with the words to tell him what’s happened. I fail.
“I wanted to talk to you about your car. I got the estimate.”
I can tell from his voice it’s bad news. But worse than I almost died at the hands of a crazed Latin-speaking killer? “Is it bad?” I ask weakly.
“Very. But, Kenzie, I’m more concerned about the situation with your brakes. Don’t you read your dashboard?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why didn’t you see the warning light that said you were out of brake fluid?”
I close my eyes, picturing the dash. “There was no light.”
“There had to be,” he insists.
“Dad.” I know my own dashboard. “I never saw a warning light. What happened?”
“Can’t tell now. The accident screwed up the car enough that we can’t see how your brake line cracked or ruptured, but you leaked enough fluid to have a failure.”
I blow out a breath. “I didn’t see a warning light, Dad. How did it happen? How does that line crack?”
“You hit something, usually, or natural wear. That car has a hundred and forty-some thousand miles on it.”
“I know that.” I press my hand to my temple, a completely different kind of headache throbbing now that the gas is clear. Something is buzzing in there, nagging at me. I have to know. “Could it have happened any other way, Dad?”
He snorts. “Short of someone cutting the fluid line? No.”
Oh, God. I grab a kitchen chair for support.
“You need to get those brakes checked regularly, young lady.”
“Okay.”
“You do not want another accident.”
But I almost just had one.
“Is your mother there?”
“Not yet. She had to stay late.”
“Yeah, Mr. Hoyt had a deposition today.” It doesn’t really surprise me that he’s up on Mom’s schedule. “Listen to me,” he says gruffly. “Under no circumstances do you share this with your mother about the brake line.”
“I know she’d go ballistic, Dad, but—”
“No, Kenzie. Don’t do that to her. She’ll just worry herself sick.”
He really cares about her. This is not news, but it never fails to twist my heart and give me an extrabrutal kick of guilt and sadness. If it weren’t for Conner’s death, they’d still be together.
“She can’t handle that this week,” he adds.
“What’s this week?”
He sighs. “Just don’t tell her. And I’ll cover the cost of the bodywork on the car. We’ll work it out later.”
Without another word, he hangs up. I realize that I’m still holding my cell phone, so I push the top button to bring it back to life, instantly getting a vibration of a new text. No, not again.
But this one’s from Olivia Thayne, hottie number one.
Party at Keystone Quarry tonight. You in?
I tap back to the text list to brave another read of the Latin message, but … Damn it. There is no such message. Did I imagine that? A result of partial gas poisoning or something?
My gaze falls to the date in the corner of the phone, giving me a start. How could I have forgotten what was coming up and why Dad would be worried about Mom? The two-year anniversary of Conner’s accident is next week.
The accident that happened because he was doing me a favor.
The sound of Mom’s car door pulls me back to the moment, and I know exactly what I’m going to do tonight. Not the football game. Not the quarry party. Nope, it’s burgers, fries, a movie, and companionable silence with my mom. I owe her at least that.
CHAPTER VII
Mom’s already asked me to spend Saturday with her, which will mean a trip to Sam’s Club, also known as my personal hell in a big-box superstore. I don’t want to fight with her, especially since we made it through the night without an argument. Yes, she did a low-level flip-out over my bandaged hand. You could get MRSA! How qualified is that nurse?
But after she undid the bandage and examined the bruise, she came down from the crazy ledge and managed to relax a little. We both did, thankfully. Of course, I didn’t tell her about the gas incident. Or the car.
By the time I went to bed, I’d convinced myself of the obvious—someone accidentally knocked out the igniter plug when putting a frying pan away and I had bumped the stove dial with my backpack when I took it off. The noise I heard? The old house settling. The text? Obviously, the gas leak had played with my head, because when I looked at my phone, the text was gone. Texts don’t delete themselves.