“Oh.” Her lips paused slightly apart as the pieces fell into place. “Is that…?”
“Yeah. It looks like Lorne.” The outline was unmistakable.
“And that’s the night Darren was last alive.”
“Yeah. But I’m not sure he isn’t still breathing. You told me about overhearing Elise mention a Mr. Langley, who I can only assume works at Dunn. Darren had no known relatives.”
“So you’re saying this picture doesn’t prove Lorne was the murderer, even though it places him at the scene?”
“Pretty much. There’s no body, no weapon, nothing that can tie him to Darren’s death. For now, we don’t do anything. All we really have is a blurry picture and conjecture.”
“And if he’s not alive—if someone’s using his name?”
I felt her fingers tighten around mine, her pulse quick against my palm. “Either way,” I said, “we stay quiet until we know which.” The ocean crashed before us, steady and merciless. Whatever truth waited out there, it was already in play.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
MILA
The beach stretched quiet, heat fading as the day slipped into that hour before dark. Waves broke and rolled back, steady and unbothered—the only witness to the fight we’d had, and the way we found our way back. My mouth still carried his touch—the salt on his skin, the press that left my lips tender. But more than touch, I remembered the way his breath mingled with mine, how it quieted something restless inside me. The memory throbbed high in my chest—longing and the sense this was where we’d always end up.
We didn’t go home. We swung by the little strip past the cliffs, the one with salt-stained windows and faded awnings. The place we used to go to when we didn’t want the night to end. The door creaked open, wood swollen from years of sea air, and the smell of baked bread and roasted vegetables spilled out. Luke knew the order without asking—avocado stacked on grainy bread, tomatoes still warm from the grill, sandwiches wrapped in butcher paper, and cold bottled water. He didn’t look away when he paid. Didn’t reach for my hand either. Everything between us felt too live to touch.
He carried the bag back to the car and set it in my lap before sliding behind the wheel. The paper crinkled under my hands as we pulled out. The drive to the arena was short—cliffs falling away to flat streets, the ocean flashing silver in the rearview before the buildings closed in again. When we pulled into the lot, cars lined the wall, silent and empty.
He popped the trunk. A big blanket lay folded there, edges frayed from use, waiting for nights like this. He slid me a sideways look. There was a question in it and something that didn’t need one.
“Practice is still on,” he muttered, lowering his voice as a group of kids clattered past the side door with helmets swinging. “We’ll go up the back.”
I nodded. “We can make it without anyone seeing.”
“We always do.”
Parked in the far corner, we headed out with the food and the blanket. The back hallway was colder than the outside air. Voices carried through—muffled by distance and white noise—the scrape of blades, the crack of a puck, his coach’s bark. I let Luke lead. Not because I couldn’t find the stairs on my own, but because I wanted to watch him move in his place. Broad shoulders I knew too well. The shift of muscle under his T-shirt, easy and unhurried, as though he trusted every inch of this space. He pushed the service door open with a hip press, balancing the food with a hand. Calm, efficient, as if nothing could rattle him here.
We climbed concrete stairs that smelled of dust and old rain. He set the pace, steady and measured, and I stayed a step behind. My heart beat against my ribs like it wanted to get ahead of me. At the roof access, he paused, angling his body to block the gap as he pushed the door open.
The horizon caught me first—skyline shifting, the last threads of light bleeding into deeper blue. The ocean stretchedwide to the left. Above, the stars hadn’t surfaced yet, but I knew they were there, waiting. Observing. A promise suspended just out of reach.
The arena roof spread flat and dark beneath it all. We’d been up here enough times for it to feel both stolen and ours. The wind tugged hair into my mouth and lifted the hem of his T-shirt, flashing a strip of skin and the tight line of muscle at his side. I watched his knuckles as he spread the blanket. Cuts marked them, faint and healing. Leftovers from last week’s practice brawl? A drill gone wrong? With Luke, fights were language. A way to burn off pressure when words failed. He rarely threw the first punch. But when someone else did, he never walked away.
He glanced at me when I didn’t move immediately. Checking. An old reflex that at the beginning of this year used to fire resentment through me. Tonight it landed lower. Warm. Steadying.
“Hungry?” He tilted his chin at the bag.
My stomach answered with a low ache. “Starving.”
We sat cross-legged facing each other with the bag between us, the blanket soft and warm beneath me. I unwrapped my sandwich, the paper crackling, the smell of grilled bread and roasted tomatoes rising. Avocado pressed smooth against the crust, herbs seasoning the air. The first bite was warm and messy, juice running down my wrist. We ate without talking at first, our shoulders brushing when we reached for napkins. My knee kept finding his. He didn’t pull away. I didn’t either.
With the door shut, the rink noise dropped to a low hum. Every now and then the whistle cut through, sharp and thin, carried up through vents. Luke huffed a laugh through his nose, more at the reminder than the sound itself.
“You should be down there,” I murmured around a bite.
“I should be a lot of places.” He wiped his thumb along my lip where avocado had smeared then stared at his hand before licking it clean, slow and thoughtless.
Heat circled low. I set the sandwich down before it slipped. My hands didn’t feel reliable. Neither did my breath.
The kiss on the beach had changed something between us and also dragged up everything that hadn’t. I could feel both. A shift in the axis while the planet still spun. We had spent months pretending we were only partners, that the fire edging every fight was temporary, controllable, a symptom of proximity. Partners, not lovers. A line I was okay with because I needed walls to keep my life from sliding. The wall had cracked the second his mouth met mine. Not a collapse. A fracture that let in light.
