Chapter 6

6

Uptown, New Orleans, Louisiana

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 7:30 P.M.

"THANK YOU, DRAKE," ALAN TOLD his driver as he got out of the town car. "I'll see you in the morning."

"You sure, Reverend Beauchamp?" Drake had been Alan's driver long before the macular degeneration had curtailed his driving, and Drake knew that he often had late-night appointments with parishioners in crisis. "I can stick around."

"No need. You can take the rest of the night off. I'm planning to stay in."

Lie. He was planning to silence Medford Hughes, but he couldn't have any of his staff tracking his movements. He needed to establish an alibi. He was also aware of the time quickly ticking away.

Medford could be talking to the cops right now. But Alan had to do this right. There could be no trail. He'd involve no one else. He'd do this himself.

Two men can keep a secret if one of them is dead.

That was just a fact.

He climbed the stairs to his bedroom, smelling the dinner Cook had left for him in the oven. But the thought of food made him sick. He was stressed and…scared.

Yes, he was scared.

He'd been prepared for this all those years ago. Prepared for the cops to knock on his door. He'd had an escape plan, fake passports, foreign currency.

But the fake passports had long expired. And now people would recognize him, no matter where in the world he tried to hide. Like Sage, his face was on billboards and in ads on the television.

So he'd have to make sure the cops never knocked on his door.

Medford would be the fall guy. It was the best choice.

Quietly he entered the bedroom he'd shared with his wife Lexy for the past eighteen years. They'd been happy together, for the most part. Lexy didn't know his secrets.

Not like Anna had. His first wife hadn't even known the worst of the things he'd done. Still, she'd left him. Violently and permanently.

He pushed the memory aside. He didn't need the distraction. He needed to be focused.

He went into the massive closet that held his suits. So many suits. So many shoes. But they provided a necessary armor for the man he'd become.

He changed out of the suit he'd worn that day and into a pair of black jeans and a plain black sweater. They'd be burned later.

He packed a gym bag with a change of clothes, and then, checking to ensure that he was still alone, he went down the hall to his home office, where he locked the door behind him. He moved to the massive bookcase that held all his reference books and pulled at a hinged shelving unit. It had been custom made by the home's original owner, who must have also had his secrets.

Alan had discovered the little alcove quite by accident when he'd first bought the house. He'd never told a soul of its existence.

The shelf swung wide, revealing his personal safe. He knew exactly what it contained and it took him only moments to twist the dial. One-zero-fifteen. October 15. The date his life changed forever.

He reached just inside the safe, taking the gloves that he kept there. He pulled them on, then reached deeper into the safe, bypassing the photographs and stacks of cash to grab the gun and the silencer that were stored at the very back. The gun had been hidden in this safe for twenty-three years. He cleaned it once a year, religiously, but he hadn't fired it since that awful night.

One-zero-fifteen.

He checked the chamber and made sure the magazine was filled with bullets before slipping the gun and the silencer into one of his pockets. He contemplated his other guns, then chose a second pistol, an unregistered Glock. He put it in his other pocket. Just in case he needed to shoot someone that he didn't want tied to the remains of Jack Elliot via a ballistics report.

He hoped that "someone" wouldn't include Jack's daughter, but if Cora continued to poke into things that needed to stay buried…The consequences of her actions would be on her own head.

He closed the safe and replaced the shelving unit.

His last stop was Sage's old bedroom, where a few of his grandson's clothes still hung in his closet. This included the black hoodie that Alan borrowed whenever he needed to meet with someone discreetly.

"Alan?"

Alan wheeled around, startled. Lexy stood in the doorway, her brows furrowed. "You scared me," he huffed, pressing a hand to his heart. The guns weighed heavy in his jacket, but the hoodie in his hands would hide any evidence of his overstuffed pockets.

"Are you all right?" Lexy asked. "You look pale, dear."

"I'm fine," he assured her. "I need to do an emergency visit tonight. You should have dinner without me."

Disappointment flickered across her features. She was a beautiful woman, still young. Eighteen years his junior. She'd been twenty-five when they'd met, the same age that Sage was now.

Alan knew she'd married him for his money, but she'd been faithful to him. She'd never cheated. Which he knew because he had a PI on retainer who made sure Lexy remained the sweet, beautiful, submissive wife that Alan needed her to be.

"Okay," she said quietly. "I'll make you a plate and leave it in the fridge. Do you want me to call Drake to bring the car around?"

"No. I'd planned to stay in tonight, so I told him to take the night off. This call just came in. I'll call an Uber."

