“Is something –?”

Tate glanced at his son to see his face pale in the lights of the dash and his eyes glued to his father.

“Everything’ll be okay,” he assured Jonas but Tate’s chest was tight, so f**king tight he was finding it hard to breathe. He hit the button for Laurie, looked to the road, put the phone to his ear and repeated, “Everything’ll be okay.”

* * * * *

“Stand right there, Jonas, don’t move, yeah?” Tate ordered his son, Jonas nodded and Tate turned away and stood a moment, taking in every nuance of the house.

Lights on in the kitchen, the living room, on the Christmas tree, the Christmas lights lit outside. Candles burning, the scent of pine. Christmas music playing. Laurie had loads of Christmas CDs, some compilations she’d burned. Now it was Bing Crosby and David Bowie, Peace on Earth. One of Laurie’s favorites, he’d noted she always teared up when that song played. She loved it. When he’d asked, she said it reminded her of home. It was her sister and mother’s favorite Christmas song too.

The kitchen was empty. Laurie was almost always in the kitchen. Making herself a drink, getting one for him or Jonas. Cooking. Baking. Sitting at the island and scratching out a grocery list; tapping on her laptop e-mails to friends and family or checking her Facebook page; talking with her mother, sister, Betty, Sunny, Wendy, Amber, Twyla, Krys even though she spent hours with them working she could talk for hours with them on the phone, a cup of peppermint tea in front of her, cackling like a lunatic (even with Krys). It was her zone and not only because she used it to take care of her family but it was the center of the house. She used it as her vantage point to keep her finger on her boys. No matter where they were, from the kitchen, she could hear them or see them. That was why he spent a f**king fortune fixing it up for her. If she was going to spend that amount of time in it, she was going to have the best f**king kitchen money could buy. So he’d made that so.

But she wasn’t there now and her cell phone sat on the island. She never went anywhere without her cell.

He moved through the house. The rest of it was dark and he didn’t light any lights, just looked for her even though he knew she wasn’t there. She’d call a greeting if she heard them come in, no matter where she was in the house. She always did.

He knew she wasn’t in any of those rooms because she also always turned the lights out when she left a room. Said it was because she was an environmentalist but admitted later it was because her Dad had a rule when she was growing up, lights out if you weren’t in a room. They were farmers, not rolling in it. They needed to keep the electricity bill down and, even though she’d moved onto a life where that wasn’t a worry, she’d kept doing it. Habit.

He stood in their darkened bedroom. The blinds down but opened. The Christmas lights outside illuminating the room and the picture she’d bought him hanging over the bed. The walls painted in paint she’d chosen. The bed made, the floor tidy and recently vacuumed. New framed photos on his chest of drawers. One of him and her at her birthday party, she was drunk and plastered to his side, her arms around his middle, her cheek pressed to his shoulder, his arm around her waist. He was smiling down at her, she was smiling at the camera. Another one of him and Jonas captured after one of Jonas’s football games. It was a candid. Tate had his hand on Jonas’s shoulder pad, he was looking down at him, Jonas had his helmet dangling by the faceguard from his fingertips, he was looking up at his Dad. They were both smiling. And another frame, on Tate’s nightstand, the three of them at Thanksgiving, Pop took it, Laurie in his lap, Jonas tucked to his side, Tate smiling at the camera but Jonas and Laurie were looking at each other, their faces awash with laughter.

He could smell her perfume.

She was everywhere, her presence filled every damned centimeter of the room.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

He walked back down the hall, tipping his chin up to Jonas when he saw his son’s face wore so much concern, it had already turned haggard. Tipping his chin was the only thing he could do to communicate to his son as the fear clawed at his gut. He walked down the back hall to the mudroom, down the stairs. He saw his weight equipment and remembered, just the week before, working out when she was doing something in his office. He noticed she’d come out, leaned against the doorframe at the mouth of the hall and she’d been sipping coffee and watching him.

“Sissy,” she’d teased when she caught his attention. “You should come to boot camps with me. Tyler’d kick your ass.”

Jonas had been at school so Tate had made the decision to end his workout a different way, right in the hall. She didn’t complain. She liked him sweaty.

She liked him any way she could get him.

That fear clawed deeper and his calm slipped, his eyes got blurry, his mouth got dry.

“Focus, Jackson, f**kin’ focus,” he muttered to himself, his vision cleared and he moved through the dark, silent rooms and then came back to the weight room and stood still.

No forced entry. No signs of struggle. She wasn’t out on a quick, secret errand; she’d left the candles burning.

She’d opened the door to someone she knew. She wouldn’t disarm the alarm, unlock the door and open it to someone she didn’t know. She’d learned that lesson. She’d be cautious. Unless she knew who was on the other side.

Trusted them.

There were a lot of people Laurie trusted and they all centered around one place.

As he heard the sirens approaching, he pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket, flipped it open and called Krys.

“Hey Tate,” she answered.

“Who’s there?” he asked without a greeting.

“What?”

“Who’s at the bar?” he asked.

“Why?”

“Who’s at the f**kin’ bar, Krys?” he demanded.

“Um…” she hesitated, “Izzy, Bub, Jonelle, Jim-Billy, Nadine, Steg, Stoney –”

He’d asked the wrong f**king question.

He interrupted her. “Who’s not there?”

Another brief hesitation then, “You, Laurie… um,” she paused, “Tate, I wanna get you what you need but I don’t know what –”

“One of us, who’s not there, someone Lauren would trust.”

“Dad!” Jonas shouted from upstairs, his voice strong and scared at the same time. “The cops are here!”