This time Galen put his foot down. “We’re taking you home. Hadley will never settle until she sees what sort of care you’ll get.” His eyes were pleading when they locked with Wesley’s surly stare. “You can compromise on this one thing.”
Wesley’s eyes flicked to me and he nodded. “Fine. I want to hear theupdate anyway.”
AN HOUR LATER, WESLEY WAS IN THEfront seat of Galen’s truck and I was in the back for the drive to the ranch.
“You really think that was Emma?” Wesley asked in a strangled voice. We’d started filling him in before leaving the hospital.
“That’s one hunch we’re working with,” Galen hedged. “Hadley believes it was her.”
“That still doesn’t explain how she got there. She died long before Declan began his reign of terror.”
“We’re trying to figure it out,” Galen said. “Maybe Declan used magic to collect specific souls. Perhaps he thought if he had control of Emma’s soul that May would do his bidding.”
“I never liked that guy,” Wesley growled.
“How well did you know him?” I asked.
“I had a few run-ins with him.” Wesley focused out the window. “He was always interested in May. She brushed it off as a young warlock wanting to talk to a powerful witch. Apparently that wasn’t true.”
“As far as we can tell, no one knew he was a dhampir,” Galen explained. “Well, nobody but Jareth.”
“Why didn’t he sound the alarm?” Wesley challenged. “If I knew that guy was a bloodsucker I would have staked him through the heart when he kept showing up to talk to May.”
“Were you guys together at that point?” I asked.
“Declan showed a lot of interest in May the year before he disappeared,” Wesley replied. “That was what, twenty-one years ago?”
“Give or take,” Galen confirmed.
“We would have been separated at that point. Not yet divorced. We stopped living together not long after Emma told us she wasn’t coming back.”
That jarred a reaction out of me. “Did my mother opting to remain off island ruin your marriage?”
Rather than laugh, or give me a grouchy response, Wesley sighed. “Hadley, May and I always had a very difficult marriage. Love wasn’t the problem. We were never lacking in love. On the face of it, however, we were incompatible.
“May wanted her lighthouse and I wanted out of the city,” he continued. “We were both raised to believe that married people had to share a roof. It wasn’t even a consideration that we wouldn’t until well, until we had no choice.”
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. “You’re saying you guys were too hot for each other to stay away so you learned to compromise after you were divorced.”
“I’m not sure I truly learned to compromise until May was gone,” Wesley countered, sadness overtaking him. “I desperately wish I had gotten my act together before then. It’s not the same living with a ghost but … I could have been a better husband.”
“May loves you,” I argued.
“I guess.” Wesley fell silent, then rumbled, “I thought Declan wanted something more than magical advice from May. She knew better. Looking back, the whole thing was creepy.”
“What about my mother?” I asked. “Did he ever show any interest in her?”
“Your mother was gone before Declan came to the island.”
“Did he ever prod May for information about Mom?” I clarified. “We don’t believe Declan came to the island once. We believe he was here before and left for some reason.”
“Really?” Wesley glanced at Galen. “Do you have a name?”
“We do not,” Galen replied. “It’s just a feeling we share. Declan’s house was held in trust. If we can find the original records, we may learn the name he was going under the first time.”
“Why not just ask Jareth?”
“I did,” Galen replied. “He said he told Hadley everything he knows. I don’t really believe that, but if he knew something that could help us, he would tell us.”
