All Rhodes Lead Here Read online

  Was I tired? Absolutely. But there were things I wanted to do. Needed to do. Including but not limited to getting away from Mr. Rhodes so my soul could come back to life.

  So an hour later, with a plan in mind, a sandwich, a couple bottles of water, and my whistle in my backpack, I headed down the stairs, hoping and praying that Mr. Rhodes was back in his house.

  I wasn’t that lucky.

  He had a shirt on, but that was the only difference.

  Darn.

  In a faded blue T-shirt with a logo I couldn’t place, he was standing off to the side of the pile of wood that he’d stacked at some point under a blue tarp. Beside him was Amos in a bright red T-shirt and jeans, looking an awful lot like he was either begging or arguing with him.

  At the sound of the door closing, they both turned.

  He’d caught me checking him out. Act cool.

  “Morning!” I called out.

  I didn’t miss the funny face that Amos made or the way he glanced from my backpack to his dad and back. I’d seen that expression before on my nephews’ faces. I wasn’t sure anything good ever came from those faces either.

  But the teenager seemed to make a quick decision because he jumped right into it. “Hi.”

  “Morning, Amos. How are you?”

  “Fine.” He pressed his lips together. “Are you going hiking?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled at him, realizing just how tired I was. “Why? Do you want to go?” I teased, mostly. Hadn’t his dad said he wasn’t an outdoorsy person?

  The quiet boy perked up in a subtle way. “Can I?”

  “Go?”

  He nodded.

  Oh. “If your dad is fine with it and you want to,” I told him with a laugh, surprised.

  Amos peeked at his dad, smiled this super sneaky smile, and nodded. “Two minutes!” the teenager yelled ten times the volume he normally spoke at, surprising me even more, before turning on his heel and disappearing up the deck and into his house.

  Leaving me standing there blinking.

  And his dad standing there blinking too.

  “Did he say he’s coming with me?” I asked, in almost a daze from pure surprise.

  The older man shook his head in disbelief. “I didn’t see that coming,” he muttered more to himself than to me from the way he was still staring after the door. “I told him he couldn’t hang out with his friends since he’s still grounded, but if he wanted to be around an adult it was okay.”

  Oh wow. I got it now.

  “Damn, he got you,” I laughed.

  That had his attention turning toward me, still looking like he’d gotten scammed.

  I snorted. “I can tell him no after all if you want me to. I swear I thought you said he didn’t like doing outdoor things, that’s why I asked.” I’d feel terrible retracting the invitation, but I would if it really bothered him. “Unless you want to come too. You know, so he’s not totally getting away with it. I don’t mind either way, but I don’t want you to feel weird with me hanging out with your son. I’m not a creeper or anything, I swear.”

  Mr. Rhodes’s gaze slid toward his front door again and stayed there like he was thinking very deeply about how the hell he was going to get out of the loophole he’d unknowingly given someone who was supposed to be grounded.

  Or maybe he was wondering how to tell me that he was absolutely not okay with me taking his child for a hike. I wouldn’t blame him.

  “It might be torture for him hanging out with me for a couple hours,” I told him. “I promise I’m not going to do anything to him. I’d invite Jackie, but I know she and Clara are going shopping in Farmington. I wouldn’t mind the company.” I paused. “But it’s up to you. I promise I’m only attracted to grown men. He reminds me of my nephews.”

  Those gray eyes moved in my direction, his expression still thoughtful.

  The kid burst through the front door, with a stainless-steel bottle looped through one finger and what looked like two granola bars in his other hand.

  “You don’t care if he goes?” was the quiet question that came at me.

  “Not at all,” I confirmed. “If you’re okay with it.”

  “You’re only going for a hike?”

  “Yes.”

  I saw him hesitate before letting out another one of his deep breaths. Then he murmured, “I need a minute,” just as Amos stopped in front of me and said, “I’m ready.”

  Was… was Mr. Rhodes coming too?

