Chapter 7 Holt #2
Holt stepped back a half pace and turned slightly away, giving June space while still keeping her in his peripheral vision.
His mind wouldn’t settle. It kept returning to Teacups, to the way the fire had spread too quickly, to the letter addressed to Lucy and June, to the stolen truck, to the burned cabin, and Lacey bleeding in the dark.
Pieces were falling into place, but not in a way he liked.
June spoke quietly into the phone, then went still as she listened, her shoulders drawing up. Holt watched the way she nodded, her fingers tightening around the device.
When she hung up, she turned to him with a tight, controlled expression. “Sorry,” she said. “I have to go. Willa and Carmen need me back at Willa’s house.”
Holt didn’t like that. He didn’t like June driving alone. He didn’t like anyone in that family being anywhere without someone watching their back. He didn’t have the right to say it, but he felt it anyway.
“We can discuss everything tomorrow morning,” June continued, as if she could see the protest forming in his face. “If that’s all right.” She glanced back toward Teacups, her eyes darkening. “We might need to meet at the dining room of Sandpiper Inn now though, not at Teacups.”
“That’s sensible,” Holt said, because it was. Teacups was a charred shell. The inn was neutral ground with eyes, staff, and lights.
“How about breakfast there on me tomorrow morning?” Holt offered.
June’s mouth curved slightly. The smile didn’t reach her eyes, but it was something. “It’s a date,” she said, and slid into Carmen’s car.
Holt closed the door, then leaned slightly toward the window. “Don’t work too late tonight,” he said.
Then, because June had always had a way of pulling normal conversation into abnormal days, she said, “Lucy said I must tell you that you missed your weekly checkup for your bullet wound, and she’d like you to make another appointment or she’ll ambush you at the station.”
Holt couldn’t help the small grin that tugged at his mouth. “I’ll call her and reschedule,” he promised.
June’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Be safe,” Holt added, the words quiet.
June looked at him for a beat, and something softened in her expression. “You too,” she said, then pulled out carefully, driving just below the speed limit like she always did now.
Holt stood there and watched until she turned the corner and disappeared. He didn’t move until the road was completely clear.
Only then did he let himself admit how much it took to let her go.
He got into his son’s car and drove to the hospital, his jaw tight, his thoughts relentless.
The sky was still bright, but the day felt like it was sliding toward evening faster than it should.
He drove with a steady hand, but his mind was already in the hospital room, already bracing for Rad’s frustration, already calculating what he would say if Rad asked questions Holt didn’t want to answer.
Rad had nearly died once. Holt had no desire to lose him to smoke and stubbornness on a day like this.
The hospital was busy, as it always was in a tourist town in summer.
Holt parked, locked the car, and walked inside, his badge and his posture parting people without him needing to ask.
He found Rad’s room quickly, a nurse at the desk giving him a look that said she’d already dealt with the detective’s mood.
“He’s awake,” she said, as if that was both good news and a warning.
Holt nodded. “Thank you.”
When he opened the door, Rad was propped up in bed, oxygen tubing still in place, his hair damp from where someone had washed smoke out of it. His face was pale, but his eyes were sharp, and the irritation in them was almost comforting.
“You look like you’ve been told you’re not allowed to leave,” Holt said quietly.
Rad’s mouth twisted. “That’s because I have been told I’m not allowed to leave.”
Holt stepped in, closed the door, and moved to the chair by the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I swallowed a chimney,” Rad said. His voice was hoarse, but he managed it without too much coughing. “I’m fine, Dad. They’re treating me like I ran into a burning building.”
“You did,” Holt reminded him.
Rad’s eyes flicked away, then back. “Margo is all right?”
Holt nodded. “Smoke inhalation. She’s being monitored, but she’s stable. Lucy is with her.”
Relief eased something in Rad’s expression, even if he tried to hide it. He looked down at his hands, then back up again, and Holt saw it coming. The shift, the calculation, the way Rad’s eyes narrowed in a way Holt recognized as his son trying to decide how hard to push.
“Chief Evans said something,” Rad said finally.
Holt didn’t move. “Did he?”
Rad’s gaze held his. “He implied you and June were married.”
The room went very still.
Holt felt the familiar instinct to shut down, to redirect, to deflect. It was old habit, built from years of being a man who carried secrets for a living. But this wasn’t an interrogation room. This was his son, lying in a hospital bed with smoke still in his lungs.
“Yes,” Holt said quietly. “We were.”
Rad’s brow rose. “Were.”
Holt nodded. “A long time ago.”
Rad studied him for a beat, then asked the question Holt knew would come next. “Is Willa your daughter?”
For an instant, Holt’s mind snagged on the idea, because there were days when Willa’s stubbornness felt like it could have come from him, but reality was reality, and he didn’t live in fiction. “No,” he said. “Willa isn’t my daughter.”
Rad’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if he was fitting the pieces together. “June married her second husband after you.”
“Yes,” Holt said. “Not long after we divorced.”
Rad absorbed that, then asked, “Why did you divorce?”
Holt leaned back slightly, letting himself breathe. He didn’t owe Rad the intimate details of a marriage that ended almost forty years ago, but he owed him a truthful shape of it.
“Because we were young,” Holt said. “We had big dreams, and we didn’t think through what those dreams would demand. Our careers took us in different directions, and we didn’t know how to make room for each other in the middle of it.”
