Page 13 of Scatter the Bones

“Don’t worry about me.” I don’t want to tell her how much cash is actually in the vault. “Did you find your documents? Your son’s?”

She shakes her head. “They’re not here.”

Fuck.“Okay.” I grab the stacks of birth certificates and driver’s licenses, shoving them in the correct envelopes, and use a Sharpie to scribble the names on the front. “Pass these out and help them pack. I’ll keep looking for your papers.”

“Jensen, what am I supposed to tell everyone?”

“Tell them my father ran off and you found these packages on his desk.” I stare her dead in the eyes. “Or tell them I found him trying to drown my sister out in the barn and punished him accordingly. I really don’t give a fuck what story you give. Just get rid of them.”

She recoils in fear, like a dog wary after being kicked in the ribs too many times. Regret pokes at me. I shouldn’t be so harsh with her.

Painfully aware how much bigger I am than her now, I take a breath. I left a scrawny kid and returned a man. I tower over her by a lot. I force some calm into my lowered voice. “Please?”

She nods slowly and backs away, clutching the envelopes to her chest. Her gaze drops. “Stay here with Jensen.”

I lean over the desk and find Cain sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at the wall. Scared, bored, indifferent—I can’t tell what’s going on in the kid’s head but at least he’s quiet. He briefly glances in Ruth’s direction and nods.

Ignoring both of them, I return to the vault and start tearing through the other boxes. I can’t decipher any pattern to how my father stored things. Nothing’s filed alphabetically or by date, just stacks of envelopes and a mixture of boxes. The system probably made sense to him but it’s frustrating as fuck for me—the person trying to find anything of value in a hurry.

Finally, I locate Jezzie’s birth certificate, Social Security card, and a bunch of progress reports from school. Those might help Angela get Jezzie enrolled in school. I add them to my pile.

I move to the shelf closest to the door and pull a green file folder into my hands. It flips open and papers flutter to the ground.

Ruth and Cain’s papers. Birth certificates. A high school diploma. The last piece stops me cold—a marriage license signed by what must be Ruth’s father, giving her permission to marry my father when she was a teenager. My stomach heaves with disgust. She’s younger than I thought. Only two years older than me. What kind of sick fucking parents did she have who’d let her marrymyfather?

It doesn’t matter. She’s free now and not my problem.

I grab two more shoeboxes and carry them into the office.

Cain’s standing right outside the door, still staring at me with those wide, blank eyes.

I shift the boxes to one arm and gently ruff my hand over the top of his head. “You go to school, little man?”

He nods slowly.

Still watching him, I drop my armload on the desk. “You like it?”

He shrugs, then nods again.

“You know how to talk?”

His serious little face screws into a scowl. He’s got some Killgore fire in him after all. “Yes.”

“Good.” I return to the vault and pull two of the metal boxes off the shelves. I dump the papers on the desk and transfer the cash into one of the sturdier boxes. Then stack everything for Ruth on the corner of the desk.

Footsteps pound over the floor above me and I glance up. Hope that means people are moving their asses and packing their shit, not grabbing their guns and coming for me.

No. Ruth wouldn’t have left her son here if she planned to get the whole compound to take me out.

Outside a car engine rumbles to life.

I blow out a sigh of relief.

I search every drawer of my father’s desk—Bibles, keys, coins, scraps of paper with half-written verses or angry, ranting sermon notes. Most of it, I toss aside.

The bottom drawer sticks.

I yank harder. It gives with a light squeak, revealing several stacks of small, black leather-bound notebooks. Each one identical in size and thickness. The only difference is the year marked on each spine.

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