Junior's death throwing itself in Kris's face hurt worse than any physical injury from the accident ever could. With the tombstone right in front of her, it was now impossible to deny. All that she could process was the words stuck in her head like a broken record. "Junior is dead, Junior is dead, Junior is dead, Junior is dead..." She was vaguely able to take in the softness of Flame's muzzle against her shoulder and the warmth of Matt's arms around her back.
After a little while, Kris became more aware of her surroundings. "Matt...why?" she whispered. She wondered why her voice sounded so weird, and then she realized it was because she was shaking and crying. "Just driving along the highway, no warning, no chance to say goodbye...not even one moment." She suddenly felt rage boiling inside her. "WHY?"
"Kris? Matt?" Kris heard Dani call out. "What's going..."
Matt turned to look at Dani. Kris saw her friend's pale expression out of the corner of her eye. "Let's go up to the house."
"What about all our horses?" said Matt. Kris noticed that Taz and Wildfire were tied to some nearby trees.
"I'll get one of the grooms to take care of them," said Dani. "Right now, just come with me."
Slowly, with Dani supporting her right side and Matt supporting her left, Kris began walking up to the Davis Mansion. When they arrived at the front steps, her feet suddenly turned to cement. "I...I can't."
"What?" said Matt.
"She can't go in his house," Dani realized. "You need to go in, though, Matt. Junior left you everything in his two bottom dresser drawers in his will."
"Really?" said Matt. "All his favorite things are in there." He suddenly looked touched and a little teary-eyed. "Did he leave you anything, Dani?"
Dani scoffed. "Only his porshe and his entire share in Davis Farms."
Matt blinked. "Wow. That seems kind of obvious now that I think about it but...wow."
"You should go get his-your-things," said Dani. "I'll stay out here with Kris."
"Sure," said Matt. He squeezed Kris's shoulder before getting up. He took a deep breath and entered the Davis mansion.
"What's with the hat?" asked Kris, suddenly noticing that Dani was wearing the odd yet familiar black cowboy hat.
Dani sighed and sat down by Kris. "Junior gave it to me and...it was RJ's."
"Oh yeah," said Kris. "I was wondering where I'd seen that before." Then suddenly, she looked to her friend and realized that in the past year, they had both lost the man they were in love with to a hideous and completely unpredictable injury. What a horrible thing for them to have in common.
"How can things like this happen to perfectly good people?" said Kris tearfully. "How? Why?"
Dani closed her own tear-filled eyes and wrapped her arms around Kris, letting her cry on her shoulder. There was nothing more that either of them could say.
Matt pulled both drawers out of the dresser and began to carefully load the contents into a moving box that Ken had given him. Everything that had ever meant anything to his best friend was in here. The stuffed horse that Junior carried around when they were in preeschool. The currycomb he used to comb Scooter, his first pony. The pinecones he and Matt collected when they were hiking through the woods with Henry when they were little. A picture of his mother Isabelle. An action figure he'd won in sixth grade for winning a burping contest.
"Junior, you're such a goof," Matt whispered. "You can't be dead. You just..."
Matt closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. Grow up, Matt, he thought to himself. This was no time to get all emotional. He sighed as he began to put the few car magazines that Junior had kept over the years into the box, including the one that they looked at when they were twelve that Junior had circled all the porshe's in and said, "That's my car, Matt. Someday, I'll get a car just like that one. And it'll be all mine! I'll let you ride in it as long as you promise not to eat in it or spill your drink. But no girls are gonna be allowed in it, ever. Except for Dani, and she'll have to pay!" Matt wondered what Kris would think of that story.
Suddenly, Matt's eyes shifted to what had been underneath the magazine in the drawer, then widened with shock. "Huh? This can't be..."
He was looking at several stacks, bound together with rubber bands, of thousand-dollar bills. He moved some more things aside. The whole bottom of the drawer was covered with them. The same went for the other drawer. On top of one of the stacks was a note:
"Hey! What do you think you're doing, going through all my stuff? Unless I'm dead-which I'd better not be-hands off. If I am, then the only person who is allowed to be going through these drawers is Matt Ritter. Matt, I know you never would have accepted this from me while I was still alive. And this is my emergency stash, so I probably never would have given it to you anyway. But now, it's for you. This is for you to rebuild Raintree just like you vowed you were going to the night of the illegal match race. Get out there and give Dani a run for her money! Literally! Yours, Junior Davis."