Homecoming
“The hell are you doing back here?”
I stopped outside the diner with one hand still on the door.
Marlene stood behind the counter, coffee pot tilted over a mug. Her eyes dropped to my rental car, then returned to my face.
“Hello to you too.”
“You look like your father when he was about to arrest somebody.” She set the pot down. “Only meaner.”
“I’m touched.”
“Your grandmother know you’re here?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?” Marlene came around the counter and hugged me before I could stop her. She smelled like cinnamon, bleach, and the same rose perfume she’d worn when I was sixteen. “Eight years, Wren. Eight years and you come back looking like you’re waiting for someone to shoot at you.”
“I’m writing a piece about the town.”
“Since when do you write?”
“Since people started asking fewer questions when I say I do.”
Marlene pulled away. Her smile faded.
“You here because of Rhett?”
The name landed harder than it should have. I reached for the mug she’d poured and burned my fingers against the handle.
“I’m here for the town.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“I heard you.”
Outside, a motorcycle roared down Main Street. The sound rattled the silverware in its holder. Marlene glanced toward the window.
“That’ll be one of the Sons,” she said.
I looked too.
Across the street, a man stepped out of the open garage bay, wiping black grease across a red shop rag. Short dark hair. Broad shoulders. Black vest.
Rhett Calloway lifted his head.
The rag slipped from his hand.
Marlene’s voice dropped behind me.
“Well,” she whispered. “Looks like the town answered for you.”
I turned away first.
“Coffee,” Marlene called after me.
“Keep it.”
“Still hate it black?”
“Still hate being predictable.”
“That makes one of us.”
The bell clanged above the door as I escaped into the afternoon heat.
Eight years ago, I had left Ashwood Falls with a duffel bag, a bruised heart, and Eli’s funeral program folded inside my coat pocket. I hadn’t planned to come back. Then Marcus Doyle had placed a manila file on his desk and slid it toward me.
CALLOWAY, RHETT.
“Your history gives you access,” he’d said.
“My history gives me a conflict.”
“It gives you an opening.”
Now the file sat on the passenger seat of my rental car, thick with photographs, transaction records, and allegations. The cover page called Rhett dangerous.
The man across the street had just crouched to scratch a stray dog under the chin.
I hated the file for making that look suspicious.
Calloway’s Garage occupied the dead end of Fir Street, where the road turned to gravel and the forest crowded close. The sign above the office door had been repainted. The two bay doors stood open. A young mechanic leaned over an engine while music played from a battered radio.
Rhett disappeared inside.
I parked across the street.
My phone buzzed.
Doyle: Call when you arrive. Establish contact today.
I turned the screen facedown.
The garage’s office window reflected my face: auburn hair twisted into a work bun, gray-blue eyes, the faint scar through my eyebrow. I looked like someone who belonged in a federal field office. I looked nothing like the girl who used to sit on Rhett’s motorcycle tank with her knees pressed against his ribs.
The bay door rattled.
Rhett stepped out again.
He saw my car.
This time, he didn’t pretend he hadn’t.
I reached for the ignition. My fingers missed the key.
Rhett crossed the street.
He wore a gray T-shirt beneath the cut, the fabric stretched across his chest. A smear of grease marked his forearm. The tattoo I remembered—a black raven near his wrist—had been joined by several others.
He stopped beside my window.
I lowered it halfway.
“Wren.”
“Rhett.”
His gaze moved over my face, paused at my mouth, then returned to my eyes.
“You planning to sit there all day?”
“I was deciding whether the garage was open.”
“The doors are open.”
“I noticed.”
“Then you’re doing well.”
His mouth almost curved.
The familiar almost-smile hit worse than the sight of him.
“Still charming,” I said.
“Still lying?”
My hand tightened around the steering wheel.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” He leaned one arm against the roof of the car. “Marlene says you’re writing a magazine piece.”
“I am.”
“What magazine?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Convenient.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Only if you plan to use my name in it.”
“I haven’t asked you anything.”
“You haven’t needed to.” His eyes dropped to the file on the passenger seat. “That folder has been shouting across the street since you arrived.”
Heat crawled up my neck.
“You recognized the file from twenty yards away?”
“I recognized the way you keep your hands when you’re hiding something.”
He was close enough for me to smell soap beneath the grease.
My pulse stumbled.
“People change,” I said.
“Some do.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“It means you came back wearing a stranger’s story.”
I pushed open the door.
Rhett stepped back, but not far enough. My shoulder brushed his chest as I climbed out. The contact lasted less than a second.
It still burned through me.
His eyes darkened.
“Careful,” he murmured.
“About what?”
“Getting close to things you already decided were dangerous.”
The air between us tightened.
I lifted my chin. “I have questions about Eli.”
His expression shut down so quickly it frightened me.
“Ask them.”
“Here?”
“After close.”
“You’ll answer?”
“What I can.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re not the only person in this town with secrets.”
He stepped away. The loss of his heat made the afternoon feel colder.
My phone buzzed again.
Doyle: Sinclair. Respond.
Rhett’s gaze flicked to the screen.
“Your editor?”
“Something like that.”
“Of course.”
He turned toward the garage.
“Rhett.”
He stopped.
“Did you kill my brother?”
The young mechanic inside the bay went still.
Rhett looked over his shoulder.
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Then he walked away.
I stood beside the rental car while the garage swallowed him, the question still hanging between us and the first lie—or truth—I had heard since coming home.