  He disappeared into the house even faster than his son had, his movements and strides long and fluid considering how muscular he was.

  I needed to stop thinking about his muscles. Like yesterday. I knew better already, didn’t I? Subtle, I was not.

  “Where’s he going?” Amos asked, watching his dad too.

  “I don’t know. He said to give him a minute. He might be coming too…?”

  The kid let out a frustrated sigh that made me side-eye him.

  “Change your mind?”

  He seemed to think about it for a second before shaking his head. “No. As long as I get out of the house, I don’t care.”

  “Thank you for making me feel so special,” I joked.

  The teenager looked at me, his quiet voice back, “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’m just messing with you,” I told him with a grin.

  “He said I couldn’t go out with my friends so….”

  “You’re hanging out with chopped liver?” I could only imagine the kind of relationship he had with his dad if he wasn’t used to being picked on. “I’m messing with you, Amos. I promise.” I even nudged him with my elbow quickly.

  He didn’t nudge me back, but he did give me a little shrug before asking quietly and hesitantly, “Is it okay? If I go with you?”

  “One hundred percent okay. I like the company,” I told him. “Honestly. You’re pretty much making my day. I’ve been pretty lonely lately. I’m not used to doing so many things by myself anymore.” The truth was, I’d been surrounded by people almost twenty-four seven for the last chunk of my life. The only alone time I ever really got for just myself was… when I’d go to the bathroom.

  The boy seemed to shuffle in place. “You miss your family?”

  “Yeah, but I had another family. My… ex-husband’s family, and we were always together. This is the longest I’ve ever gone by myself. So really, you’re doing me a favor coming. Thank you. And you’ll help me stay awake.” I thought about it. “Is it safe for you to do physical activity already?”

  “Yeah. I had my check-up.” The same gray eyes as Mr. Rhodes’s roamed my face briefly, and he seemed to have to blink again. “You look tired.”

  Remind me never to word something in front of a teenager that could be turned into an insult. “I haven’t been sleeping that great.”

  “’Cause of the bat?”

  “How do you know about the bat?”

  He eyed me. “Dad told me about you screaming like you were gonna die.”

  First of all, I hadn’t been screaming like I was going to die. It had just been about five screams. Max.

  But before I could argue with him about semantics, the front door opened again and Mr. Rhodes was out, hauling a small backpack in one hand and a thin black jacket in the other.

  Wow. He wasn’t fucking around. He wanted to tag along.

  I eyed the kid next to me as he let out a sigh. “You’re sure you want to come?”

  His gaze flicked toward me. “I thought you said you’d like the company?”

  “I do, I just want to make sure you’re not going to regret it.” Because his dad was coming too. To spend time with him? To not leave him with me alone? Who knew?

  “Anything’s better than staying home,” he muttered just as his dad made it to us.

  All right. I nodded at Mr. Rhodes, and he nodded at me.

  I guess I was driving.

  We loaded into my car with Mr. Rhodes taking the front passenger seat, and I backed out. I glanced at them both as sneaky as possi
ble, feeling a little bit of pleasure at having them come with me… even if neither one of them talked much. Or I guess really liked me.

  But one of them was desperate to get out of the house and the other either wanted to spend time with his kid or keep him safe.

  I’d hung out with people who had worse intentions. At least they weren’t being fake.

  “Where are we going?” the deepest voice in the car asked.

  “Surprise,” I answered dryly, peeking in the rearview mirror.

  Amos had his attention out of the window.

  Mr. Rhodes, on the other hand, twisted his head to look at me. If I didn’t already know he had been in the Navy, it would have been confirmed in that instant. Because I had zero doubts that he’d mastered the glare he was shooting my way on other people.

  A lot of them, more than likely, from how good he was at it.

  But I still grinned as I glanced at him.

  “Okay, fine,” I conceded. “We’re going to some falls. You probably should’ve asked before you got in the car though. Just saying. I could be kidnapping you.”

