Page 55 of For Fox Sake

It’s only been twenty minutes since I found her on my porch and she’s already smacked me upside the head, burst into tears, hugged me for five minutes straight, inspected the contents of my kitchen, and made us two mugs of chamomile tea.

“Well, you weren’t returning my calls so of course I did. You just freaking took off. I’ve had so much work to do at the camp, I would have been here sooner but I had to make sure everything was covered before I just bailed because not all of us have that luxury.” She smacks me in the shoulder.

“Would you stop hitting me?”

She hits me again. “When you stop deserving it. That one was from Oliver. He said to tell you he wasted three whole days trying to find you and Carson wasted one day, not because he’s smarter than Oliver, but because he’s just as ridiculous as you, which is to be taken as the insult it is.”

I rest my head back against the couch. “I deserve much worse.”

She lifts her mug to her lips, blowing on it before taking a sip. “Now tell me everything. Start with the reason you didn’t leave me a note.”

“I left a note.”

She gives me the side eye. “The Post-it that fell on the floor and got kicked under the fridge does not count as a note. We just found it a few days ago.”

I set my cup of tea on the coffee table. “I didn’t know that would happen. I didn’t want you to try and convince me to stay or talk me out of it or come with me. I had to do this myself.”

“You can make your own decisions, Jake, but for god’s sake tell someone where you are. You can be a man who stands on his own and still inform the people who care about you. To their face.”

I wince.

“Now.” She takes a breath in and out. “Who was the woman you were making out with?”

“You saw that?”

She nods. “I watched your truck pull up and park across the street. I approached, thinking you would see me, but then realized what was happening and quickly retreated.”

“That’s Ryan.”

She stares at me blankly. “Ryan?”

“The person who was writing Dad those letters.”

She blinks rapidly. “Wait. What?”

“Oliver didn’t tell you?”

She groans. “I’m going to kill that man. But you first. Go.”

I tell her everything, going back to over a year ago when I hired the PI and figured out where the letters were coming from. I explain how the PI found the obituary for Mia, and how Ryan was listed as her surviving sibling. How I spent months checking and waiting for a job to open up locally and striking pay dirt when it finally happened at the hospital where Mia worked, and the rental was also available for an extended time.

I detail all my theories, and how I was able to negate some of the more obvious ones, like the DNA test. I describe little Ari, Mia’s daughter. Then I explain what I discovered about the heart transplant and how I just tonight dropped the bomb on Ryan about why I was really there and what brought me to Dull.

“Did Dad ever mention anything about the heart donation?”

She shakes her head slowly back and forth, confusion marring her brow. “I had no idea. Why didn’t he tell us?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

She stares blankly at the coffee table, and I wait, letting her process everything.

After a minute, she speaks. “I can’t believe Aria’s heart was donated to someone, and we didn’t know. Dad received letters from her, and he never said anything. Why wouldn’t he say something?”

“It’s my fault. I would never let him talk about... anything.”

She rubs my arm. “It’s not your fault. He could have told me or Mindy, and we could have told you when you were ready.”

“He was also dying of cancer and had other things to think about.”

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