Braking Points by Tammy Kaehler

yourself from the trust.”
    â€œThen tell whoever’s cranky about it I don’t want it. I’ll give it back.”
    â€œKate, I hope someday you might feel part of the family. That you might…” He paused and watched me.
    I focused on refolding my napkin and aligning my coffee cup and water glass on the table, trying to mask my panic.
    He wasn’t fooled. “Never mind. The question will only come up after I’m gone—which will be many years, God willing. If anyone mentions it, you can explain your stance. But know I only have hopes of you, not expectations. Please.”
    I gave him a grudging nod, annoyed with myself for acting like a surly child, but uncomfortable with what he offered. My head tells me to push him away. But my gut feels a connection. I’m fighting my upbringing. Fighting my grandparents.
    He put away the reading glasses he’d used for the bill. “I’d appreciate it if you’d attend the party. I know it might be stressful, but a brief social situation could be an easier environment for a first meeting. Please consider it?”
    I nodded again. As we left the restaurant, I tried to explain. “I know I must seem ungrateful, but I’m used to my life. This is a big change. I don’t know if I can give you what you want from me, and I won’t insult you by pretending to feel something I don’t.”
    I didn’t add I wanted to run screaming from the thought of his established, extended family, because he wouldn’t understand why. I wasn’t sure I understood, myself.
    Â 

Chapter Eight
    I walked back to my room at Siebkens with one more weighty matter on my mind. When I checked in with the police, I discovered they wanted to talk to me at the station that afternoon, which meant Holly and I weren’t leaving Wisconsin that day. After making arrangements with the Inn to keep my room, I called Holly to apologize.
    â€œThey’ve got a spa at the Osthoff, don’t they?” A rhetorical question. “I’ll be fine,” she’d continued. “I’m worried about you and Stuart.”
    â€œStuart?” I hadn’t spoken with him yet.
    â€œI talked to him earlier. He’s been at the police station since ten this morning.”
    I looked at my watch. Noon. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
    She sighed down the phone line. “Sugar, you’ve got some bad juju.”
    Didn’t I know it.
    We agreed to meet for dinner, and she told me to bring Stuart if I could “spring him from the pokey.” I tried to find that funny.
    I never saw him in the four hours I spent at the police station answering questions on two specific topics: what I knew about Ellie, which was precious little and a decade old, and what and who I’d seen in the Tavern. I’d given the same information to Officer Michaels the night before, but this time I talked to a Sheboygan County Sherriff from the Criminal Investigations division. I had to ask Lieutenant Rich Young point-blank about Ellie’s death before he admitted they weren’t sure it was natural.
    â€œThat’s…disappointing,” I sighed.
    If he’d had antennae, they’d have quivered. “Only ‘disappointing?’”
    â€œLook, when you wanted me to talk to you again, I expected this. And given my life has run to chaos in the last twenty-four hours, I’m numb to shocks.”
    The sheriff reminded me of my father, short for a man, dark haired, slight build, and peering at written material through reading glasses. “Yes, you were in an accident in the race yesterday?”
    â€œThen I made an ass of myself on national television. Then I reconnected with two good friends from my youth and found one of them dead an hour later. By this morning, most of the NASCAR community has e-mailed me to say they hate me. I’ve got long-lost family trying to claim me—never mind, that’s