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When Callie opened the front door, she stared at the offerings in astonishment. "Wow, I wasn't expecting this."
"A lot of people cared about Arthur," he said, feeling a heaviness in his heart. He wasn't sure what he was going to find out about Arthur, but at the moment he still had love for the man. And he was incredibly saddened that he was gone. "I'll help you bring this stuff in." He grabbed a bottle of wine and the nearest bouquet.
It took them about ten minutes to clear the porch. They put everything on the very sleek and polished table in the formal dining room. Callie looked through the cards and tags. "Some of these are addressed to my mom."
"I'm sure they're all for her, even if they've been sent in honor of Arthur's memory."
"She'd be touched to see all this. I wish she could see it now. It might make her feel better."
"She'll see it when she's better."
She drew in a breath and let it out. "All right. What's next? It feels weird being here at night. It feels lonelier than it did earlier. Maybe that's because my mom is gone, too."
"I want to check out Olivia's room first. I don't think it will take that long."
"While you do that, I'm going to look in the study and see if I can find the trust information."
"It was in the bottom drawer of the first file cabinet. A large binder. You can't miss it."
"Okay. Good luck, Flynn."
He knew she was purposefully letting him go into Olivia's room on his own, and he appreciated that. "Thanks."
He moved up the stairs, feeling more trepidation with each step. At the second-floor landing, he switched on the lights and paused. He'd opened a lot of doors in his life, and behind those doors, he'd confronted danger, bullets, criminals, and terrorists, and he'd never felt the kind of fear he felt now. He'd locked his feelings for Olivia away. All the pain, the anger, had been banished to some distant part of his brain that he never accessed. But now he had to face the past.
His hand moved to the knob, but he couldn't seem to turn it.
He was being ridiculous. The room had surely been cleared out after so many years. He was probably going to see nothing but a bed and a dresser, same as the guest rooms on the first floor.
Pushing past his paralysis, he opened the door, stepping inside and back in time.
The room wasn't exactly the same, but there were more memories than he'd anticipated. The walls were no longer adorned with Olivia's favorite posters, but her favorite books were still on the bookshelves over the white desk where she'd once done her homework. The bedding had been changed from young and girlish and very yellow, Olivia's favorite color, to more neutral pastels, but still with a feminine edge.
He walked over to the closet and opened the door. Thank God her clothes weren't there. That would have been too much. There were a couple of raincoats and down jackets hanging in the closet, but he suspected they were just overflow from one of the other rooms, because he didn't recognize them.
On the shelf of the closet were several boxes, two of them marked with Olivia's name, and one with the added word—photos.
He told himself to leave the box alone. This search wasn't about Olivia; it was about her father. But he couldn't stop himself from grabbing the box and setting it on the desk. Opening the lid, he found a pile of loose photos, and he was suddenly seeing Olivia again—beautiful, young, full of life.
His breath caught in his chest.
Pain rocked through him. He hadn't actually looked at her face in a very long time, but here she was, with blonde hair and hazel eyes that had often seemed amazed by life. Her smile was sweet and a little shy. He'd been taken in by that smile the first time he'd seen her. He'd been the new kid in high school, and as a senior, it was not the best position to be in. Everyone else had known each other, many from kindergarten, and he'd had to power his way through, hoping to find a few friends to hang with. When he'd met Olivia, he'd been immediately accepted by her group, and he'd been able to start over.
He moved on to another photo, one of Olivia with her parents. The Corbyn family that he'd known—Olivia, Francine, and now Arthur—was gone. It was hard to get his head around that fact. An entire family gone too soon.
As Olivia's face stared back at him, he could almost hear her pleading with him to find her father's killer. He really didn't want to let her down.
"Flynn?"
Callie's questioning voice brought his head around.
"Did you find the phone?" she asked from the doorway.
"Not yet. I got a little sidetracked."
Callie crossed the room and looked into the box of photos. She pulled out a shot of Olivia and him at Zuma Beach. He had one arm around Olivia and the other around a surfboard. Olivia had on a bright-yellow bikini and he was bare-chested, wearing his favorite board shorts. His hair was longer and blonder. He didn't look like he had a care in the world, and neither did she. It was a perfect moment in time. And it hurt.
"You both look young," Callie murmured. "And tan." She lifted her gaze to his. "Olivia was a surfer, too?"