My Last Wish novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: A Niece's Drawing

The next morning Chad's car left the driveway at 8:40.

Dane watched it go from his front window with a coffee in his hand.

"He'll be at the office until five," he said. "He's never once come home for lunch."

"I have a key."

"I know you do. I'll drive."

Teddy sat between us in his booster seat, singing about a dump truck.

Dane parked at the curb in front of the house where I had lived for six years.

"I'll stay with him," he said. "Go and get what you need. Twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes," I said.

I used my key.

The front hall smelled wrong.

It smelled like vanilla, and we had never owned anything vanilla.

Someone was running water in the kitchen.

I walked down the hall.

Tierney stood at my sink in an apron, rinsing a pan.

She turned around with her hands wet and a smile already on her face.

"Callie! Oh, thank goodness. I wondered if you'd come by."

"What are you doing here?"

"Chad asked me to keep the house going." She dried her hands. "Somebody has to water the plants, and he's been such a wreck. I didn't want to leave the dishes."

She said it so easily that I almost said sorry.

"I'm only here for Teddy's things," I said.

"Of course. Of course you are. Do you want me to help?"

"No."

I went upstairs alone, past the bedroom I would not look at, to Teddy's room.

I filled a duffel bag with his pajamas and his blue bear.

I took the book he liked, the one with the sleeping trucks.

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