"I understand. Be careful out there."

"I will. I promise."

When she was gone, he put the hoodie on and zipped it up, camouflaging the guns in his pockets. One more stop to make before he was ready to confront Medford.

He called an Uber, putting in the closest hotel as his pickup point, then walked down the street and past the gated entrance to his community, waving to the security guard on duty. He often walked around his neighborhood in the dark. The guard ensured it was completely safe to do so. But sometimes, when Alan needed to clear his head, he left the community behind, walking the streets of Uptown. That he was doing so tonight would raise no suspicions with the guard.

The night was brisk, cooling his overheated skin. Sweat beaded on his forehead, trickled down his spine. His mind was all tangled around what he was about to do. It had been the same that night twenty-three years ago. Like then, he had no choice. No good choice, anyway.

He made it to the hotel, a headache brewing behind his eyes. Light hurt more every day, especially the headlights from cars.

He was relieved when the Uber pulled up. The driver was young and more interested in the music he had softly playing than the older man in his back seat. Which was fine with Alan.

Within minutes, he'd been dropped off at the Xavier University campus, where he could get lost in the foot traffic. He walked a few blocks to the storage unit he'd rented in the name of a relative he hadn't seen in years. She had no use for the cars he kept there.

Alan, on the other hand, sometimes needed to go places that he didn't want his driver—or anyone else—to know about. He kept a delivery-style van and a common black sedan in the storage unit. His compromised eyesight made it harder to drive now, but he had his special glasses to reduce the glare and he didn't have to go too far.

He had an appointment with Medford Hughes.

The Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 7:40 P.M.

Holy fucking shit.

Sage ripped his gaze from Cora Winslow's house to stare at the camera feed on his phone. He hadn't expected to hit pay dirt this fast, but his phone had beeped, notifying him that the cameras in Alan's office had been triggered.

And now his grandfather was opening a secret safe. A secret safe , for God's sake. In the wall. Behind a hinged shelf.

Sage had never known it existed. That any of it had existed.

And from it, his grandfather was pulling a gun.

And a silencer. What the hell?

And a second gun.

The old man had guns ? Really? Sage had never known that. He'd never seen a single gun in the entire house growing up.

"I just wasn't looking in the right place," he muttered.

Now he knew exactly where to look.

As his grandfather closed the safe and spun the dial, Sage wondered exactly what else was in the damn safe, and how he was going to break into it. It appeared to be an old-fashioned model. No electronic components whatsoever.

That was both good and bad.

Good, in that he could try an unlimited number of combinations without setting off any alarms. His grandfather hadn't pressed any buttons, hadn't disabled any security systems. He hadn't done anything more than lock his office door.

No electronics meant there were no wires to trip or sensors to set off.

But the bad news was that there were a lot of possible combinations. Hopefully, his grandfather had set his combination with numbers that had personal meaning, because the cameras Sage had planted weren't at the right angle to see the numbers to which the dial had been spun.

He could plant another camera, one that would catch the combination. That was the best plan, because he could be trying random combinations until the end of time and not hit the right one.

Or he could do both. Install another camera if he couldn't figure out the combination. He'd try numbers that represented meaningful events in his grandfather's life. The old man's birthday. The birthdays of his first and second wives. Of his three children.

Sage remembered his own father's birthday, of course, but he didn't know the birthdays for his father's siblings. Uncle Walton was in the army and had been since Sage had been a baby. Sage could count on one hand the number of times the man had come home for any reason.

They weren't close.

His aunt Jennifer was an even worse case. He had no recollection of ever meeting her. She was in a mental hospital somewhere and had been for years. He'd once overheard one of the kitchen staff saying that she'd had a psychotic break after a drug overdose and had to be committed. To his knowledge, no one in the family ever visited her. Not even his grandfather. Sage had no idea in which year she'd been born, much less the actual date.

Everyone had seemed to have forgotten her. There were no photographs of Aunt Jennifer in the house. Not a single one.

And, now that Sage was thinking about it, that was weird.

There were photos of his grandfather's first wife in the study, but nowhere else in the house because it bothered Lexy, the second wife. But photos of his actual grandmother did exist.

None of his aunt, though.

Frowning, he put his phone away. He needed to compile all of the dates that might be important, and that included the birth date of the daughter no one discussed.

He wondered if his mother knew but ditched that thought right away. They'd had words the last time they'd talked, which had been on his eighteenth birthday. Seven years ago now. Their words had been angry, filled with the kinds of things that were hard to take back. On both their sides. She didn't approve of Alan, and Sage knew she wouldn't approve of him were she to know what Sage did for a living. His mother would have to be a last resort.

