THEN
Jana Rundell backed the Lexus convertible out of the garage at 2911 Roy Rogers Road in Phoenix, with the top down and Webb in the passenger seat.
Jana was so close to his own mother in age, that it struck Webb that in a different life, one where he didn’t have a stepfather who knew how to hurt people without leaving a mark, this could have been an ordinary day driving with his mother. But ordinary days had been taken away from Webb the day his mother married again, and there was nothing he could do about it, except block it out of his thoughts and feelings.
He forced himself not to think about what he’d left behind in Toronto, and concentrated on the desert scenery as they drove. The dull brown mountains shimmered in the heat. Palm fronds flashed above them as they moved down the boulevard and out of the oasis of the gated community.
They drove through the desert for a while on a long stretch of black asphalt, the occasional cactus looking like a lonely soldier, until they reached another community, where Jana used the GPS to navigate through an industrial area to a storage place that advertised air-conditioned units.
“I thought the number was an apartment,” Jana said, “but I guess it’s not.”
Webb read from the piece of paper left for him by Jake Rundell. “Five-oh-three.”
Jana drove the Lexus up and down the narrow alleys between the storage units until she found it.
Webb stepped out of the car, conscious of the heat. Jana stayed behind the steering wheel.
Finally, the key in Webb’s hand made sense. It fit the lock of storage unit 503. The lock opened, allowing him to slide a lever open. He lifted the storage unit door, and it rattled upward loudly.
Cool air wafted toward Webb from the dark interior. There was enough sunlight, however, to show something large and white at the end of the storage unit.
He blinked, and then it made sense. It was a portable movie screen.
“There’s a light switch,” Jana said.
Because of the intensity of his curiosity, he hadn’t realized she’d come into the unit.
“If this isn’t my business,” she said, flipping on the light, “tell me, and I’ll go back and sit in the car.”
Centered in front of them was a small table with a projector that faced the movie screen. There was a chair on each side.
“Two chairs,” Webb said. “If your grandfather set this up, he wasn’t expecting just me.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
They moved inside.
On the table beside the projector was a large sealed envelope with a note paper-clipped to it: Watch the movie first. Then open the envelope.
Webb handed Jana the note.
“My grandfather’s handwriting,” she said.
“They must have planned this together,” Webb told her. “Your grandfather and mine.”
“Why not just tell you?” she asked.
“I guess we’re about to find out,” Webb said, pointing at the projector.
She laughed softly. “I wondered where it had gone. We made so much fun of it when Grandpa was alive.”
Webb didn’t interrupt, because she was crying as she laughed.
“Grandpa Jake took tons and tons of home movies when my mom was little,” Jana said. “Home movies, not home video. That was in the sixties. Grandpa Jake showed me his movie camera once. He was so proud of it. A Kodak Brownie that shot eight-millimeter film. You had to use a key to wind it.”
She wiped her face. “Every Christmas, he’d set up the movie screen and this projector. Look at it.”
It had two huge film reels. A full one at the front and an empty take-up reel at the back.
“Half the time, the film would snap or it would get caught up in the teeth, and it would take him an hour to get it going again. He’d taken movies of the kids diving in the pool. He’d run it in reverse so that it looked like they were jumping backward out of the water and landing on the diving board. We never got tired of watching it and laughing about it.”
Webb thought of the video of his grandpa that he’d seen in Devine’s law office. He doubted Jake Rundell had done the same, using instead technology that was more than half a century old.
“I’ll pull the door back down most of the way,” Webb said. “That will make it dark enough to see what he wanted us to see.”
The door rattled again, and Webb left a small gap at the bottom, just enough so he’d be able to reach under and pull it open again when the movie was finished.
Jana hit the switch on the projector and the reels clattered into motion. As the opening image hit the screen, Webb turned off the light.
He made his way to the chair on the right side of the projector and sat to watch.