  He didn’t appreciate my joke apparently. “Which falls?” Mr. Rhodes asked in that stony, level voice.

  “Treasure Falls.”

  “That one sucks,” Amos piped up from the back.

  “It does? I looked up pictures, and I thought it looked nice.”

  “We didn’t get enough snow. It’s gonna be a trinkle,” he explained. “Right, Dad?”

  “Yes.”

  I felt my shoulders deflate. “Oh.” I thought of the next falls on my list. “I already did Piedra Falls. What about Silver Falls?”

  Mr. Rhodes settled into the seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “Is this four-wheel drive?”

  “No.”

  “Then no.”

  “Damn it,” I groaned.

  “Your clearance is too low. You won’t make it.”

  My shoulders deflated even more. Well, this sucked.

  “What about a longer trail?” the older man asked after a moment.

  “That’s fine with me.” How much longer was long? I didn’t want to chicken out, so I just agreed. I couldn’t think of one on my mom’s list off the top of my head that we could do, but my plans were ruined already and I was going to take advantage of the company. I knew how to be by myself, but I hadn’t been lying to Amos about being lonely. Even when Kaden left for a short tour or for an event, someone would be at the house, usually the housekeeper I’d said we didn’t need but his mom had insisted on because it was beneath someone of Kaden’s reputation to make his own food or clean his own house. Ugh, I cringed just thinking about how snobby she’d sounded back then.

  “I’ll get you directions,” my landlord explained, dragging me out of my memories with the Joneses.

  “Works for me. Work for you, Amos?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  All right then. I drove the car toward the highway, figuring Mr. Rhodes would give me directions once I got there.

  “You used to live in Florida?” Amos asked suddenly from the back seat.

  I nodded and stuck to the truth. “For ten years, and then I spent the next ten in Nashville, and I was back in Cape Coral—that’s in Florida—for the last year before coming here.”

  “Why’d you leave there to come here?” the teenager scoffed like that was mind-blowing to him.

  “Have you been to Florida? It’s hot and humid.” I knew Mr. Rhodes had lived there, but I wasn’t about to drop that knowledge bomb on their asses. They didn’t need to know I’d been creeping and stalking.

  “Dad used to live in Florida.”

  I had to pretend like I didn’t already know this. But then his word choice sank in. He’d said his dad not him. Where had he lived then? “You did, Mr. Rhodes?” I asked slowly, trying to figure it out. “Where?”

  “Jacksonville.” It was Amos who answered instead. “It sucked.”

  In the seat next to me, the man scoffed.

  “It did,” the teenager insisted.

  “Did you… live there too, Amos?”

  “No. I just visited.”

  “Oh,” I said like it made sense when it didn’t.

  “We visited every other summer,” he went on to say. “We went to Disney. Universal. We were supposed to go to Destin once, but Dad had to cancel the trip.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Rhodes turn in his seat. “I didn’t have a choice, Am. It wasn’t like I canceled the trip because I wanted to.”

  “Were you in the military or something?” I asked.

  “Yeah” was all he gave me.

  But Amos didn’t leave me hanging. “In the Navy.”

  “The Navy,” I confirmed but didn’t ask more about it because I figured if Mr. Rhodes hadn’t even been willing to tell me what branch, he wouldn’t want to tell me more. “Well, it’s not too far of a drive. Maybe one day you can go.”

  In the seat behind me, the kid made a noise that sounded an awful lot like a grunt, and I regretted opening the subject again. What if he didn’t take him? I needed to shut the hell up.

  “Is it true your mom got lost somewhere around here in the mountains?”

  I didn’t wince, but Mr. Rhodes turned around again. “Am!”

  “What?”

  “You can’t ask stuff like that, man. Come on,” Mr. Rhodes snapped, shaking his head incredulously.

  “I’m sorry, Aurora,” he mumbled.

  “I don’t mind talking about her. It was a long time ago. I miss her every day, but I don’t cry all the time anymore.”

