Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
RIOS
By the time I pulled up to the rental Ford shared with Bree, it was evening but nowhere near dark. July on Hatterwick meant the day hung on like it had something to prove. The sun was still up, bright and stubborn, throwing hard light across the pavement and making heat shimmer over the road.
Evening should’ve meant I could stand down.
My brain didn’t get the memo. Case mode was a bitch. Once it latched on, it didn’t want to let go.
Ford swung the front door open before I even got halfway up the walk. “About time. We’re starving.”
Sawyer was already sprawled in the living room, boots off, like he’d decided the couch was his and the rest of the world could file a complaint. “We weren’t sure if you’d make it.”
I was torn between relief that I’d been able to and frustration that I was able to because the case had stalled out. “I wasn’t gonna miss seeing you assholes.”
I automatically scanned the room, clocking the absence of female energy. “Where are all your girls?”
Ford rocked back on his heels. “My bride to be is at the Brewhouse tonight, ostensibly to confer with Monty about a new beer but really to keep an eye on Ed and the Graybeards to make sure they don’t get into too much trouble.”
“It’s the trouble that keeps them young,” Sawyer insisted.
“Try telling her that. Anyway, Peyton took Keeley and is off with Mimi plotting world domination. Otherwise known as our wedding.”
I snorted. “Are you sure they should be left unsupervised?”
Ford grinned. “Together they are a force of nature. Honestly? Bree’s happy someone else is doing the planning because that’s not her jam. She just wants to be married at the end.”
“Let me just say elopement was pretty great,” Sawyer opined.
Ford pointed at him. “For all that my moms helped you two elope, they have at least minimal expectations of us. There will be a proper wedding, even if it’s small. I’m more focused on finding a house big enough for the three of us plus Keeley. This place is fine, but it’s… tight.”
“Tight like ‘cozy’ or tight like ‘teenager will murder you in your sleep if she trips over the dog again’?” I asked.
Ford’s grin turned into a grimace. “The second one. Although she doesn’t have a leg to stand on considering she keeps sneaking Keeley into her bed. Hopefully, after tourist season is over. Nothing moves here until the island decides it’s done making money off people who don’t live here.”
“Smart,” Sawyer said. “Wait it out.”
Ford pushed off the wall. “Beer?”
“Yes.” Because just now it sounded like a lifeline and not a beverage.
He returned a minute later and started passing out bottles.
I arched a brow at the lack of label. “What are we drinking?”
“One of Monty’s latest creations. They’re testing some for the new bottled line.”
Sawyer squinted at the bottle. “How’s he supposed to know which ones we like?”
“Apparently the bottles are color coded. I can’t remember shit, so you get what you get,” Ford declared.
I took a long pull. Cold. Clean. Bitter at the end in a way that reminded me I was alive. “Bless Monty for being damned good at his job.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Sawyer announced, holding up his bottle.
We tapped with a satisfying clink.
Ford dropped onto the armchair and looked between us. “Food?”
“Thai,” Sawyer said immediately.
I blinked. “You just—”
“I know,” he said, smug. “You both want Thai. Don’t argue with me.”
Ford laughed. “He’s right. Thai it is.”
We did the whole dance—what we wanted, who was ordering, the small negotiations that meant nobody had to make a decision alone. Ford grabbed his phone, put in the order, and then we settled in like this was what we’d always done.
Like life hadn’t sunk its teeth into all of us at one point or another.
I tried to settle into the couch and let my shoulders drop. Tried to feel the cushion under me, the bottle in my hand, the familiar weight of my friends in the room.
Because I knew they’d note my distraction and ask sooner or later, I took the offensive, looking to Sawyer. “What’s going on in your world?”
His mouth quirked. “Well,” he said slowly, like he was about to announce he’d joined a cult or taken up interpretive dance, “looks like I get to get used to the pitter patter of little feet.”
Ford and I both stared at him.
The words landed in my head like a grenade.
“Holy shit,” Ford said at the same time I said, “Is Willa pregnant?”
Sawyer barked a laugh and shook his head. “She is not.”
My lungs started working again.
“She’s taking on a new foster dog,” Sawyer went on, like he hadn’t just casually spiked all our blood pressure. “I don’t think either of us is quite ready for the human variety of pitter patter. And if we are, we can always borrow Peyton.”
Ford made a noise that was half laugh, half wounded dad. “She’s fourteen,” he bemoaned. “My kid is a full-blown teenager.”
“And a truly awesome kid,” Sawyer said, no hesitation.
Ford’s expression softened in a way that made my chest ache. “She really is.”
I took another swallow of beer and let myself smile. “Hopefully, she’ll get in a little less trouble than we did at that age.”
Sawyer’s brows lifted. “That’s a low bar.”
Ford pointed at me like I’d personally offended him. “She absolutely maxed out my capacity for handling trouble when she conducted a murder investigation last spring. She’s toeing the line.”
I huffed a laugh before I could stop it. “Still can’t believe you let her out of the house after all that.”
