Sebastian tapped his heels against the floor. Not because he was irritated or impatient, but because it made the detective sitting across from him in the tiny room squirm.
“You know, despite what you think,” Roth said, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “You weren’t the only one who cared about her. We’re on the same side, Castillo.”
The sympathy in those words were like a punch to the gut. He remembered Chloe’s face, her unblinking eyes, the bruises on her throat.
It’s your fault she’s dead.
The pain in his heart festered into anger, and he let it billow up and consume him.
“That’s pathetic, even for you, Roth,” he said with a sneer. “Have you ever even seen an interrogation? You have to lay out a scenario, get me to admit to something. What kind of detective are you?”
He knew the words were cruel, but he couldn’t help the pain from escaping.
The muscle in Roth’s jaw twitched again. “This isn’t the movies, Mr. Castillo.”
Sebastian shrugged. “You have my statement. What do you think I am lying about?”
“Where were you on…” Roth shuffled his papers around. One sheet slid off the edge of the table and fluttered to the floor. Roth grabbed for it, but Sebastian snagged it with the toe of his boot and dragged it across the floor, out of the detective’s reach.
“Wow, look at that,” Sebastian said. It was the statement he’d written up an hour earlier. “I thought you’d have shredded it by now.”
Roth thumped back in his chair. “Those are very serious allegations, Mr. Castillo.”
Sebastian slid the sheet across the table toward the detective. “That’s what you keep saying.”
The detective leaned forward. “You sure you didn’t just get mad at Chloe and push her? I’ve seen how violent you can get when you’re angry.”
Sebastian’s cheeks heated. “That only happened once. And it was an accident. She was my sister, God dammit. I’d never do anything to hurt her.”
A few weeks prior, Roth had caught him and Chloe in an argument. His sister had insisted upon borrowing his car when he wasn’t home, leading him to suspect it was stolen. When he finally figured it out, he called off the cops, but not before Chloe gave him one of her signature shoulder punches, and Sebastian responded in kind. It had been an innocent exchange, but Roth had arrived just in time to see it and assume the worst.
If he’s already got his mind set against me, there’s nothing I can do.
“I’m not saying another word until I talk to a lawyer,” Sebastian said.
That shut Roth up fast, and he stormed out of the room, letting the door slam behind him.
As Sebastian waited, staring at the large mirror across from him, he wondered if Elena was doing okay. Anxiety had been radiating off her in waves when they’d arrived at the station. He’d had to pry her fingers off his arm when all he wanted to do was throw his arms around her.
She’s an adult now. She can take care of herself.
He kept looking for the girl he’d known but couldn’t find her. The bright smiles and laughter were nowhere to be seen. It was as if she’d holed herself up so no one else could touch her.
The door creaked open, and an officer stepped inside, indicating with a hand wave that he was free to leave. The officer guided him out into the lobby, where Elena was waiting.
She stood next to Roth by the intake desk, her chin lowered, her gaze fixed on Roth’s crossed arms, like a child being scolded. Her eyes flicked back and forth as if scanning the words on a page.
He approached from behind Roth and mouthed the words are you okay?
She offered a slight nod and turned her attention back to Roth. The detective turned and frowned. “Sheriff says I have to let you go.” His glower could’ve soured milk. “Don’t leave town.”
“You know, it’s been a long day,” Elena said. “I’m exhausted. If we’re free to go, I think we should be leaving.” She hooked an arm through Sebastian’s and dragged him away from Roth, who was still glaring daggers.
Once they were outside, her hair lifted in the wind, flying behind her like a banner. She gathered it together with practiced ease and twisted it into a knot at the back of her neck.
“You should leave it loose,” he said, brushing the back of his hand along the side of her head. Her long, flowing hair had always appealed to him. He imagined it draped around him, the silky length sliding against his skin.
“Too much trouble,” she replied. But a flush graced her neck and cheekbones. The color suited her, a pale rose that gave her otherwise translucent skin a cozy glow.
What am I thinking?
He forced his wayward thoughts back on track and checked his watch. “It’s late. We should get some food before the supper rush.”
Elena nodded. “I’m hungry. Although I don’t know how I can be.”
“Runty’s changed ownership a few years ago,” he said. “But it’s more or less the same place. Hop in. My treat.”
He unlocked the door, and they climbed inside.
