Chapter 7
Rowan sat at the kitchen table with a plate of eggs she hadn’t touched and a mug of coffee that had already gone lukewarm. She reminded herself that she needed to keep up her act that things were completely normal or people would ask too many questions.
But right now, it was just her, Naomi, and Grace—so she’d let down her guard just a smidgen.
Morning light filled the room, spilling across the table and catching the edge of Baby Grace’s blanket where Naomi held her close.
The scene should have felt comforting. Familiar. Safe in a way Rowan hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Instead, she found herself waiting for more trouble to pop up.
Was she putting her family in danger? Baby Grace?
“You’re not eating.” Naomi adjusted Grace against her shoulder and gave Rowan a look. “You know when Mom sees you, she’s going to tell you you’re too skinny.”
Yes, her mom always had opinions about her weight. But by Hollywood standards, Rowan was on the verge of obesity. Okay, not really. But the pressure to stay thin was real.
Rowan glanced at her plate as if the sight surprised her. “I will eat. I promise you I’m not starving myself. I’m just . . . waking up still.”
Naomi studied her before nodding. “A long drive can be exhausting. I still can’t believe you drove here instead of flying.”
Rowan reached for her fork and took a bite of her eggs, more out of obligation than hunger. The food tasted fine—better than fine, actually—but her mind stayed elsewhere.
It drifted back to the article she’d read upstairs. The words replayed whether she wanted them to or not.
How would the narrative continue to play out? Should she simply come forward and tell her story?
That would involve a different kind of risk.
She still had no idea what to do.
Mostly, she feared being framed for this. Being arrested. Spending the rest of her life in prison.
Just like Richard Harding was doing.
Only he was guilty. She wasn’t.
She hated feeling helpless. She didn’t have to feel helpless, did she? Wasn’t there something she could do?
Her mind raced through the possibilities.
She’d never been one to back down. She’d always been a go-getter. Why should she change now? Why should she let fear stop her?
She knew the answer.
She shouldn’t.
She couldn’t.
She forced herself to think rather than spiral.
There had been others Vince had targeted—at least, that was the rumor.
Eva Kelleher, for one. She was an actress who’d worked with Vince three years ago on The Meridian, and she’d quietly walked away from a supporting role halfway through production. No public explanation, no interview, nothing.
At the time, the industry had written it off as creative differences. Rowan had written it off the same way.
Now she wondered.
And there was a set decorator named Pam Oakes who’d given Vince a wide berth whenever he was on the floor, always finding a reason to be somewhere else when he entered a room.
Rowan hadn’t asked why. She wished she had.
But before she contacted anyone—before she said a word to another person about what she’d seen—she needed her own account to be airtight.
Everything she remembered about that night was still locked inside her head, unwritten, unrecorded, vulnerable to time and fear and Vince’s very expensive lawyers.
She needed to get it down. Specific details. The exact sequence of events. What she’d heard. What she’d seen. What she’d done afterward and why.
She needed a record that existed somewhere outside her own memory, somewhere safe.
She didn’t know what came after that yet. But that was the first step.
She could do that much.
Someone knocked at the side door. Naomi walked over to answer and, a moment later, Wes and Remington stepped into the kitchen.
And an entirely different set of problems filled her mind.
Rowan watched as the dogs sniffed each other in greeting.
At the sight of Wes, everything in Rowan shifted at once. Her awareness sharpened. Her nerves tightened. Her pulse quickened.
Being around Wes again felt like stepping backward into a version of herself she barely recognized anymore.
The two of them had met in fourth grade after a teacher decided the quiet boy in the corner might balance out the girl who talked too much. Ms. Anderson had placed them at the same table as partners.
The teacher’s plan hadn’t worked.
Rowan had still talked too much, while Wes had listened with that steady patience he still had today. They’d become best friends.
By high school, they’d realized they liked each other. By eleventh grade, they were dating.
Between school plays and football games, awkward teenage years, and long summer nights, he’d become her safe place. Especially after her father died.
Wes had been the one person outside her family who’d never expected her to perform or compete or prove herself worthy of attention.
By the time she and Wes had graduated from high school, everyone assumed the two of them would end up married one day. Maybe part of her had assumed it too.
But Rowan had wanted more than the Blue Ridge Mountains could offer. More than small-town life and familiar roads and people who already knew every version of her.
So she’d left for California while Wes joined the Marines, and at first, they’d tried to hold on to each other through late-night phone calls and hurried visits.
Eventually the distance became more than miles. Their worlds no longer fit together the way they once had.
And they still didn’t, Rowan reminded herself. She’d be wise to keep that in mind.