Page 37 of The Twilight Theft

He let me go, bobbing his upper body as though nodding. The rods, pins, and whatever else they ended up doing to his neck must have limited his mobility. His sister had told me about the first few operations until she went radio silent. “Did you want to come in?”

“If that’s okay? I know it’s short notice.”

“Of course!” He pulled the door open further and ushered me into a small living room off the entryway. “Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Just water, thanks.” I sat on a simple white couch, facing another, with a coffee table between them. A low propane fireplace decorated the wall to my left, with a narrow mantle crowded with photographs. I stood, scanning through them. Lots of two little girls, from babies up to six or seven years old.

Was he a dad? Were they nieces?I should have prepared for this.

“You heard about Coach McInnis?” He walked with a nearly imperceptible limp.

If I hadn’t known he’d lost the leg, I might not have noticed it. “No.”

“I thought that might have been why you came.” He handed me a glass and sat on one of the couches, crossing an ankle over the opposite thigh. “He passed away last year.”

My heart sank, and my throat tightened up. I should have asked what happened, but the words wouldn’t form.

As though reading my mind, Tanner said, “Pancreatic cancer.”

I nodded. Why did I come here? Why put myself through all this?

“He got in touch with me near the end.” Tanner exhaled slowly. “He called off the chemo after a few rounds didn’t help. Said he wasn’t scared—it was just the next step in his life.”

Part of me wanted to laugh. That was so Coach M. “Never fear the leap, right?”

“I think standing still would have been the better option that time.” He stared down at his glass, rubbing it with a thumb. Even after we graduated from his program to higher levels, Coach M had attended every event he could, cheering us from the sidelines. “It got me thinking about old times. I made some calls and talked to some old friends, but I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

I wasn’t exactly off the grid, but Evelyn Reynolds liked her teams to stay out of the headlines, despite the high-profile work we did. “I moved to Halifax about five years ago to work for a recovery company.”

“Like collections?”

“Sort of, but not quite. We recover stolen property. Lots of travel, lots of happy customers.”

“Like detectives, then?”

The more questions he asked, the more I’d answer, and the closer he’d get to truths I wasn’t supposed to spill. “Yeah, that’s the best way to put it. What about you?”

“Computer programmer by day—I work from home for a company based in Vegas—and devoted dad by night.” He pointed to a wall by the window, where there were more photographs in frames of various shapes and sizes.

The girlswerehis. I moved from the mantle photographs to the ones on the wall, taking in Tanner’s entire life. His parents were in some photos, his sister in a couple, but most of them were of his little girls.

“The top left is Marie and I on our wedding day—I met her at the clinic where I did most of my rehab. Top right is the girls from a gymnastics party in the spring.”

They looked a lot like he had as a kid, just with longer hair. “Twins?”

“They’re six now.”

I pointed at another photograph, a candid shot of him standing next to a balance beam with one little girl on it. “You coach them?”

“Absolutely.”

My stomach churned some more. I could run down the length of a handrailing but hadn’t been able to look at a real beam in a decade. “Even though…”

“Yes, even though.” He put his own glass down and stood slowly. “Or especially because. The first couple of years were pretty dark, but Marie was amazing and eventually convinced me there was more to life than what I’d lost.”

How would my life have turned out if I’d had someone who’d stood by me? The only ones who had stood by wanted me for how nimble I was. How fast I learned to swipe wallets and pick locks. They wanted me for my skills, not for me.

Tanner joined me by the wall and tapped on a photograph of him in a suit, shaking hands with—

---