They drove for a while in awkward silence, punctuated only by the sound of wind roaring around the car and the occasional thump of tires.
Elena squeezed her arms around her chest and leaned her head against the window. Then he hit a rut in the road, and she yelped. He grasped her shoulder.
“You okay?”
She twisted away, crowding the passenger door as if his touch had scalded her. He put his hand back on the wheel and tried not to show how much her withdrawal had hurt him. What had she been through that had made her so skittish? The girl he’d known had never shied away from his embrace.
She’s not yours to protect, his brain reminded him. No matter how much you want to.
But focusing on Elena kept him from thinking about his sister and the pain she had to have experienced. Were his parents looking down on him from heaven, ashamed he hadn’t saved her?
His eyes started to burn, and he forced the thoughts away. He could cry later.
He turned off the main road and into a strip mall parking lot, then turned off the car. He reached for the door, but Elena stopped him with a hand on his other arm.
“Give me a minute,” she said. There was a slight tremor in her voice. She covered her face with her hands. “Sorry. I just…” her words were thick and slurred. “I keep thinking about how Chloe will never sit in a restaurant again. She’ll never go for a coffee, have a stroll outside. She’s gone, and I never got to tell her so many things.” Her eyes glittered with tears. “Did she hate me? Did she blame me for what happened to Edward? I don’t know how to do this.”
Her distress resonated with him, and he had to swallow heavily before he could speak without tearing up himself. Instead, he put an arm around her. This time she didn’t pull back but leaned into him. He touched his nose to her hair. She smelled like soap with a faint hint of roses.
“For me, it lasted weeks, maybe months,” he said, remembering his brother’s death. “I got angry. Then depressed. I reconsidered every decision I made, trying to find the one choice that might have led to a different ending.” He closed his eyes, fighting tears. “It’s a pointless search. But you won’t understand that until you’ve chased down every possibility. Eventually, you’ll come to realize the decisions you made are long gone.” He squeezed her. “It can be difficult reconciling the truth with your version of reality, but you will cope.”
He curled his fingers around her other arm and hissed when he touched her skin.
“You’re frozen!” He snagged his jacket from the back seat and draped it around her shoulders. Then he popped open the glove compartment, took out a pair of leather gloves, and placed them on her lap. “I think you need these more than me.”
She picked up the gloves with a smile, then looked at him, and the smile wiped off her face. She stared at his neck and murmured something beneath her breath.
He splayed his fingers around his throat, expecting to feel a smudge of dirt or leaf. “What? Is there something on my neck?”
“No. Nothing.” She jerked her head away. “I’m hungry. Let’s go in.”
****
“You weren’t kidding,” Elena said, holding the door open for Sebastian. The bell above the diner door chimed. “It looks exactly the same.”
The floor was tiled in a black and white checkerboard pattern. Framed photographs lined the wood-paneled walls above padded leather booths. Nestled in the center of each was a plastic tray holding glass containers of sugar, salt, ketchup, and vinegar. Not white vinegar, but balsamic, the kind Chloe had loved to drench her fries in even after they teased her of pickling her tongue.
Elena’s chest ached as she remembered Chloe laughing maniacally as she dispensed the dark liquid over her fries. There was too much Chloe in Stillwood. Everywhere she looked brought back a memory.
And the killer was still out there, possibly planning his next move.
I won’t let him get away with it.
There was the little matter of the Harvester, but it wasn’t as if she had the money to leave. Somehow, she doubted the police would let her sell the house while it was an active crime scene.
“Look at that,” Sebastian said. “Someone’s doing the challenge.” He nodded to a crowd surrounding a table in the corner. “Chloe wants to try it on the long weekend.” He blinked. “I mean, she was going to.”
The crumpled look on his face, like a lost child in a department store surrounded by strangers, stirred Elena’s heart, and she threaded her fingers with his. “Let’s go check it out.”
They crossed the restaurant and joined the back of the crowd.
“Pe-ter! Pe-ter!” A man chanted. “You got this!”
They maneuvered through the onlookers to see a man sitting at a table behind the largest hamburger Elena had ever seen. His white dress shirt was stained with flecks of grease, and his striped, blue tie was flung over his shoulder. He shoveled fistfuls of fries into his mouth with both hands, pausing only to chug water from one of the many glasses on the table.
“I don’t know if he’s falling apart or what,” Sebastian said.
