Chapter Fifty-Eight
Dominic Corisi
The mountains above Firebrook Valley
The nearly silent aircraft settled onto the ridge with barely a whisper of displaced air.
Dominic stepped out before the systems finished powering down, polished charcoal suit immaculate against the wild grass and scattered stones.
Habit had him scanning the tree line, the cabin, the slope behind him in one fluid sweep.
Nothing moved that shouldn’t. Still, the old readiness never fully left him.
In one hand he carried a sturdy cardboard case.
Inside were two dozen glass bottles of soda in every flavor the market stocked: cola, root beer, orange, ginger ale, even the ridiculous purple ones Judy liked.
He remembered Evie’s offhand comment from the last visit.
He didn’t believe in oracles or offerings.
He did believe in paying debts and remembering details.
Evie stood on the porch as if she’d been waiting, gray hair in the same loose bun, expression unimpressed. She looked him over the way a woman might study a large, inconvenient bird that had landed on her railing.
“You again,” she said.
Dominic inclined his head. “Evie.” He set the case on the porch boards. “I brought you soda. Consider it a delayed thank-you for the tea last time.”
She eyed the case, then him. “People who come up here usually bring something they think an oracle might find useful.”
“I’m not here to see an oracle.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. She turned without another word and went inside. He followed.
The cabin smelled of dried herbs, woodsmoke, and lemon.
Sunlight poured through the windows in clean shafts.
Evie moved to the woodstove, filled a kettle from the hand pump, and set it to heat.
She didn’t ask if he wanted tea. She simply measured chamomile and lemon balm into a cup the way she had the first time.
Dominic remained standing near the table, hands loosely at his sides. Sitting would have felt like surrendering the room.
When she handed him the cup, he accepted it. The first sip was as good as he remembered. It was smooth, calming, and annoyingly effective. His stomach, which had been knotted since the call about Evan, eased a fraction. He resented that almost as much as he appreciated it.
“Abby still thinks you might be an oracle.”
Evie snorted softly. “I’m not.”
“Something’s been bothering me.” He set the cup down carefully. “How did you know about Bennett?”
She leaned against the counter, arms folded.
“He brings me supplies sometimes. Talks more than he should. Mentioned attending a wedding with an outrageously rich girl named Judy who used a different last name at school. Your wife later mentioned her daughter Judy. You’re not the type to hover around a place like Firebrook Valley for the cookies. I put it together.”
Dominic’s mouth tightened. Ordinary observation. Memory. No magic required.
“What do you know about Bennett that I should know?”
Evie huffed. “People come up here and tell me things when they want their secrets to stay secrets. I don’t ask them to talk. In fact, I prefer when they don’t. What I don’t do is repeat what they say. That’s not a role I signed up for.”
“A little information would be worth a great deal to me. You could name your price.”
Her laugh was short, dry, and genuine. “There was a time when there were things I wanted. That was a long time ago. Another lifetime. All I want now is to be left alone.”
Dominic simply stood there, arms folded, waiting.
Evie met his gaze without flinching. “As I said before, Bennett is a good boy. More than that, you’ll have to ask your daughter.”
Silence stretched. Then she said, almost gently, “But you didn’t come here to ask about Bennett.”
Dominic’s jaw flexed once. “Evan Holliston was attacked. Nearly killed. He was publicly under my protection.”
Evie’s eyes narrowed slightly. “And that makes it personal.”
“Someone hurt a man I placed under my name. That is both a danger and an insult. Who would dare?”
She tilted her head, mockery soft but precise. “Have you considered that this might not be about you?”
The words landed like a quiet slap. Dominic’s ego registered the hit even as he forced his expression to remain neutral.
“Who did it?” he asked coldly.
“I don’t know.”
His stare hardened.
Evie held up a hand. “I have a suspicion. Not proof. I’ve had time to sit with the details. No robbery. Nothing taken. It wasn’t random. It was personal. And it was meant to hurt.”