He'd try to find out about Aunt Jennifer on his own first. And if none of the other combos worked, he'd plant another camera.

Sage checked the clock. He'd need to wait until tomorrow. There were four guards that staffed the little guardhouse at the entrance to the gated community where Alan lived, and three of them normally kept regular shifts. The fourth was a backup or covered vacations.

Luckily for Sage, they were paid by the community and not by Alan, so they had no particular loyalty to his grandfather—at least no more so than to the rest of the neighbors. The guard who'd been on duty when Sage had gone by that afternoon disliked Alan because he was a televangelist and "bamboozled widows out of their money," which was pretty much true. But the guy liked Sage and would turn the other way whenever Sage entered, allowing Sage to come and go as he pleased. It didn't hurt that Sage tipped him frequently and well and had since he'd been a rebellious teenager with too much money, time, and anger.

Unfortunately, the shift change had already occurred. The next guard hated Sage and thought he was a spoiled rich-kid punk.

Which was also pretty much true.

The nasty guard would always make sure that Alan knew Sage had entered the gate at the community's entrance. Sage couldn't just sneak in.

Sage could claim to be visiting Lexy, but that wouldn't be believed, either. He and his stepgrandmother tolerated each other at best.

So he'd bide his time and wait for a better moment to go back to his grandfather's study. He'd attempt to open the safe and would definitely plant more cameras.

In the meantime, he'd continue to watch Cora Winslow's house. She was in there, along with several members of Burke Broussard's staff.

He could no longer track her, which sucked. Broussard's people had found the bug and tracker he'd slipped into her purse on the first night he'd broken in, the day after her father's body had been identified, his picture on the TV news. Sage hadn't known that at the time, of course. Alan had simply instructed him to find out who she was and what she was doing. Sage had done the research and connected some dots.

And then he'd gotten curious, because there were a lot of dots he couldn't connect. Not yet. He'd stayed in her house that first time only long enough to bug her handbag because he knew she had a dog. But the bug allowed him to discover her habits, chart her movements. The next three times he'd broken in had been when she'd been at work. The dog had never even noticed him, sleeping the entire time. It had made Sage too comfortable, which had gotten him into trouble the next time he'd broken in at night. The dog had started barking, waking Cora, who'd come down to investigate.

So he'd gone back to daytime incursions. But only once more. He couldn't go back again. Now she knew someone had been there when she'd been at work.

Now she had PIs working for her, dammit. Sage had planted a dozen of the bugs and Broussard's people had found every single one. One of the guys had replaced the locks on the doors, too. Sage had seen him on one of the upstairs balconies, fooling with the new lock until he'd gotten it right.

For all Sage's searching, though, he'd found nothing to explain why his grandfather cared so much about this one woman.

So Sage was back to old-fashioned surveillance. He'd wait and watch.

The Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 7:45 P.M.

Cora shook her head—not in denial, Phin thought, but in confusion. "But there's nothing important in any of those letters supposedly written by my father," she said. "They talked about his life and occasionally mentioned something I posted on social media. Said I looked pretty in my prom dress. Stuff like that. Once, not too long after he left, he mentioned my Christmas dress, which was green. I thought that meant he was close by, that maybe he was coming home. But of course he didn't." She frowned. "Why even send me letters at all? Why make me think he was alive for twenty-three years? Why would someone be so cruel?" Then it seemed to click, and her eyes went wide. "Oh my God. It was so we wouldn't go looking for him."

That Cora's father's killer hadn't wanted anyone to go looking for Jack Elliot was something that Phin had thought obvious from the beginning. That the notion had only just occurred to Cora had to be rooted in her grief, because she was a highly intelligent woman. Any other time and she would have figured this out long ago. But she'd just lost a parent, even one she'd thought had abandoned her. Coming on the heels of losing her brother and her grandmother…

Poor Cora.

Everyone wore expressions of sympathy, but no one besides Cora was surprised.

Cora sighed. "And you all thought of that already. Because why wouldn't you? It's crystal clear. Now I feel even more foolish than I did before."

"No feeling foolish," Molly said firmly. "You haven't been exactly able to think clearly about all this, and that's why we're here to help. The fact is, someone knew that if you thought your father was still alive, you wouldn't get the police involved. Your mother wouldn't have reported a disappearance back then. Nobody in law enforcement would care about a man who left his wife and children. There would be no suspicion of foul play. No murder investigation. So now we have to ask why. Someone didn't want you or your mother looking for your father. What did he do for a living?"

