Free Lost Legacy by Dana Mentink

wasn’t spinning theories,” he said to no one. “We’ve got to look at all the facts.”
    “I don’t think Brooke sees it that way,” Stephanie said. “And frankly, if it was our dad, I think I’d be feeling the same. I’ll see you outside.”
    Victor felt Tuney’s eyes on him. “She’s not going to see things clearly where her father is concerned. We’re going to have to ferret out the truth whether she likes it or not,” Tuney said.
    We? Victor saw Brooke out the window, sitting in a meager beam of late-afternoon sunlight, slight shoulders hunched as if from bearing a heavy weight.
    If her father was unmasked, then the person who planned the robbery would finally be punished.
    And Brooke Ramsey would be destroyed.
    * * *
    Brooke wanted to be alone, to hide herself away from everyone and think, but there was no time as she and Stephanie made their way into the empty women’s dormitory. She sensed that Stephanie wanted to say something, but Brooke avoided eye contact. One kind word from the woman, and she knew she would dissolve into tears.
    At the heart of her anguish was the knowledge that Tuney was right. Her father hadn’t “clued her in.” She hadn’t known that he’d visited Bayside. He hadn’t mentioned it and neither had Denise. The omission burned inside her. As soon as she could get a moment alone, she intended to call them and find out why.
    They located a suitable empty room, a long rectangular space with nothing more than three twin beds, a tiny sink area, a battered desk with an equally battered chair and a bulletin board still sporting a picture of a handsome man who Brooke assumed was a movie actor. A dried flower was pinned to the wall. The remnant of a boyfriend’s offering? The space was painted in a shade of yellow that had probably once been cheerful.
    Stephanie set her duffel bag on one of the beds.
    “Cozy,” she said, plopping down her sleeping bag and an extra she’d brought for Brooke. “Bathroom is down the hall. Let’s go find that brother of mine and get some food. I’m starving.”
    Brooke sank down on the bed and pulled out her cell phone. “You go. I wanted to call home and check in.”
    Stephanie hesitated. “You sure?”
    “Yes.”
    Stephanie studied her for a moment, dark eyes intense like Victor’s, before she nodded and left.
    When she was alone, Brooke dialed. It rang and rang with no answer. She prowled the room with restless steps, stopping to look out the window into the darkening sky like the contemplative lady in Tarkenton’s painting. She pulled up the picture on her cell phone again, staring at the small image. Something preyed on her mind, nibbling at the corners. Something wrong. Something out of place.
    Her thoughts would not cooperate, and the quiet of the deserted dormitory enveloped her with smothering silence. A walk might clear her thoughts. She’d be safe if she ventured no farther than the courtyard. Before the walls closed in around her she found her way outside, cool air bathing her face. In the distance, the hills were still visible against a clouded sky. It was such a melancholy sight she wished she could put it to dance right at that very moment, to let her inner turmoil find expression in the glorious high release or a twisting spiral.
    A low brick wall encircled the place and her heart skipped to see a man sitting there, facing away from her in the pool of light from a single lamppost.
    Tuney.
    She turned to go when he saw her.
    “Settled in?”
    She nodded, intending to leave without further comment, when she detected something different in his face, a soft expression she didn’t understand. A trick of the moonlight? He was holding a newspaper, open to the sports section.
    He noticed her eyeing it. “Reading about spring training. Fran was a real baseball nut.”
    Brooke was startled. The gentle look. The wistful expression. “She was a good friend?”
    He folded the newspaper with a snap. “Fran was an all-right gal. Never