of bed.
Good.
I took a deep breath, made myself yawn, and opened the door.
The sun stood behind Everett, who had his phone out, his hand raised to the door as if about to knock once more. He beamed as I threw myself into his arms with unrestrained relief. Everett. Not the police. Everett.
My legs were wrapped around his waist and I breathed in his familiar scent—his hair gel and soap and starch—as he walked us inside, laughing. “Missed you, too,” he said. “Didn’t mean to wake you, but I wanted it to be a surprise.”
I slid down his body, took in his jeans, his lightweight polo, the suitcase on the porch. “I’m surprised,” I said, my hands still on him—his solid arms, the strength of his grip—real. “What are you doing here?”
“You asked for my help, and you have it. This is one of those things that needs to be handled in person. Also, I wanted an excuse to see you,” he said, his eyes quickly skimming over my disheveled appearance. His smile faltered, and he tried to hide it under feigned confusion. “Where did I put the suitcase? Oh, there . . .” He pulled his suitcase inside the doorway, and when he looked back at me, his expression was typical Everett, calm and collected.
“So what do we need to do?” I asked, shoulders tense, a headache brewing behind my eyes.
“I already stopped by the police station on the way here. Delivered the paperwork and demanded they cease all questioning with your father, pending evaluation.”
I felt my entire body relax, my muscles turning languid. “Oh, God, I love you.”
He stood in the middle of the living room, taking it all in: the boxes stacked around the dining room and foyer, the rickety table and the screen door that creaked. The floor that had seen better days, the furniture that had been awkwardly pulled away from the walls for painting. And me. He was definitely looking at me. I pressed my palms to my hips to keep them still.
“I told you I’d take care of it,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said.
And then it was just Everett and me in this place I thought he’d never see, and I wasn’t sure what to do next.
His eyes skimmed over me one more time. “It’ll be okay, Nicolette.”
I nodded.
“Are you okay?”
I tried to imagine what he must be seeing: me, a mess. I hadn’t showered since yesterday, and I’d been digging through closets all night. I’d had way too much coffee, and my hands kept shaking if they weren’t holding on to something. “It’s been stressful,” I said.
“I know. I could hear it in your voice yesterday.”
“Oh, crap, don’t you have work?” What day was it again? Thursday? No, Friday. Definitely Friday. “How did you get away?”
“I brought it with me. I hate to do this, but I’ll be working most of the weekend.”
“How long are you staying?” I asked, brushing by him to drag his suitcase—bigger than an overnight bag—away from the screen door.
“We’ll see your dad’s doctors today, and hopefully they’ll have the papers we need by Monday. But I’ll have to go after that.”
I thought of the notebooks in the vents. The door that wouldn’t lock. The missing people, then and now. “We should stay in a hotel. This place has no air, and you’re going to hate it.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “The nearest hotel is at least twenty-five miles away.” So he had checked, and he wasn’t counting the budget motel that definitely had vacancy on the road between this town and the next.
“So, show me the place,” he said.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to. I shrugged, marginalizing the house and all it represented—no longer thinking, That’s my dad’s chair, and my mom’s table, that once belonged to my grandparents, that she stripped down and refinished—instead turning it into a box of wood, trying to see it through Everett’s eyes.
“It isn’t much. Dining room, living room, kitchen, laundry. Bathroom down that hall and a porch out back, but the furniture’s gone and the mosquitoes are killer.”
Everett looked like he was searching for a place to put his laptop, specifically, the dining room table. “Here,” I said, shuffling the receipts and papers into piles, scooping things up and dumping them into the kitchen drawers I’d just emptied.
He put his laptop on the cleared table, along with his accordion-style briefcase. “Can I work here?”
“Sure. But there’s no Internet.”
He made a face, then picked up a receipt I’d missed—Home Depot, the nearly illegible