“Yeah, it looks simple enough. We’ll be able to knock it out in no time.”
Dad was standing at the table, measuring some wood for some piece of Hollis’s furniture. “Hey, Dad.”
“Morning. How’s Alexa?”
“Good. Better today. We’ll see.” I was still worried how this was going to affect her. Considering she left the bed this morning, I assumed she wasn’t ready to talk in depth about it. And I understood her needing time. She had always needed time to process things.
He nodded to himself. “I think that’s about all that can be expected.” He set aside the freshly cut cedar and took off his work gloves. “I talked to Roy. I assume you brought your brothers up to speed?”
I nodded.
Dad finger-combed his hair, displacing some wood shavings in the process. “Well, I told Roy we were working on safety manuals at the lumber yard and forgot the details of Lloyd’s accident. I thought that wouldn’t raise suspicions. When he went to locate the file, it was gone.”
“Gone?”
Dad nodded, his face solemn. This wasn’t sitting well with him, either. “Gone. No record of the digital or paper file. It’s got him poking around now.”
Shit. That wasn’t good. “So… Lloyd’s investigation mysteriously disappears. Someone is hiding something.”
Dad’s eyebrows were drawn in concern. “I agree with you. I honestly didn’t believe it to begin with. But it gets more suspicious. After Jim left your place, we had lunch. We’d planned to meet up after we talked at the Fall Festival. He told me about dropping off the box for Alexa. So, I asked nonchalantly what had ever come of the investigation into Lloyd’s death. I remembered that one moment his office had been swarming with investigators, and the next, his name had been cleared.”
“What’d he say?”
“They’d been combing through his files, making sure everything was in order. Things like whether the machine had been serviced properly or had any of the men been over their allotted hours. The normal. One thing in particular they’d focused on was the maintenance. Jim couldn’t understand why. The next day, they came in, packed up shop, and closed the case.”
“That seems abrupt.”
“Jim thought so, too. But he figured they realized he’d followed all the laws and exceeded any requirements. The guys told him the machine had been out of oil and seized up. He figured there’d been a leak in the line somewhere.”
A machine that size would have left a sizeable puddle if the oil had been leaking. Lloyd would have noticed it. “Did Jim think it was odd?”
“Son, when you’ve been in the industry as long as he has, you understand that machines stop working. It was a logical conclusion. Why would he think someone might be after anyone? When those people packed up and left, he probably thought good riddance. A guilty man wouldn’t share that type of information. He’d sidestep the question.”
Maybe.
But none of this was sitting well with me. And by the looks on my brothers’ faces, they agreed.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Drake
Kane and Hayden left to head to their houses, and I sat on the back porch, trying to organize my thoughts. Mom walked out on the back porch with a plate of food and a cup of coffee. She handed both to me. “Hey. Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all. Thanks, Mom. I needed this bad.”
“Alexa thought you might.”
I smiled into the cup as I took a drink.
She took the seat beside me.
In the distance, I could hear the saw in the shop as Dad kept working on the furniture. It was oddly comforting since it was a childhood sound I’d heard all my life.
“So, how are you doing?”
I took a deep breath. “Honestly, Mom, I feel like I’m barely keeping my head above water. It seems like trouble is coming from all angles.”
“Well, I’ve given the same advice to Alexa. Make sure you’re making time for you.”