Page 73 of Innocent Until Proven Witch

Her eyes glisten. "I just never had proof."

The room becomes painfully quiet. I stare at her. Really stare. And I realize she's been carrying this question for years. Alone. Years of wondering, years of doubt, years of convincing herself not to ask. Because asking meant reopening wounds.

I watch her swallow hard. "Your father wasn't the only one."

The words send another chill through me. She looks down. "Their families asked questions too."

My pulse pounds. The same questions we're asking now. The same questions nobody wanted answered.

A cold realization settles inside me. Aldric didn't simply hide evidence. He buried people, stories, and truth. Entire lives. And somehow nobody stopped him.

The harbor is quiet when I leave. The morning crowd has faded. Fishing vessels drift gently against their moorings. The sea looks peaceful. The sight makes me angry. It has no right to look peaceful. Not today.

I stop near the end of a dock, stare toward the horizon. The same horizon my father sailed toward. The same horizon he never returned from.

For years I avoided thinking about it. The grief never disappeared. I simply learned how to step around it. Work helped. Distance helped. Leaving Moonhaven helped. Or at least I thought it did.

The truth is uglier. The grief waited, patiently. The moment I stopped running, it caught up.

I sit heavily by the dock. The boards creak beneath my weight. My father's laugh surfaces unexpectedly. Then another memory. A fishing lesson. A storm warning. His hand on my shoulder. The memories arrive one after another, relentlessly.

The ache spreads through my chest, raw, fresh, as though years haven't passed at all. The worst part isn't losing him. It's realizing he might have been stolen. The possibility digs deeper than grief ever could.

Footsteps approach behind me. I don't turn around. I already know who it is. The bond tells me long before the sound does.

Reina stops beside me. For a moment she says nothing. Neither do I. The silence feels easier with her.

Eventually she sits down beside me, close enough that our shoulders nearly touch. Not quite. Not yet.

"My mother told me."

Her voice remains gentle. I nod. The answer takes effort. "Yeah."

Reina watches the water, waiting, giving me space. The consideration almost makes everything worse, because suddenly I want to talk. Not about the investigation. Not about Aldric. About him. My father.

The realization surprises me. I laugh softly, without humor. "I thought I dealt with it."

Reina's gaze shifts toward me. "The grief?"

I nod. "Turns out I just ignored it."

The answer earns a small smile. Sad. Understanding. "People confuse those two things."

I look at her. She knows exactly what she's talking about. Years of loneliness, years of rejection, years of pretending things didn't hurt. Reina understands. Maybe better than anyone.

I stare back toward the ocean. "My whole life I believed it was an accident." The words scrape on the way out. "What if it wasn't?"

Reina remains quiet for a moment, then asks softly, "What if it wasn't?"

The question surprises me. I glance toward her. Reina doesn't look away, doesn't rush to reassure me, doesn't tell me everything will be fine. She simply lets the question exist. The honesty helps more than comfort would have.

I exhale slowly. "If Aldric did this..." The sentence dies unfinished, because neither of us needs to hear the ending.

Reina reaches for my hand. The contact is simple. Nothing dramatic, nothing overwhelming. Just warm. Steady. Real.

I look down, then at her. The bond hums quietly between us. Not demanding, not pushing. Simply there. A reminder.

Reina squeezes my hand. "You'll find the truth."