Expired Cache - Lisa Phillips Page 0,19
that would come after she tackled the mammoth job of cataloging everything in here and figuring out where it had come from. Learning the history of each piece.
Sure, a lot of it was probably junk. But if she didn’t go through it piece by piece, how could she be sure she would find whatever it was her grandfather had wanted her to find.
“Uh-oh, you have that look on your face.”
“What look?”
Jess said, “Like it’s Christmas morning and you got a brand…new…book.”
Ellie laughed. “I do enjoy Christmas.” She looked around some more.
The pang in her chest was still there, but different now. She wasn’t seeing someplace her grandfather had been and feeling the loss. She was hearing him speak loud and clear. He would talk to her through all of these things. His collection. His secrets, and his truth.
“Well, at least going through all this old stuff might give you some inspiration for your book.”
“Exactly!”
“Wow.”
Ellie said, “What?”
“Christmas.” Jess added, “If you’re looking for inspiration, maybe sticking around isn’t an awful idea.”
“I never thought it was awful.”
“Sure, but it’s easier to run from your feelings when you’re going somewhere else. To hide. Which is basically all a sabbatical is. Hiding from your life, pretending to ‘write another book,’ or whatever.”
“There’s a lot there in what you’re saying.” Ellie folded her arms. “I’m not sure where to start unpacking all your angst wrapped up in your words. So I’ll start with work. Are things not going well with you at the police department?”
“This isn’t about me.” Jess lifted her hands, then let them fall back to her sides. “Just look around. Maybe you’ll find this secret quickly so we won’t have to be here until three weeks from now. There’s probably nothing in the fridge.”
“Why don’t you go check if there’s coffee?” Ellie figured it didn’t matter that there wasn’t milk. She could drink it black, and Jess would probably deal with it for some caffeine right now.
Jess pretty much stomped to the kitchen. There was only so much stomping that could be done effectively in tennis shoes. Heels or boots were always better for that. Ellie had found it made students and faculty all take notice when they could hear her coming down the hallway.
She pushed her glasses up her nose and crouched in front of the tiny end table and the stack of books tucked under the drawer, in the shelf between the four legs.
A few old classics and a leather-bound book—his journal. Her grandfather was the one who’d taught her to get those thoughts spinning around in her head down on paper. You’ve got to exorcise those things you can’t let go of. When she’d asked him what he needed to get out on paper, he’d confessed it bothered him that he couldn’t save everyone. She’d never thought of police work like that.
As she glanced at her sister now, banging around in the kitchen with what looked like a camping coffee pot that Ellie would have no clue how to operate, it occurred to her that Jess might be dealing with the same thing.
The icing on that cake? An unsolved crime involving her own sister.
A tear rolled down Ellie’s face. She didn’t want to be the source of her sister’s spinning thoughts. Perhaps she should stick around for a while. Keep her company and make sure she was all right while Ellie did the research for her book. Here.
After that, she could leave.
She was mulling over the idea when the glass of the front window cracked. She jerked her head up and looked at the brand new circle, no bigger than a silver dollar, smack dab in the center of the window at eye level. The fractures in the glass splintered across the pane.
Jess screamed, “Ellie, get down!”
She looked at her sister, her thoughts frozen to nothingness.
“Gun!”
Eight
Dean frowned. A gunshot? It had been seriously faint, a good distance away so that the rapport of it was muffled. He stared at the land he now owned and leaned back against his car.
This was what Alan Ridgeman had given him. A place to set up his therapy center, assuming he could get the backing to fund the building project. Acres, set into a mountainside. A beautiful, peaceful place with nothing but quiet. The rustle of the trees.
He’d have to make sure hunters didn’t use the area, or it could set back some of his patients if they heard sudden gunfire.
Dean’s phone buzzed. He looked down to see the notification light up his