?”
She handed him the two bottles and he pulled his phone from his pocket. “That’s what Google is for.” A quick search had him frowning. “One is a painkiller. The other a muscle relaxer.”
“Well, I sure hope he wasn’t taking all three of those at the same time.” She paused. “Of course, that’s not what killed him, so I guess not.”
“I’m not a medical doctor, but those would all just make him sleepy. And if he’d taken them together, he would have fallen asleep and died. None of those are going to make him jump off a building.”
“Unless he was depressed and taking none of them,” Sarah said. But that didn’t fit with what Caden or the psychiatrist had described. “And assuming this is all of the medications he’d been prescribed.”
“I’ll check the kitchen and make sure there’s nothing else in there,” Caden said. “I looked through his closet. There are some boxes with personal papers in there. I guess we’ll need to go through those at some point. He’s actually pretty organized. I found his life insurance policy and other stuff.” Caden blinked and looked away. Cleared his throat. “I talked to his landlord a couple of days ago, and Dustin’s rent is paid through the end of this month. I’ll extend that if we need to. Now I’m going to see if there are any more pill bottles in the kitchen.” He headed back down the hallway, and Sarah blinked back tears.
Gavin pulled her into a hug, and she leaned her forehead against his chest, taking comfort in his presence even while her brain was telling her to back away. At the same time, another part of her head was rationalizing that it was just a hug. And she desperately needed a hug.
And yet another part of her mind reminded her that Caden was in the other room and would be more than willing to comfort her should she let him know she needed it.
Sarah ignored the snarky voice on top of all of her roller-coaster feelings. Gavin wasn’t anything like her father. And he was going a long way in proving that.
“No more pills,” Caden said from the hallway.
Sarah pulled away from Gavin and turned to face the doorway. Caden stepped into the bathroom.
“Anything more in here?” Caden’s gaze bounced between the two of them, and she thought she saw a flicker of curiosity, but thankfully, he kept his curiosity