15. Holt
HOLT
Holt stood in the middle of the kitchen and watched June walk out.
His hand was still half-lifted in the air where it had been reaching for hers a moment before. The bedroom door down the hallway closed with a quiet click, and Holt took a step after her before his body understood what was happening.
“I’ll go,” Carmen announced, already moving past him. “Let me, Holt. You can’t fix this one for her.”
Holt stopped and watched Carmen walk out of the kitchen. Holt stood where he was, staring at the empty doorway, and felt the floor beneath his feet start to feel uncertain. He turned slowly back toward the kitchen, and his eyes found Willa’s. Something inside his chest dropped through the floor.
Willa was standing beside her stool now. Her eyes were wide, cool, and accusing.
“Willa,” Holt said quietly, stepping toward her.
Willa stood up straighter and shook her head.
“I...” Willa swallowed hard. “I need a minute.”
“Willa, please?—”
“I need a minute, Holt,” she repeated, her voice steady but strained. “Please.”
She turned and walked out of the kitchen without looking back at him.
“Willa.” Holt started after her.
“No, Dad, let her go.” Rad had stood from his stool.
He caught Holt’s shoulder gently, not hard enough to stop him physically, just firmly enough to remind Holt that his son was there. Holt’s feet stopped moving. He let Rad’s hand rest on his shoulder for a beat before Rad let it fall away.
“This is all such a mess,” Holt breathed, and swallowed. His throat felt dry and his heart heavy. “I have to speak to her.” He felt like he was moving through a bad dream.
“I’ll go check on her in a few minutes,” Rad told him.
“She needs to process what she just heard. Going after her now won’t help.
” He gave his father a small, tired squeeze on the shoulder.
“It’s going to be all right, Dad. We needed all of these secrets out in the open.
The whole family needed it out. You can’t walk forward carrying this much still hidden. ”
“Forward?” Holt let out a short, humorless breath. “Son, you saw the look in June’s eyes just then. And you saw the look in Willa’s.” He shook his head, his eyes darkening. “I don’t know if there is a forward for any of us after tonight.”
“Don’t say that, Dad,” Rad told him firmly. “Give it time. This is all still raw. None of it is final. You’ll see.”
Holt nodded slowly because he didn’t have the energy to argue.
Rad squeezed his shoulder once more, then left the kitchen.
Holt stood alone in the light of the small kitchen with his hands flat on the counter and tried to breathe through what had just happened.
The whole of it came at him at once, the way steam trains came at a man standing on the track.
It was all an information overload, topped off by a ten-year-old mystery just solved that still had to be processed and filed away.
Holt pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes for a moment and forced himself to breathe.
Then he straightened, rinsed the three empty cocoa mugs out in the sink out of sheer habit, and walked back to the bedroom he was sharing with Zane.
Zane was already in bed, his large frame making the single mattress look absurd. He had one arm folded behind his head and was staring at the ceiling.
“You’re still awake,” Holt observed, pulling his shirt off and reaching for the clean T-shirt he’d brought in an overnight bag.
“Hard not to be,” Zane replied quietly. “With everything going on back home, here in Miami, and the kitchen…”
Holt paused.
“You heard what happened in the kitchen a few moments ago?” Holt asked.
“Most of it, yes,” Zane admitted. He didn’t move his eyes from the ceiling.
“I went to find Ace to ask him about the plane tomorrow. He and Rad are bunking down in the living room, which is right off the second kitchen door. By the time I realized what we’d walked into, leaving would have made more of a scene than staying. ”
Holt sighed. He ran a hand down his face. “It’s all right, Zane.” He sighed. “You’d have heard it all from Carmen anyway.”
“Most likely.” He nodded.
There was a pause while Holt finished getting dressed for bed.
“What a few days this has been,” Holt muttered, and Zane didn’t say a word for a long moment.
“I’m sorry, Holt,” Zane eventually replied. “That was a great deal to take on in such a short time frame.”
“It was.” Holt nodded in agreement. “This whole thing is such a mess.”
“At least the case is finally solved,” Zane offered quietly.
“Yeah.” Holt sat down heavily on the edge of the single bed. It creaked under his weight, and he wondered briefly how it was going to hold him all night. “I guess that’s a win.”
“But at a cost,” Zane added.
“At a considerable cost.” Holt blew out a breath.
Zane was silent for a moment.
