Chapter 21
Make Him Talk
Summer
My clothes are still damp from the towel I peeled off too soon, hair dripping down my neck, soaking patches into the fabric. The cold crawls over me as we step outside, but I barely feel it—my body’s too heavy, too numb.
Jacob stalks ahead, shoulders rigid, fists flexing like he’s still tasting Benny’s blood in his knuckles. He doesn’t look back at me once.
I’m halfway across the driveway when headlights flare down the drive.
My chest seizes.
The car jerks to a stop, gravel spitting beneath its tires, and then both doors fly open.
Constance is out first, Adelaide right behind her, and they’re both crying.
“Summer!”
Constance’s arms wrap around me so tight I nearly lose my footing. She smells like lavender and coffee, warm and safe, and it cracks something open in me I thought was already gone. Adelaide presses in from the side, clinging like she can anchor me by sheer force of touch.
Tears spill hot down my cheeks. My throat burns as I choke on them, my sobs heaving into their sweaters until I can’t tell whose arms are whose.
Constance rocks me gently, whispering broken apologies. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t believe—oh God, Summer….” Her voice fractures around my name.
Adelaide’s smaller hands squeeze mine, her own shoulders shaking. Her eyes are swollen, her face blotched red.
“We came as soon as we heard. We didn’t even think—we just had to get to you.”
I can’t answer. My voice is gone. All I can do is clutch at them, fists tight in Constance’s sleeves, body collapsing against theirs like they’re the only thing keeping me standing.
For one fractured second, it almost feels like I can sink into them. Like maybe I’m still a woman who can be held by friends and soothed back into herself.
Constance lifts her head and notices Jacob. She stiffens, though she doesn’t let go of me. Adelaide glances too, her expression faltering, but neither of them says his name. They don’t have to. The weight of him is already heavy enough in the air.
Constance cups my face in her hands, forcing me to look at her. Her own cheeks are streaked with tears.
“We’re here now, Summer. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
I nod weakly, even as my gaze slides past her, back to him. And he sees it. Of course he does.
My sobs slow, thinning into tremors that wrack through me. Constance squeezes me tighter, Adelaide kissing my damp hair like she can will me back into safety, but my feet shift without meaning to. One step. Just one step out of their arms and closer to him.
Constance’s breath catches, jagged enough to pierce. Adelaide’s lip trembles, eyes filling again.
I can’t meet their gazes. I can’t bear the disappointment there. So, I keep my eyes on him. Always him. And when I move fully out of their embrace and toward the truck, I hear Constance let out a sob that feels like betrayal made flesh. But I don’t stop. I can’t.
Constance wipes her face with her sleeve, still clutching at my hand like she doesn’t want to let me go.
“Summer, wait. Where are you going? You can’t just—”
I stop when my hand touches the handle of the truck.
Flashbacks come over me, buzzing through my mind like electricity.
Me, Constance, Adelaide, running through the yard, Papa spraying us with the water hose.
Mama baking us cookies, still warm and gooey and bringing them out and placing them on our picnic blanket.
My parents weren’t just special to me. They played a huge part in Adelaide and Constance’s lives, too. I owe it to them. For the memories. For the love they felt for my parents.
I shake my head and release the handle. I turn to face them both, the tears still flowing down my cheeks, crisping in the cold air. My voice rasps out broken.
“Okay,” I almost say to myself. “Let’s just… go inside.”
They glance at each other, uncertain, but when Jacob stalks around the truck and wraps an arm around my shoulder, they follow us back toward the house.
The silence in the kitchen is too loud. Every surface gleams, too clean, too still, like it doesn’t belong to me at all. I need something to fill the air. Something to stop the echo of Adelaide’s sob.
I go to the counter and fill the water container for coffee.
The familiar click, the rising hum—it should be nothing.
Just an ordinary sound. But then my vision blurs.
The kitchen fades. I’m there—in my parents’ burning house.
The smoke rolls thick, choking me, burning my throat.
The walls groan like they’re about to collapse, flames licking higher.
I curl in on myself, heaping on the floor, hands over my ears, sobbing so violently I can’t breathe. My chest convulses, every breath a war.
Footsteps thunder. And then he’s there. Jacob. Dropping to the ground, wrapping his arms around me before I even know it.
“Summer. Christ—Summer.” His voice is rough, desperate, cutting through the smoke in my head.
