Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
MADDEN
Being out in public was weird, as I let routine fold over the part of me that kept waiting for the sky to fall.
Two days had passed since I’d sent the packet.
Two days marked by a hundred little anxieties pressed into every hour.
I well knew that bureaucracy moved at a snail’s pace.
Had known it before I’d started down this path.
But the fact that nothing had happened left me on edge.
I kept half-expecting to look up from my phone and see a uniform, a summons, the beginning of a reckoning.
Instead, there was just the bakery: the soft click of the door behind me, the smell of yeast and cinnamon and coffee, and the low hum of local voices blending into the music piped from hidden speakers.
Rios and I reached the door together. He lingered at my side, his hand at my waist like he could absorb the leftover worry radiating off me.
I sensed him cataloguing the space even as he leaned down for a kiss meant to reassure us both.
“Don’t let Astrid talk you into anything illegal while I’m gone,” he murmured, lips at my temple.
I snorted, but the humor was thin. “If I do, I know who I want to come rescue me.”
His smile flickered—faint, but real. “Be careful,” he said, thumb tracing my hip. “I’m gonna go save Hoyt from an impending hernia. I shouldn’t be long.”
“You realize those are famous last words whenever the prospect of moving furniture is involved, right?”
“Hope springs eternal. Don’t leave before I get back, okay?”
“Promise.” I pressed my palm to his chest, letting myself take one long, deep breath. I didn’t want him to leave; I didn’t want to need him to stay. I wanted—God, I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore.
Abruptly aware that the low din of conversation had dipped, I glanced around to find most of the customers staring at us. But instead of the looks of judgment habitually shot in Rios’s direction, I saw open curiosity and quite a few grins that held a distinct tone of awww.
An old woman parked at a table by the window flashed a toothy smile. “Good for you, sonny.”
Her companion, who wore a lime green velour track suit, nodded and met my gaze. “Gotta appreciate a military man, sweetheart. They have stamina.”
“Um?” I squeaked, feeling heat flame across my cheeks.
For his part, Rios merely looked amused. “Right. That’s my sign to GTFO. I’ll be back.”
With a quick brush of a kiss that garnered more than one sigh, he stepped away, and I watched him disappear down the sidewalk, the sun striking off his glossy black hair, his frame receding into the ordinary bustle of the day.
The bakery’s bell chimed again as I moved inside, blinking against the shift from sunlight to shadow.
Astrid was already waiting with coffee and pastries, having staked out a small table near the window—a vantage point on the street and, I realized, a line of sight to the bakery’s only exit.
We settled in with only a few words, the comfort of familiarity making room for our mutual tension.
The air inside was sweet and faintly sharp, warm from the ovens but not uncomfortable.
There was a steady background of forks scraping plates, a barista calling out names, the front door swinging open and shut at intervals.
Astrid glanced at my face, her own mask slipping just enough for me to see the worry underneath. “Sleep?” she asked quietly.
“Some.” The truth landed heavier than I meant. “Better than last week, but that’s not saying much.”
She sipped her coffee. “I guess it’ll take a while to stop expecting danger around every corner.”
She didn’t know the half of it, but I wasn’t about to be the one to disabuse her of the notion that the threat was over, so I shifted to talk of ordinary things, as if the right sequence of words might pull the world back into order.
Eventually, Astrid set her mug down and looked me over with that calm professorial gaze. “So. What about you? I mean, the whole reason you came here was to figure out what was next, and that kinda got derailed.”
I hesitated. “I keep thinking the answer will just… appear. But it hasn’t.
I know what I don’t want. I can’t go back to prosecution.
I’m not sure anyone would have me if I tried.
” I thought of my father and his demands.
“I have negative zero desire to work in some high-powered firm, looking for some kind of prestige. That’s not who I am, and it’s not ever what I wanted, and I’m done doing anything just because my parents want me to. ”
“Good for you. So what do you want?”
The question bounced around inside me. I looked out the window, watching a truck rattle past, a dog tug its owner toward the shade.
“I want to do something that matters. I want—” I shook my head.
“Hell, I don’t know. I thought coming here would give me clarity.
But everything that’s happened has just… scrambled things more.”
“You could get your law license in North Carolina,” Astrid offered. “Stay. Open your own practice. Be your own boss for once.”
I fiddled with my napkin. “That’s a thought. But it feels huge. And risky. And I’m tired of fighting for everything. I’m tired, period.”
She gave a small nod, understanding gleaming in her eyes. “Would you want to go somewhere else?”
I shook my head, more certain of that than anything. “I can’t. Not now. I have unfinished business here.” Now that I knew what was happening here, what Gwen may have been a part of, I couldn’t just walk away.
Astrid grinned. “Is that unfinished business named Carrera?”
Heat crept into my cheeks. “Yeah, okay, he does factor in.”
“Have you talked about what comes next?”
“No. There’s been so much going on. We’re just playing it by ear. And I don’t want to press for any kind of answer or decision from him yet. I don’t want him to feel like I’m issuing an ultimatum.”
