In Safe Hands (39 page)

Four Days Earlier

The cliffs towered above them to the left and dropped away to the right. Jules tapped a nervous rhythm on the steering wheel, hating that she was going twenty-five miles under the speed limit because the curvy mountain road into town completely freaked her out. At least the sun was high in the sky, so everything was well-lit. The scenery was beautiful—the craggy mountains surrounding them furred with evergreens and aspens until the bare blue-gray peaks stuck out above the tree line. Jules couldn't appreciate the scenery, though. All she could do was concentrate on not driving her entire family off a cliff. There was a line of four or five cars behind them, so Jules steered into a pull-out and stopped to let them pass before entering the west-bound lane again. To add to her humiliation, one of the vehicles that passed her was an extra-long RV. Another was a semi.

Ty snorted. “You're driving even slower than—”

“I know, Ty. Thanks,” she said dryly, trying not to snap. Her sleepless night and driving marathon, capped by this treacherous mountain road, drained her reservoir of good-natured comebacks and robbed her of her patience. Once she passed through a gap in the rocks barely wide enough for the two-lane road, houses and shops appeared, and the speed limit dropped to a much more tolerable twenty.

The kids were quiet as they looked around. “It's small,” Ty said in a neutral voice.

“The last census put Monroe's population at 18,538.”

Silence filled the SUV after Tio's factoid, until Jules asked, “Is small good or bad?”

There was a silence as he—and possibly the other kids—considered the question. “I haven't' decided yet,” Tio finally said, and the others made sounds of agreement.

“Fair enough.” Jules was too tired and, at the same time, too wired to have any kind of first impression of their new town. “Sam, could you be my navigator?”

Sam picked up the handwritten directions. “T-turn right on B-B-Bridesw-well.”

“We passed Brideswell several blocks ago,” Tio said.

With a sigh, Jules turned on her right turn signal so she could go around the block and head back toward Brideswell. She was pretty sure this road trip would never end.

After that first false start, however, the directions were clear, and they found the right street number attached to a crooked mailbox. The deeply rutted driveway seemed to go on forever, twisting this way and that, the pine trees reaching their branches to brush against the Pathfinder. The closeness of the evergreens dimmed the sunny morning, and Jules's simmering anxiety rose to a boil.

As she turned left, avoiding exposed tree roots and rocks that threatened to grab the tires, the trees thinned and the house came into view. The place had been white a long, long time ago, but all the exterior paint had faded to a wind-stripped gray. The front porch looked a little cockeyed, and the area in front of the house resembled a sparse hayfield rather than a lawn. A small, lopsided barn stood a short distance from the house.

Dez sucked in a breath. “There's a
barn
, Jules. Can I get a horse?”

“Uh…” The question barely penetrated as she tried to take in the huge amount of work the house would require. Going from a shoebox of an apartment to
this
…there was no way. She wasn't handy enough for this house.

“Can I?” Judging from the increased excitement in her little sister's voice, she'd taken Jules' hesitation for actual consideration.

“Let's try to keep ourselves alive for a while, D, before we start adding dependents, okay?” Parking in front of the sagging porch, Jules braced herself and got out. It was warm but dry—nothing like Florida had been. She slapped at a stray fly, managing to smack her own ear but miss the bug. As her siblings piled out of the SUV, she circled to the rear hatch. Movement helped. If she'd stood staring at the wreck of a house, she would've sat on the ground and burst into tears.

Tossing the computer bag strap over her shoulder, she passed the backpacks to their rightful owners, the weight of Tio's bag almost taking her down. Sam reached past her to grab her suitcase, and she gave him a smile of thanks.

“I thought you said no computers.” Ty frowned at the case resting against her hip.

“This is just the bag,” Jules explained. “And instead of a laptop, it holds all our brand-new paperwork, plus”—she dug out a key ring and dangled it in front of him—“the house keys.”

Ty snatched the keys from her hand and ran to the porch steps, Tio close behind.

