Chapter 16 Isobel
Isobel
The storm had everyone on edge.
Dane pulled together a search party willing to work in the inclement weather.
While his crew searched the surrounding area, Isobel kept watch over her father at the cottage.
Dr. Rosen had urged her over the phone to let him continue to rest. It was vital, the doctor had said, to eliminate unneeded stressors so his body could heal.
So when Dad woke that night in a fit of panic, asking after Arthur, Isobel did something she never thought she would.
She lied to her father.
“We posted his bail.”
Dad’s immediate look of relief made Isobel’s stomach churn with guilt. “I need to see him,” he said, his voice faint.
“Um… you can’t, just yet.” Isobel scrambled for something believable. “Arthur was… Well, he was so upset about what happened.” True. Isobel swallowed her nerves down a dry throat. “He and Eva went for a drive.”
A bad lie, by her standards. No one would willingly choose to drive in this storm.
“They drove down to the diner,” she amended. “To work things out.”
When the worry knitting her father’s brow eased, it almost made the deception worth it.
“Good,” Dad said, sinking back against the pillows propped beneath him. His eyes were drooping again. “They’ll be okay, you know.”
But Isobel didn’t know, and she felt suddenly sick. What kind of person lied to their wounded father?
Shortly after midnight, Dane called off the search until the storm let up, for the safety of the search crew. Isobel dozed in a chair by her father’s bed through the night, too anxious to leave his side.
She needed a drink.
When she phoned the next morning, Dane tried to reassure her that he would find her sister soon.
Isobel wasn’t so certain.
Though Eva would be loath to admit it, Arthur Connoway had always been able to reach a part of Eva that Isobel couldn’t.
Her sister’s first experience with love hadn’t grown solely from attraction but from a desperate need to be seen.
Arthur had fed Eva’s curious mind, stirring her to compassion and a deeper understanding of the world and her place within it.
He had taught her to be more careful with living things, his deadly touch making him keenly aware of how fragile a life truly is.
Eva might not have forgiven Arthur for running away, but if she thought he was in trouble, Isobel had no doubt her sister would jump to his aid. And while that was courageous, it didn’t mean it was smart.
The violence of last night’s rain had destroyed some of the flowers in their yard, the tallest and flimsiest stems pressed flat into the mud with their once-silken petals now crumpled and strewn around them.
Izzy stood on her front porch, taking in the mess outside.
The inside of their cottage wasn’t much better, still covered in the flora that Eva had grown during the disastrous events of yesterday.
With the craving for whiskey sitting on her tongue, Isobel turned her attention first to putting the kitchen to rights.
She started with peeling the newly grown layer of moss off the tiles and walls.
The spongy texture of the moss pressing into her palms gave her something soft to focus on, rather than the worry cutting up her insides.
Broken glass clinked against the tiles as she swept the floor clear of debris.
She was almost glad for the shards, glad to have something shattered that she was capable of fixing.
Isobel was plucking a rogue cluster of turkey tail mushrooms that had started growing on the hallway wallpaper when she saw the mirror.
The glass looked as though it had been struck by an angry fist. Her chest tightened, and she flashed to yesterday, when Dane had led Arthur away, his bloodied knuckles drawn behind his back in handcuffs.
Determined to hide her worry and keep up the facade that all was well, Isobel prepared a lunch platter to share with her father.
They ate it while he still rested in bed, a little more color leaking into his pale cheeks.
Dad asked her about Eva and Arthur again.
Biting her lip, Isobel forced a smile she didn’t feel and cheerfully said that the two of them had gone down to the valley and had asked that she pass along a hello to Dad when he woke.
Eager to escape her guilt over the lie, Isobel spent the afternoon outside, tearing out weeds and clearing up debris the wind had blown into the yard during last night’s storm.
There was nothing she could do about the patrol car Eva had taken out of commission, its tires sunk deep into the ground, with a layer of flora snaking up its doors and around its hood, as though the whole thing was being swallowed.
They would need assistance and heavier equipment to break it free and tow it off their property.
The sun seemed to be trying to make up for yesterday’s cloudy weather. By the time Isobel hung her tools in the greenhouse and called it a day, she was sweating, exhausted, and more than a little achy in her lower back.
