Chapter 12: The Shoebox

I got in the truck.

I didn't do it for him.

I did it because there was a shoebox in his hands and a crack in his voice, and I wanted to see what was inside.

Cade stood by his bike twenty feet away with his arms crossed and his eyes on Boone.

Elena sat on the bike's rear fender with her bag at her feet, small and watching.

Boone climbed in the driver's side and shut the door.

The cab smelled like coffee, old leather and dog.

He set the box on the seat between us.

"Dario's boys will be at this motel inside the hour," he said. "I'll give you what I can in thirty minutes."

"I'm not forgiving you in thirty minutes."

"I'm not asking you to." He untied the kitchen string, and his big fingers took three tries. "Look."

I lifted the lid.

The box held cards.

There were twenty-three small envelopes in a tilted stack, all addressed in the same cramped square handwriting.

Every envelope said the same thing across the front.

To J., March 3rd.

I recognized the writing.

I'd have known it anywhere, because I had seen it six times in the clubhouse mailbox.

I'd kept every card in a drawer, and every twenty had gone into the jar for our house.

"You," I said.

"Me."

"The twenties."

"Six of them were mailed." He cleared his throat. "These twenty-three I never had an address for."

I picked up the bottom one.

It was soft with handling and older than the others.

The ink had gone brown.

I slid out the card and read it.

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