“Careful!” she called out, cringing as their shoes clomped noisily on the aged wood. “That doesn't look too stable.” To her surprise, neither boy fell through the porch floor as they grappled to see who would be first inside the house. After watching to make sure the porch could hold her brothers, Dez made her careful way up the steps after them.

Sam kept pace with Jules, and she turned to him with a smile that was only partially forced. Dilapidated as it was, the house was theirs—hers and her family's. This had always been her dream, and she wasn't going to let a few loose shingles ruin the moment. “Ready to see the inside?”

His doubting look was enough to make her laugh. Always-conscientious Dez had closed the door behind her when she entered the house, so Jules grabbed the doorknob. Straightening her shoulders, she patted the laptop bag holding their new identities and pushed open the door. The interior was dim after the bright late-morning sunshine, and the kids' excited voices echoed off the walls deep inside the house.

Taking a deep breath, Jules stepped into their new life.

* * *

The house was a wreck—and yet gorgeous at the same time. Jules took a step farther into the entry and tripped when her toe caught on an uneven floorboard. Unbalanced, she grabbed the ornate railing that edged the staircase, steadying herself. Voices and alarmingly loud squeaks from overhead told Jules that the three younger kids had made their way upstairs.

The dated wallpaper was peeling and gouged in spots, revealing sections of an even-more-dated pattern. Cobwebs and dust covered every surface, and dead leaves and corpses of miller moths were piled in corners. Through a wide, arched doorway, she could see what was most likely a living room, although the age of the house made her want to refer to it as a parlor. Living rooms were in modern homes, places for televisions and wall-to-wall carpet. This looked more like a room where they'd gather around the fireplace and knit.

Jules snorted. She'd never held knitting needles in her life. Glancing at her brother's impassive face, she quickly sobered. “What do you think, Sam-I-Am?”

Instead of answering, he made his way down the hall, silently glancing through doorways as they passed a wood-paneled, shelf-lined room that Jules mentally dubbed “the library,” a bathroom with an honest-to-God claw-foot tub, and a room she assumed was the dining room, judging by its proximity to the kitchen.

She followed Sam into the expansive room that bore no resemblance to her apartment's tiny galley kitchen. There were numerous cupboards, although several of the doors were hanging cockeyed or missing altogether. To her relief, the appliances, as ancient as they appeared, did not appear to require firewood or hand-cranking or whatever else century-old appliances had needed to operate. The room was large enough to hold a good-sized table and chairs.

Her attention left the nicked and worn wood counters as she focused on Sam. “We can fix it up.” Pushing away the doubting voices in her head that were screaming at her, telling her that she had no clue how to even start, Jules tried to fake optimism. “A little paint, some…um, nails? It'll be like…well, maybe not
new
exactly, but better. Definitely better.”

“Juju.” To her surprise, the corners of Sam's mouth were twitching up again. “It's p-perfect.”

No amount of fake cheer could keep her forehead from wrinkling in confusion as she glanced around the battered kitchen. “Perfect?”

“Yeah.” His smile grew, loosening the permanent knot in her stomach just a little. “Come on. We'd b-b-better get upst-st-st…up there b-before the kids claim the g-g-good b-bedrooms.”

She couldn't stop herself. Rushing forward, she caught her brother in a hug. As soon as she felt him stiffen in her hold, she released him. “You're the best, Sam-I-Am.”

His face flushed, he motioned her toward the hallway. “Yeah, yeah.”

* * *

There really were no “good” bedrooms. The upstairs was chopped into oddly shaped spaces with no apparent rhyme or reason. Several had slanted ceilings following the angle of the roof, creating areas where Jules, as petite as she was, couldn't even stand upright. What they lacked in quality and size, however, they made up for in quantity. She counted six rooms—but no second-floor bathrooms, to her dismay. Sam followed the twins' voices down the hall, disappearing into one room as Dez popped out of another and ran toward Jules.

“Jules,” Dez breathed, her face glowing. “There's
another
upstairs. And you know how you get there?”

“How?”

