Callum drops his hand immediately, stepping back.The loss of contact feels like a physical blow.
“You’re right,” he says, forcing calm into his voice.“We focus.”
Isla nods, breathing hard.“We find what he hid.”
She turns back to the papers with renewed urgency, anger sharpening her movements into something fierce.
Callum follows her lead, because if he doesn’t, he will reach for her again.
They search for patterns.The “A.”notation appears twice more in different forms: an initial, a half-finished phrase, a line scratched out so heavily the paper thins.
“‘A’ must be for Alisha.That’s the only person it could be.”
Callum flips through Keir’s battered notebook again.Music fills most of the pages, but tucked between two sections is a folded sheet of paper, yellowed and creased with age.
He unfolds it carefully.
Isla steps closer, close enough that her shoulder brushes his.She doesn’t pull away this time.Neither does he.
It’s a list.Short.Practical.Written in Keir’s impatient hand.
Documents — north wing.
Old room.Locked.
Callum’s stomach tightens.
Isla reads it, then looks at him.“There’s another room.”
“There used to be,” Callum says.“Storage suite in the north wing.It was sealed years ago.Damp, drafty, mostly useless.”
“Unless you’re hiding something,” Isla says.
Callum nods slowly.“Unless you’re hiding something.”
Isla’s gaze drops to the note again, then to the “A.”notation.Her mind is working fast, connecting lines.
“Keir stored legal papers elsewhere,” she says, voice steady but sharp.“And he used an initial when he wrote about whoever stopped him.Mostly my mother.”
Callum exhales.“Yes.”
Isla’s phone pings again, an email this time, the screen lighting.She doesn’t look, but Callum catches the subject line: URGENT: Confirmation Needed / Contractual Obligations.
He feels something dark twist in his gut.
“They’re trying to pull you back,” he says.
Isla’s eyes flash.“Let them try.”
It’s the most defiant thing she’s said since she arrived.
Callum finds himself staring at her, at the fire in her expression, at the way she holds herself like she’s finally choosing her own direction.
He shouldn’t admire it.Admiration will turn into want too fast.
He does anyway.
“We should go,” Callum says, voice rougher than he intends.“Before you change your mind.”
