Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
ELI
“Iwant to drive by my old house.”
A million words wanted to spill out after that, a confusion of grief and memory.
I didn’t even know if I really wanted to see it.
I was glad Sylvie was with me, so I didn’t have to do this alone.
And I was half tempted to make a U-turn, head straight for the highway, and get the hell out of here.
What was the point in going down memory lane?
My mom, dad, and Annie were gone. Nothing would bring them back. And yet, I kept driving.
I didn’t unload everything piled up in my heart onto Sylvie.
It was there, smoldering but still contained.
I knew she’d listen. She might even have something comforting to say.
But I couldn’t. Thirteen years. I hadn’t fully expected the way being in that post office, seeing Gertie Carmody again, would bring it all back.
I’d had a good childhood, the best family, and then they were gone.
Both my parents had been only children; their parents long gone by the time of the accident.
When they died with my sister, there’d simply been no one left.
No one to pull me back here, no one to make me remember, push me to talk about it all these years later.
It had become a habit to push it down, to tuck it away.
It had been so long, and still, I didn’t miss a turn on the route from the small post office to the neighborhood we’d lived in.
I turned right, then left, then left again, down almost identical streets not unlike the neighborhood where we’d found Emily Shaw’s parents’ home.
One-story brick ranch houses, decent-sized yards, neatly kept.
Nothing run-down and nothing particularly grand. Normal families living normal lives.
I pulled to a stop in front of a house on the corner, so like all the others.
The oak tree I remembered was in the front yard, though the swing hanging off the branches was new, as was the basketball hoop in the driveway.
Someone had painted the front door a lively red, the shutters charcoal gray. Everything was fresh and neat.
“Do you want to get out?” Sylvie asked.
I shook my head, my throat locked shut. I didn’t want to get any closer.
This had been our home, but it wasn’t anymore.
Even the landscaping was different; the bushes my mother had loved were replaced by mulched beds that probably held flowers in the spring.
My mom hadn’t been much of a gardener—my dad had been the one to tend to them, trimming the bushes with the electric trimmer he’d gotten at the hardware store.
My mother said chainsaws made her nervous, and that trimmer was the closest her husband was going to get.
I felt a hint of nausea, seeing the bushes around the front stoop in my mind.
I blinked, and they were gone, the new owner’s flower beds in their place.
Abruptly, I shifted the car into drive, turning at the corner and looping back, heading for Main Street and my final stop before I got the hell out of Hollow Creek, South Carolina.
“Was it different?” Sylvie asked, her voice gentle.
I gave a short nod, not trusting myself to speak.
I had the sudden urge to abandon the trip to the cemetery and just go—escape this pain, these memories.
Day-to-day, I tried not to think about how much I missed them.
Usually, I succeeded, but here, the dam was breaking.
I couldn’t hold it back. Not if I went to that cemetery.
But no matter how much I wanted to keep going past the turnoff, back to Atlanta, to my team, to Sinclair Security, to the life I’d forged since the accident, I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye one more time.
I half wondered if I’d remember where the cemetery was.
I’d only been there the one time. But I’d grown up in this town, had driven past it a million times before, and found it again without an error.
The parking lot held only a few scattered vehicles.
It was small. And I remembered exactly where my family was.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “Stay here.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Sylvie nod in understanding.
I couldn’t meet her eyes, afraid I’d ask her to come with me.
I trusted her as much as I could trust anyone I’d only known a few days.
But this wasn’t something I was ready to share with anyone.
The door of the SUV thunked closed behind me, my feet crunching on the cold gravel as I walked down the path, winding my way through the gravestones until I found the three I was looking for.
I should have brought something. I clenched my fists, my hands too empty.
I’d passed stones decorated with flowers, letters; one had action figures lined up in front of a stone carved with a painfully short lifespan.
Another, a teddy bear. I’d come empty-handed, but at least I’d come.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and looked down.
