Chapter 30 #2
“We’ll follow up. Full statement from you tomorrow at the station?”
“Yeah.”
They loaded Daniel into the back of the SUV. He was still yelling—threats and obscenities that carried across the parking lot until the door slammed shut and cut him off. The SUV pulled away. Lights on. The parking lot went quiet.
Walker appeared at Bear’s elbow.
“You did good.”
Bear’s hands started shaking. He shoved them in his pockets before anyone could see.
“Seriously.” Walker’s voice was low. “A year ago you’d have put him through the asphalt. Tonight, you controlled it. You protected her without losing yourself. That’s growth.”
Bear’s jaw was so tight it hurt. He nodded once. Didn’t trust his voice. Walker squeezed his shoulder and walked away.
Greta came over. “You all right?” She searched his face.
Bear nodded, but the tremor in his hands wouldn’t stop. He curled his fingers into his palms, trying to hide it, but Greta noticed. She always noticed.
“You’re shaking.”
“Adrenaline.” The word came out rougher than he intended. “It’ll pass. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” But her voice had a tremor in it too, and he could see the way her fingers were locked in Atlas’s fur, the dog pressed tight against her leg.
“Come here.” He opened his arms, and she stepped into them without hesitation. She was shaking. He could feel it through her jacket, a fine vibration that ran the length of her body. He pulled her in tight and held on, and she buried her face in his chest and breathed.
“Daniel killed my sister.” Her voice was muffled against his shirt. “He was obsessed with her. He—”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“We know enough.” She pulled back and looked up at him. Her eyes were bright, fierce, the green of them almost electric under the parking lot lights. “He said she was supposed to be his. He said just like Alice was supposed to be mine. He admitted it in front of everyone.”
“Yeah.” Bear’s hands were still shaking. He kept them on her back, hoping she couldn’t feel it. “He did.”
“Bear.” She searched his face. “He killed her. I know he did.”
He didn’t argue. He couldn’t. The pieces were falling into place in his own head—the way Daniel had fixated on Greta the same way. The same obsessive behavior, the same refusal to accept rejection. The same violent escalation when he didn’t get what he wanted.
“Let the troopers do their job,” he said. “They’ll look into it.”
Greta’s jaw tightened. He could see the argument building behind her eyes—the need to act, to do something, to not just stand here and wait. But she swallowed it and nodded.
“Okay.”
X pulled into Bear’s driveway and cut the engine. Logan jumped out the moment the truck stopped and headed up the porch steps, ball cap pulled low. Atlas and King jumped down from the truck bed and trailed him toward the door.
Bear got out slower.
The streetlight on the corner of Maple was the only one working.
It threw a pale yellow cone across the wet asphalt.
The house was lit from within—Logan had left lights on when they’d headed to the fairgrounds—and King disappeared through the front door as Logan held it open.
Atlas hesitated at the bottom of the steps, looked back at Greta still in the cab, then padded back to her.
Greta finally climbed out of the back seat and closed the door quietly.
X cut Bear a look from the driver’s seat and mouthed, “You good?”
Bear nodded.
X tipped his chin, started the truck back up, and pulled out.
Bear stood in the driveway. Greta stood at the edge of the street, looking over at her house.
He waited until the taillights of X’s truck disappeared around the corner before he approached her.
“You coming in?” he asked.
She didn’t answer right away. She was staring at her bungalow across the street, the dark windows, the porch with the Adirondack chair, and the dead potted geranium she’d forgotten to water before the flood. Atlas sat at her boot and watched her face.
“I think I want to sleep at my place tonight.”
Something cold moved through his chest. He kept his face neutral. “Okay.”
“I know.” She turned to him. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.” A ghost of a smile.
“I can feel it from here.” She looked up at him.
The streetlight caught the gold in her eyes and threw shadows under her cheekbones.
“I haven’t slept in my own house in almost a month.
I told myself I just liked being at yours.
That it was easier. That Logan needed edible dinners, and Atlas had taken to King, and it just made sense.
” She paused. “But that wasn’t all of it.
Some of it was that I couldn’t stand to be alone in that house.
Couldn’t stand the thought of finding another note from Daniel. ”
Bear waited.
“He wanted me afraid, and it worked,” she said.
“He wants me to feel like there’s nowhere I can be without him in my head.
And if I sleep at your house tonight because of what he said in that parking lot, then he wins.
He gets to decide where I sleep. He gets to take my house away from me on top of everything else he’s taken.
” Her jaw set. “I won’t let him do that.
I have to go back. I have to walk in there and turn on the lights and sleep in my own bed and prove to myself—and to him, even if he never knows—that he doesn’t get to push me out of my own life. ”
Fuck. He hated it. Wanted to argue. Wanted to carry her across his own threshold and keep her where he could see her.
But he understood.
“You call me if you need anything. Doesn’t matter what time.”
“I know.”
“I’m serious, Greta. Anything feels wrong, you call. I’ll be across the street in thirty seconds.”
“I will.”
She wouldn’t. She’d handle it herself, the way she handled everything. But he needed to say it. Needed to put the offer out there even if she never took him up on it.
She stepped closer and rose up on her toes, one hand on his chest for balance. He bent down and met her halfway, his hands finding her waist, as she kissed him.
When she pulled back, she stayed close, her forehead pressed to his sternum.
“Thank you,” she said into his shirt. “For tonight. For all of it.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“I do, though.”
She stepped back. His hands fell away.
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yeah.”
She turned and walked across the street with Atlas at her heel, her keys already in her hand. She unlocked the door and went inside without looking back. A few seconds later lights came on inside—living room, kitchen, then the glow from upstairs that meant she’d gone to her bedroom.
Bear stood in his own driveway and watched until the lights went off downstairs. Then he finally turned and went up his own steps, knowing he wouldn’t sleep well without her beside him.