House of Steel by Raen Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

and accolades
filled them. She peered closer at three particular certificates
grouped together, scrutinizing the stamped signature that inscribed
all of them. Holston Parker.
    As she moved on to other framed pieces, the
office walls of Leighton University flashed through her mind; the
departments filled with pretentious faculty and their achievements.
She had always thought framing achievements was a bit ostentatious.
Even as a child, she wondered why doctors or dentists framed their
walls with their schooling and praises. Her mother had once told
her that it was a “diversion from their inadequacies in life.”
Delaney had agreed.
    Next to the framed accomplishments hung
smaller, colored frames with pictures of a young girl. She looked
closer at a picture of the girl in her teens sporting a polka dot
two-piece, standing on a white, sandy beach with an expansive lake
behind her. Lake Michigan? Her hair was slicked back, wet
from the water as she stood, posing at the camera with a wave and
smile. She had the same gentle eyes as Joe. His daughter,
Elizabeth. A boy, slightly older, stood with his arms crossed
behind her. Brother? Boyfriend?
    Another girl, about the same age, except
with long, dark hair, sat on a bench a few feet away. Her legs were
tucked into her chest, her arms hugging them with ferocity. Unlike
the girl posing, she stared straight into her knees as if she was
purposely avoiding the picture. Her dark hair hung dry, half-hiding
the rest of her face. Delaney placed her hand on the wall as she
moved closer to look at the girl with the dark hair, the wood
paneling flexed with the pressure of her hand.
    Delaney caught another picture that showed
the same girls sitting on a swing that hung from a large oak tree
in front of a sweeping cabin. This time, the dark-haired girl’s
eyes penetrated the camera, staring at Delaney with translucent
blueness. She shifted her eyes to the forty-something man dressed
in khakis and a poplin shirt. He stood leaning against the oak tree
with a hat half-tipped on his head, not looking at the girls, but
gazing off to the side; his pronounced jawline stood outlined in
the picture. The angles protruded sharp in his hard face as if he
objected to the girls’ happiness. The picture was, most likely, an
unknown capture of time to the man.
    She shifted over a foot to glance at the
other pictures surrounding the young girls. Pictures of Joe and
Elizabeth at various ages filled the frames, some hand-decorated
by, Delaney presumed, the daughter herself. Her blonde curls, a
contrast to her father’s dark hair, decorated his daughter’s
vibrant face. She was beautiful, yet feisty as Joe called her; a
picture of her standing on top of a shed roof, blonde curls falling
effortlessly around her devilish grin, exemplified this. Delaney
smiled back at her standing tall on the roof with the blue sky
surrounding her. I wish I could have met you.
    Listless, Delaney began examining the items
on Joe’s desk. An old desk clock. A greased gear – something she
only knew thanks to her mechanically inclined father. She had spent
hours of her childhood watching him tinker with an old Chevy that
he never was able to run, at least not for a consistent period of
time. Also on the desk was a fist-sized stone used as a paperweight
to hold down a stack of invoices. She lifted the stone last,
running her fingers along the cracked grooves, turning it over in
her hands to feel the roughness against her skin. Feeling a poke
against her skin, she turned it over to see a small key adhered
with transparent tape to the bottom.
    Really, Joe? She peeled the tape off
the stone with her fingertip, freeing the small brass key from the
hard surface. Letting it rest in her hand, she closed her fingers
to feel the ridges roughly stab her skin. She opened her hand back
up, watching as the white imprint of the key disappeared from her
skin, resolving to the flesh color of the rest of her hand. I
shouldn’t . Her eyes wandered to