reached behind his father as if to right the picture, but instead he lifted it and brought it close for inspection. Graham held the picture up and looked at the familiar face—his brother’s face—looking back at him. After a while, he lowered it and sighed.
Chapter 3
Franklin, Tennessee
When CJ arrived at the house, the Jaguar wasn’t in the driveway. He pulled the Honda into the spot where he normally parked the Jag and, with the engine running, looked at the house, which would be buttoned up tight with Janet gone. He felt a twinge of anger as he sat in the car, pondering his wife’s absence as sports talk played as background noise. She’d told him she would be here at one o’clock and stay for an hour, giving him time to pick up his few remaining possessions—the last of the things he wanted to take, and that she saw no reason to contest in court. As such, his belongings weren’t much to speak of: clothes, golf clubs, assorted mementos to which she could affix no significant cash value, and his library. He’d thought she’d challenge the latter, as his collection was extensive with some of the titles valuable, but she’d let them all go. It was the last of his books that he was supposed to pick up, books that were inside the house behind the freshly changed locks.
One day. One day was all it had taken her to change the locks.
His—Janet’s—home was a sprawling ranch-style house with a large front porch, situated on enough property, and with a sufficient number of strategically placed trees, to make it look as if they had a lot more. CJ had sold Janet on the house as a fixer-upper, as something for him to do in his spare time, when he needed a break from writing. What he hadn’t counted on was just how much work the house had needed. There had been a great deal of what CJ called cosmetic work: replacing cabinetry, hanging drywall, running power to additional outlets. But he’d also had to replace two floor joists. And in the bedroom, a part of the floor, a section directly in front of the bay window, was almost rotted through. When he and Janet had done the walk-through, the owners had covered that area with cardboard boxes, so they hadn’t noticed any telltale creak that might have made CJ look more closely. A pre-purchase inspection would have caught these things, but then Janet would have talked him out of buying the place, and he wouldn’t have had the fun he’d had restoring it. Now it was going to belong to Janet, and he found that he didn’t much care.
He just wanted what was his.
He’d tried to take Thor the night he left, even though he didn’t have any clear idea where he was headed, but Janet had come near to hysteria as he collected the dog’s food and water bowls and Thor’s favorite chew toy. He’d left the dog with her that night, and she’d kept CJ from taking him on those occasions when he’d come to strip the house of all evidence of his having lived there. The last time, when he was getting ready to take Thor, she’d abruptly tossed aside the hysteria and threatened to call the police.
He could see the Lab at the side door, his nose pressed against the glass, tail wagging slowly. The dog recognized the car, so he didn’t bark, but CJ knew he’d be scratching at the door, adding to the considerable damage he’d already inflicted on the wood.
When CJ got out of the Honda, Thor’s tail began to wag faster. CJ walked up to the door and crouched on the step, looking at the dog through the glass. He could hear Thor whining on the other side, and the sound of scratching. Now that the house would no longer be his, CJ didn’t care if the dog carved his way through.
“Sorry, pal,” CJ said. “Nothing I can do.”
As if he understood, Thor gave a single snort and then settled on his haunches. CJ stood and, with his hands warm in his pockets to combat a wind that made sixty-two degrees feel like fifty-two, looked back toward the driveway. Somehow he knew that Janet wouldn’t come, even if he waited for an hour past the appointed time. It would be a game for her, a final dig before the big one, where the judge would tell him how much he would have to