Page 32 of Home Town

“No!” she said cutting him off. “Then they’ll know I lost it. I have to find it before anyone notices it’s missing.”

“That’s what I’m saying. Maybe it’s not missing. Just moved. At least let me call my mom and ask her.”

Josie cringed, looking so miserable he backpedaled.

“Fine. We’ll take a good thorough look here now, but if we don’t find it, then I’m going to call Mom. Okay?” he asked.

She pressed her lips tightly together. “Okay, but you have to tell her not to tell anyone else.”

He shook his head. “Josie?—”

“Corey! This is my reputation on the line. They entrusted me with the keys and with this priceless irreplaceable object and now, the day after I was in here with it, it’s missing.”

He wanted to reiterate it might not be missing, just moved, but getting a word in edgewise when Josie was on a roll was nearly impossible.

“It’s your reputation on the line too,” she spat. “I would think you wouldn’t be any more enthusiastic about being connected to this than I am.”

Frowning, he asked, “What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t exactly have a pristine reputation back in the day. And you had the keys as much, if not more, than me.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you seriously accusing me of stealing this thing you’re looking for?”

“No. But other people might.”

“Because…” he prompted.

“Uh, are we forgetting that little joyride you took in that old truck you stole from Morgan Farm?”

“I was fifteen! And it wasn’t a truck. It was a tractor.”

“It still ended with you at the police station and your father having to leave work to come get you out. We could hear him screaming at you from our house.”

He’d do anything to hear his father yell at him again now. But yeah, back then, it had been pretty bad. He’d been grounded, not that that mattered. He’d learned how to climb out his window years before. That trellis and the porch roof outside his bedroom might as well have been a ladder straight to freedom.

He couldn’t navigate around the two-page list of extra chores that were his additional punishment. Those he had to actually do. Of course back then, when he didn’t give a shit about anything or anybody, he did the bare minimum. Painted the garage like shit, leaving a mess of splatter on the trim and spills on the ground. Weeding the garden hadn’t gone much better. He probably pulled out as many of his mother’s plants and flowers as he did weeds.

The one assignment though, that he spend an hour a week reading to the veterans in the old age home, that one he couldn’t phone in. God knows he tried. He pouted his way through the first couple of weeks. Until he realized the old guy looked forward to his visits and to the dumb book the old dude had asked him to read.

He actually hadn’t stopped going when his punishment was up. He continued through a second book. Or at least part of it, until that day he arrived and the front desk told him his friend had passed away.

Corey let out a breath as the memory of that still hurt deep inside. Or maybe it just brought up the fresher feelings he’d been tamping down since more recent losses.

He glanced up to find Josie staring. Waiting.

“Well? Are you going to report this and be the kid who had detention for nearly all of eleventh and twelfth grade and who is now associated with a missing priceless object that means more to this town than anything else? Or are you going to help me look?” she demanded.

So maybe he had gotten in trouble a lot from about the time he was twelve, coincidentally—or maybe not so much—from right after his grandfather, a guiding force in his life, had passed.

And yeah, he’d gotten away with even more than he’d gotten caught doing, which did on occasion include stealing. But not priceless antique artifacts for God’s sake!

He wasn’t a kid anymore. He was a grown man with a career and morals and… the town might not see it the same way.

Josie could very well be right. He couldn’t risk it.

Maybe they did need to do everything they could to find this damn thing before the historical society found out about it.

“Yes. Fine. I’ll help you look.”

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