I stare at him, trying to make sense of this. I walked in on something I don’t understand and now he’s treating me like I’m in the way. All I did was find the place ransacked and destroyed.
He’s tense as he glances back at the house then over at his daughter. I don’t get what he’s doing. He needs to call the cops and explain what happened. There was a burglary here, and the cops might be able to help. He was a detective once, he should know this.
Instead, he calls Tab over and takes me to the truck. “Get in,” he says.
“Wait, Max. What are you doing?”
“Get in,” he says, his voice hard.
I listen. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the look in his eye or maybe it’s the memory of his destroyed kitchen.
He scoops up Tab and puts her back in her seat. She whines and cries, annoyed that she’s being strapped back in, and I can’t blame her. Max gets behind the wheel and pulls out, driving fast back down toward the road. We pull out and he takes me back to the manor. He parks out front, but doesn’t drive up to the house, just lingers at the gate.
“You should go,” he says. “I’m not sure I’ll be in for work on Monday.”
“Work?” I shake my head, baffled. “You need to work. I mean, you need money to fix all that damage. Max, what’s going on?”
“Daddy,” Tab whines. “Daddy, daddy, daddy.”
“It’s okay honey,” he says to her then looks at me. “Just go. You don’t need to get involved in this. I appreciate you coming out to check in on me, but—”
“Wait,” I say, my voice hard. He looks surprised. “That wasn’t some robbery. The whole house was smashed up. Some guys that just wanted to steal your TV and your cash wouldn’t have done that. This doesn’t make any sense. Did someone break in there just to smash your things?” I stare at him, heart racing wildly.
He stares back, face flat, expressionless.
“Go home,” he says. “It’s safer there.”
“You’re really not going to explain?”
“I’m really not. This is family business.” He doesn’t complete the thought.
I’m not family.
I climb out. “Fine. I get it. But you need to call the cops, Max. If not for you, then for Tab.”
His eyes flash anger. “I know what’s best for my daughter.” He leans across the seat and closes the door. I stand and watch him drive off.
I don’t understand what happened.
He acted like it was my fault somehow, but that makes no sense. I mean, I just found the place like that. I just walked inside and saw it.
And he keeps saying it’s safer for me here… like it’s not safe around the cabin.
He knows something. There’s no doubt in my mind. He knows who did that, or at least he suspects.
I don’t understand what’s going on. I slip through the gate and walk up the driveway to the manor. I know multiple cameras are watching me right now and I’m sure Patricks is wondering where the hell I just was.
But fortunately, I don’t answer to Patricks.
I’m tempted to tell him anyway. He might be able to shed some light on what happened there and why Max is acting so weird. If I trusted him not to go right to one of my brothers or to my mother, I might actually do it.
But no, I can’t. He’d go to Brent first, maybe Jacob second, and either of them would forbid me from seeing Max. They’d make sure he was banned from the estate and fired.
I won’t do that to him. If Max wants to come back to work, I want to make sure he still has a place. He can take a few days off to do repairs if that’s what he needs… but I don’t want him gone.
Far from that. I need him here.
He’s the first thing since I lost my store that’s made me happy. That’s so valuable. It’s hard to understand how valuable that is.
I hurry up to the house, my mind racing in a million different directions.
I know one thing for sure.
Something’s going on with Max. Something he doesn’t want me to know about, something he thinks is dangerous.
But I’m not walking away from this. I’m in it and too curious to turn back. I’ve been looking for something to do, and maybe that something is Max. Maybe I can use my money to help him somehow.
Or at the very least, I can let him help me feel something again.
We need each other. Maybe he doesn’t realize it yet, but we do.8MaxI spend the weekend and most of Monday doing repairs. I start with the doors, installing new, better locks, and move on to Tab’s room. When those are done, I bring Tab with me early one morning to buy security cameras, which I install all around the property.