All that remains of the house is the brick chimney and the eight-foot-deep crater where the basement had once been. The walls have eroded and crumbled over the years. Saplings and weeds grow up from the basement floor, which is now filled with what looks like several feet of water. At some point, someone used plywood and sawhorses to cover the pit—probably for liability reasons—but the wood has long since collapsed. The only thing left is the remnants of a single caution flag, as faded and shredded as the memory of the people who once lived here.
I think of Hoch Yoder, and I wonder if he ever comes back here. I wonder if he’s stood where I’m standing now and grieved for the family he lost. I wonder if he’s been able to embrace the age-old Amish tenet of forgiveness.
I jump when a sudden gust of wind sends droplets of rain from the branches of a pine into the water below. The sound seems inordinately loud in the silence, and I get a prickly sensation on the back of my neck. Turning slowly, I fan my light in a 360-degree circle, but there’s no one there. No vehicle. No lights.
Thrusting my flashlight out ahead of me, I start toward the silo and barn. My pants are damp from the hip down from walking the McCullough property earlier and, now, from wading through weeds. I reach the rusty silo first. Once upon a time, it had been painted silver, but rust has eaten through the paint. The hatch stands open. I hear it squeaking as the breeze rocks it back and forth. Bending, I shine my light inside. There’s a hole in the roof where the wind has peeled away the shingles. I see yellow cornstalks rotting on the ground and a rat the size of a groundhog looking at me from the ledge of the concrete footer.
“Shit,” I mutter, and continue to the barn. It’s a German-style building, most of which were constructed in the early 1900s and used for dairy operations. Today, the odd-looking structures are akin to covered bridges and much loved by tourists and aficionados of unusual architecture. There are several in the area, but none are used in the manner in which they were intended.
Upon reaching the barn, I walk the exterior perimeter, keeping beneath the overhanging roof until I reach the front door. Trespassers have broken most of the windows. Pushing open the door, I shine the beam inside. The elements have destroyed much of the floor; the wood planks are buckled and rotting in places. Some have splintered and collapsed, and I can see into the crawl space beneath.
I’m not exactly sure what I expected to find here tonight. Nothing, really. But as a cop, there’s something intangibly useful about visiting a crime scene, even if the scene is ages old and any evidence has long since faded.
As I walk back to the dry warmth of my vehicle, the wind passing through the trees sounds very much like the cries of dying children.
CHAPTER 18
The first thing I notice when I pull into the gravel lane of the farmhouse is that Tomasetti left the porch light on for me. As I drive around to the rear, I see his Tahoe parked in its usual spot. Butterflies flutter in my stomach when I think of how we left things. I’m not sure what I’ll find when I go inside. I have no idea if he’s angry or sorry or somewhere in between. I don’t know if he’s seen Ferguson. Or if he listened to what I had to say.
I unlock the back door to see that the light above the stove is on. The kitchen smells of coffee and vanilla potpourri, and for an instant, I’m overwhelmed with a sense of homecoming. I’m standing just inside the door, taking off my jacket, when the light flicks on.
On the other side of the kitchen, Tomasetti stands at the doorway, looking at me. “Are you hungry?” he asks.
He’s wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. His feet are bare. Hair damp from a recent shower. I take a breath, and even from several feet away, I discern the scent of his aftershave.
“I could be,” I reply.
Amusement flashes in his eyes, but he doesn’t smile. “I brought home sandwiches from Leo’s Deli.”
Leo’s is a mom-and-pop eatery in Wooster, and in the last months has become our favorite “quick” dinner. “What kind?”
“Paninis. They’re in the fridge.”
I’m staring at him, but I can’t seem to stop. I’m not hungry and I couldn’t care less about the sandwiches, from Leo’s or elsewhere. What I do care about more than anything else in the world is this man standing before me. Instead of responding, I ask the one question I swore I never would. The one question that strips me bare. The one that requires the truth from him. A truth I fear because I know he’ll give it, no-holds-barred, and I have no idea what it will be.
“Do you love me, Tomasetti?”
He’s not an easy man to read, but I perceive surprise in the way his eyes dart away, in the way he shifts his weight away from me, as if there’s a part of him that would like nothing more than to slink back into the darkness and not deal with this. With me. But it’s too late to take back the words.
“You know I do,” he tells me.
“Actually, I don’t know or I wouldn’t have asked. Sometimes you say things, and I’m not sure you mean them.”
“I’ve never lied to you, Kate.”
“You haven’t lied. But you haven’t been completely honest, either.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means we’ve been dancing around some issues we need to deal with.”
When he says nothing, I feel the blood leave my head. A physical reaction that takes me a moment to identify. I’m scared, I realize. I’m afraid I’m not handling this the right way. That I’m going to say something wrong. That we’re going to somehow blow what we have and he’s going to walk away.
“Tomasetti, there’s a part of you that you refuse to share with me. A part you keep tucked away, unavailable. That’s not honest.”
“I told you about my past. I told you what I did. I told you I wasn’t going to be easy.”
“I don’t care about easy.”
He shrugs. “That’s the best I can do right now.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want all of you. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
“I’m not sure what we’re talking about here.”
“I don’t want to share you with them anymore.” Taking a step closer, I press my hand to my chest. “I’ll never rate and I’m not sure I’ll ever garner the kind of love you had for them.”
“That’s not true,” he says with some heat.
“I’m sorry you lost them. I’m sorry they were hurt and your life was devastated. But they’re gone now, and I’m here. I’m alive and I want to build a life with you. You have to choose.”
At first I think he’s going to turn around and walk away. Instead, he rounds the table and starts toward me. He doesn’t rush, doesn’t give me a clue as to what he’s thinking or feeling. His eyes are level on mine, but I don’t know if he’s going to rail against the words I’ve just thrown at him—or admit they’re true. My heart is like a drum against my ribs. My head feels light, a head rush from standing too fast. Sweat slicks the back of my neck and palms. For a crazy instant, I consider turning around and running out the door and into the night. But the intellectual side of my brain reminds me of what’s at stake. However it turns out, I need to finish it.
He touches my arms first, his fingers wrapping around my biceps. Then he’s pushing me backwards, one step, two. My back hits the doorframe, the knob bumping my hip with so much force that the picture on the wall rattles.
His eyes lock with mine. In the depth of his gaze, I see a jumble of emotions, none of which I can read. The kiss that follows isn’t gentle. Yet I sense the fragility of the moment, something intangible slipping from my grasp even as something else settles more securely inside me.
“You’re wrong,” he tells me.
“Prove it.”
As he lowers his mouth to mine, I experience a fleeting sense of defeat followed by the realization that I’m no longer in control of the situation—or my life. That maybe I haven’t been for a long time and I was a fool to believe I could maintain that grasp. It stuns me to realize I’m willing to accept that. For the first time in my life, I’ve relinquished my heart and given someone else the power to hurt me. The thought terrifies me because I know there’s a part of him I don’t trust not to do just that.