“I didn’t say we couldn’t warn her or Jill,” Landon said evenly, but his frustration with Cal was starting to fray thatevennesshe was going for.“It doesn’thaveto be an ambush.”Not everything does, he stopped himself from adding.
“I’ll talk to Jill,” Aly said, clearly trying to peace make.“So, it won’t be an ambush at all.”
“Seems to me if Glenda wanted Jill to know, she would have toldJill,” Cal returned.“Instead she toldme.Notus.”
“But Jill isn’t connected to this the way weallare,” Aly insisted.“Glenda’s trying to protect her from it.Because she’s her grandmother.Not because Jill needs protecting.”
“Shouldn’t we let Glenda determine who and what she protects?”Cal demanded.“Why do we have to loop another fucking person into this mess?”
“She’s alreadyinit, Cal,” Aly replied firmly.“You can’t just ignore that.And neither should Glenda.”
“There’s protecting and there’s hiding.Not all protection is good or right.”Landon thought about all the ways he’d tried to protect Aly.And what had it been?Just distance to keep them both safe from something that wasn’t dangerous, that wasn’t bad.
Even if he’d been told most of his life it would be.
“And not all protecting is wrong,” Aly added, finding his hand under the table.She gave it a squeeze, but her gaze was on Cal.“But in this case, leaving Jill in the dark isn’t right.I’m going to tell Jill.She deserves to know.She’s so worried about Glenda, about Detective Hayes coming to her place.Worried it’s going to hurtus.So we’re going to tell her, and we’re going to tell her Landon’s suggestion.If she doesn’t think Glenda can handle it, we won’t move forward.But that doesn’t mean we can’t put it out there.Don’t you think?”
She posed that question to Sam.Who was looking more at her plate than the people around her.But she lifted her gaze to meet Aly’s.She didn’t speak right away, instead slowly put down her fork and surveyed the table, before looking back at Aly.
“We’ll have answers, or at least the start of answers, once the DNA comes in.But… we don’t know how long that’s going to take, and it seems to me, if Ben’s lawyer is involved with whatever connection Bo and Glenda might have, we don’t really want to wait.”Sam’s gaze moved from Aly to Cal.“Do we?”
“She told me that guy needs to be far away from here,” Cal said, his tone dark and vicious.
In this moment, he reminded Landon of Dad, and Landon had to look down at his own plate so as not to let that similarity take root.
“What part of this are you guys not getting?”Cal demanded.“She’s warning us.And we’re not going to heed a warning after everything we’ve suffered through?We’re going to put everyone in the same fucking room and see what explodes?”
“You interpreted what she said as a warning,” Sam said, very quietly.So quietly Landon wasn’t sure he heard her right.“That doesn’t mean it is one.”
Cal’s eyes got real wide, temper flashing in their dark depths as he turned his gaze to Sam.“Excuse me?”
“I’ve heard it from Nate, and now from you, and you both think it sounds like a warning.Like he’s bad.But what Aly said about protection… I don’t know.I have a different take on it now.”
Landon flicked a glance to Nate.Inscrutable expression.No surprise there.But surely Nate had to feelsomethingabout Sam having a different take than him.If the hand falling off the back of Sam’s chair was anything to go by, Landon supposed he did and…
Oh.
Oh.
The arm on the chair.It wasthenhe finally caught on to what Aly was trying to get at before they’d sat down to dinner.Nate’sarmon Sam’s chair, whichcouldbe friendly, but he didn’t think that was Aly’s point.When he looked over at her, she rolled her eyes at him, but she nodded to confirm that…
Oh.He supposed he wasn’t surprised, but he didn’t know why it was… uncomfortable.
Well, yeah, he did.Sam had been instrumental in making his life harder than it already had been for the fifteen years Nate had beengone.So, he could try to take steps toward making amends and all that, but add something… romantic or whatever and…
Well, it made another thing more complicated than he wanted it to be.
“What’s your take, Sam?”Nate asked, and his voice was gentle.
None of Cal’s piss and vinegar.Or what would likely have come out of Landon himself if he’d spoken.
“I had a lot of thinking time while we drove around today.Between what Hayes said, and the connection to the lawyer and then Aly talking about Jill and Glenda trying to protect each other.”Sam sighed.“Honestly?Knowing Glenda, and the way that she’s helped us.Knowing something awful happened to her and we don’t know what, but we know she lived next to amurdererall the years your mother was being beaten, and then eventually murdered.We know she has some kind of connection with Cal.”
Sam’s gaze moved to Cal and Landon watched as Cal looked away.He looked pale.He looked… shaken.
Landon hated it.All their lives Cal had been the with-it asshole, smooth and brilliant and better than every fucking body.Watching him fall apart incrementally over the past six months wasexcruciating.
“Maybe it’s not some warning that Bo is bad news and we need to stay away from him, get him away fromus.She said get him away fromhere.Maybe it’s to protecthim,” Sam said, her voice loud and clear now.“Maybe, just maybe, whatever reason he’s a John Doe isn’t because someone abandoned him or because he’s here to make trouble.Maybe, just maybe, someone saved him.Protected him.By getting him the hell away fromthis.”