"He was an accountant." Cora squared her shoulders and folded her hands on the table, but not before Phin saw them tremble. "He had his own company. He did Grandmother's books and those of her circle of friends. I remember all the ladies grumbling when he left, that now they had to find new accountants." Her jaw tightened. "I remember wanting to scream at them because my mother was crying every night and all they could talk about was what a pain it would be to find new help."

Molly and Burke shared a meaningful glance that seemed to irritate Cora.

"Spit it out," she said tersely. "You think my father was doing something illegal? Working for someone shady? That his murder was his fault?"

Molly held up her hands. "Whoa. I didn't say any of that. Although that is certainly a possibility. It's also possible that your father stumbled onto something one of his clients was doing that was illegal, something that he'd planned to report, and that's what got him killed. We don't know, Cora, but we're going to try our hardest to find out. We're on your side here."

Cora's shoulders sagged. "I'm sorry. I know you're right. I'm not usually this…unstable. How can I help you get the information you need?"

"Where did he work?" Burke asked. "Did he have an office in town?"

"No," Cora said. "He worked here. The office upstairs was originally his. Mom kept it intact for a few years, but then she converted it to her craft room." Her smile turned wistful. "So much yarn. John Robert took the room over after she died. We donated all her yarn."

Burke perked up. "When you say she left it intact, does that mean she kept his client files?"

Cora frowned. "I remember watching her making copies of what was on his computer shortly after he left. She inserted disk after disk into his computer, crying all the while. She'd made two stacks of disks and I asked what they were for. She said that one of the stacks was for my father's clients. They needed their records because soon it would be time to do their taxes and my father wouldn't be there to do them." She dropped her gaze to her folded hands. "I told Mama to stop. That my daddy would be back. That he was coming back."

"What did she say?" Phin asked softly.

She glanced up at him, her eyes full of remembered pain. "She stopped what she was doing and told me that she was sure my father would never stop loving me, but that he was gone. That he had a new family. That I'd have to get used to us being alone, but that she'd never leave me." She swallowed. "She never did. Not until she died."

"How did she die?" Molly asked. "And when?"

Cora looked startled for a moment before understanding crossed her features. "It wasn't foul play. She had a heart attack ten years ago. Mama was a physical therapist. She went back for her degree after my father left. That's how she supported us. Grandmother helped, but Mama made sure we never went without." She cleared her throat. "That's also how she met Joy. She did Joy's PT after Joy was injured on the job. She'd sometimes take us to work with her, me and John Robert. Usually when my grandmother had a committee meeting. Grandmother was on the board of St. Charles School for Girls."

Even Phin had heard of the school. Politicians, celebrities, and the city's wealthy sent their daughters there.

Burke whistled. "That's prestigious."

Cora nodded. "It is. Grandmother went there, as did my mother. I went there and Tandy did, too. Later, Joy's daughters attended with us."

"You met Joy's daughters through her PT sessions?" Antoine asked.

"I did. John Robert and I would do our homework in the outer office while Mama worked with clients in private. Joy was also a single mother and asked if she could bring her kids to do their homework with us. Mom said yes, of course." A smile flitted over Cora's face. "Friendships were born. Nala was the same age as Tandy and me. Joy's son Wayne was John Robert's age. Once Joy was through her PT, she got her CPA license and Mama would funnel clients her way. Folks who'd hired my father and who hadn't yet found a new accountant they liked. Joy did CPA work until she started working with you guys."

"Small world," Molly murmured.

"Indeed," Cora agreed. "Back to your question, I don't know if Mama kept my father's records, but we still have that computer somewhere. It's super old, of course. I don't think there are any of my father's client files still on it, but you're welcome to look. It should still be in the attic."

Antoine lit up at the thought. "I'll take a look."

Burke shook his head. "Hold on, Antoine. Cora, was your mother as thorough and organized as you are?"

"Not really. Sometimes, when it was necessary. Like, with the client files she copied for Grandmother and her friends. But not usually. She'd pack everything in boxes, all willy-nilly, and never labeled them. She'd always mean to but would get distracted. That drove me crazy when I got older, and I'd go behind her and write on the boxes. But not after my father left. I was too young then. One day I came home from school and everything in my father's office was gone. Mama said she'd put it all in the attic, and for me to leave it be. Grandmother told her that she should have thrown it all away, but Mama said she wasn't ready yet. Why?"

