Page 19 of Tangled Past
Chapter Eight
Afresh batch of cinnamon rolls cooled, untouched beside the register. Numb, Maya stood next to it, trying to hold herself together.
Nothing she’d recalled so far helped identify Raymond Dutton’s killer. Would she ever be able to piece the truth together to give both her and Asa closure?
Asa stood nearby, carefully watching over her.
JT finished a quiet phone call near the window. Rachel sat at a table reviewing notes on her tablet, her expression calm but alert. The entire bistro felt poised on a precipice—as if the thin veil of normalcy could tear with one sharp breath.
Asa came over. “How are you holding up?”
Maya smiled. “I’m not going to break.”
His gaze held hers, warm and unwavering. “I know you’re not, but I also know courage doesn’t mean not being shaken. It means walking in anyway.”
Her throat tightened. She nodded once.
JT approached, tucking his phone back into his coat. “Declan and Eli are en route. Chief Kelly’s been notified as well. We’ll meet everyone on the road near the Hardesty property.”
“Is he going to want to question me?” Maya asked, her voice a mere breath.
Rachel offered a reassuring smile. “He’ll want to help you, and he’ll follow our lead.”
The words should have comforted her, but instead they poked at something tender inside her chest—some small, stubborn part of her that still believed being alone was safer.
Being alone was how she’d survived—how she had stored away the parts of herself she couldn’t bear to face. How she had lived twenty-five years without a past and pretended it didn’t matter. Now those years felt like thin ice beneath her feet.
The memory from earlier pressed in again—Raymond whispering, “Stay here.”
A chime sounded.
A cold voice cut through the storm.
Maya swallowed hard and wrapped her arms around herself.
Asa reached out, brushing his knuckles lightly against her sleeve. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” He slipped off his jacket without saying another word and draped it over her shoulders. Its warmth flooded her instantly, carrying a faint hint of cedar and ocean wind—his scent. Something inside her settled just enough to breathe again.
JT cleared his throat. “The cameras we set up earlier are down—something happened to them. Eli and Declan will get there ahead of us and check them out as well as search the perimeter around the barn.”
Rachel stood. “You don’t have to do this today. There’s no pressure. No timeline.”
Maya’s eyes darted from one of them to the other—Asa, Rachel, JT. Three people who had shown her more support in one morning than she’d known most of her life.
“I’m ready,” she said softly. “Not because I’m brave. Because I can’t keep living in pieces, I need to know the truth.”
Asa’s eyes warmed with something that made her pulse explode. “Then we’ll find it.” He offered his hand.
She hesitated only a moment before letting her fingers curl around his. The contact grounded her instantly.
“Let’s go,” JT said.
They stepped out into the cold.
The air outside bit her skin, sharp and crisp. Snow layered the sidewalk in a thin frost, glittering like powdered glass beneath the weak winter sun. Asa held Maya’s hand all the way to JT’s waiting SUV, releasing it only long enough to help her into the back seat.
