The grief I'd locked away because it was too enormous to survive. The guilt of leaving Garrett when he needed me. The shame of going silent because I couldn't figure out how to sayI'm broken and I don't know how to fix it.
I'd lost our baby.
I'd lost him.
Eight years pretending I was fine. Building a career out of chasing other people's tragedies so I didn't have to face my own.
And Rebecca Marsh had shown me exactly what grief could become when you refused to let it go.
I cried until there was nothing left.
Then I pulled myself onto the couch. Lay there in the dark.
My phone buzzed.
I didn't move.
It buzzed again. Persistent.
I fumbled for it on the coffee table. The screen glowed too brightly in the darkness.
How's the research going? Find anything?
I stared at the message until the words blurred.
Three hours had passed since I'd come home. The apartment was completely dark now, city lights filtering through windows I'd never bothered to cover. My face felt swollen. My chest hollow.
I should respond. Tell him about Crane. About Rebecca Marsh. This was the breakthrough.
But I couldn't.
Because telling Garrett about Rebecca meant explaining why I'd spent three hours crying on my kitchen floor. It meant showing him the mess underneath the armor.
‘Are you okay?’he'd ask.
And I'd have to say no.
I wasn't ready. Not for that conversation. Not for the way he'd look at me, soft, worried, those gray-blue eyes seeing everything I wanted to hide. Not for the gentleness that would undo me completely.
I put the phone down. Let the screen go dark.
Somewhere across the city, Garrett was waiting for an answer I couldn't give.
Tomorrow. I'd tell him tomorrow.
Tonight, I let the silence swallow me whole.
CHAPTER 12
Garrett
The past fewweeks had been the closest thing to peace I'd felt in a decade.
I stood at the window of my apartment, coffee going cold in my hand, watching the sun come up over Queens. Same view I'd seen a thousand mornings. But lately, everything looked different.
Because of her.
Sloane had slipped back into my life so naturally it scared me. Late nights reviewing case files, her voice filling the silence of my apartment while she connected dots I'd missed. The way she'd kick off her shoes and curl up on my couch, press credentials still hanging around her neck, completely absorbed in whatever thread she was chasing. The fierce focus in her green eyes when she found something. The way that focus softened when she looked at me.
