13. June
JUNE
Someone had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and pressed a warm mug of tea into her hands.
June stood on the sidewalk across the road from what was left of her home and watched the firefighters work.
Clarence, the enormous Cane Corso she’d apparently made friends with in the last hour, sat solid and warm against her hip.
The dog had appeared at some point during the chaos, planted himself beside her, and hadn’t moved since.
June rested her free hand on the top of his head and drew a strange, quiet comfort from it.
The house across the road had been her home for thirty-seven years.
It had held every memory of Trevor. Every photograph of Willa as a baby.
The kitchen where June had taught Willa to bake brownies before she’d gone off to college.
The upstairs hallway where Trevor had hung a gallery wall of their family photographs the year before he’d died.
The study where she’d built her career after her father’s firm had been taken apart and rebuilt in her own hands.
All of it was burning in front of her.
She pulled her eyes away before the lump in her throat could do any more damage and looked around to check on everyone else.
Carmen had gone to speak with her old team at the fire department and had confirmed that every single person in their group had been medically cleared.
Even the two Willa had knocked out had been checked over before the paramedics wheeled them away with their hands cuffed to the gurneys.
Holt had retrieved Victoria’s safe from where Clive had hidden it for his mother.
Clive had apparently spent the past several weeks moving the safe between storage units without ever knowing what was inside, which June believed completely.
She’d watched his face when he’d realized what Sienna had done.
Clive and his fiancée were helping Margo carry food and drinks across the road from the Airbnb.
Willa, Ace, and Zane moved between the fire crew and the neighbors, doing whatever practical tasks were asked of them.
Rad and Holt were managing the Miami PD and the two FBI agents who had arrived from the field office.
And June just stood there with the dog, her tea, and the blanket, watching her life burn.
The neighbors had started gathering. They’d come across their lawns one by one with soft, shocked greetings, hugging her briefly, murmuring condolences, asking if they could bring her anything.
The official line had been a faulty gas stove.
Everyone had accepted it, the way neighbors accepted such things when a woman’s house was still smoldering in front of her.
June took a long, slow breath and tried to steady herself.
“June!” The voice was sharp and urgent and unmistakably Victoria’s.
June turned.
Victoria was running across the road toward her, only to be stopped three paces from June by a young police officer who stepped into her path with one hand raised.
“It’s all right, officer,” June told him quickly. “She’s with me.”
The officer looked at her, nodded, and stepped back.
Victoria hissed something under her breath at the young man and rushed the last few steps to June. Then she did something June had never in her life seen Victoria do in public.
She threw her arms around her.
“Thank goodness.” Victoria’s voice was tight against June’s shoulder. “When Clive called and told us what had happened, I just...” She pulled back and glanced at the burning house. Her expression crumpled slightly. “June, I’m so sorry about your home.”
“It’s all right, Victoria,” June managed.
Victoria turned her tired, shattered eyes to June.
“Sienna,” Victoria breathed. “I thought she might have been the one who’d hurt Lacey.
But I...” She swallowed, visibly forcing herself to hold it together.
“I think deep down I’ve always known. About all of it.
I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.
” Her jaw clenched. “I could have stopped this years ago. If I’d said something.
If I’d done something. If I’d trusted what I was seeing instead of making excuses for her. Maybe Shaun would still...”
“No, Victoria.” June took Victoria’s hands in her own. “This is not on you. None of it is on you.”
“This is not on you, Mom,” Clive said from behind them.
“Clive.” Victoria turned and stepped into her son’s arms.
He held her carefully, the way a grown son holds a mother he has only just realized he misjudged for most of his adult life. His jaw was set. June had been watching him manage his face for the past hour and understood exactly how much of it was being held together by effort.
“She fooled all of us, Mom,” Clive told her quietly. “Dad included. None of this is on you.” He blew out a long breath. “I’m more worried about how Dad is going to handle this.”
“June, I’m so glad you’re all right,” Alfred said, stepping up to join them.