“A
secret staircase
!” Her dramatic whisper increased to a shriek by the end. Grabbing Jules's hand, Dez hauled her to what appeared to be a linen closet. When Dez yanked open the door, there was an impossibly narrow stairway. “See?”

“I see.” Jules peered through the gloom that covered all but the bottom few steps. A shiver ran through her as she thought of all the things that could be lurking in the ancient attic—mice and bats and skeletons. Possibly serial killers. She fumbled just inside the doorframe. “Is there a light switch?”

“Is there electricity?” Tio's voice asked from behind them. Turning toward him a little too enthusiastically, Jules was thankful that she could delay exploring the mysteries of the third floor—at least for a minute or two.

“Oh!” Her happy moment faded as the implications of his question sunk in. “Do you mean ‘is the electricity turned on' or ‘is there any electrical wiring in this house'?”

“There's electricity,” Dez answered for him as she reached to where Jules had been fumbling before. “See? It's buttons, though, not switches.” The skinny staircase was illuminated by the harsh yet dim glare of a bare bulb. Jules exhaled with relief. At least there was power in this old wreck of a house. Dennis must be paying the bill. Would he expect her to change the bill over to her name? If so, it'd be the first test of her fake identity. Her throat felt like it was closing. Reaching up, she tugged at the V-neck of her shirt and coughed, trying to clear the imaginary impediment.

“W-what's wr-wr-wr…” Sam's huff of an exhale was short and impatient. “W-what's the matter?”

Too late, she dropped her hand to her side. “Nothing.”

He just gave her a look and waited silently. Ty joined them, and all her siblings grew solemn as they watched her.

“Nothing,” she said with more force. “I'm just thinking of everything we need to do to make this place livable.”

“Beds,” Ty said, nodding. Jules held back a cringe. She hadn't even thought about that.

“A TV.” That was Dez's contribution.

“D-dishes.”

“A computer. Oh, and Internet.”

That'd be another test of her identity—
and
more monthly bills.

“Food.” Ty's voice held the same longing that Tio's had when he'd mentioned the computer. “Soon, please. I'm starving.”

“A horse.”

She rolled her eyes at the last offering, trying to fight down her panic. After using all of Mr. Espina's cash to pay just a portion of Dennis's fee, Jules had limited funds to set up a household of five—four of whom were still growing out of their clothes. Her initial impression of the house was that it would take an enormous influx of cash just to keep it from falling down on top of them.

As if to underscore her growing anxiety, a heavy rumble of thunder echoed through the house. Jules shot a nervous look at the ceiling. If the roof was weatherproof, she'd be shocked.

“C'mon, Jules,” Dez urged, tugging on her hand. “Let's look upstairs.”

Deciding that whatever lurked in the attic couldn't be worse than the worries that were multiplying in her mind, she allowed her sister to pull her up the narrow stairs. Each one creaked worse than the one before, and Jules's stomach lurched with every step. She expected to fall through the ancient treads at any second, and she clutched Dez's hand a little harder. The clomping of the boys' feet behind them made her cringe.

As they passed through a door at the top of the stairs, she exhaled for the first time since they'd started ascending. Her relief at not falling to her death made her slow to take in her surroundings at first. When she finally looked around, Jules blinked in surprise.

She'd been expecting an unfinished, dirty attic, but the room—although definitely needing a good cleaning—reminded her more of an artist's studio than a storage space. A stained-glass window set in the triangular east wall lit the space with muted colors.

“Wow.”

“I
know
!” Dez was practically dancing in excitement. “Isn't it the
best
? If I hadn't already picked the elf room, I'd
totally
want this room.”

“Hey, there's stuff over here,” Ty called from across the space. He'd opened a short door set in the wall and was pulling things out of the storage space. Dez ran over while Tio joined them more leisurely.

“Elf room?” Jules repeated absently, watching Ty drag out an antique-looking trunk and a globe. She wondered how out-of-date it was, with its no-longer existing country borders and names. It might be a good history lesson, at least.

“Juju?”

Sam's serious tone made her focus on him. “What is it?”

“I w-want it. P-p-please.”