Page 53 of Tangled Past
His expression softened. “Where am I in that?”
She looked up—really looked—and the intensity in his eyes undid her. “Somewhere I didn’t expect.”
He stepped closer. Barely an inch, but the air tightened. “Maya,” he said, his voice low. “I won’t push you, but I won’t pretend I don’t care about you either.”
Her breath caught. “What if remembering everything changes me?” she whispered.
He lifted his hand, giving her every chance to pull away and rested it against the side of her face. “Then I’ll meet that version of you too. One chapter at a time.”
Her heart stuttered.
Not a kiss.
Not yet.
But something just as binding.
A promise formed in the space between them.
After a long moment, she leaned in—just slightly—and Asa let his forehead touch hers, the contact feather-light but electric.
“You’re safe,” he whispered. “Even when you don’t feel it.”
She nodded, unable to find words.
Finally, Asa stepped back, and she could breathe normally again. “Come on,” he said and took her hand. “Let’s find the others.”
As they walked back down the hallway together, she realized for the first time since the memories surfaced, she didn’t feel like she was walking into darkness alone. She was walking toward a truth she so desperately needed to know with someone beside her who refused to let her fall.
???
His mind drifted. Not to Troy, or the woman who was remembering her hidden past, but to Margaret Cormier. Living in Alaska now. Old but not senile. He’d underestimated her.
When he’d followed her from the shadows back then just enough to be threatening, he’d accomplished what he wanted. She’d packed up and left, fearing she’d end up like Raymond. He’d assumed enough miles and years would make her doubt her own memory.
That she’d take whatever she knew about that night to the grave without commentary. But he had no doubt their next move would be to look Margaret up if they hadn’t already. When they did, would she talk? She always had an affection for Raymond. His snitch inside the police department had told him as much. Would her fear for her own safety be outweighed by her need to solve Raymond’s murder after all these years?
He would deal with that if he had to. The real problem wasn’t Alaska. It was here on the island. More specifically, the old house on the hill where Raymond Dutton used to live.
He’d searched the barn, of course. Twice. Once on the night of the storm, stepping carefully around the blood and the lawman’s cooling body. Taking that infernal wind chime with him.
A week later, he’d gone back without finding anything, but he’d missed a piece of the chime that had fallen between the cracks in the floorboards. Not that it mattered. By now, any DNA would have long since faded away.
He’d searched every square inch of the Hardesty farm with the same results, but what he hadn’t had was the freedom to tear apart Raymond’s house.
At the time, with the case barely cooled and the island still buzzing from the chief’s death, the risk of a deeper search had outweighed the gain. As time passed, the urgency seemed unwarranted. After all, the police searched the home and found nothing. Then, as more time passed, it felt unnecessary.
Now that the son was back on the island digging into the past, he wondered for the first time if he’d made a grave miscalculation.
Vanessa’s voice was long gone, scattered to whatever place dead things went when you buried them, but her shadow still lingered in a girl’s memories. In the dispatcher’s recollection. In the margins of reports, he was convinced Raymond would have started. The ones he’d never filed officially.
If those notes were still hidden somewhere in that house—if they found them—they would see the rest of it.
The disappearances of others. A pattern he’d crafted with such care. The reason Vanessa had become so inconvenient in the first place. They might even see the one thread he hadn’t quite managed to cut.
He could almost taste the risk on his tongue.
Two choices remained. The same ones he’d always had. Disappear, or make sure they were following the wrong path when they thought they’d found the truth.
He started the engine. Keeping the headlights off, he rolled the SUV farther into the shadows.
If they were going to go looking for Raymond’s ghosts, it might finally be time to decide, once and for all, what to do about the girl who refused to stay silent.
