Chapter 25
Wren
They ruined the crocuses—the first signs of spring—their delicate purple blooms crushed as paparazzi and internet sleuths stood in the garden beds, trying to get a better view through the windows.
From the street it sounded like wild bison charging down the mountain.
The air buzzed with urgency as voices clamored, shouting my name, their intensity shattering the stillness of the morning.
Flashes erupted from all directions—cameras, iPhones, anything that could capture an image—illuminating the kitchen where I had stood, mindlessly washing last night’s dishes.
I froze, soap dripping from my fingers, and stared in horror as the official news crews clustered at the curb, tripods bristling—while a paparazzo’s SUV barreled up the driveway.
It plowed through the potted geraniums and sent garden statues toppling like dominoes.
My sanctuary, my hidden refuge, had been discovered, and now it lay in ruins.
They had found me.
Even in my shock I managed to close the curtains, but the shouting didn’t stop. Questions banged against the windows. An accusatory voice cut through the noise, riding above the rest: “How does it feel to be hiding in the mountains while the boy your fiancée ran over is still paralyzed?”
My legs buckled. I grabbed the edge of the kitchen counter for support, my breath shallow and ragged.
My phone on the counter buzzed with a missed call, and then another one, and another one.
On and on messages pinged. A relentless stream of calls from people I had left behind.
My agent. My publicist. Even my parents.
They had respected the distance I had asked for after Lucy’s death.
But now, their messages were urgent. The internet was alive with speculation.
Where has B.W. Paisley been? Why is she hiding? What is she hiding?
I didn’t wait to hear more. My hands shook as I fumbled with my keys.
I bolted out the back door, ducking past the chaos in the front yard.
I slammed the car door and narrowly missed people and cameras as I sped away.
The house, the one I had spent seven months restoring, disappeared in my rearview mirror as dust kicked up behind my spinning wheels.
My sanctuary—the garden, the porch, the life I had built here—felt trampled, as broken as the crocuses they’d crushed beneath their feet.
I didn’t know where else to go. There was only one place in this town where I believed I might be safe—the library.
When I burst through the entrance, my legs felt like lead, as though they wanted to root themselves to the carpet beneath me.
I staggered toward the front desk where Henry sat, calm as ever, speaking into the phone.
“Henry,” I gasped, breathless. “I need to tell you something.”
He ended the phone call, his eyes lifting to meet mine.
Henry’s gaze was different, distant and almost unrecognizable.
It was as though I had suddenly become a stranger to him: not the person he had spent hours planning the poetry evening with; not the friend who had shared wine and late-night conversations about loss and grief; not the one who always had paint in her hair and asked him for advice about what color would match the drapes Gill insisted on keeping; not the person who had shared all the fears in the very depths of their heart.
Without a word, I knew he had found out.
“I need a moment,” he said quietly, his voice calm but laced with something unreadable.
I nodded, though my heart was breaking.
He adjusted his glasses, locked his computer screen, and fiddled with the collar of his shirt, like it suddenly felt too tight.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I really was. But the press, they’ve found me. They somehow found Gill’s address and are all over the front yard. I couldn’t stay there.”
Before he could respond, the screech of tires outside made us both turn. A news van came to a halt in front of the library, its doors flying open as a camera operator leaped onto the pavement, adjusting their lens for a shot.
Henry’s expression didn’t change, though his eyes never left the scene outside. “It would seem they’re everywhere,” he said flatly.
“Please, Henry,” my voice cracked. Flashbacks of the relentless press after the accident, the constant hounding and invasive questions, the torture on social media, rained down on me like shards of glass. I was dizzy, breathless, and spiraling. “Please, help me.”
Henry’s jaw tightened and, without a word, he pressed the intercom button on the front desk.
His voice, steady and authoritative, filled the library.
“Patrons of Everston Library, please note we are urgently closing due to a family emergency. Please exit in an orderly fashion through the front doors.”
There weren’t many patrons, and those who were there shuffled out with confused glances.
Henry marched to the front doors and locked them just as the press surged forward, cameras and microphones thrust toward the glass.
Their muffled shouts were barely audible through the heavy doors.
I retreated to the staff room, my steps unsteady, the world spinning around me.
The walls seemed to cave in as I leaned against the cabinets, trying to catch my breath.
My pulse pounded in my ears, my chest rising and falling in frantic rhythm.
Please slow down, I begged my heart silently.
Henry appeared in the doorway, his face clouded with something unreadable. Was it shock? Hurt? Anger? I couldn’t tell.
“That was Rita on the phone just before,” he said, his voice carefully controlled.
“She said someone from Us Weekly cornered her at Sam’s early this morning.
They were asking about Brooklyn Paisley.
She told them she had no idea who that was.
But then—” He stopped, leaning on the doorframe; I could clearly see the hurt across his face.
“They showed her a photo on their phone, and she said, ‘Oh no, that’s Wren. She’s probably at Gill’s. ’ ”
My breath caught, and I felt the room still. “She gave them my location?” I whispered.
“Well, not on purpose. She didn’t know what it meant. She thought they were here for the poetry evening. Not for…” He stopped again, his eyes searching mine. “Brooklyn Paisley.”
The name sounded so foreign, distant, like someone I used to know but didn’t anymore.
“Henry, I didn’t want this. I didn’t mean—”
“Well, what did you mean?” he replied, his tone harsher now. “Because from where I’m standing, the woman we thought we knew—Wren—the one who was a friend, who we shared our deepest grief with, isn’t who she said she was.”
“It is me. Wren is my middle name,” I said softly. “You have to believe—”
“What the hell happened in New York to make you come here?” he interrupted. “What are you hiding from? And why here? You could have gone anywhere, why Everston? Why did you infiltrate our town?”
Infiltrate. I felt a lump rise in my throat as tears stung my eyes. “It wasn’t like that,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to infiltrate anything. I just…I just wanted to disappear. To start over.”
Henry’s face slightly softened, but the confusion and hurt remained. “Disappear from what?”
“It was the accident,” I said again, forcing myself to meet his gaze.
“The one that killed Lucy. The police said she was drunk, that she crashed into another vehicle, injuring the man inside, and then mounted the curb, hitting a young boy. But I struggled to remember it that way. Lucy wasn’t drunk.
She wasn’t reckless. But the press didn’t care about the truth.
They wanted a story, a scapegoat. And Lucy, even though she paid with her life, wasn’t enough.
They wanted to bury me too. They weren’t going to stop until I was ruined. I just ran.”
Henry stood silently, absorbing what I was saying.
“It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I learned the man in the other car wasn’t just some random person.
He was an off-duty cop, and the son of the police commissioner.
He was drunk that night. He crashed into us, sent our car spinning into a pole, and then he was the one that mounted the curb and hit the boy.
But the police covered it up to protect him.
They sealed the reports. Hid it from the public and fed the media whatever they wanted. ”
Recognition suddenly dawned in his eyes. “You were Olivia’s story!” he exclaimed.
“What?” I asked, my stomach knotting.
“Olivia came to me,” he said. “She told me she had two stories she was working on. One about the grief group—which I really thought she would do as a favor, but the other was massive. Big enough to get her the job as anchor. That was you, wasn’t it? Your story. She knew.”
The world tilted. A ringing filled my ears, drowning out everything but the sound of my heart shattering. The weight of it all exploded. The woman I loved, the one I thought had given me a second chance, had just stolen it all away.