She waved that way. “Asking the guy you’re involved with what his plans are is just reasonable information seeking, not an ultimatum. You’re not saying, ‘do this or else.’”
“Maybe not, but we’re just so… new. Either way, I don’t want to leave the island, and I can’t stay camped out in a guest room at Sutter House forever. With my uncle’s boat gone, I should really look at finding my own place.”
“Well, with summer season shutting down, some of the rentals should for sure be opening back up. No doubt you could find something on a month-to-month basis while you’re deciding.” She blinked innocently. “Maybe even a place with room for two in the closet.”
I gaped at her. “You cannot seriously be suggesting we move in together this fast.”
“Why the hell not? He’ll need a place too, if he’s sticking around, and why not have that sexy hunk of Latino goodness warming your bed?”
I didn’t deny that I’d been doing exactly that in the time we’d been up at Sutter House. Or that I slept better with him beside me than I’d slept in longer than I cared to remember. “That seems like it’s getting ahead of things.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll lay off. But I’m going on record as saying it’s a good idea.”
“Noted. Just keep your ears peeled for any availability, okay?”
“I can do that.”
The conversation wandered from there—her research backlog, Priya’s insistence on reclaiming a semblance of normal, the logistics of her parents’ looming departure.
She was a little softer than usual, a little less brisk; every so often, I caught her checking her phone, eyes flicking to the door.
We were both waiting for things we couldn’t name.
The bakery slowly emptied around us. A couple with a stroller lingered at the window. Someone came in for a box of pan dulce, left with a nod to Astrid. The staff started clearing tables, moving with the methodical energy of people counting down minutes to shift change.
Astrid sighed, checked her phone, and pushed her chair back. “I need to get going. We’re so behind on things. But let’s catch up again soon, okay?”
“Absolutely.”
She squeezed my shoulder as we stood. “Soon. I mean it.”
We hugged tight, and she left a warmth in her wake that I hadn’t realized I’d needed. I watched her head out to the parking lot.
As Rios wasn’t back yet—surprise, surprise—I ordered a fresh cup of coffee and settled in with my book to wait.
The quiet felt sharp now. My phone was a heavy weight in my pocket, but I resisted the urge to pull it out to check my email for the twentieth time or slip into doomscrolling.
It wasn’t as if I was expecting anything in particular.
I hadn’t provided real contact information, so even if the State Bureau of Investigation would contact me back to acknowledge receipt, they couldn’t.
And I didn’t have any job applications out.
Something I’d have to start thinking about soon.
I had savings enough to get me by for a while, but my father wasn’t wrong that I couldn’t exist without a plan forever.
When my phone buzzed, I flinched.
Slipping it out, I found a text from Astrid.
Astrid:
FML. Got into a crash over on Seacrest. Some idiot tourist missed the one-way sign.
A thin strand of fear wound through me. Astrid didn’t overreact to minor things.
Me:
Are you okay??
Astrid:
Ish? Police already called, but can you come?
I hesitated. I thought of Rios—his warning, the promise I’d made. I thought of Astrid, pale and shaking and only two blocks away. I weighed loyalty against caution and knew which would always win.
Me:
I’m on my way.
I fired off a quick text to Rios—
Astrid was in an accident on Seacrest. I’m heading over to check on her
—grabbed my bag and headed for the back door, short-cutting through the narrow alley behind the bakery that would get me there faster than the main street.
The sidewalk was nearly empty now, a few locals chatting by a delivery truck, the clatter of a dropped tray echoing from a nearby café.
It was a sign of the true end of the summer season that the space wasn’t choked with tourists.
My shoes tapped against the pavement as I cut between buildings, heart pounding faster than the walk warranted.
I was already scanning the street ahead, looking for police lights, a cluster of people, Astrid’s familiar car.
A hand clamped down on my arm from behind, so sudden and violent I barely got a breath.
I dropped the coffee and twisted, trying to jerk away, but he was too strong.
Another quick jerk and a second arm snaked around my throat, cutting off any sound but a desperate, animal whimper as he dragged me backward, feet scrambling for purchase on the uneven concrete.
“You just had to interfere,” a voice hissed against my ear, low and rough, familiar in that awful way that meant I’d probably passed him on the street a hundred times. “Had to keep asking questions. You couldn’t just die on that fucking boat.”
I kicked, thrashed, clawed—every lesson in self-defense fighting to surface through panic. My elbow connected with something, but his grip only tightened. I got one hand up, tried to scratch, but he twisted my wrist until pain flared up my arm.
Something jabbed at my side, and my heart lurched.
Knife? No. Smaller. Needle.
The world began to tilt, the concrete blurring beneath me. I heard my phone clatter to the ground. My body wouldn’t answer me—legs buckling, arms leaden, lungs burning for air I couldn’t pull.
Everything swam and spiraled. I fought for another breath, enough to scream, but my muscles wouldn’t obey.
“It’s too damned bad your family’s going to have another tragedy.”