Running Free (Woodland Creek)(22)

She casually told me once that I’d make a great detective one day. Her subtle suggestion resonated within me and fueled a fire I didn’t know existed. I wanted to make her proud. I wanted to solve the unsolvable.

A few months before my seventeenth birthday, my mother explained to me that she had pancreatic cancer.

We can fix this, I’d said.

We’ll find a cure, I’d assured her.

Only we couldn’t fix it. We couldn’t cure it.

Her disease was a complicated puzzle — one that nobody on God’s green earth seemed to be able to figure out. The cancer ravaged her body with the force of an unexpected tornado at the beginning of spring. My mother was in its path and the destruction, while quick, was fatal.

As Frankie hums beside me while we clean the dishes together, I decide she’s ever as enigmatic as the puzzle of my mother’s disease.

Everything in my head makes sense or has an answer.

But with Mom, there was no reason.

With Frankie, I grasp for straws of understanding only to come up emptyhanded.

Otis is sitting in the living room with Suzie while we clean. Our silence is comfortable and I sense that she is doing her best to figure me out as well.

I’m a simple puzzle.

One piece.

Round, only a few hard edges, but my picture is plain and obvious.

In this life, I want love and family. Mutual respect and companionship. A career that means something. I’m simple.

Frankie, however, is complicated.

Her outward appearance screams uncaring rebel, but the woman behind the dark eyes watches with wise, kind eyes. She hides secrets that she feels as if she must protect. Secrets that she plainly sees as awful and embarrassing.

But I want that missing piece of her.

Even if it is ugly and jagged. Ruined and colorless.

I want to understand it and place it on the puzzle where it belongs. On the outside so that it may paint the beautiful picture that is her.

“Maybe I should go.”

Her voice is soft as she hands me a clean dish. I towel dry it and shake my head before turning to regard her.

“Maybe you should stay.”

She sighs and I bring my fingers to her chin, turning her so I can see her pretty face. Emotions war just beyond her schooled features. Her eyes tell stories her face and mouth refuse to. But I see. Just like all those complicated puzzles that were well beyond my age, I see. It may take me awhile to figure out, but I won’t stop until I do.

“Frankie, stay. I want to spend more time with you.”

She nods and my heart nearly bursts from my chest. One thing I can determine is that she somehow feels as if she doesn’t deserve what’s happening between us, but she wants it anyway. I’ll side with that part of her. Together we’ll convince the other half.

“Little Suzie has passed out. Why don’t I take her home and Gun can run you back later?” Otis says softly from behind us.

We both meet his gaze and I’m shocked to find approval in his eyes. The man behaves as if he is her father and at first I assumed he’d be a tough nut to crack. He’d drilled me about my family, past, job, and goals. I had answered each question honestly. Once he’d seemed satisfied with my answers, he’d backed off.

“I’ll carry her to the truck,” I tell him, tossing the towel onto the counter.

He nods and gives Frankie a hug. I leave them be while they whisper in the kitchen and make my way over to Suzie. Cutie Pie is snuggled up beside her and I chuckle to myself at how they became fast friends. She fawned all over him and chased him around the house after dinner. Of course the little shit ate up her affections. I say little shit because he made a snack of two pairs of my shoes while I was at work.

Work was a nightmare. My lead with Jared Thurston turned out to be a dead end. And the homes we went to and interrogated, didn’t amount to anything. There were still a few where the owners weren’t there when we’d visited that we still have to hit up later.

As I approach Suzie, she whimpers in her sleep, a nightmare plaguing her. I squat in front of her and with a stroke of my hand, I sweep a lock of hair off her forehead. The girl is another mysterious puzzle piece in Frankie’s life. Something in me dings and buzzes, alerting me to the fact that there’s more to the story with little Suzie.

Her curls.

Those expressive eyes.

The affectionate way about her.

She reminds me of Curly Sue. The dog that was conveniently “at home” tonight.

My mind spins as I hold the puzzle piece that is Suzie. With each pound of my heart, I know where the piece belongs… what its part is on the overall picture. But it doesn’t make sense. It fits but would destroy the fabric of life as I know it. So, instead of pressing that piece into the spot I know it belongs, I hold it for another time. A time when I have more clues. More facts. More explanation.

But the piece most definitely fits.

Scooping her into my arms, I tote the young girl out to the truck. Otis has followed in step behind me whereas Frankie stayed behind to finish up in the kitchen. Once I have her loaded in the car and the door shuts, I turn to look at the old man.

“I’m not sure if you realize how lucky you are,” he says softly.

I scrunch my brows together and smile. “She’s special, I know that much.”

He lifts his chin and stares up at the sky, inhaling the crisp air. “You have no idea how special. And it will take a real man to love every unusual part of her. I need to know you’re not going to run at the first sign of something you don’t like.”