Page 61 of You Found Me
A large oil painting above the mantle caught her attention.
It showed a courtyard at night with fairy lights hanging from the trees and a wall covered in ivy. A couple snuggled together on a bench. Their blurred faces made them anonymous, but it was obvious they were in love. The overall effect was dreamy magic. The initials SRW were worked into the lower left corner.
Mattie would love it. On impulse, Della reached for her phone to take a picture of it, then remembered it wasn’t really her phone, and she wasn’t allowed to text anyone.
She put the phone down on a nearby table and continued poking around her warden’s childhood home. It felt vaguely naughty, like spying, but Piper had always said a person’s home said a lot about them. Maybe she’d figure out what made her warden so crabby.
Books of every genre lined the shelves next to the fireplace, including an entire shelf of young adult fantasy, and another of mystery thrillers. Here and there, simple silver frames showcased the people she assumed lived in this house, once upon a time.
One showed a tall man with Ward’s hair and build gazing at a woman with kind eyes—she assumed Mama Ward—with such intensity and open admiration that Della couldn’t help but smile.
His parents’ love for each was too big for the small frame.
Della had seen Renic look at Lizzie that way. It sent a ping of jealousy zipping through Della every time.
Nobody had ever looked at her like that.
She wondered when his mother had died. How old had he been? She studied the woman in the frame, curious and a little sad. Ward had his mother’s lips. She wondered if he’d inheritedher warm, inviting smile too. She wouldn’t know. She’d never seen him smile.
It was weird that her warden had been part of such an obviously close family. So far, he’d seemed more like someone who'd sprung fully formed from a robot factory.
She moved on to a photo of young Ward caught in the act of throwing a football.
“All-American boy. Huh.” She trailed her fingers along one of the shelves to another photo of three boys in dirty football uniforms sitting on the hood of a car. She could just make out a scoreboard in the background with forty-two on one side, seven on the other.
As it turned out, her warden did have his mother’s smile. He looked so happy she couldn’t help but wonder where that smile had gone. Then she remembered his mother was dead and knew the answer.
Overhead, the floorboards creaked as her keeper moved from room to room upstairs.
It was so quiet. There were no human noises. No laughter. No TV show playing in the background. No music. Just the distant rush of the stream outside.
There was no feeling of life in a place that had clearly been lived in.
The whole place had that empty feeling of an arena before a show, but without the anticipation.
All this silence made her ears buzz.
Ward tromped down the stairs, his full attention on his phone. Whatever he saw on the screen wasn’t making him very happy.
Nervous tingles tickled her stomach. “Something wrong? Is there news about the stalker?”
“No.” Ward tapped out a short message, then glanced up. “What are you doing?”
The brusque, judgmental way he said that, as if heknewshe’d been doing something wrong, flipped the switch on her last nerve.
“You know, the last few days have been pretty shitty. My house was invaded, there’s a man in the hospital and it’s my fault. I think I’ve handled it all pretty damn well, and I just…I need a few seconds of normal. Can you handle that? Can you relax for five seconds? Maybe pretend to be human?” She brushed past him to investigate the kitchen. “Is there anything to drink in here?”
She heard him take a deep breath like he was summoning his patience.
“I’m not sure,” he muttered.
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
The kitchen was large, but not massive, with a mahogany island in the center that looked hand carved, and four matching barstools. There was a frosted glass door with the word Pantry stenciled on it in white on the right, and next to that a door that led to what appeared to be an office.
Della checked the fridge. It was empty. She opened and closed the cabinets.
Empty.