Everything You Are(85)

“Don’t ask me to spoil the surprise.”

“You’re up to something.”

“Of course I am! This is your intervention adventure.” She laughs, but her eyes evade his. She hands him Celestine’s leash.

“Can you walk him, please? I need to pee in the worst way.”

Braden watches her retreating back with increasing misgiving. “Do you know?” he asks the dog.

Celestine just wags his tail, and Braden takes him to a narrow strip of winter-dead grass and lets him do his business. When Phee comes out, she gets directly into the driver’s seat, leaving Braden to load up the dog. As he suspected, the cello is there, and he has a terrible presentiment of what Phee is planning.

His eyes seek out hers, which are watching him in the rearview, but she quickly glances away, ducking her head to adjust a to-go cup of coffee in the cup holder.

Braden scrambles for an escape. He could refuse to get back in. Pull Allie out of the SUV, supposing she’d be willing to go with him. And then what? He might be able to get a hotel for the night, but there’s no bus station or car rental in this town. He hates to disappoint the rest of the Angels. For what seems an eternity, he stands there, the hatch still open, catching his breath. Phee’s eyes meet his again in the rearview.

Trust me.

He doesn’t. He can’t. Not because she’d ever hurt him on purpose but because she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

His feet carry him back to his seat, but he feels now like a man going to his own execution. He leans forward. “Phee.”

She ignores him.

“I know what you’re doing,” Braden says to the back of her head. “I believe you think this is a good idea. You have to listen to me, Phee. This is the worst idea ever.”

“It’s time,” she says, eyes straight ahead, shifting the SUV into gear.

“Don’t you think that’s my decision?”

“You’ve had eleven years. And now there’s Allie to consider.”

There’s always been Allie, Braden thinks, with the weary old guilt seeping in. I’ve always failed her. And now you’ll push me into doing it again.

“Ophelia MacPhee,” Len says, “please tell me this isn’t that theoretical dynamite scenario. I told you—”

“You said dynamite should be left to the experts. So I brought along an expert.”

“I am not getting sucked into this! It’s not ethical.”

“Well, you can be an innocent bystander if you want.”

“Why don’t you stop the vehicle and we’ll discuss this rationally?” Len asks.

“No.”

“Phee!”

“Not stopping until we get where we are going.”

“I don’t get it.” Allie sounds bewildered, maybe frightened. “Where are we going?”

She looks back at Braden over her shoulder.

“We’re going to my family’s cabin. The one where my hands got hurt. Where your uncle Mitch . . .” His throat closes over the words and he coughs to clear it. “Don’t do this, Phee.”

She doesn’t answer, just keeps driving.

“Wow,” Steph says with enthusiasm. “I’ve never been kidnapped before.”

“It’s not a kidnapping, precisely,” Katie says. “No ransom. More like a hijacking.”

Dennis glances across at Braden, his face registering consternation. “Hey, man. I had no idea.”

Jean pats his hand. “It’s the right thing, honey. You’ll see.”

“You knew about this?”

“Oh no. Not at all. I have no idea where we’re going or why we are going there. I just feel that it is the right thing.”

Braden tries again. “Phee. Can we at least talk about this? It’s going to be midnight when we get there. The roads could be bad; there’s still snow up there this time of year. Let’s at least stop somewhere for the night, discuss this in the morning.”

In answer, she turns the radio on, volume loud enough to bar communication.

Unless he wants to open the door and jump out of a moving vehicle, Braden is trapped on a road that was once part of a regular pilgrimage. When he and Lilian were first married, they visited regularly, once or twice a year. Family is family, even when you’ve got nothing in common. Even Lilian agreed with that. She accompanied him, though she hated the cabin and engaged in a running commentary of criticism over his father’s endless smoking, Jo’s language, Mitch’s evening drinking.

She hated the long days outside by, on, or in the water. The mosquitoes, the blackflies, the dirt, the rain. She’d hovered over Allie, half sick with anxiety.

“Germs, Braden. Have you ever heard of germs? Does your family ever wash their hands before they eat?”

“Of course.”

“Rinsing in the lake water is not washing, for God’s sake. Do you want her to get sick? And could you please ask your father to smoke outside?”

Braden’s family wasn’t any fonder of Lilian than she was of them. His mother doted on Allie and was excruciatingly polite to Lilian. Jo took her in stride. Her husband, Mitch, handled the conflict by spending long hours on the lake fishing or sitting in a quiet corner nursing a beer.

Braden’s father was never one to just go along with anything. In his eyes, marriage did not equate with blood ties, and Lilian was an intrusion in his routine at best. He didn’t like her and didn’t feel compelled to try to keep that to himself.