Page 71 of The Moment They Can Never Forgive
Had her father put that handle there to keep his pickup safe? Had he been the one to lock this barn, and no one had entered since? But surely the feds had looked in here?
Bending to inspect it, Leah saw the shape of an opening. The handle was in the middle. No one would have seen this with the pickup on top.
Grabbing it, she tugged, and the door opened.
“What the hell is this, Dad?” Leah whispered, looking at the stairs now below her.
Leah pulled out her cellphone, turned on the flashlight app, and shone it down the stairs below. Why the hair on the back of her neck was suddenly standing up and she felt tense, she had no idea. It was just her in here because this time Benny was with Hudson.
Had this room always been down here? In truth, it could have been, as she and Cassie had never entered this shed. They’d had no need to. Plus, their father had told them to stay out of it.
Leah didn’t like small, dark spaces and didn’t know many people who did. But going down into one that’d been shut up for seven years didn’t rank high on her things-to-do list.
“But you can do this,” she whispered. She needed to see what was in here in case there was something she could sell. Money was important right now; she had to think of Hudson.
Taking the stairs down, Leah looked around her for any lights and found a switch on a wall. Fluorescent lights flickered on above.
“What the hell is this place?”
She saw a single long table and a safe under it. There was nothing else. No papers or things stored in here. Bending to look at the safe, she tried the door, but it was locked.
Why don’t I have a good feeling about this?Leah wondered, walking around the empty room.Maybe because if it has to do with Chuck Reynolds, none of it can be good.
“What went on in here, Dad?”Better yet, what is in that safe?
Shivering because the place felt cold and, to her, dangerous, which made no sense, Leah ran back up the stairs. After shutting the door, she then drove the pickup back onto it and covered it. She exited the barn, threw the bolt home, and went back to the house.
Tomorrow she’d deal with that. Did the federal agents who had searched this place, know that was down there? She would ring the Lyntacky Sheriff Dept and speak to Sheriff Dans in the morning. He’d know what to do about that safe.
Feeling better about making that decision, Leah headed for the tree house. “Ready for dinner, Hudson?” she called up to him.
“Okay. Can we have it out here?”
“How about we have pizza tomorrow and eat it up there?”
She managed to coax him down with the lure of chocolate for dessert. After dinner, and a bath, Leah finally had Hudson in his bed.
“I like Lyntacky,” he said after she had read him a story.
“Me too.”
“Where will Benny sleep, Aunt Leah?”
“Not sure. Where do you think he should sleep?”
His eyes went to the end of the bed, then to the dog sitting beside it, watching them talk.
“Let me find a blanket that can be especially for him, and we’ll put it on the end of your bed and see if he likes that,” Leah said.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Leah had no idea if the dog should sleep on the bottom of Hudson’s bed or not. Was that good parenting? Would the dog keep him awake? Right now, she was too tired to care, but tomorrow, she’d do some research on the subject.
“He could sleep on my blanket,” Hudson said.
“But then you can’t sleep with it,” Leah said, looking at the blanket Cassie had bought Hudson when he was a baby. “Let me take a look in the cupboard.”
