66. Chapter 66
Cate
Present
Itold myself I was looking for a pen.
That was the story I let my brain settle on as I walked down the hallway toward Trevor’s office.
Marshal had agreed to meet tomorrow instead. Someplace public, neutral ground. My choice.
That felt like something.
Small. But mine.
I needed to write things down. Names. Dates. Questions.
If I didn’t put structure around this, it was going to swallow me whole.
Trevor’s office door was half open.
He hated that.
The room always smelled faintly of leather and toner and something sharper. Order, maybe. Everything had a place. Everything returned to it.
I stepped inside carefully, like I was borrowing space.
His desk sat centered beneath the window. Clean. Minimal. Not a single paper out of place.
Of course.
I crossed to it and opened the top drawer.
Empty except for neatly stacked legal pads and a row of identical black pens lined up like soldiers.
I almost laughed.
It was too neat, almost ridiculously so.
I closed it and pulled the second drawer open.
Paper clips. Stamps. A small flashlight. A measuring tape.
The third drawer stuck slightly before sliding free.
And there, sitting atop a stack of folders, not tucked away, not hidden, was a ring.
Just sitting there, heavy, gold, and undeniably masculine.
My breath left me before I understood why.
It wasn’t in a box.
Wasn’t wrapped in anything.
It lay there like it had been taken out and set down with intention.
I reached for it before I could stop myself.
The metal was cool, smooth.
I turned it over in my hand.
The crest caught the light first, raised letters and a shield I hadn’t seen in years.
My stomach dropped.
No.
I flipped it into my palm and raised it to my eyes. There, inside the band… it was engraved.
J.R.
My vision tunneled.
For a second I was back at The Scot & Barrel, laughing as John wiggled his pinky finger in my face.
“Don’t lose it,” I’d teased.
“Never,” he’d said. “It’s tradition.”
Seth had one too.
Their fraternity rings. They bragged about how they’d stood shoulder to shoulder at initiation, proud and stupid and twenty-one.
John wore his on his pinky.
Always.
I sank into Trevor’s desk chair without meaning to.
The air suddenly felt thinner.
There was no explanation.
No reasonable bridge from ten years ago to now.
Unless…
No.
I forced myself to think.
Could someone else have had one?
Yes. Dozens of men had that ring.
But not this one. Not with these initials. Not with this scratch near the crest from when he’d slammed his hand into a door frame during a fight with Seth their junior year.
I traced the mark with my thumb, remembering the way they’d regaled me with the story.
Memory doesn’t lie about texture.
My pulse began to pound.
Why would Trevor have this?
Not displayed.
Not mentioned.
Not in a memory box from my old things.
But in his desk.
Loose.
Like something he’d taken out recently.
Like something he’d been holding on to.
My mind tried to rearrange it.
Make it make sense!
Maybe he found it somewhere.
Maybe someone gave it to him, maybe it was from the old evidence file I knew he'd been looking into, though he hadn't said as much.
Maybe…
I stood abruptly, the chair rolling back a few inches.
The house suddenly felt different.
Not curated, not controlled.
Observed.
I looked toward the doorway half expecting Trevor to be standing there already.
He wasn’t.
The silence stretched.
I stared down at the ring again.
This wasn’t proof.
It wasn’t confession.
It was a question.
A dangerous one.
If Trevor had killed John…
No. I refused to believe it. But what if…
Why would he keep this?
A trophy?
A reminder?
Power?
Or something worse…
My hand trembled.
I could put it back.
Close the drawer.
Pretend I never saw it.
Go to dinner tonight.
Smile.
Wait.
But the woman I used to be wouldn’t have done that.
The woman I used to be would’ve flipped the board.
I slipped the ring into my pocket.
Not to hide it, not yet.
I just needed to think.
I closed the drawer slowly.
The click sounded louder than it should have.
And in the quiet that followed, I realized something that made my stomach turn.
If he kept this…
What else had he kept?