Beckett’s heart was doing something complicated in his chest. Racing and stuttering and forgetting how to beat properly. His mind had gone back fifteen years in the space of a heartbeat. To a girl with dark hair braided over one shoulder and eyes that held too many secrets. To the taste of cotton candy and the lights of the carnival reflecting in her eyes. To the way she’d felt in his arms on the Ferris wheel, small and breakable and so much stronger than anyone knew.
To the way she’d looked at him before her father dragged her away—like she was memorizing his face. Like she knew she’d never see him again.
“I thought she was in Savannah,” Beckett managed.
“She was.” Levi’s expression was unreadable in that way he had when he was thinking about things he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—talk about. “Made quite a life for herself there. But something brought her back. She’s been pretty quiet about why.”
“Smart woman,” Hank said. “This town would have her life story figured out and embellished before she unpacked her first box if she gave them half a chance.”
“Does she—” Beckett stopped, not sure what he was asking. Does she ask about me? Does she remember? Does she hate me for not being strong enough to protect her?
“She hasn’t been around much,” Levi said, answering the unspoken question. “Has a crew working on the studio but she’s not there during the day. Keeps to herself.”
Of course she did. Marnie had always been good at keeping to herself. At making herself small and invisible. It’s how she’d survived.
“You going to be okay?” Hank asked, studying him with those sharp green eyes that missed nothing.
“Fine,” Beckett said automatically. Then, more honestly: “I don’t know.”
Levi nodded slowly, like that was the answer he’d expected. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “people can change a lot in fifteen years. Sometimes they come back different. Sometimes they come back the same but stronger.” He paused, something flickering in those dark eyes—something that looked almost like recognition. Like he was speaking from experience. “Sometimes coming home is the bravest thing a person can do.”
Hank and Beckett both looked at him, surprised by the uncharacteristic insight. Levi just shrugged and went back to studying the menu like he hadn’t said anything unusual at all.
Beckett slid out of the booth, his movements automatic. “I’ve got to go.”
“We haven’t even ordered yet,” Hank pointed out.
“Then thanks for buying my lunch that I’m not going to eat.” Beckett grabbed his jacket from the hook. His mind was already across the street, at that locked door with the papered windows.
Beckett headed for the door. The sound of his friends’ voices faded behind him as he pushed out into the cool afternoon air.
His boots hit the wooden sidewalk with purpose as he crossed the street. The photography studio sat between the sheriff’s office and the old bank building, its windows still covered with brown craft paper. He could hear the whine of a saw from inside, the rhythmic bang of a hammer. The smell of fresh lumber and paint hung in the air.
He tried the door handle.
Locked.
Disappointment crashed through him, sharp and immediate. He stood there on the sidewalk, hand still on the door handle, and let himself feel it. All of it. The guilt he’d carried for fifteen years for not being strong enough to stop her father that night. The helplessness he’d felt watching the social services van drive away with her inside. The years of wondering and hoping and trying not to hope.
She’d been his first love. His first kiss. His first everything that mattered.
And he’d let her down when she’d needed him most.
Beckett stepped back from the door and looked up at the windows of the second floor, where light glowed behind pulled shades. Was she up there right now? Could she see him standing here like a fool, unable to walk away?
He turned and walked back to his truck, his boots heavy on the wooden planks.
Marnie Whitlock was back in Laurel Valley.
And whether she wanted to see him or not, Beckett knew with absolute certainty that he wasn’t going to be able to stay away.
Chapter Four
The return to Laurel Valley was inevitable.
For fifteen years Marnie had seen it in her visions. Flashes of the mountains rising against an endless sky. The smell of pine and woodsmoke and cold, clear water. The way the light hit the valley at sunset, turning everything to gold. Home. The word had always been complicated for her—tangled up with pain and fear and the particular kind of loneliness that came from growing up in a house where love was a weapon instead of a shelter.
The visions had been sparse at first, in those early years after she’d left. Her mind had only been so strong after she’d watched her parents die—felt her father burn, felt the cord between them sever with a violence that had left her gasping. And for the first time in her life, she’d developed the control to stop the visions as they started. She’d learned to slam down a heavy metal door in her mind, blocking out the images before they could take root.