“I considered putting her in an ankle monitor. Bree insisted that was overkill,” Ford grumped.
Sawyer’s gaze slid to me, not pushing, just… there. “Speaking of investigations, dare we ask how the case is going?”
There it was.
I’d known it was coming. These were my people. They weren’t going to pretend my life hadn’t been eaten by something ugly.
“Slow.” Anything but blunt honesty would be a lie. “We’re pretty sure it’s bigger than Priya.”
Ford’s posture shifted, a fraction more alert. Sawyer’s expression sharpened, but his voice stayed calm. “What makes you think that?”
I gave them the bones of it—how it had come into focus, how the pieces had started to suggest something wider.
Not the kind of details that would turn this into a briefing—because I needed the escape of just hanging with them.
Just enough that they understood why my nerves were still humming under my skin.
Ford’s jaw worked. “Fuck.”
“Got it in one.” I took another pull on my beer. “We had to go update Astrid today.”
“How is she holding up?” Sawyer asked.
I swallowed. The beer didn’t help with that particular burn. “Devastated. She finally got in touch with Priya’s parents in India. They’re flying back to the US as soon as they can.”
Ford’s eyes narrowed. “That’ll light a fire under Carson’s ass.”
I almost laughed. It wouldn’t have been humor. It would’ve been bitterness wearing a smile. “I’d like to think so, but I’m not holding my breath.”
Sawyer’s gaze held mine. “So now what?”
I tipped my head back against the couch for a second and stared at the ceiling like it could hold me up. “Now we try to find evidence of the pattern and hope it’ll give us some new leads to follow. Madden’s working on that.”
Ford’s eyes flicked, quick and not subtle. He didn’t say it, but I could hear it anyway: Madden. Her name still carried history for me like salt carried in the air.
During the update with Astrid, she’d gone still as stone, absorbing her friend’s grief, and I’d watched her do what she always did when she couldn’t fix something—go quiet, go sharp, go inward.
So I’d stopped by the Second Wind before I came over here tonight, both because I’d wanted to let her know I’d be out for a bit and to check on her.
She’d already been elbow deep in online research and had waved me away.
Once I’d have taken that as depersonalization.
Now I knew better. It was a coping mechanism.
Control what you can. Don’t drown.
And it was certainly safer than her going out there questioning anyone face to face.
Not that we’d had any leads on who to question in the past couple of days.
Finally, Ford observed, “You two seem to work pretty well together.”
I looked at him. He wasn’t accusing. He wasn’t teasing. He was just… noticing. Like Ford did.
“Kinda didn’t expect that,” Sawyer admitted. His gaze stayed on me, steady. “Not after… well.” He let the rest hang there without forcing me to pick it up.
I exhaled through my nose. “You mean after I hated her,” I said flatly.
Ford winced, but I kept going because it was true and because I was tired of pretending the past was less sharp than it had been.
“You seem to have put it behind you,” Sawyer said carefully.
I considered my words. “For all that this island tries to calcify people at their worst moments, we aren’t the mistakes we made in the past.”
Ford’s expression softened, like he was relieved to hear me say it out loud.
“When she made that apology,” I continued, “she wasn’t just blowing smoke. She’s done the work. Continues to do the work. That’s more than most people do.” I took another sip, letting the cold anchor me. “She really gives a damn. That goes a long way with me.”
Sawyer nodded once. That was a sentiment he understood.
“And,” I added, because truth was truth, “she’s hella smart. Beyond all the bookish valedictorian shit we remember from high school. I’ve certainly worked with worse partners over the years.”
I heard how that sounded the second it left my mouth—like I was placing her in a category I hadn’t expected to exist. Like I was saying partner and meaning more than colleague.
That was… something I wasn’t ready to unpack.
Ford and Sawyer both looked like they wanted to say something. Ford’s mouth even opened.
The doorbell saved me.
Ford headed for the door, and I shifted on the couch, relief and irritation tangling together. I hated how much I needed rescuing from my own mouth lately.
Ford came back carrying bags that smelled like heat and spice and edible comfort. He set them on the coffee table like an offering.
We did the routine—pulling food out, passing containers, the casual choreography of people who’d done this a hundred times.
I took a bite of something that made my eyes water in the best way, and for a minute my brain actually quieted, focusing on spice instead of bloodless patterns, and I shifted the conversation yet again, aiming for more normal.
“So, we taking bets on how long it is before Jace surfaces again?”
Sawyer let out a low whistle. “Oh, I’ll take that action.”
I pointed at him. “Of course you will. You live for chaos.”
“I live for entertainment,” Sawyer corrected. “Chaos is just a bonus.”
Ford grinned.
And just like that, the conversation devolved into banter—ridiculous, familiar, easy—and it reminded me that no matter how ugly things got, no matter how hard the island tried to freeze people into the worst moments of their lives, I still had this.
These were my brothers.
And in a world that kept handing me reasons to feel alone, I was so fucking grateful for that.