  Too much information?

  “I’m sorry,” Amos repeated after a second of silence.

  “It’s okay. No one ever wants to talk about it,” I told him. “But to answer your question, she did. We used to go hiking all the time. I was supposed to go with her, but I didn’t.” That same pang of guilt that I had never gotten over, that slept in my gut, safe and warm and tremendous, opened an eye. As much as I didn’t mind talking about my mom, there were some specific things that were difficult to bring out into the world for everyone to know. “Anyway, she went for her hike and never came back. They found her car, but that was it.”

  “They found her car, but how could they not find her?”

  “Your dad might know more details than I do. But they didn’t find her car for a few days. She had told me she was going to do one hike, but Mom would always change her mind last minute and decide to do something that wasn’t on a trail if she wasn’t in the mood or if there were too many people on the trailheads. That’s what they thought happened. Her car wasn’t where she had said she would be. Unfortunately, it rained a lot in those days, and it washed out her footprints.”

  “But I don’t get how they didn’t find her. Dad, don’t you have to do search and rescue a few times a year? You always find people.”

  Beside me, the big man shifted a bit in his seat, but I kept my gaze forward. “It’s harder than it sounds, Am. There are almost two million acres of the San Juan National forest alone.” Mr. Rhodes stopped talking for a second like he was watching his words. “If she was a strong hiker, in shape, she could have gone just about anywhere, especially if she wasn’t known for staying on trails.” He paused again. “I remember the case file said she was a good climber too.”

  “Mom was a great climber,” I confirmed. She had been a fucking daredevil. There was nothing she had been scared of.

  We used to go to Utah every chance possible. I could remember sitting off to the side when she did some kind of climb with her friends and being amazed by how strong and agile she was. I used to call her Spiderwoman she was so good.

  “She could have gone anywhere,” Mr. Rhodes confirmed.

  “They looked,” I told Amos. “For months. Helicopter. Different search and rescue teams. They did a few more searches for her over the years, but nothing ever came of it.” Remains had been found before, but they hadn’t been hers.

  The silence was thick, and Amos
broke it by muttering, “That sucks.”

  “Yeah, it does,” I agreed. “I figure she was doing what she loved to do, but it still sucks.”

  There was another rush of silence, and I could feel Mr. Rhodes eyeball me.

  I looked over and managed to smile a little. I didn’t want him to think Amos had upset me—not that he probably genuinely cared.

  “Which trail did she do?” Amos asked.

  Mr. Rhodes gave him the name, shooting me a side look like he remembered bringing it up during our tutoring session.

  There was another pause, and I glanced at the rearview mirror once more. The boy looked thoughtful and troubled. Part of me was expecting him to drop it before he spoke up again. “Are you doing the hikes to find her?”

  Mr. Rhodes mumbled something under his breath that I was pretty positive had a couple curse words in there. Then the meaty palm of his hand scrubbed up and down the center of his forehead.

  “No,” I answered Amos. “I don’t have any interest in going there. She had a journal with her favorites. I’m hiking because she loved to, so I want to do them too. I’m not as athletic or as much of an explorer as she is, but I want to do what I can. That’s all. I know we had a lot of fun, but I just want to… remember her. And those were some of the best memories of my life.”

  Neither one of them said anything for so long, I genuinely started to feel a little awkward. Some people were uncomfortable with the idea of grief. Some people didn’t understand love either.

  And that was okay.

  But I was never going to shy away from how much I’d loved my mom and how much I was willing to do to feel closer to her. I’d been on autopilot for so many years, that it had been easy to… not bury my mourning… but to just keep it on my shoulder and keep going.

  For so long, right after her disappearance, it had been hard enough to just force myself out of bed and continue trying to live my new life.

  Then after that, there had been school, and Kaden, and just go, go, go.

  All this while carrying my mom’s memory and legacy with me, covering it up with distractions and life until now. Until I’d dusted all that other stuff off to focus on what I’d buried for so long.