Rad watched him. “That sounds… almost polite.”
“It’s the truth,” Holt said. “It’s also not the entire truth, but it’s enough for now.”
Rad nodded slowly. Then he surprised Holt by saying, “I can relate to that.”
Holt’s brow furrowed. “Can you?”
Rad gave a faint shrug. “People think time fixes everything. Sometimes it just makes you better at pretending you’re fine.”
Holt’s chest tightened. He didn’t ask about Rad’s own life in New York, about what he’d left behind, because now wasn’t the time to pull that thread. He stayed with the thread Rad had offered.
“How does it feel to be around her again?” Rad asked.
Holt’s instinct was to answer with something careful and clinical, but Rad wasn’t asking as a detective. He was asking as a son, and Holt had never been able to lie convincingly to Rad.
“We’re friends now,” Holt said. “We’re working together, and it’s… good. It feels like we’ve come full circle. We met here, and now we’re here again, and we can talk without it turning into a fight.”
Rad’s eyes softened slightly, then sharpened again with curiosity. “How many years ago did you divorce?” he asked.
Holt frowned as he did the mental arithmetic, because time made everything feel both far and immediate. “About thirty-eight years ago,” he said. “A year or two before I married your mother.”
Rad’s expression shifted, and Holt realized he was about to say something Holt wasn’t prepared for.
“I like her,” Rad said.
Holt blinked once. “June?”
Rad nodded. “I like her,” he repeated, as if he needed to make sure Holt heard the exact words. “I wish she were my mother.”
Holt went still.
Rad looked almost embarrassed, but he didn’t back down. “I’ve seen how she is with Willa and the kids,” he added. “She’s steady. Kind, but not soft. She’s the kind of person who makes you feel… safe. Like Gran does with you and me.”
Holt swallowed, the words landing in a place he didn’t allow himself to examine too closely. He’d thought it too, in quieter moments when he watched June with Grace and Andy and Becky, and when he watched June with Rad, the way she spoke to him with respect, not fear, even when she was angry.
“There is no doubt she is a good mother,” Holt said carefully. “June is a good woman.”
Rad’s mouth tilted, just slightly, that cheeky expression that reminded Holt painfully of Rad as a child. “Well, Dad,” Rad said, voice still raspy but playful now, “maybe there’s a reason you’re both here together now. Maybe fate is giving you another chance.”
Holt let out a quiet sigh, shaking his head. “Rad.”
“What?” Rad said, and coughed, then took a slow breath through the tubing. “I’m just saying.”
Holt didn’t answer the implication. He couldn’t. Not now. Not with Lacey in the hospital, Teacups burned, Lucy threatened, June targeted, and the shadow of ten years ago circling back like a shark.
So he did what he always did when something got too close to his heart. He moved the subject to the case.
“When you’re back at work,” Holt said, “I need a favor.”
Rad’s eyes sharpened. “Yeah? What?”
“I started looking into it,” Holt continued, “but we’ve had different leads in Lacey’s case. It seems it might not be Lacey who’s been targeted but her twin sister, Lucy.”
Rad’s brows rose. “Really?” His tone held genuine surprise. “When were you going to update me?”
“We haven’t had the time,” Holt said honestly. “Everything has been moving too fast. As soon as we can, we should all get together. You, me, June, and Dean. We need to put everything on the table.”
Rad nodded. “Sounds good.” He shifted slightly, then winced and resettled. “So what do you want me to check?”
Holt held his gaze. “I want you to look into June’s accident.”
Rad’s eyes narrowed. “Why do I get the feeling you don’t think it was an accident?”
“Because I don’t,” Holt said quietly.
Rad stared at him for a beat, then nodded once. “All right. I’ll look into it when I’m back at work.”
Holt leaned forward slightly. “No shortcuts,” he said. “I want it done properly. I want records, footage, identities, employment history, the works.”
Rad’s mouth tightened, serious now. “I’ll do it.”
Holt stood, because he didn’t want to linger. He didn’t want Rad to see the fear sitting under Holt’s ribs, the fear that someone was reaching further and further into their lives with each new move.
“Rest,” Holt said. “Do what the doctors tell you.”
Rad made a face. “Yes, Dad.”
Holt left the room and walked down the corridor, his pace steady even though his mind wasn’t. He nodded at a nurse, exchanged a brief word with another officer in the hallway, then headed out into the late afternoon light.
The parking lot was busy, cars coming and going, people moving with the distracted urgency of hospital visitors. Holt walked to where he’d parked, his thoughts still tangled with June, with Rad, with the case.
He didn’t see the damage until he was close enough for it to be undeniable.
Two tires on his son’s car were slashed, the rubber torn open in jagged wounds that looked deliberate. A white sheet of paper was tucked under the wiper on the windshield, fluttering slightly in the breeze.
Holt stopped dead.
The world narrowed, sharpened, and went quiet in the way it always did when danger became personal.
He didn’t touch the note with his bare hand. He reached into his pocket, pulled out gloves, slid them on carefully, then lifted the paper free.
The message was typed. Clean. Simple.
You were warned, Detective Dillinger. You should’ve left when you were told.
Holt’s jaw tightened as he stared at it.
They weren’t just watching the women.
They were watching his son too.