She pushed away from the counter and began moving around the small kitchen, hands busy with nothing in particular.
“The most obvious suspects would be Cody or Thomas. But Cody would lose his daughter if he hurt the man she loves. And it doesn’t fit Thomas.
Too obvious. Too much attention. You already know their history. You agree with me, don’t you?”
Dominic gave a single nod. “Then who?”
Evie exhaled and looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t repeat what people tell me. Not ever. But innocent people are already being hurt. More may be. That changes the rules.”
Dominic waited.
“Everything I’m about to say is based on what Celia Burke told me over the years. That doesn’t make it true. It only makes it what she believed.”
She continued, voice steady. “Celia was born Celia Hawthorne. Her family was prominent in an exclusive international society that operates locally out of a place called The Beacon. You know it.”
“I do.”
“Her parents were close with Gabe Holliston’s parents. According to Celia, the two families made a pact. Their children would marry to keep the fortunes ‘in the family.’ Gabe agreed to the arranged marriage. Celia did as well . . . until she met Cody Burke.”
Dominic’s eyebrows rose a fraction.
“That decision got her excommunicated from both her family and the society. They removed her name from their books. Her parents erased every reference that she’d ever been part of their lives. She was dead to them.”
“Harsh.”
“Celia wasn’t a happy woman after that. She spent a lot of time on her horse. Rode up here often to see me. A few years ago she didn’t make it home from one of those rides. She died on the mountain. Took them a while to find her.”
Dominic said nothing.
Evie’s voice stayed level. “That’s when the trouble started for Brady at college.
That’s when the rumors of trouble for the Hollistons in general began.
I don’t have proof of anything. But when I think about who would want to hurt the Hollistons, I think about who would want to hurt Gabe.
Celia’s parents might. They blamed him for losing her the first time.
They might blame him for losing her the second.
It’s no secret he’d been making Celia and Cody miserable for decades. ”
Dominic absorbed the information in silence, filing every piece away with cold precision.
After a moment Evie nodded toward his half-finished tea. “That calms your stomach, doesn’t it?”
He almost smiled. “Annoyingly well.”
“I can send you home with some. Or you could find the same herbs at any decent shop.”
He studied her for a long beat. “You really don’t believe you’re a healer. Or an oracle.”
“I know I’m not.”
A reluctant respect tugged at him. This woman lived alone on a mountain, asked for nothing, accepted less, and still managed to see more than most people ever would.
“Is there anything you need?” he asked. Not as payment. Simply because the idea of her up there, solitary, sat wrong with him.
Evie looked at him steadily. “I’m living the life I deserve.”
Dominic’s voice was low. “I doubt that.”
She didn’t argue.
“If it’s all right with you,” he continued, “I’d like to come back and check in on you now and then.”
“I’d rather you don’t.” Then the corner of her mouth curved, just barely. “But I understand that won’t stop you.”
It was the first time they shared something close to a sincere smile.
Dominic inclined his head. “You really are a good reader of people.”
He set the empty cup down and prepared to leave.
Evie watched him. “What are you going to do now?”
“Pay the Hawthornes a visit.”
Her expression tightened. “Be careful.”
Dominic’s smile was slow, dark, and utterly without warmth, the type that belonged to the part of himself he kept carefully leashed for Abby’s sake.
“That advice,” he said quietly, “would be better served on the Hawthornes. I understand revenge. I’ve dabbled in my fair share of it. So if they’re responsible for what happened to Evan, I’ll give them a chance to make this right.”
Evie’s voice was almost a whisper. “And if they don’t want to take that chance?”
The temperature in the cabin seemed to drop. The silence that followed was heavy.
Dominic’s eyes were cold and clear.
“I’m really okay with either outcome,” he said. “In fact . . . I’ll admit I might enjoy myself a bit too much if they refuse.”
He turned and walked out into the mountain sunlight without another word, the cabin door closing softly behind him.