The graves were neatly trimmed, and lonely—so lonely my eyes watered, and I blinked hard.
They weren’t here. Their bodies, maybe, but my parents, Annie—they weren’t here. They were gone.
I rolled my shoulders, trying to throw off the weight of loss. I didn’t even know why I had done this. There was nothing to see but three stones in the cold ground.
I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling wet heat on my cheeks. I wanted to run and never come back here. I wanted to sit in the grass and tell them everything they’d missed. I wanted to scream at the injustice of them being taken away and leaving me alone.
Instead, I just stood, frozen, missing them—an ache in my chest.
“You weren’t supposed to leave me,” I whispered.
I’d been so young, and not young at all.
I’d made it through my first few years in the army, and I’d loved it.
I’d finally found my place, knew what I wanted to do.
They’d been so proud and excited for me, even though Annie hated that I was so far away for such long stretches.
But we’d emailed. We hadn’t lost touch. And then that cold night, the sleet and black ice on the way home from Annie’s basketball game.
In the space of minutes, they were gone, and I was alone.
Until Silas found me, six months after they died.
I wouldn’t say Silas took my father’s place—no one could do that—but I’d needed what he had to offer. The guidance. And more than that, he’d cared. Not just as a boss. Creed Global was more than a business. We’d been a family. And now he was gone too.
My heart squeezed at that thought, and in my mind a fourth headstone appeared next to the three in front of me.
I gave a sharp shake of my head. No. Silas wasn’t dead.
He was out there, doing something, and we were going to figure it out and bring him home.
And then everything could go back to the way it had been.
Unlikely, a small voice in the back of my head reminded me.
Nothing ever went back to how it was. It wasn’t how life worked.
Everything went forward. Change was inevitable.
We worked for Sinclair Security now, and even if Silas came back, things would never be the same. Nothing would ever be the same.
Feet crunched on the gravel path, and I looked to see Sylvie, her arms crossed over her chest in defense against the cold. She didn’t say anything, her solemn eyes taking in the tears on my face. I raised a hand to wipe them away. She came to my side and slid her arm around my waist.
“I’ll go if you want to be alone,” she said.
I suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of being alone anymore and wrapped my arm around her, taking strength from the feel of her body pressed to mine.
From across the cemetery, sitting in the car, she’d felt my pain and come to ease it. She didn’t try to make me talk or tell me it would get easier, or any bullshit like that. She just stayed, her arms around me, her cheek pressed to my chest, and I held her there.
“I miss them,” I said finally. “It’s been thirteen years, and when I let myself think about it, I miss them as much as I did the day they died.”
Sylvie sniffled, but didn’t say anything, just tightened her arms and held me.
It was exactly what I needed. We stood there in the cold, watching the shadows flicker across the gravestones as the breeze tossed the leaves of the trees.
“I should have brought something,” I said. “Flowers or—I don’t know.”
Sylvie shifted, laying her hand over my heart. She looked up, her eyes wet with tears, lashes dark spikes.
“If you want to,” she said, “we can. But they’re not here.
” She echoed my own thoughts. “These places—they’re for the people left behind, not for the people who are gone.
You don’t have to be here to be close to them, unless that’s what works for you.
And you don’t need to leave them anything unless it makes you feel better. ”
I squeezed my arm tight around her shoulders. Somehow, she had known exactly what I needed to hear. I was learning that wasn’t a surprise when it came to Sylvie Calloway. As much as I hadn’t wanted anything to do with her when she’d shown up at Sinclair Security, I was starting to think?—
I cut off that thought before I finished, dropped my head to kiss the top of hers, the green apple scent of her shampoo teasing me. Familiar, fresh, and sweet, and everything that was Sylvie.
“I’m ready to go,” I said.
“Okay.” She turned, sliding her hand into mine, and tugged me back to the path.
We walked in silence to the SUV. Before she got in, Sylvie glanced at the plastic bin of mail on the back seat.