She leaned closer so he could hear him over the noise. “You know this guy?”
Sebastian grimaced. “Unfortunately.”
Ding.
The bell above the door chimed, and a woman stormed inside. She wore a sleek black dress that hugged her slim figure and shiny black heels.
“You’re in trouble now, Peter,” Sebastian said.
The woman spotted them and walked over. Her gaze passed over Elena as if she was invisible and landed on Sebastian. “Have you seen my husband?”
Sebastian shook his head. “Try the hospital?”
Elena glanced back at the table, but it was empty. The rear door to the restaurant, a few feet away, banged against the outside of the building in the wind.
Sebastian was talking. She wrenched her attention back to him. “Sorry, what?”
“I said, let’s get a table.”
After they found a seat and Sebastian was tearing the paper wrapper around his bundle of cutlery, Elena felt compelled to comment. “I’m impressed you lied with such a straight face.”
Sebastian snorted. “I don’t know if Janet counts. They have one of the most dysfunctional relationships I’ve ever seen. You know, she lost her job for stealing products. From a boutique store, where they count inventory three times a day. Of course, Peter found out, and—”
A server appeared at their table, clutching three laminated menus in one wrinkled hand. Elena accepted one and hissed in a breath. The woman’s eyes were black from corner to corner, and her lips were spread, revealing a mouthful of sharpened teeth.
“You thought you could run, did you?” The creature rasped. “I’ll always find you. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
Sebastian put down his menu and touched her wrist. “What’s wrong?”
This can’t be happening.
The server pulled a battered pad of paper from her pocket. “You folks ready to order?” Her voice was smokers’ rough, her teeth yellowed and square. Her eyes weren’t black at all but dark brown.
You’re losing it.
Elena pressed her hands flat to the worn tabletop. She’d been through a traumatic event and was imagining things. That’s all.
She glanced at the menu and handed it back. “I’ll take a sunshine breakfast, please. White toast, bacon, and hard scrambled eggs.”
It was closer to supper, but breakfast was her comfort food, and she desperately needed comfort.
After a moment of silence, Sebastian also handed his menu back. “Black coffee.”
The server flipped over a coffee cup, filled it, then limped away. Sebastian propped his elbows on the table. “You want to tell me what that was about?”
Elena copied his pose, putting her chin on the backs of her hands. “It was nothing. I thought I recognized her, but I was wrong.”
Her heart still thrummed in her chest, but the shock of seeing those black eyes was fading.
God knows I’ve had a stressful day. That must be it, my imagination going wild.
The Harvester couldn’t have found her so quickly. Not again.
Sebastian tapped a finger on the table a few times, then shrugged. “If you say so.” He sipped his coffee. “So, what did Roth ask you?”
Elena scowled. “He thinks we’re involved.”
The questions Roth had shot at her would’ve boiled her blood if she hadn’t been so surprised by the shade he carried.
A shade that, for whatever reason, harbored a deep rage for Roth. Was it because Roth was the killer she had seen in the woman’s memory? That was a chilling thought. But she couldn’t bring that up to Sebastian. “What do you think Chloe was doing at the house?”
Sebastian’s face crumpled. “She left a note on my car, asking to meet.” He rubbed his face. “She was always doing that. I kept telling her just text me, but you know what she was like.”
“It’s not your fault,” Elena said. Then she snorted. “Listen to me. I’m telling you exactly what I didn’t want to hear.”
Sebastian smiled. “I appreciate it, anyway.”
She met his eyes and saw a reflection of her own pain.
I missed you. I missed you so much it hurt.
She’d tried dating other men, but they were always too short, too mean-tempered, too blonde, too severe, too cold. The truth she’d been too blind to see was now obvious. Their only real flaw was not being Sebastian.
She curled her fingers around his, but before she could say anything more, the server returned with their food, and Elena yanked her hand away.
Sebastian’s expression smoothed into a cool mask.
This is for the best.
Keeping him at a distance hurt, but they were both grieving. A romance would only complicate things, and he deserved better than the daughter of the woman who had murdered his brother.
She turned her attention to her food, pouring a generous dollop of ketchup on her hash browns, which made them decently palatable. Nothing could save the eggs.
Sebastian sipped his coffee. “Not what you wanted?”
She shot him a dirty look. “I hate wet eggs.”
