16. June
JUNE
June came awake in a cold sweat.
She sat up sharply in the dark and glanced around the unfamiliar bedroom, her heart slamming, trying to get her bearings. For a brief, confused moment, she thought she was still back in Sandpiper Shores, before the shape of the room settled into place around her and she remembered where she was.
The Airbnb. Across the road from her ruined house.
She drew in a long breath and let it out slowly.
The dream had been based in the reality she was now waking into, which made it considerably worse than an ordinary nightmare.
Her house had burned down. She’d been held at gunpoint in her own living room.
Her son-in-law had been poisoned and murdered by a close friend with a psychotic girlfriend whose grandfather had probably indoctrinated both of them into everything they’d become.
June pressed her hand against her chest and breathed until her heart settled.
She turned her head carefully.
Victoria was still asleep beside her, one arm flung above her head, her breathing slow and deep.
Her face in sleep looked considerably younger than it did in daylight, the composed, careful wariness she’d spent decades building for the public world softened into something softer and more vulnerable.
June’s heart squeezed for her.
She couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going through Victoria’s mind.
How were you supposed to feel when you found out your own child was a monster?
No mother wanted to learn that. And Tom.
And Barry. Especially Barry. The man had lost his only son ten years ago, had grieved him for a decade, and was now going to be told that his son was alive and had committed the kind of crimes that would follow the family name forever.
How did anyone deal with that?
June blew out another breath. It made her own problems feel small and petty by comparison.
She knew she was not going to get back to sleep.
She glanced at the small clock on the bedside table. She’d managed about two hours. It would have to be enough.
June slid quietly out from under the covers so she wouldn’t wake Victoria.
She dressed in the jeans and T-shirt Carmen had managed to find for her, slipped on her sneakers, and padded softly out of the bedroom.
The house was still asleep. She could hear the low, steady sound of Alfred’s breathing through his closed door, and the occasional soft creak of the sofa bed springs as Ace or Rad shifted in the living room.
She made her way to the kitchen and put the coffee pot on.
Twenty minutes later, she stepped out onto the front porch with a steaming mug in her hands.
The young officer at the curb straightened as she crossed the road toward him. He was different from the one who’d been there the night before. Younger. His uniform was immaculate. June had seen him once or twice in the neighborhood before.
“Good morning, officer,” June greeted him warmly. “I thought you could use this.”
“Oh, ma’am, you didn’t have to do that.” His face broke into a grateful smile as she handed him one of the mugs. “Thank you very much. It’s been a long shift.”
“I imagine it has been,” June replied kindly. “I’m going to take a quick look around inside, if that’s all right. I won’t touch anything.”
“Of course, ma’am. Just be careful in there. A lot of the debris is still unstable.” His eyes softened with genuine sympathy. “I’m so sorry about your home.”
“Thank you,” June told him simply.
She stepped carefully over the yellow tape.
The front of her house was worse than she’d prepared herself for.
June stood in the gutted living room and looked at what was left of the space where she’d raised her daughter.
The sofa where Willa had learned to read was a charred skeleton.
The bookshelf Trevor had built for her twenty years ago was a pile of blackened wood.
The walls she’d painted cream the summer Willa had turned ten were streaked with black and grey.
Water pooled in the uneven dips of the floor.
June’s chest tightened.
She kept her hands carefully at her sides, the way the officer had advised, and moved slowly from room to room.
The kitchen had taken the worst of the damage.
The back wall was gone. The fridge lay on its side in what used to be her back garden.
Her beloved kitchen table, the one Trevor had carried in on his own shoulders the day they’d moved into this house, was nothing but splintered wood.
She pressed her lips together and kept moving.
Her eyes were burning, but she was not going to cry again this morning.
A noise from upstairs stopped her dead.
June froze in the middle of the hallway.
Her heart slammed hard against her ribs as she listened.
There was no mistaking it. Slow, careful footsteps, moving across her bedroom floor upstairs.
June carefully climbed up to the second floor then cast her eyes around the small second floor hallway for anything she could use as a weapon and spotted the heavy ceramic vase that had somehow survived the blast. She lifted it carefully, one hand around the neck, the other underneath to support it.