“It’s not going to be easy for the two families broken by bad seeds,” Zane finally said. “I feel terrible for Tom and Barry Vincent.”
“Tom’s career is likely over,” Holt said. “However this plays out publicly, there’s no way he stays on as police chief of Sandpiper Shores with his daughter at the center of this.”
“I agree,” Zane confirmed. “He won’t want to. Tom has too much integrity to sit at that desk while the town talks behind his back.” He paused. “And what this is going to do to him personally. Sienna is his daughter.”
“It’s going to gut him,” Holt said quietly.
“And then there’s Barry.” Zane shook his head. “That poor man has just been told his son is still alive after ten years of grieving him, only to find out in the same breath what his son actually did.”
“Do you really think Barry didn’t know?” Holt asked carefully. “All this time, do you think he didn’t know his son was alive?”
Zane turned his head on the pillow.
“What are you thinking?” Zane pressed. “That Barry and Harvey knew all along that Basil was alive?”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” Holt admitted. “I’d like to believe they didn’t.”
“I was there when the news broke ten years ago,” Zane told him. “Both of them, Barry and Harvey, were destroyed, Holt. I’ve seen grief in my work for a long time. You can’t fake what I saw on their faces that night.”
“So you don’t think either of them has been in contact with Basil in ten years?” Holt asked.
“I genuinely don’t think so, no.” Zane shook his head. “No. Not a chance. Barry is the most law-abiding citizen ever, and Harvey… the guy is so determined not to end up like his father, he wouldn’t even take an empty wrapper without asking.”
“What about Tony?” Holt asked. “Tony’s due for early release soon. If anyone had been the contact, it would have been Tony from inside.”
“Tony is Basil’s uncle, not his father,” Zane reminded him.
“And by every account I have of Tony, he loved that boy like his own son. Losing him was part of what kept Tony quiet and cooperative on the inside all these years.” Zane paused.
“If Tony had known Basil was alive, I think he’d have done something with that information long before now. ”
“It’s hard to picture Basil staying away from his whole family for ten years without a single contact,” Holt said slowly. He paused, searching for the words. “I’m struggling to understand how a man just walks away from every single person who loved him and goes silent for a decade.”
“You have to look at what Basil was capable of,” Zane replied.
“A man who could poison four of his closest friends and a journalist, and then take over a dead colleague’s identity, is more than capable of disappearing from his own family.
He didn’t need them. He had Sienna. He had a new name.
He had a whole life waiting for him the moment the cabin went up in flames.
” His brow furrowed. “He was probably content. That’s the terrible part.
Basil didn’t miss them. He wasn’t waiting for the day he could come home. ”
“That’s a very cold thought, Zane.” Holt glanced toward the man he was sharing a room with.
“He was a very cold man, Holt. We just didn’t know that when he was alive,” Zane pointed out.
“I still can’t believe it. I knew the guy well.
He worked in one of my fire stations. I couldn’t picture him doing any of that.
” He paused. “But it does make sense that a firefighter would’ve started all those fires.
I often thought about that back then and recently.
The fires were set methodically and by someone who knew what they were doing. ”
He thought about what Zane had just said as Holt lay down carefully. The mattress creaked again. His feet hit the end of the bed.
“We’ll have to work through all of it in the coming days,” Holt said, stifling a yawn. “It’s going to be hectic until it’s done.”
“Until then, we need to get some sleep,” Zane replied practically. “Or try to.”
He reached over and switched off the lamp on the small table between them.
“One more thing,” Zane added into the dark.
“What’s that?” Holt turned his head.
“We need to get the memorial stone redone,” Zane said quietly. “The names on it need to reflect the truth now. Lieutenant Brandon deserves to have his name on that stone.”
“Did Brandon have any family who should be consulted?” Holt frowned.
“No.” Zane’s voice was gentle. “He’d lost his parents to a hurricane when he was a very young firefighter.
He’d come up through our department as a single man with no close relations.
The team was his family. They’d be the ones to ask, and I know every single one of them will want his name up there now that we know. ”
“That’s quite a tragic backstory,” Holt said softly.
“It is.” Zane nodded, his voice hoarse with emotion. “But we’ll ensure he is remembered.”
“Then I’m glad we can at least do that for him,” Holt replied. “Maybe now he can rest properly. With the truth finally told.”
“Yes,” Zane agreed. “Maybe now they all can.”
The room fell quiet.