“Anything I need to look for in there?” she asked.
I shook my head, getting in, fastening my seat belt. “We should probably spread it all out in the conference room and double-check that we’re not missing anything, but I’m pretty sure I found what I was supposed to find.”
“The envelope you pulled out?” she asked, her eyebrows going up.
I nodded, reversing out of the parking space and heading for the road to the highway.
“You know who set up that post office box?”
I nodded again. Everything was too raw and tangled in my head.
I was almost afraid to answer her questions.
Normally, I could filter what someone needed to know, craft my responses perfectly to hold back or reveal information to get what I wanted.
I hadn’t told Sylvie about Silas. She still thought we were after Emily Shaw for a client, though she’d begun to suspect it was more than that.
But I hadn’t told her, which felt uncomfortably like a lie?—
Because it is a lie, my conscience reminded me. A lie of omission is still a lie.
Fresh off seeing the house I’d grown up in, my family’s graves, Sylvie giving me her strength and care when I needed it most, my instinct was to spill everything.
But I had to be smarter than that. I had to think before I talked.
There was a reason we were keeping our tie to Emily Shaw from Sylvie.
This affected more than just me, and I didn’t trust my urge to tell her everything.
It was too tangled up with my desire to hold her close.
To see what that rosebud mouth really tasted like.
Sylvie was my partner in figuring out what had happened to Emily Shaw.
We should leave it at that. This was neither the time nor the place to get involved with anyone.
No one had to tell me that. I wanted Sylvie, but I couldn’t let my attraction to her sway me into sharing information she didn’t need to have.
I needed to keep everything on lockdown until I could get my head straight.
Instead of coming clean, I just said, “I have a pretty good idea who set up the box.”
“But you’re not going to tell me,” she said flatly.
I shot a glance at her, wondering if I’d see irritation or anger. Instead, she looked amused and only slightly annoyed. I thought about pushing her off with a flat denial or teasing her. Instead, I went for honesty—or as much honesty as I could give her.
“You and I are working together,” I said, “but I answer to my team, and to Cooper. For now, all I can tell you is I think I know who set up that post office box, and I did find a clue.”
“But you’re not going to show me the clue.”
“No, not yet,” I said. “Later. It wouldn’t mean anything to you anyway. I think it’s an internal code.”
She looked like she wanted to argue. Instead, she sat back and nodded. “I’ll let it go for now,” she said. “I know there’s a lot you’re not telling me. That’s only going to work for so long. You realize that, right?”
“I do,” I said, aware there was a clock ticking. I wouldn’t be able to hold Sylvie at arm’s length indefinitely. She was right when she’d said that this was her case too.
But I didn’t know what to make of that cryptic clue in the envelope. I had no idea what Silas was trying to tell me. And until I did, I was keeping it from Sylvie.
We’d only been on the highway a few minutes when she leaned forward, wrestled her way out of her coat, balled it up into a pillow, and took a nap.
Leaving me stuck in my head, running over all the permutations I could think of to explain the post office box, the clue, the why of it all.
I didn’t miss the fact that while I was frustrated at everything Silas hadn’t told us, I was doing the exact same thing to Sylvie, keeping her on a need-to-know basis, having decided she needed to know almost nothing.
Sylvie couldn’t know any of it, not yet.
Right?
I kept assuring myself that my keeping her in the dark was necessary.
But is it really?
Maybe she was new on the scene, but she had just as much skin in the game as anyone else. More, if I was being honest with myself. Someone wasn’t trying to blow me up. I hadn’t lost everything I owned. My career wasn’t on the line. All of that was true for Sylvie. I owed her more than half-truths.
The time I spent driving back to Atlanta that wasn’t used trying to figure out what the fuck Silas was up to—and whether he needed an assist or I just needed to be patient—was spent trying to convince myself that I didn’t owe Sylvie any more than I’d already given her.
I didn’t get very far on either front.