"Because she told you one of the stacks was for the clients," Burke answered. "Maybe she kept the other stack for herself. Just in case. We'd like to search for anything she might have kept."

Cora gestured in the general direction of the stairs. "Let's go."

"Hold on just a minute," Phin said. Cora hadn't eaten more than half a cracker. "Antoine, you know the way to the attic, right?"

Antoine nodded. "Scanned it for bugs."

"Then get started searching. Cora hasn't eaten since that sandwich at Burke's house."

Molly's lips twitched. "You taking over for Joy, Phin? Feeding everyone?" But the question was asked so sweetly that Phin didn't take offense.

"Someone's got to."

Molly held up her fingers, counting. "We have shrimp and grits, shrimp étouffée, gumbo, and some fried fish. What would you like?"

Cora grimaced. "Um, I'm allergic to shellfish. Like…super allergic. I'm not great with fish, either. I have an EpiPen. Sorry."

Molly exhaled. "Well, shoot. I didn't know that. Everything I brought tonight might kill you. How have you lived in New Orleans all these years and not keeled over dead?"

"I'm very, very careful and I don't eat out often. Last time I accidentally ate some shrimp, I ended up in the ER. Not fun."

Phin pointed to the cheese and fruit platter. "Eat some of that while I fry you an egg."

Anything more than that was beyond his skill set.

Molly rose. "Cora, I'm to be your bodyguard, if you're okay with that. For now, Phin's got you. I'm going up to help Antoine search."

Cora sighed. "Thank you. I want to say I don't need the help, but I do."

Something they had in common, Phin thought as he glanced down at his dog. He didn't want to need the help, but he did.

The difference was that when this was over, Cora could continue independently, but Phin would still be dependent on SodaPop.

Swallowing his own sigh, he got up to find a frying pan. If keeping Cora fed was to be his contribution, he'd do one hell of a job.

The Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 8:15 P.M.

Alone in the kitchen with Phin and the two dogs, Cora watched the man standing at her stove, frying her an egg. Affection squeezed at her heart. He was sweet.

And he looked good standing at her stove.

You're perving on his ass.

Yes, she was. After a years-long dry spell, she felt relief that she was interested at all. She'd thought she'd lost that spark.

Turned out she hadn't had the right man standing at her stove, frying her an egg.

"What were you doing under my sink?" she asked after eating more cheese and fruit. She was hungry and Tandy was right. If she let herself get too hungry, Cora became downright unpleasant.

He glanced over his shoulder. "Leaky pipe."

She sighed. "I've been meaning to fix that."

"You do your own repair work?"

"Small things, yes. Something's always breaking in this old house. If I hired a handyman every time, I'd be broke. YouTube is my best friend."

He laughed. "I thought Tandy was your best friend."

She made a hem-hawing sound. "There are times that it's a toss-up. Seriously, she is my best friend and has been since the third grade. She is appalled at the thought of climbing under a sink, though. She lives in a brand-new apartment that comes with a maintenance crew, which makes her very happy."

Phin moved around her kitchen easily, his dog watching him. "I thought that the folks who lived in this neighborhood were swimming in cash. I've worked on a few of their houses. Usually friends of Burke's."

That confirmed her assumption that Burke Broussard had some funds. His house in the Quarter was huge, with an unusually large lot.

"Well, some folks here are swimming in cash. Especially the celebrities." Actors and musicians tended to flock to the Garden District. Cora had spied a few very familiar faces out and about as she'd walked to work. "But I'm not. Like I said, my grandmother left all her money in a trust to care for the house."

"What happens if you sell it?"

The very thought made her queasy. "I'd get the money from the house and what's in the trust. I've considered it, of course, but I can't make myself do it."

He slid a plate in front of her, along with a cup of coffee. The fried egg and toast smelled good and her stomach growled. The scent of the coffee was too good to be true.

"Sorry it's not fancier," he said. "I can cook—kind of—but I don't do it often." He took the seat beside her and motioned for her to eat. "I installed new locks on all your doors. I'll come back tomorrow and do the windows. For tonight, the alarm system and Molly will keep you safe."

She swallowed the bite she'd been chewing. "I wish I knew what the infamous ‘they' were looking for. Part of me wishes they'd just found it so they'd leave me alone. Not proud of that, but if I'm honest…"

"I get it. You're not going to feel safe in your home now, and that sucks." He glanced upward. "I don't know if whoever broke in got up to the attic. I searched enough to make sure no one was hiding there, but I imagine a thorough search would take a long time. There's a lot of stuff up there." He met her gaze, his becoming amused. "I always thought attics packed with antiques were only in the movies until I moved to New Orleans."

