Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
After a breath, I turn and take in the sprawling ranch style house that was a haven to me for years. It spans a generous portion of an acre of land with a wall of windows at the back. I remember how the outdoor pool would glisten in the summer. You could see it from every angle of the open floor plan, but it’s been drained now. I assume and hope the indoor pool, the one he drowned in, has also been drained. That’s one room I’m not sure I’ll be able to go into.
“It smells the same,” Odin says beside me. He’s taking it all in, just like I am.
I nod because he’s right even though the house has mostly been closed up for years. Mr. Jamison had arranged for its upkeep and monthly cleaning, but no one has lived here since Uncle Jax’s death. I’d always wondered why Dad didn’t sell it. I’d never realized he couldn’t.
Odin and I walk together through the house. After a quick look around, Santos remains in the living room, but he sends two men with us as we stroll through memories. Everything is exactly the same. The photos on the walls. The record collection he cherished, along with the various record players themselves. He would only use them on special occasions, but it was one of his passions. He was a collector.
“I’m going to the library,” I tell Odin. It was my favorite place. He nods, caught up in his own memories, and I walk down the hall toward the library. Just beyond it are the bedrooms. I won’t go there just yet, though.
This is nothing like the Augustines’ library. The house itself is more of a 70s style, but I always loved the library mostly because every book that was in it had been hand selected by Uncle Jax or Mom. Each one was read and loved, and I must have spent hours in here and read half the library.
I push the curtains open. Sunlight makes diamond specks out of dust motes floating in the air. On the side table by Uncle Jax’s favorite chair is a thriller I recognize that makes me stop, makes me miss him again. He was reading it before he died. He was halfway through, and I remember how he’d told me just a few nights before his death he thought he had the mystery figured out but wasn’t sure.
Picking it up, I check the page. I wonder if he’d guessed right. I memorize the page number and close the book to take it home with me. I’ll read it tonight.
At the back of the library is a hidden door that is the entrance to Jax’s office. I only know it because I spent so much time here growing up and caught him going in or coming out once or twice. He was always very private about his home office, uncharacteristically so. Rarely have I been inside it. When I was little, he made a game of it and called it his secret hiding place I couldn’t tell anyone about.
Behind a small panel made to look like the spines of books is the electronic lock for the door. From the same sheet of paper the house alarm code was on, I punch in the one to unlock the door. I hear a buzz, then a click, and the secret door pops open.
“What’s that?” Santos asks, making me jump and apologizing when he sees he has startled me. “Okay?”
“I’m fine. Just lost in thoughts I guess.”
“What is that?” He looks beyond me into the dark room.
“It’s Uncle Jax’s home office,” I say.
He nods and when I enter he follows me in. I flip the overhead light on because this room has no windows. I always found that strange, but Uncle Jax said it helped him to stay focused. There is an oversized desk. It’s neither an antique nor is it pretty, just functional. Along the shelves on the walls are some books about business, but mostly it’s boxes. One of them sits open on top of Jax’s desk. I realize there’s nowhere to sit except the big chair behind the behemoth.
Santos is busy looking at a photograph. I take the chair and sit down. His computer had been state of the art six years ago, but now it looks obsolete. On top of the desk are a few file folders, and I peer inside them to find they’re work documents.
Santos looks into the box on the desk and flips through a few of the folders. I watch as he reads one, his forehead furrowing. He flips to another page.
“What is it?”
“Financials from eight years ago.” He puts it away and glances at another one but loses interest quickly. “I guess he didn’t have company in here.”
“No, never. We weren’t even allowed in. I’m pretty sure he kept its existence a secret.”