Page 77 of Dotted Lines (Runaway 5)

August had left her side and was bent over the rusted can that Aria had once used to water her plants.

“Want me to open it?” I asked.

She sucked in a deep breath, nodding as she blew it out. “Yes.”

The latch was rusted and stiff but after a hard tug, it sprang free. The scrape of metal on metal echoed across the yard along with an ear-splitting squeak as I lifted the door.

I hopped up into the back, surveying the space. Then I held out a hand to help Clara up so she wouldn’t get that dress dirty.

She didn’t let my hand go as she looked around. Her grip tightened when she saw the wreckage of old books and blankets shoved against the far wall.

An animal had gotten in here at one point and had turned the pages and cloths into shreds. A bed of its own.

Clara bent down, picking up something from the floor. The dry-erase marker. The one they’d used to track their countdown on the wall. She held it up, inspecting it for a moment, then tossed it into the mess. “It’s small.”

“It all feels small.”

A place that had once felt so vast, like a continent of its own, had been reduced to its three acres by time and age and reality.

“I’m not taking a picture of this.” She spun away, ripped her hand free and was on the ground before I could blink.

I took one last glance, wishing it hadn’t been like this for Clara’s sake, and left it behind, not bothering to close the door. Then I jogged to catch them on their way to the shop since I had the keys.

Going in first, I flipped on the lights. “I’m surprised so many work.”

The smell of gasoline and oil was thick from years of sitting. I had no idea if the equipment would work, but I’d let someone else deal with that.

I checked my watch. It was nearly eight. “I’d better head out front to meet the developer.”

“We’ll come with you.” Clara backed away from the shop and we all walked toward Lou’s front door. “Did you decide what you want to do with it?”

“Sell it.” Now that I’d come here and seen it again, there was no reason to hold on to an old junkyard. “I’d like to go through Lou’s shack. Make sure there isn’t anything inside to keep. But there’s nothing for me here.”

“Not quite.” Clara looked up at me with a sad smile. “There was something here. I think that’s why Lou left it to you. Because he knew that you needed to come here and be the one to put it to rest.”

I almost tripped over my own damn feet. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Say what I’m feeling but haven’t figured out how to articulate.”

Her eyes softened. “I’m glad we came here.”

“Me too.”

We rounded the corner just as a large white truck pulled up behind the Cadillac. A man in a nice pair of jeans and a button-down shirt hopped out, raising one hand to wave while he held a notebook in the other.

“Would you mind if I went into Lou’s?” Clara asked.

“Not at all.” I handed her the keys, then winked at August before going to shake the developer’s hand.

I spent the next thirty minutes taking him on a tour of the junkyard. He told me about his plans for the neighborhood and the park he’d be adding on this section of land. Maybe it wouldn’t happen, but I liked the idea of this being a place for kids to play. A safe place for future generations, like it had been for me.

“There’s a lot here,” I told him as we walked back to his truck. “I don’t have the time or energy to sift through it all. So I’ll sell it to you, as-is.”

“How much?”

“Make me a fair offer based on the valuation of the land.”