“It’s sad, really sad, but she’s surviving it still,” Aly assured Jill.“She’s talking now.Ever since the trial, she’s been getting better.I think Sam’s right.Some things just are, and now you know.”
Jill nodded into her shoulder.Inhaled deeply.“Yeah, maybe it’s… maybe that’s all it is.And that’s all it needs to be.”
Aly wanted to believe it.She wanted it to be true, but her gaze tracked to Cal.
She had the terrible feeling it wasn’t.
*
Sam traipsed backalong the creek toward the Bennet Ranch with Cal by her side.They’d left Aly and Jill to wade through the more emotional components of the news and determine if they’d talk to Glenda about it or not.
Sam had considered staying, but she had work to do and she thought it best to get Cal out of here.There was something… off about him right now, and she didn’t mind dealing with it, but she didn’t think Jill needed it right now.
“No offense, Cal, but why the hell did you want to be there if you weren’t going to say anything?”Sam muttered.
“I don’t know.”
Sam looked at him out of her peripheral vision.She couldn’t read him, but when he was like this, he kind of reminded her of Nate.
So probably all thattraumarattling around.When it was Nate, she knew when to push and when to give him some space.With Cal?She didn’t have a clue.
She couldn’t quite work out why he’d feel this connection to a man he hadn’t really known’s suicide, but Cal had lots of strange connections to the Harringtons she didn’t quite understand.
It wasn’t her jobtounderstand.So, she’d deposit him back at Honor’s Edge and let Nate figure out what the hell was going on with his brother.
“You know, if you’re looking for something to do, maybe you could help Nate figure out how to deal with that Hyatt woman.”
“I’m supposed to meet Hayes this afternoon to go talk to Mr.Everly.He wasn’t home when we tried yesterday.”
For a second, Sam was completely baffled.“But why?You and Jake can let it go now.We know the secret.The likely source of the trauma.”She gestured back toward where they’d come from.“No reason to keep poking into old deaths.Old wounds.Like we all said.Some things just are.Let them be.”
“No.”
Sam stopped walking and fisted her hands on her hips in front of him.“What do you meanno?”She didn’twantto come out and say this wasn’thisto poke into, but that was what she was thinking.
“I mean I’m not going to let it go.”Cal just walked right around her.“I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
For a moment, Sam just stood there, watching Cal stride toward her car.Then she scrambled after him.“Cal, you heard what Jill said.”
“Yeah, and this isn’t about Jill.It’s about me.”
Sam wanted to swear, but she didn’t.She kept her voice even and her question open-ended rather than accusatory.“Do you remember something?”
“No.Not in the way you mean.It’s just this… feeling.”He gestured vaguely, looking off into the distance.Toward the Bennet Ranch.Toward the part of it he’d seen his mother be murdered on.“It’s the same feeling.I’m missing something.Something important.It’s here.”He tapped his temple.“Somewhere.I know it’s real now, Sam.”He met her gaze.All that lost and haunted look gone—or if not gone, hidden under determination.A fierce kind of certainty.“So I can’t turn my back on it.I won’t.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Marietta Police Department
Cal might havebeen standing in the Marietta police station parking lot, but his mind was back in Aly and Landon’s dining room, Landon’s words echoing in his head.
What’s wrong, Cal?
He couldn’t get it out of his head.Hadn’t been able to since last night.He’d barely slept.Just Landon’s careful, deep voice asking that question.
If this had happened a year ago, he would have shoved these feelings away.He would have told himselfnothingwas wrong, and he was just fine.
But now… now, he knew what it felt like.When his brain was hiding something from him.