I sob harder, burying my face against his chest, clawing at his shirt like I’ll drown if I don’t hold on. He doesn’t hesitate. He scoops me up, lifting me as if I weigh nothing, carrying me into the sitting room with a fury that makes my head spin.
The sofa catches us as he sinks down, but he doesn’t let me go. He cradles me against him, strong arms wrapping tight around my shaking body. His lips press to my temple, then my hair, then my damp cheeks, over and over like he can kiss away the fire.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, fierce and low, like a promise. “You’re safe. I’ve got you, baby.”
My sobs tear out of me, unstoppable. Every kiss he lays on me is a brand, searing, grounding me back into this body, this moment.
I feel other hands then—softer, tentative. Constance crouches beside us, brushing her fingers over my arm, whispering my name through her own tears.
Adelaide hovers close, her palm on my knee, her voice trembling as she says, “We’re here too. We’re here, Summer.”
Jacob rocks me against his chest, kissing the top of my head, again and again, his breath ragged. His heartbeat thunders under my ear, fierce and unyielding, the only sound loud enough to drown out the echo of my mother’s screams. It’s his arms that stop the fire.
And I can’t let go.
The storm inside me begins to ebb. The sobs taper into broken breaths, then shallow hiccups.
My chest still aches, my throat raw, but the fire recedes under Jacob’s heartbeat.
His warmth wraps around me, steady and solid, and for the first time since the phone call I feel something that almost resembles safety.
Adelaide has slid close on the sofa, her hand moving gently through my damp hair, smoothing it back from my face. Her touch is feather-light, the opposite of Jacob’s iron hold, but together they cocoon me, pinning me in two different worlds.
From the kitchen, I hear Constance moving—mugs clinking, the coffee machine hissing, this time muffled by distance. The sound doesn’t choke me now. The smoke has gone.
Jacob shifts slightly, his chin brushing the top of my head. His arms loosen just enough to let me breathe without shuddering.
By the time Constance returns, the tray rattling in her hands, my body feels heavier than stone. She sets it carefully on the coffee table, the scent of tea rising in a cloud that makes my stomach twist with grief but not panic this time.
“Here, just how you like it.” She sets a mug down within reach, then straightens, her eyes flicking warily to Jacob before softening again on me.
Slowly, I shift. Jacob’s hand tenses as I move, but I don’t leave him completely. I slide off his lap, settling beside him instead, my hip brushing his thigh, his arm draping possessively along the back of the sofa as if to remind everyone I’m still his.
I wrap my hands around the mug, letting the heat seep into my fingers. For a moment I just stare into the swirling surface, gathering the courage to break the silence.
Then I speak. My voice trembles, but the words come anyway.
“Benny came. Just after Jacob left.”
Constance frowns. “Benny did?”
Adelaide blinks, confusion rippling across her tear-streaked face. “I—I don’t understand. Why would he—?”
I swallow hard, my throat burning again. “He said he knew. About my parents. He told me… that they’d died.” My grip tightens on the mug, heat biting into my palms. “He said… his cousin… Deputy Thompson told him.”
Constance’s mouth opens, then shuts again, as if she doesn’t know where to begin. Adelaide looks from me to Jacob, wide-eyed, searching for someone to explain.
Jacob leans forward, his voice cutting through the stillness like a blade. “There is no Deputy Thompson.”
Both girls whip their heads toward him, stunned.
Adelaide shakes her head slowly. “But—he must’ve meant—”
“He didn’t mean anything,” Jacob snaps, his eyes burning into me, not them. “He lied. Or he slipped. Either way, Harrow knew before I did, and I was second on scene. No one, other than fire fighters entered that building before me.”
Constance stiffens, her hand pressed against her chest. “That doesn’t make sense. How could he—”
Jacob doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t look at either of them. Only me.
His voice drops lower, almost a growl. “He did it… or he knows who did. That’s the only explanation.”
“That’s where we were headed. To ask him… to get answers" I say.
Jacob shifts closer, his arm tightening along the back of the sofa, his presence overwhelming, dark and immovable. “We will find out what’s going on, Summer, I promise.”
“I need to look him in the eye and find out the truth,” I say, my voice stripped down to something cold and steady.
Constance clears her throat, her hand still pressed against her chest. Her voice is soft at first but steadying with each word. “You shouldn’t go alone. You know the sorts of men who hang around the Dogwood. And even though you—”
My head jerks up. “He’s not in Dogwood, or his trailer.”
Constance arches a brow, her voice cutting through the thick quiet. “Then… where is he?”