Chapter Thirty-Seven
It took Cora’s father less than half a glance to recognize the man who had ripped a hole through the seams of his life.
Jack hung up the telephone. He tightened, taking a step backward, as if the shadows could hide him.
Cora shook free from the guards holding her and made her way through the crowd toward her father. He was staring in shock at Jack.
“Da—” she said.
Cora’s father looked at her, his face flooding with a thousand different emotions. “You know who that is,” he said quietly. “Don’t you?”
Of course it would always come down to this.
The two of them, with Cora standing in between.
Jack hadn’t moved since he first locked eyes with her father.
He wasn’t running away. He was looking at them both, straight on, head held high.
She watched him touch his pocket, concealing the pearl handle of the gun she had given to him.
The gun her father had given to her.
“Get out of the way, Cora,” her father said. He made a meaningful gesture toward his own gun.
Jack’s mouth twitched. He couldn’t escape this time. She could see the realization on his face. He clenched his jaw, resignation dimming in his eyes.
It was like watching him die.
She wondered if this was what Leo had felt when he had reached down and picked up the rock.
“Wait,” she said. “Da. Please.”
She could see it written on his face in that moment. A flash of confusion. And then all the worst fears he’d ever had about her, confirmed.
Cora tried to keep herself in front of Jack, but he stepped out from behind her. Made a motion to shelter her instead.
Cora’s father shook his head in disbelief. “I grew concerned when I didn’t hear back from you,” he said. “Thought you were caught up in something dangerous here. So I paid a visit to my friend Johnny down at the station, trying to decide if I should come up here and check on you.”
His eyes settled on her, the disappointment in them searing. “I can tell you that this is the very last thing I expected to find.”
The security guards were flooding into the room, cordoning people off. Surrounding the painting. The tension in the room was palpable, and even thicker between Cora, her father, and Jack. They stared one another down, hardly breathing.
One of the security guards came up behind them.
“Patrick McCavanagh? Is that you?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”
Cora’s da didn’t take his eyes off Jack.
“Serving as backup,” he said.
The guard looked between them, sensing the strain.
“Everything good here, Patrick?” he asked. His hand came to rest on his gun.
Cora’s father licked his lips. For a moment, Cora didn’t know what he was going to do.
She held her breath, watching the pulse quicken in Jack’s neck.
“Just accompanying Miss Duluth here for questioning,” Cora’s father finally said.
“All right,” the other guard said uncertainly. Cora’s father waited until he had moved on before taking a menacing step toward Jack.
“Listen very carefully,” he said in a low, gritty voice. “You don’t exist. You died. And if you don’t want that to become your reality, I better never see you again.”
Cora flinched at the animosity in his voice. The look of revulsion on his face. It didn’t change when he turned to look at her.
“Sir—” Jack said, taking a protective step toward Cora. “I—”
“Go.” She said it curtly and turned away from him. To make sure that he did, before her father had a chance to change his mind.
Jack hesitated, searching her face.
“Go,” she repeated softly.
She felt her father stiffen beside her at the intimacy of her tone.
Jack clenched his jaw. He ducked his head into a terse acknowledgment to former Head Guard McCavanagh, then melted into the crowd as the police began to swarm Enchanted Hill.
“Da—” Cora said, but her father cut her off.
“I don’t know what you’ve gotten caught up in here,” he said, stepping forward to block her from Truman’s line of sight. He brandished his weapon subtly as a warning, until Truman looked away. “But just get through this mess tonight and we’ll talk in the morning.”
Her heart rose tentatively at his use of the word “we.”
But she noticed that even so, he never quite looked at her.