I glanced around the conference room, an uncomfortable sensation sinking into my veins. I’d always felt a part of the team here. My brothers and I had been through a lot together, and I’d always considered them a safe place.
After another long, almost agonized silence, Reid spoke again. “This whole thing with this defense lawyer is—it’s hard. You know what Anderson has done to the people we love. What he’s done to Lark—” His voice caught on his wife’s name. “And Emersyn.” He nodded toward August.
“Lark doesn’t even know if she can come to the house right now because of that lawyer. Emersyn is afraid to run into her too. It’s making this time so much harder, when my wife doesn’t feel like she can come to our family dinners because of the guests who might be at our mother’s table.”
I bit the side of my cheek. “I’m not trying to defend her,” I said with forced calm. “But I don’t think we’re going to convince our mother to kick her out, so we are going to have to find a way to deal with this.”
Reid and August didn’t respond.
Roman sighed, long and hard. “You all have a point.” He looked over at August and Reid. “She’s a guest at the bed-and-breakfast, and we have to protect it.”
Reid rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding Roman’s gaze. “I know, I get it. I just wish we could convince Mom to—”
“We’re not going to,” I cut in. “I’ve already spoken to her.”
“We’ll figure this out. Together,” Roman continued. “Reid and August, let us know how we can support Lark and Emersyn. I get it that it’s hard, but this is how it’s going to be for the next couple of months.”
Reid shifted on his chair. “I understand.”
“We don’t have much left if we don’t stick together. Especially when things are difficult.” Roman’s attention focused back on me. “Why don’t you talk to Quinn and let us know how she’s doing, and if she feels safe. We will figure it out from there.”
I nodded, though part of me wanted to refuse. Itwasmy idea, after all. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I can do that.”
The meeting dissolved after that, chairs scraping against the floor, the low murmur of my brothers’ voices fading as they filed out of the room. When the door clicked shut behind the last of them, the silence left behind felt too loud.
Something was coming undone, and I couldn’t tell where it started—with the town, with Quinn, or with my brothers and me.
Quinn was such a distraction.
Roman was right, though. We had to stick together. But even as I gathered my notes and stood, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was already on the outside of it.
And for reasons I didn’t want to name yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about the woman in the middle of it all—and how quickly this town could turn on her.
7
Quinn
Thelibraryhadgrownquiet. It was the kind of silence that pressed at my ears until I heard my own pulse. I sat tucked away in the study—a narrow nook hidden behind the stacks where no one ever wandered—papers spread out in front of me, my laptop open but idling on the same document it had been for the last half hour.
My eyelids felt heavy, the words on the page blurring as I forced myself to keep going through the discovery. Bit by bit, page by page, I searched for anything we might’ve missed—any small detail, any sliver of doubt to make this uphill battle less impossible.
But my mind wouldn’t stay focused. It kept drifting back to the envelope.
The one that had been taped to the top of a box of my things.
I’d called Preston soon after I’d burned it, half expecting to hear him laugh it off, say it was some kind of joke or clerical mix-up. But he’d sounded genuinely confused—or at least he pretended to be. My assistant hadn’t known anything about it either, and I trusted her. She was meticulous, organized to a fault.
So if it wasn’t them, then who?
Why would anyone bring that up now, after all this time?
I rubbed at my temple, the familiar weight of exhaustion settling behind my eyelids. I supposed I did have more of a spotlight on me these days. Being on a case like this, representing a man like him…it was bound to draw attention.
Still, that headline had been buried years ago. Someone had to go digging for it.
I just didn’t know what the point of it was.
Someone cleared their throat.
