The Promise of Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

was scheduled to open Turner’s Hardware, where she worked part-time, in the morning, and she had been counting on having a solid block of time in the afternoon to finish the floors in the McAllister mansion.
    “Thank you so much, honey,” her mother said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. How are things coming with the new bed-and-breakfast?”
    “They’re coming. Ruth wants to have a wedding party stay there right before Christmas, and there’s a lot to do before then. I’ll probably be working up there most of tomorrow afternoon.” Emily started toward the kitchen to let Gus back inside.
    “I’ll bet it’s Kyle Hansen and Claudia Simon’s wedding, right? Ruth was telling me they’re engaged.”
    “Um-hmm.” The big brown and white dog bolted through the door, tail wagging furiously. Emily managed to catch him by the collar before he could launch himself at her mother.
    “Hello, Gus,” her mother said, already backpedaling toward the front door. “I don’t want to risk him jumping up on me while I’ve got my good clothes on. By the way, I’m off Monday, and I invited Rose and her family to supper. Ivy’s coming, too, and so should you. A home-cooked meal would do you good after a long day of work.”
    “I’ll try,” Emily said again.
    Her mother nodded and backed out the door, calling, “Okay, then. Have a good night, honey,” as she closed it.
    Emily released Gus and went to the kitchen. After she filled his bowl with dog food, she stood and stared into her refrigerator. She was starving but too tired to think about cooking anything. A simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich would do.
    As she ate, she wandered from room to room, searching for something that would be suitable to pick the locks on the briefcase. There were some toothpicks in the junk drawer, along with an old nutpick, and she also gathered up a few of her smallest bead-making tools.
    When she had stuffed the last bit of sandwich into her mouth, she took the old briefcase into the living room, beside a bright reading lamp, and sat down with it on her lap. She soon shoved the briefcase aside and flopped back in her chair. Only the toothpicks were small enough to fit in the keyholes, but they weren’t strong enough to withstand the pressure she applied in trying to open the locks. One of them nearly broke off inside.
    With fatigue finally overcoming her curiosity, Emily decided to take a long hot shower and go to sleep early. She would bring the briefcase to the hardware store in the morning, where she would have at her disposal umpteen different tools to open it.
    —
    Long after Ben had fallen asleep, Karen Cooper sat on the sofa in her living room. She couldn’t bear to turn on the television, with its blaring twenty-four-hour news stations going on and on about the latest accidents and atrocities. From time to time, she glanced at the phone, willing it to ring, to bring her good news about her husband.
We’ve found Nick and he’s fine,
she imagined a voice on the line telling her. Maybe he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere in Riyadh. Or maybe his vehicle had broken down and he and his colleague had had trouble finding someone to help them. As much as she tried to console herself with potential explanations, she knew very well that her husband would not disappear for four days unless something was horribly wrong.
    The need to touch Nick, to reach out and grab his hand, to reassure herself that he was there with her, was as overpowering as it was impossible to satisfy. Not knowing what else to do, Karen reached under the coffee table where they kept the family photo albums, and moved several of them to the couch cushion beside her. These were their older pictures, taken when they were newlyweds and new parents. Smartphones and digital pictures hadn’t existed back then, and the images in the albums were precious and irreplaceable.
    She had forgotten about the evening when she’d been hugely pregnant with Ben and Nick