She held it over her shoulder and started toward her bedroom door as quietly as her sneakers would allow.
The footsteps had stopped.
June’s bedroom door was open and light spilled into the hall. She held her breath and moved forward on the balls of her feet, the vase ready in her hands.
She stepped through the doorway with the vase raised ready to swing if needed then froze.
Holt was standing at her dresser.
Both of them froze.
They stared at each other for several stunned seconds, neither of them moving. Then Holt’s eyes moved to the vase above her head. His eyebrows lifted slightly.
“Is that your weapon of choice?” Holt asked.
June let out a breath that was half relief and half laughter and lowered the vase carefully.
“It was the first thing I could find,” she admitted, setting it down on the dresser. “Don’t judge me.”
“I’m not judging,” Holt replied. The corner of his mouth tugged up. “I’m impressed.”
June pressed a hand against her chest and tried to calm her heart rate.
“You’re up early,” she observed.
“So are you,” Holt countered.
“I couldn’t sleep.” June let her eyes move across the dresser. “I see you’ve been snooping.”
“Not snooping,” Holt protested mildly. “Investigating.” He lifted his hands to show her the pair of thin latex gloves he was wearing. “See? Gloves on and everything. Fully professional.”
Despite herself, June smiled. She nodded slowly and let some of the tension drain out of her shoulders.
She knew, without needing to say so out loud, that nothing in her house was her own private property anymore.
The forensic team would be arriving within the hour to go through every single item with the methodical thoroughness of people doing their job.
Her bedroom, her closet, her books, her jewelry, every piece of it was about to become evidence until it was cleared and returned.
It was a strange, unsettling feeling.
She nodded toward the gift box on the dresser.
“I came up to see if that had made it,” June told him. “It’s more evidence from Shaun. I didn’t want it to be ruined.”
“It’s still in good shape,” Holt confirmed. “A little smoke damage to the jacket of the cookbook, but the contents look untouched.”
He hesitated.
Then he lifted the thick leather-bound album that had been resting against his side.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it down.” Holt started to move it back toward the closet shelf. “I was going to put it back before you came in.”
“No.” June’s voice stopped him. “Keep it.”
Holt turned to look at her.
“That album belonged to Trevor,” June told him softly. “It was his. Willa made it for him as a gift the summer before she left for college. He kept it on his bookshelf the entire marriage.”
Holt looked down at the album in his hands.
June watched the emotion move across his face, all of it at once. The realization of what he was holding. The knowledge of the man it had belonged to. The weight of the previous night’s revelation about Trevor’s death.
“June, I can’t take this,” Holt said quietly.
“Actually,” June told him gently, “I think Trevor would have wanted you to have it.”
Holt looked at her for a long moment. His eyes were bright. “June?—”
“Trevor knew everything about you,” June continued.
“About our marriage. About our history. He was never threatened by any of it, Holt. He was a good man. A truly good man. If he could be here to tell you himself, he would. And he would want you to have something of his that Willa made at the age of seventeen.”
Holt swallowed.
“I have to leave it here for the moment,” Holt said. “You know, chain of custody. The forensic team will need to log everything.”
June nodded. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
The corner of Holt’s mouth tugged up again.
He thought about it for a moment. Then he carefully placed the album back on the top shelf of the closet.
“I’ll make sure it comes back to me once forensics are done,” Holt told her.
“Good,” June said softly.
She let her eyes move slowly around her bedroom.
The framed photographs on the bedside table.
The jewelry tray on the dresser. The small watercolor Willa had painted for her in third grade, still hanging on the wall, its glass cracked, but the painting intact.
Her heart felt heavier than her chest could quite hold.
“My beautiful house,” June muttered. “I still can’t believe this has happened.”
“I’m so sorry, June,” Holt told her quietly.
“Well.” June pulled in a breath and tried for lightness. “At least now I have no excuse not to remodel.”
Holt gave her a small, sad smile.
They stood in silence for a few minutes. Then Holt cleared his throat.
“I should leave you to it,” June told him. “I know the forensic team will be arriving soon.”