Chapter Forty-Two
Isla had barely closed her eyes before it was time for her to wake and the events of the night before rushed back. Somehow she’d made it back to her room, and security hadn’t come kicking down her door to drag her out. Or, worse, the police to arrest her for attempted murder.
She prepared herself mentally for the hammer to come down, but she wouldn’t sit here and wait for it.
Even if she couldn’t be at the estate, Isla still needed to find out what had happened with Eden.
The ordeal with Victor would have to wait.
Though she wanted to see if he was okay, she was probably the last person he wanted to see, so she’d keep a low profile.
It was midday, so the town was busy enough to pay no attention to the woman on a mission.
Libraries today weren’t old, with air smelling like aged paper and varnished wood.
They were brightly lit, colorful, and engaging.
The librarians greeted you with a smile, not a hush, encouraging respectable noise.
There were groups of people meeting, another holding a cooking class, and clusters of small children converging for reading time on primary-colored foam mats that were put together like a huge puzzle.
She was directed to Central Library, where older archives were held on microfilm, and she’d need a library card.
She’d even need a card to use one of their public computers to do an internet search.
She had known that. She could have asked Rey to get her a false card or into the library system, but that took more time, and time was running out.
Rey continued digging up information about Bennett and his pals Danny, Roger, and even the pitiful James.
Isla didn’t know how Victor played into everything.
She wasn’t sure how much he really knew about Matthew Leonard and if he was in cleanup mode or genuinely trying to root out the true villains.
No matter how much it pained her to consider it, she didn’t know if he knew things and had covered them up or if he was totally in the dark.
Not yet. She’d made herself scarce this morning after the fiasco in Eden’s room.
Isla had experienced firsthand the depths to which Brooke would go, and she understood how Eden had felt, being driven out of the house with no one to back her up.
She now understood how that anger over being wrongly accused could have festered and forced Eden to return and confront the person behind everything, Brooke—or maybe the person who had to have known what was going on in his home and had opted to look the other way for peace and appearances, Victor.
That betrayal, Isla surmised, could have been enough to make Eden go farther than LA, to go entirely off grid, even if it meant leaving Isla behind.
After what Isla had gone through last night, she didn’t blame Eden.
She was back at Mabel’s, thinking over a cup of hot tea and the same breakfast she’d ordered the other day.
She was deep in trying to decide if she was going to chance getting a library card, if she could with an LA driver’s license and no real address.
Could staff quarters count for a home? Not really.
Everyone who lived there had actual homes to go to, and hers was across the country.
It took her a second to realize that she was no longer alone at the corner table where she sat.
She looked up and into the eyes of Officer Bowen.
She stared at him as he looked back, ten years her senior, if that, but still as boyish as he’d been when she’d seen him back then.
And there was no denying the expression on his face.
He remembered her—not from a few days ago but from years ago, when he’d saved her from being hit by a car and then chased her when she ran from him and his partner.
He started with “I wasn’t sure it was really you at first. You disappeared off the face of the earth.”
She didn’t speak, taking time to think carefully.
This was the law. He was someone who could identify her and totally blow her flimsy-enough cover.
He could place her with Eden the night she went missing.
But Isla was tired. Tired of running around.
She wanted answers, and she wanted to be away from people who poisoned their kids and husbands to eliminate fake threats.
“From the other day? You’re Officer Big Breakfast or something,” she replied and sipped her tea.
She wouldn’t break cover. She’d let him lay his cards out first. Then she had a thought.
What if he was here to arrest her, not for back then, but for last night?
What if the Corrigans had pressed charges for attempted murder!
He scoffed, shaking his head ruefully. “Why’d you run like that? Where’d you go?” Bowen said, his gray eyes searching hers. “I looked for you everywhere, and no one knew who you were. It was like you were a ghost.”
“I could be.”
He chuckled. “Funny.” Then he grew serious. “What are you doing back?”
“Is it against the law?”
He scratched his stubbly cheek. His face was a little more filled out than it had been before. She wondered if he had a wife and kids like true adults were supposed to have, not living in the past chasing ghosts.
“Is this how it’s going to be with you? Vague answers and responding to questions with questions? I could take you in.”
She inclined her head. “For?”
“Not sure yet, but I can come up with something.” Those were triggering words to a Black person coming from a white one. But Bowen’s teasing smile showed he wasn’t serious. He was just a bad joker.
She decided she didn’t have time. She had to be frank. “Are you on duty yet?”
He shook his head. “Not till later. I just like coming here for breakfast.”
She waited expectantly for him to say something further. When he didn’t, she did. “Why are you bothering me?”
He almost looked hurt. “Because I lost you back then, and I don’t intend for that to happen again.”
Isla wasn’t expecting how sincere he looked.
She didn’t know how to respond or what he meant.
She only knew her stomach did somersaults, like it did when she was around Myles.
God, was she about to be one of those women who couldn’t decide between two guys?
The cop and the billionaire? Bowen could also be trying to do his cop thing, luring her in with niceties, and then bam!
Hauling her in for questioning on her attempted murder.
But looking into his gray eyes, which showed nothing but genuine curiosity and a touch of caution, she decided something had to give.
“Then can I borrow your library card?”
She said she’d follow his car, not wanting to draw attention.
She wouldn’t put it past anyone on the estate to have her followed, especially after the incidents with Eden’s room and Victor’s drink.
And riding in a cop car was not anything any girl aspired to do, unless she was trying to be a cop, which Isla was not.
Plus, she didn’t want to be at Bowen’s mercy—stranger danger and all, even if he was a cop.
He could be a Corrigan cop. She was sure the town was filled with them.
They parked at Central Library, and it turned out Bowen’s face, or badge, was enough, and they were directed to the area where the microfilm was located.
She hadn’t answered Bowen’s initial questions, and he was definitely intrigued by her lack of sharing and her search contents.
She didn’t know why she let him tag along, probably because he was the only one around who had known her back then, even if it was for a few brief, highly charged and terrifying moments.
“No offense, but hush for a minute,” she said at the computer, the program for the microfilm pulled up. Bowen was amused but complied.
Then she found it—a slim article buried in the back pages of a Gazette issue, its headline unassuming and easily missed:
Tragic Accident Claims Family of Four on High View Drive.