“You could send them back.”
“And draw even more attention to myself? No thanks.”
But she was hungry enough to clear most of her plate with only a small amount of grumbling.
“So, what’s with Roth?” she asked when she finished. “Why does he hate you?”
Sebastian set his mug down hard. “It’s a long story.”
“I have time.” She toyed with the piece of paper wrapped around her cutlery. She’d always found it easier to talk to people when her hands were occupied. She folded the paper into a miniature fortune teller and then a crane.
Sebastian tapped his fingers on the table.
She flicked the crane toward him. “Please don’t do that.”
He curled his fingers. “Sorry. It was a few years ago. He was a cadet, then. He showed up at my office one night. He wanted my permission to date Chloe.”
Elena snorted. “What? Talk about old-fashioned.”
Sebastian took another sip of coffee. “I thought it was respectful. They went out on three dates before she dumped him. But Roth wouldn’t let it go. He showed up at the house, called all hours of the night.”
“What did you do?”
“I reported him to the department.”
“And?”
“What do you think happened? With my record?”
She could see it in her head, the cops weighing the word of a troubled young man against that of a respected member of the force.
“It didn’t matter that Roth was only a cadet. He was part of the team.” Sebastian’s hands clenched around the coffee cup, the tips of his fingers turning white. “Evidence collected at the hospital disappeared. Witnesses who had seen Roth push Chloe around refused to talk. That was the last straw. I threatened to go to the press. Two weeks later, Roth transferred to Minneapolis. Problem solved. But the bastard couldn’t cut it in the city. He was back within a year. I was prepared to confront him, but he kept his distance from Chloe, so I left him alone.”
“I see,” Elena said. She imagined Sebastian knocking Roth out. No wonder he had come after them with such vigor.
Then she spotted movement on Sebastian’s shoulders. The snake was back, winding its way around his neck and up to his jawline.
A tingling started in her fingers.
Don’t even try it.
She shored up her mental defenses and tried not to let her emotions show while pushing at the shade in her mind. It wasn’t enough.
He was so cold that he could no longer feel it. His thighs pulsed with a dull warmth, and the occasional sharp pain radiated up his arm.
There was a plastic mask on his face. He tried to move his hands, but they remained stubbornly by his side, weighed down by something soft and heavy. His legs were equally paralyzed.
He had to get out. There was someone he needed to see. It was very important he talk to this person, warn them of what had happened. But then the name and face of the person flitted out of his mind like a piece of lint on the wind.
He cried out, a plaintive sound that bounced around the room.
“What?” Sebastian clutched at his shirt. “Did I spill?”
The snake had returned to its position on his neck, its head facing away from her. From the memory, she knew the shade had come from a man who had suffered when he’d been alive. Why had it imprinted upon Sebastian?
It doesn’t matter.
The shade didn’t deserve her sympathy. Whatever tragedy it had gone through wasn’t her problem. She had enough of a mess to deal with.
Elena shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“So, what’s next? You can’t go back to the house. Roth will have it all taped up.”
Elena shrugged. “Get a hotel, probably.”
She wanted to get back in her car and high tail it out of town before the Harvester caught up with her, but that would be the quickest way to turn her into suspect number one. She would just have to keep a close eye on the people around her and be ready to run at a moment’s notice.
In other words, nothing new.
“You could stay with me,” Sebastian said, with an upward inflection that didn’t quite make it a question.
It was a generous offer. One she should’ve jumped at, given the lean state of her bank account.
And it would give you a chance to pursue the heat simmering between you.
That was the most tempting part of all, the opportunity for a human connection, if only for a short time.
“I know it’s probably weird,” Sebastian said. “But I’ve got plenty of space, and to be honest,” he slid the index finger of his left hand around the rim of his coffee cup. “I’d rather not be alone right now.”
You’d be putting him in danger. He’s not safe around you. No one is. You could kill him as easily as your mother killed his brother.
The image of her mother holding a bloody knife flashed in her mind.
“I’m sorry,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
His face froze over again. He took out his wallet, thumbed through the bills with jerking motions, and then placed a handful on the table.
“It’s not you, really,” she said, desperate for him to understand.
“Don’t,” he said, holding up a hand. “You’re right. It’s better this way.”
As the server returned with the bill and then counted out Sebastian’s change, his words echoed in her mind.
It’s better this way.