Chapter 10
Danner ordered Clara back to June’s apartment and told her not to go to Magnolia Inn, the courthouse, the garden, the harbor, or anywhere else her instincts might identify as useful.
June called that unfairly comprehensive.
Rowan drove Clara through rain-washed streets in silence. Behind the station, he had taken a call from Thomas Hale. Now his phone lay dark between them in the console, but the conversation seemed to fill the truck.
Clara watched the wipers drag water across the glass. “What did he say?”
Rowan kept his eyes on the road. “That my mother knew Marianne was in trouble.”
The words landed softly.
That made them worse.
“Claire told him?”
“He said she begged him to help.”
“And he did not?”
Rowan’s jaw tightened. “He said some truths get people killed.”
Clara turned toward him. “What did you say?”
“That people are already dead.”
Rain hissed beneath the tires. Magnolia Cove slid past in wet storefronts and blurred porch lamps, pretty enough to lie in any weather.
Outside Porter Blooms, Rowan parked beneath the rear awning. Water fell from its edge in silver threads. Neither of them reached for the door handle.
Clara looked at the flower shop’s back steps, where June had set out two potted ferns and a ceramic frog holding a welcome sign. It was absurdly cheerful. Clara resented it for being ordinary.
“If Marianne did not leave willingly,” she said, “then I spent twenty years angry at the wrong person.”
Rowan turned off the engine.
The silence deepened.
“And if she did leave willingly,” Clara continued, “maybe I’m doing exactly what everyone thinks I’m doing. Turning grief into a mystery because abandonment hurts too much.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
He did not soften it. “Evelyn did not scare easily. Celeste wants the inn and everything inside it. Miles was threatened. My father told me to leave it alone. Your grandmother left you a warning in a recipe box and built an archive behind a library wall.” His voice lowered. “You are not imagining this.”
Clara wanted to believe him because he was right.
She hated wanting to believe him because he was Rowan.
“You keep saying useful things,” she said.
“I’ll try to stop.”
“That would make this simpler.”
“Nothing about you has ever been simple.”
The words should have sounded like a complaint. They did not.
Rain drummed over the awning. Rowan’s hand rested near the gearshift. Clara’s hand lay beside it, close enough that the space between them felt intentional.
He touched her wrist.
Just two fingers.
Warm. Careful. Questioning.
Clara did not pull away.
For one suspended moment, the years between them thinned: the dock behind Magnolia Inn, the summer air, the boy who had sat beside her after Marianne vanished and said nothing because nothing was large enough to help.
Rowan leaned in.
The back door opened.
June stood there holding a bakery box and looking as if she knew exactly what she had interrupted and had chosen pastry anyway.
“I have croissants,” she said. “And apparently terrible timing.”
Clara pulled her wrist back.
Rowan stared at the windshield as if it had committed a procedural violation.
June glanced between them. “Good. So everyone is uncomfortable. Come inside before one of you develops emotional maturity on my porch.”
Inside the apartment, the warmth hit Clara first: coffee, sugar, flowers, and old radiator heat. June set the croissants on the table, then placed three mugs beside them.
Rowan remained near the door.
Clara noticed. “Are you coming in as a detective or as a man who almost did something under an awning?”
June lifted a hand. “I vote for the second one, but I respect law enforcement.”
Rowan gave Clara a look. “I am trying to keep you safe.”
“I know.”
“That was not agreement.”
“No, it was acknowledgment. Different species.”
He stepped into the kitchen. “You cannot keep running toward every clue the second it appears.”
“Every woman who approached the truth in this town was warned, silenced, dismissed, or buried.” Clara gripped the back of a chair. “I am not going to sit upstairs eating pastries while men handle the dangerous parts.”
June looked down at the bakery box. “For the record, these are almond croissants and do not deserve to be dragged into this.”
Rowan ignored her. “This is not about control.”
“It feels like control.”
“It is fear.”
That stopped her.
The word had cost him something. She could see it in the way his shoulders went rigid after he said it.
He looked at her then, no detective mask, no polished answer.
“I am trying to keep you from becoming the next name.”
The kitchen went quiet.
Even June did not joke.
A knock sounded at the apartment door.
Three sharp raps.
Rowan turned first.
Danner stood in the hall with rain on her jacket and a grimness in her face that made Clara’s stomach tighten before the chief spoke.
“Miles Bellamy escaped from the station restroom window.”
June blinked. “I’m sorry. The police station has an escapable restroom window?”
“Old latch, cut screen, maintenance bars removed during renovations,” Danner said. “It is being addressed.”
Rowan stepped forward. “When?”
“Twenty-three minutes ago. His truck was found behind the pharmacy. Keys inside. Phone gone.”
Clara already knew there was more.
Danner looked at her.
“There was blood on the steering wheel.”
Clara’s hand closed around the back of the chair.
Rowan’s voice was flat. “Last known location?”
“His phone pinged before it went offline.”
Danner’s gaze moved from Rowan to Clara.
“Magnolia Inn.”