“Alfred.” Clive shook his hand and then pulled him into a quick, firm hug. “Thank you for looking out for my mother. I’m so sorry about Mrs. Clark. She deserved better.”
“Ye, indeed,” Alfred replied simply. “She was a good woman.”
Things wrapped up faster than June had expected.
Holt organized a police patrol to keep watch over the property overnight so they could properly process what was left of the house in the morning. He told Victoria, Alfred, Clive, and his fiancée that he would need all four of them at the Miami FBI field office the next day for formal statements.
Clive offered them all a place to stay at the Airbnb.
“It’s a four-bedroom house,” Clive told Holt. “We aren’t staying, as I have an apartment near the university. We’ll head to my place. While you might have to share rooms, there’s more than enough room for everyone at the Airbnb house.”
They worked out the sleeping arrangements once they were inside their temporary accommodation with practical efficiency of people too tired to argue.
Carmen, Willa, and Margo took the room with the bunks and the single.
June and Victoria took the room with the king.
Holt and Zane took the third. That had left Rad and Ace for the sofa beds in the living room, and Alfred took the tiny fourth bedroom.
The rest of the evening moved in a strange, muffled haze for June.
Luckily, Holt and their group that arrived with him had small overnight bags.
Victoria had clothes at the Airbnb and brought them from the hotel.
A room that was still paid for, and June had thought more than once in the past couple of hours of going to.
So she could let down the facade of being okay.
Slide into a hot bath and cry out her pain and frustration with everything that had happened to her since…
well, since her car accident that happened nearly ten weeks ago now.
Alfred called her to come have some coffee and fresh-baked scones.
June turned on automatic pilot and sat to eat and drink.
She hardly tasted any of it; the conversation buzzed around her, unheard.
Twenty minutes later, June found herself at the front window of the Airbnb, staring across the road at the blackened ruin of her house.
The lump that had been living in her throat since Shaun’s video had settled there permanently now.
Every time she thought she’d pushed it down, it climbed straight back up.
“June.” Holt’s voice came from behind her.
She turned.
They were alone. Everyone else was in the kitchen or the bedrooms. June hadn’t noticed them drift away, which told her something about how far away her mind had been.
“You should go have a shower and try to sleep,” Holt told her gently.
“Even an hour would help.” He blew out a breath.
“The firefighters recovered the laptop from the coffee table. It’s badly damaged, and the thumb drive is beyond repair.
” His jaw clamped as his eyes moved to her house, then back to her. “All of that evidence...”
June reached into the pocket of her jeans.
She pulled out the second thumb drive and held it up between them.
“This is the backup,” she told him. “I stopped at Dagwood’s place on the way to meet you and Willa.
He copied the drive for me. I cut a few pieces out of the copy before bringing that one to you.
” Her eyes dropped to the drive in her hand.
“This one is the original Shaun sent me. Everything is on it. Every file. Every video. Every photograph.”
Holt stared at the drive.
Then he looked at her.
“June.” His voice was quiet, and the relief resonated on his face. “I nearly had heart failure thinking of what we’ve all been through, only to lose the evidence and let those two walk.”
Holt reached over and took the drive.
“Remember your side of our deal,” June told him.
“Don’t worry, I already have a plan,” Holt assured her, and she gave him a tight smile before turning back toward the window.
“I hope the books Shaun sent me survived it,” June whispered. “They were in my closet upstairs. I don’t know if the fire reached that far.” She drew in a long, shuddering breath. “All my memories. The photographs. The things Willa made me when she was little. Trevor’s books.”
The lump in her throat broke open.
The tears came without any warning she could have given herself.
It was the whole day at once. The exhaustion.
The fear. The adrenaline. Shaun’s face on the laptop screen telling her he loved her.
The gun pointed at her chest. The bullet that had cracked past her head.
Her house going up in flames behind her while she crouched on the asphalt with Holt covering her body with his.
Holt’s arms came around her.
June folded into him without thinking about it.