Dad went to bed early, still looking too pale. When she tried to check on him, he shooed her away, so Isobel retreated to take a shower, eager to cleanse the layer of grime off her skin.
While she was showering, Dane left a message on her voicemail.
He’d had no luck on the search today.
Dusk had fallen over the sky like a bruise by the time Isobel slipped out onto the porch and sank into her mother’s old rocking chair, the knot of worry in her chest cinching a little tighter.
The woods sang around her, the air smelling sweet and clean.
Isobel rocked in the chair and tried to tamp down the feeling of helplessness she’d been hiding from all day.
It found her anyway.
Through the orchard, she watched the main lights in the Walker farmhouse click off one by one, until only Dane’s office light remained.
Isobel pushed to her feet, carried by a sharp and sudden need.
For distraction.
For escape.
She grabbed the closest shoes she could find and marched to the fence line dividing their properties. The usually pristine rows of trees were looking a little beat up, a smattering of golden pears thrown to the ground in the storm.
Halfway to the farmhouse, she knew she’d chosen the wrong pair of shoes. The kitten heels sank into the softened ground. It was pride, maybe—or perhaps adrenaline—that carried her to the back door, where she bent and fished out the secret key from under the mat.
The brass lock stuck on the first try, drawing her frustration to the surface.
She needed a drink.
No. Isobel shook her head. No, that was why she’d come here instead.
When the key finally turned, Isobel all but fell into the back hallway of the farmhouse. It was dark, save for the gap beneath Dane’s office door hemorrhaging golden lamplight.
She crept down the hall, trying to avoid the creakiest floorboards. She didn’t want to wake Dane’s daughter, Esther. Evidence of the little girl was everywhere, from the dirty handprints Isobel knew were on the walls to the pile of tea party bric-a-brac abandoned along the baseboards.
Isobel needed to fall apart, and she feared if she didn’t come here, she might go somewhere else. Dane Walker was the least of her vices, and unlike alcohol, he could kiss her back.
Bad days like today made her miss the secret drinks Priya used to slip her from behind the bar at Dawson’s. Days like those were long gone. Isobel had never told her ex-girlfriend about her sobriety, but in a town this small, Priya knew.
Isobel smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She could still taste the whiskey she wanted so badly—whiskey she hadn’t had in over eleven months.
When she opened the office door, she found Dane glued to a spread of papers on his desk.
He wore a pair of navy slacks and a pressed button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, each turn made with careful, measured precision.
Isobel shivered. She’d read far too many romance novels in her thirty-two years not to appreciate a well-chiseled cliché.
“Knock, knock,” she said softly when he didn’t notice her entry.
Dane jumped, his attention snapping to where she stood. For just a moment, he looked as frazzled as she’d felt since the jailbreak yesterday. “Isobel.”
The knots in her shoulders loosened a little.
To everyone else she was Izzy, but not to Dane.
She loved the slow, unhurried way he said her name.
Always three syllables: Is-o-bel. It was her favorite mask.
Isobel was confident, sexy, sober, brave.
Most importantly, Isobel didn’t keep secrets from the people she loved the way she’d done with her father that day.
She didn’t lie.
“Is everything okay?” Dane asked. Anxiety flashed across his face, and he sat up a little straighter. “Is your dad…?”
“He’s fine,” she assured him. “Well, not fine, I guess, but he woke up enough to eat and move around a bit today.”
“Good.” Dane sank against the back of his chair, visibly relieved. “That’s good.”
It was obscene, really, how well the cinnamon scruff highlighted his jaw. Isobel could see from here the dark circles rimming his eyes. He seemed as exhausted as she was, though clearly too anxious to sleep.
“What are you working on?” she asked, stepping toward the desk. She should have known he wouldn’t actually take a rest, even after a long day. If anything, Dane worked harder when he was frustrated.
“Don’t…” Dane leaned forward and tried to cover the pages he’d been perusing, too late.
Isobel had seen the title of Dane’s witness statement, taken the morning after his wedding.
Her mouth went chalky. That wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting.
Why was he digging back into all that, tonight of all nights?
“This is a cold case.” Isobel tried to hide the shake in her voice.
“Not to me,” Dane muttered. “There’s got to be something here that I missed before.” He tapped the pages. “It all comes back to her.”