Noah had brought Trout home from Misty’s house, and the dog went into a frenzy when Josie walked through her front door. She’d been dreading coming home ever since the words “take me home” came out of her mouth. Lisette had spent many nights in their guest room. She was a regular visitor, and they’d had countless wonderful times with her in Josie and Noah’s house. Even though she had lived full-time at the nursing home, she had been with them enough that knowing she would never return made the house feel empty and sad. Trout’s frantic butt-wiggling and happy yips salved her wound a little bit. She dropped to her knees and let him lick her face. Then she rubbed his back and neck and ears, and when he flopped down and rolled over, his belly.
He followed her everywhere she went, even into the bathroom. When she went into the kitchen to eat some of a casserole that Misty had dropped off, he lay at her feet. She and Noah moved around one another silently, and she was glad that he didn’t feel the need to talk or make her talk. He was simply there. They climbed into bed, Trout getting between them and pawing at the covers until Josie let him under. He pressed himself against her side. Noah rolled toward her and took her hand. When he fell asleep, she put his hand back onto his side of the bed. She picked her phone up from the nightstand and flipped it on. Her message count was in the hundreds, but there was only one person whose messages Josie cared about.
Trinity had sent her all the photos of the wedding they’d taken in the hospital. Josie scrolled through them one by one, lingering on the ones of herself and Noah standing beside Lisette’s bed. The look of pure joy on Lisette’s face was startling. There was one of Josie and Noah gazing at one another, that instant of happiness and delight after they’d made up their vows on the fly since the ones they’d written months ago were somewhere in a room at Harper’s Peak. Behind them, Lisette grinned. There was one with Sawyer in the frame that gave Josie a jolt. He looked so much like his biological father, Eli Matson, it nearly took Josie’s breath away. She’d seen the resemblance before, but it had never seemed so stark.
Why not? she wondered. She’d seen him plenty of times. She’d seen him several times before she knew who he was, and it had never crossed her mind that he resembled Eli or Lisette in any way. Of course, Lisette always said that both Eli and Sawyer looked more like her late husband than her.
Trout groaned when Josie threw off the covers and sprang out of bed. She tucked him back in and went downstairs. On a bookshelf in the living room, she and Noah had put several of their family albums. Josie found an old one that Lisette had given her years earlier. It was filled with photos of Lisette as a young woman, a wife and mother. There were photos of Eli growing up which Josie had often delighted in. She’d shared this album with Sawyer the first few times he had come over for dinner. He loved this album. She should make a copy of it. She should have done so ages ago. Josie flipped the pages until she found Lisette’s wedding photo. Even then, Lisette’s curls had been bouncy and unruly but brown, not gray. Her skin was unwrinkled and supple, and her smile was infectious. Her husband, Josie and Sawyer’s grandfather, who had died long before either Josie or Sawyer came along, stood beside her. He had a more serious air about him. Lisette always said he was stoic. But in the photo, his lips curled into a bright smile. His face seemed to say, “Look at this incredible woman who agreed to marry me! Can you believe it?”
He looked just like Josie remembered Eli. Just like Sawyer.
“Shit,” she mumbled.
She left the album out, so she’d remember to make Sawyer a copy of it and went to the kitchen. Her laptop was on the table. She turned it on and waited as it booted up. From upstairs came the sounds of dueling snores: Trout and Noah. Often, Noah would wake up if she got up in the middle of the night, but she knew the last few days had taken a toll on him. He would probably sleep through anything right about now.
Josie pulled up her internet browser and typed in the search terms. It took several minutes and four different websites to find what she was looking for: a wedding announcement and photo from eighteen years ago.
“Son of a bitch,” she said, and went upstairs to get dressed.
Forty
Josie tried to be as quiet as she could, but it didn’t matter. As she suspected, Noah was completely passed out. After throwing on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and jacket, she left him a note. Trout’s head popped up as she left it on Noah’s nightstand, but when she assured him he was a good boy and told him to go back to sleep, he stuck his head back under the covers. Downstairs, she went into the garage and found a bin of old hunting, camping, and fishing stuff the two of them had accumulated over the years. Most of it was Noah’s but when their old Chief, Wayland Harris, had died almost six years ago, his wife had given Josie a box of things from his office, including some of his hunting gear which he had found useful on occasion while on the job. Josie found one of Noah’s flashlights and Chief Harris’s night vision goggles. She changed the dead batteries in both and tucked them into her pockets.
In the car, she took her cell phone and quickly checked for messages from
