She shrugged.“I feel good.Most days.”
That mattered more.
I glanced at her left hand—wedding ring catching the porch light.“He good to you?”I asked even though the answer was clear as day.She was happy and he was the very best for my sister.
She met my eyes without hesitation.“He’s steady.Kind.He doesn’t try to fix me.”
My throat tightened.“That’s important.”
She tilted her head, studying me now.“And you?You ever going to let someone in again?”
I gave a half-smile.“I work with politicians.That answers your question.”
She laughed softly, but there was understanding there too.Char never pushed me about that part of my life.She knew better than anyone what happened when the ground disappeared under your feet.
What it cost to rebuild.
I went to bed that night content in a way I didn’t often allow myself to feel.Safe.Anchored.The past tucked neatly away where it belonged.I should have known peace didn’t last.
The phone rang the next morning while I was pouring coffee.North Carolina area code.I almost let it go to voicemail.
Almost.
Something made me answer.“Hello?”There was a pause on the other end.A breath.A sound I hadn’t heard in over a decade and somehow recognized instantly.
“Nita.”
My hand tightened around the mug so hard I felt heat spill onto my skin.
I didn’t drop it.I didn’t speak either.I would recognize his voice anywhere.
“Nita,” he said again, quieter.Like he wasn’t sure I was real.Like saying my name was an act of courage.
The world tilted.Every sound around me—coffee dripping, birds outside, the hum of the refrigerator—faded into nothing.
“Dante,” I finally managed.
Thirteen years collapsed into a single heartbeat.He sounded older.Rougher.Still steady in that way that had always made you feel like if he told you something was going to be okay, it probably would be—even if it wasn’t.
“I need your help.”
There it was.Not hello.Not how have you been.Not I’m sorry I left you to pick up the pieces of losing Lamonte too.I’m sorry that I killed a man for your sister to be able to breathe easy, but I never let you thank me for it.Because I knew who did it.When the news said the body had been found, no evidence, not a single scrap of DNA left behind…yeah only a cop can kill that clean.And I wasn’t mad at him for it.I was hurt that he didn’t allow us to support him in his pain while he gave my sister her freedom to breathe again.I closed my eyes.
“I don’t—” I stopped myself, forcing my voice back into shape.“You disappeared.You don’t get to call me like nothing happened.”
“I know,” he said.No defensiveness.No excuses.“And I wouldn’t if I had any other option.”
That was the thing about Dante.He never wasted words.
“What kind of help?”I asked wondering how I could help him.I didn’t even know where he lived.The man literally had found a way to be a ghost.Even using my clearance to get into his department of defense records for the military disability check he received monthly turned up nothing except a mail box in one of those strip mall places that let you rent a box cheap.
“Federal.”
My pulse spiked.What had he gotten himself into?
“I can’t talk about details over the phone,” he continued.“But it involves people who think status erases accountability.I need you to come to Dreadnought, North Carolina.”
I stared out the kitchen window, sunlight cutting across the counter.Char’s life moving peacefully around me, unaware that mine had just cracked open.
