Why, she wondered, was her dad’s stuff jammed into a box and dumped in the garage? Some of it—okay, maybe not the canceled checks and old business papers—deserved a place in the home. It should be seen. Her mom still kept a picture of Katie’s dad next to her own bed, but what other memories were there of him in the house?

Had these mementos been moved out here lately? Had it just been since her mother had started seeing Joe?

Oh, her mom didn’t know that she knew. But Katie had a pretty good idea what was going on. More than once she’d seen her mom’s boyfriend slipping out of the house any time between midnight and four in the morning.

And just how was she able to spot him? Well, it helped if you weren’t in the house yourself. If you happened to be trying to sneak back in around the same time that Joe was trying to sneak out.

She folded the box back up without returning the beach photo. And then, right behind it, she spotted the box marked dvds.

“Bingo,” she said to herself. She dragged the box closer, opened it, rummaged around. There were Star Wars and Star Trek movies, a couple of seasons of the Star Trek spinoff Deep Space Nine. Sandra was the science-fiction fan, and these were hers.

There were a couple of season box sets of The Simpsons. Then, below them, pay dirt. Seasons four and six of Family Guy.

Katie managed to hold the DVDs and the photo in one hand, allowing her to turn off the lights and open the garage door with the other. She scooted across the yard, slipped back into the kitchen through the sliding glass doors, and dropped the DVDs onto the counter.

“Found them!” she shouted at the door to the basement. “Just give me a sec!”

She bolted up the stairs and placed on her bedroom dresser the picture of her with her father. She descended the stairs as quickly as she’d climbed them, grabbed the DVDs from the counter, and charged down into the basement.

The first thing that struck her as odd was that the lights had not been turned on. She hit the switch and looked immediately at the couch and the coffee table in front of the flat-screen TV.

There were no Pringles and no Cokes there. No brother, either.

“Archie!” she cried.

She waited two seconds, then said under her breath, “The little weasel.”

Katie charged back upstairs, calling out his name two more times. When she again failed to get a response, she charged out the front door.

There was an Arrival in the driveway, but it wasn’t Gracie. This one was lime green, and in it were two boys Katie recognized.