Page 61 of Tangled Past
“He’s careful—we know that. Smart enough to manipulate systems for decades,” she said. “Smart enough to use men like Troy as shields.”
“Yeah,” Asa said, his jaw tightening. “A man who likes control and doesn’t usually like sharing it. He might use accomplices or shields, but he’ll keep the important pieces close. If we find a thread that belongs only to him—not to a company, not to a bar, not to a decoy—that’s where we pull.”
Maya considered what he’d said for a moment. “The problem is, my memories are a box of threads with no labels.”
“Your memories are why he’s scared,” Asa countered. “Vanessa’s decision to talk rattled his cage. But you, alive and remembering? That’s the biggest crack yet.”
“Comforting,” she muttered while a shiver slid through her.
“In a messed-up way,” he said. “Yeah.” He watched her for a long beat. “Maya, you walked into that adoption agency today knowing there might be nothing. You listened to a stranger in Alaska tell you how your life started in the worst possible way. You read a notebook that confirmed your mother’s worst nightmares were real, and you’re still here. Still fighting. That takes strength.”
Her throat closed. “I guess I don’t feel brave,” she managed.
“Most of the brave people I know don’t. They just take the next step anyway.”
She stared at her hands. “What if the next step is the one that gets someone else hurt?”
He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice was rough. “I think my father would say it was never your job to keep other people from choosing to stand with you,” he said. “He made his. I’m making mine. Will made his when he put this team around you. You don’t get to carry the blame for that.”
“My mom tried to do the right thing,” she whispered. “And it cost her everything.”
He leaned forward, closing the distance between them, his forearms braced on his thighs. “Vanessa’s story didn’t end in that barn, Maya. You’re part of it. Every step you take now is part of what she risked herself for. That doesn’t erase what happened, but it refuses to let him have the last word.”
She blew out a shaky breath. “Why do you keep saying things that make it impossible to maintain my defensive cynicism?” she asked, her voice thick.
He smiled. “Bad habit. I’ll work on it.” He reached across the coffee table, palm up.
Her hand slid into his, fitting there as if it belonged. His grip was warm and firm, thumb resting against the inside of her wrist where her pulse beat too fast. “Tell me if you’re overwhelmed,” he murmured.
“I’m overwhelmed,” she said instantly.
He chuckled. “Okay. Tell me if you want me to let go.”
She looked at their joined hands. “No. Not yet.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “Then we’ll start there.”
Outside, the wind pushed against the walls, testing their strength. Footsteps crunched on gravel.
“Probably our team shifting position,” Asa assured her.
Yet somewhere out there, Maya thought, in one of the dark pockets of the island, a man who liked control was realizing the story he’d written wasn’t holding up the way it used to. For the first time, she could feel the line between them. Not just through her fear. Not just the echo of his voice in the barn, but a line of light, stretching from a notebook hidden in a wall, to the names on that whiteboard, to every woman on that list who deserved more than a forgotten report.
Vanessa had stepped into that light once. Raymond had too.
Now it was her turn.
“Asa?” she said after a moment.
“Yeah?”
“When this is over, if we find him, I want to stand in that courtroom. I want to say her name and all their names out loud.”
He didn’t hesitate. “You will.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I see the strength that has been forged in you through all of this.”
She smiled at that.
“I have faith in very specific things,” he said. “God. Gravity. You. You're finding a way to do the impossible when you're too stubborn to quit.”
Her heart gave a strange, painful lurch at the first word.God. She wasn’t ready to unpack that yet, but He was there. Between them. Above them. Somewhere in the spaces her mother’s prayers had once occupied. For the first time since the barn, her eyes felt heavy—not with panic, but with exhaustion that might actually lead to sleep.
“Why don’t you try to get some rest?” Asa said, letting her hand go.
She leaned back against the sofa. “Promise you’ll wake me if anything happens.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