"All six generations of us Winslows have apparently been hoarders. I need to get up there and clean it out. I'm betting there are some antiques I could sell that would pay for some of the upkeep."

"Undoubtedly." He glanced up again, wistfully this time.

It didn't take a genius to know that he wished he were up there searching through the antiques, too. She finished off the meal quickly, wiped her mouth, then stood. "Let's go up and see what they're doing."

Phin grimaced sheepishly. "Was I that obvious?"

"You really were." She walked alongside him, aware that without her shoes, he was a good bit taller than she was. She liked that a little too much. "Are you into old furniture?"

"I am. My sister and I used to collect old, banged-up tables and chairs and fix them."

She stopped, looking up to study his face. "Used to? Is your sister…"

"Oh, she's alive and well." Discomfort flitted across his face. "I haven't seen her in a long time."

"Why not?"

He hesitated. "Delores told you that I run when I have my episodes. After that bar fight, the one where I got shot…well, I ran."

There was pain in his eyes and once again she wanted to fix it. "Why?"

He shrugged. "It was best for all of us. Or so I thought at the time. Let's go up to the attic."

Message received. Phin Bishop didn't want to talk about his family.

Cora could respect that. She changed the subject to another potentially difficult topic. "Why aren't you a bodyguard, too?"

He flinched. Then pointed to SodaPop, who was following him closer than a shadow. "I'm not predictable. I need help, even though I don't want to need it."

It appeared that the admission cost him.

She backed off that topic, too, choosing one that she thought he'd be open to. "Do you have extra time in your schedule? I have a number of repairs that I can't do on my own and I've put off way too long. I'd like to hire you, if you're interested."

A smile tilted his mouth as they reached the staircase. He rubbed one of his big hands over the banister with reverence. "Work on this old beauty? Hell, yeah. Tell me where and when you want me to start."

She started up the stairs, looking over her shoulder. He was still at the base of the stairs, admiring the hand-carved banister. She couldn't blame him. It was one of the nicer details of the house. "How about tomorrow?"

He thought about it, then nodded as he began to follow her up. "I'll talk to Burke. See what he has for me to do at the office. I do night security there, but I have a few waking hours in the daytime."

Excellent. This way he'd be here while she was at work, in case the assholes came back. If he couldn't be her bodyguard, at least he could guard the house.

He stopped abruptly. "Maybe not tomorrow. My friends are still here in town."

"Oh right. Stone and Delores." She was disappointed that he wouldn't be here while she was gone, but the new alarm would have to be enough. "Well, figure out your schedule and let me know."

"I will."

They climbed the rest of the way up in silence, the voices of the others growing louder as they reached the attic door. Cora knocked, then stuck her head inside. "It's just us. Don't shoot or anything."

Someone snorted.

"You're safe," Antoine said. "Come on in. There's room for a marching band up here."

Cora entered the attic. It was a large room with windows and window seats and everything. No ladder to a crawl space for this house.

"I loved this room as a kid," she said. "I'd come up here and read for hours."

Molly was standing in front of a wall of Tetris-packed boxes, fists on her hips. "Then you becoming a librarian makes sense. I don't even know where to start. There's so much stuff."

Cora gently nudged her out of the way, aware of Phin shadowing her, much like SodaPop shadowed him. "This row of boxes in the front are ones I packed. They're John Robert's things," she said, feeling the sting of sorrow. But a hand stroked her hair lightly. Phin, giving her comfort. It helped. "These boxes are all labeled. The ones in the next row are boxes John Robert packed. He always said he'd label the boxes ‘later,' but he ran out of time. I wrote ‘JR' on those boxes, so you can ignore those, too. My grandmother's things are in the next row, and I packed those, so they're labeled, too. Same with the row behind that. Those were my mother's things." And seeing the boxes, all lined up so tidily, made her grieve all over again. She cleared her throat. "Anything behind these boxes that isn't labeled was packed by my mother. Those will be my father's things, but they're probably mixed with other things." She sighed. "This is going to take a while."

Standing on her tiptoes, she began tugging at a box on the top row, unsurprised when Phin took the box from her hands and gently put it aside.

"I'll move them, you just tell me which pile they go in," he said.

She smiled up at him. "Thank you, Phin. That's a John Robert box. It can go in that corner over there for now."

Phin did as she directed and as a group, they began sorting six generations of Winslow stuff.