Chapter 15: The Porch Light

"Who has keys to the bar?" I asked.

"Five people," Rhett said. "Me, Mae, Morton, the treasurer, and the road captain."

He stood at the bedroom window with the phone pressed to his ear, listening to Mae breathe on the other end.

"Did she lock the drawer?"

"I locked it myself," Mae said. I could hear her from across the room. "Nobody forced it. Somebody used a key."

Rhett hung up and looked at the floor.

"Five," he said again.

"Then one of them took it."

"Or one of them made a copy. Or somebody I trust left a door open."

He rubbed his jaw.

"I don't like that I'm already making excuses," he said.

"You trusted them for years."

"That's why it's an excuse."

I pulled on my jeans.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To my father's house," I said. "The phone is gone, and whoever has it is a step ahead of us."

"Why your father?"

"He took money to call me dead. He's the only one who's seen who brought it."

"I'll drive you."

"You'll wait at the curb," I said. "I'm not walking in there with you."

He didn't argue.

My father lived on Alder Street in a gray rental with a sagging porch.

The porch light that had gone out on me the night of the party was still off.

Rhett parked across the road and took off his hat, and I walked up the steps alone.

I knocked.

The door opened on the chain.

My father had lost weight in two weeks, and his eyes were red.

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