She didn’t lie.
“Is everything okay?” Dane asked. Anxiety flashed across his face, and he sat up a little straighter. “Is your dad…?”
“He’s fine,” she assured him. “Well, not fine, I guess, but he woke up enough to eat and move around a bit today.”
“Good.” Dane sank against the back of his chair, visibly relieved. “That’s good.”
It was obscene, really, how well the cinnamon scruff highlighted his jaw. Isobel could see from here the dark circles rimming his eyes. He seemed as exhausted as she was, though clearly too anxious to sleep.
“What are you working on?” she asked, stepping toward the desk. She should have known he wouldn’t actually take a rest,even after a long day. If anything, Dane worked harder when he was frustrated.
“Don’t…” Dane leaned forward and tried to cover the pages he’d been perusing, too late. Isobel had seen the title of Dane’s witness statement, taken the morning after his wedding. Her mouth went chalky. That wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting. Why was he digging back into all that, tonight of all nights?
“This is a cold case.” Isobel tried to hide the shake in her voice.
“Not to me,” Dane muttered. “There’s got to be something here that I missed before.” He tapped the pages. “It all comes back to her.”
A tingling dread stole up Isobel’s spine. Her sister was wild in a way few understood. That night eight years ago had changed her too. Eva refused to speak of it, but she revealed the loss in the violence of her flowers. Her magic used to be gentle. Now it trembled, ripping buds into bloom instead of coaxing them.
“Eva’s emotions run high.” Isobel tried to keep her voice light, though it felt like a betrayal to speak this way. “It’s a wonder she hasn’t brought more buildings down by accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
Isobel bit her cheek, refusing to let her stress show on her face. “Oh?”
“She meant to get him out.” Dane shook his head. “What I don’t understand is why. I told Arthur I wanted to help. I just wanted answers, and he was supposed to—” Dane cut himself off and lowered his volume, glancing toward the door to the hallway. He took a deep breath. “He wasn’t supposed to run. Not again.”
Isobel felt frustrated too. If Eva had simply waited, or asked for help, they might not be in this situation at all, and the storiesIsobel had fabricated for Dad could have actually been true. Isobel had planned to post Arthur’s bail the next morning. When she’d heard the alarms, she’d rushed to the scene, but had missed Eva and Arthur. By the time she’d returned to the house, they were already gone.
“I’d given up, you know,” Dane said, letting out a mirthless laugh that sent a little chill across her skin. “On finding the truth of what happened that night. But then he came back.”
Isobel swallowed hard as her eyes dropped to the center of his chest. She knew the scar that lay beneath, a mirror position to her father’s tree.
“I have to know,” Dane whispered.
She was nearer the desk now, and Dane reached out and took the hem of her skirt between his first and middle finger. A seeking touch. A bid for comfort. Dane sighed. “I know you must want answers too.”
Of all Isobel’s secrets, this was the only one that made her feel like she might actually be a bad person. She knew how this had haunted Dane, she knew it hurt, and still she buttoned her lips, family obligation clogging her throat. “I do.” Her gaze dropped to the Band-Aids on his arms and neck. Souvenirs from falling debris and thorny vines that had grown over the hole Eva made in the jail wall.
“He’s the last thing I remember,” Dane quietly said. “I don’t know what to do about that, Isobel.” When Dane met her gaze, the guard he usually kept up fell away. His expression was almost tentative. Questioning. “I know you care about him.”
It was more than that. Arthur belonged here. Her family had chosen him as much as he’d chosen them, and she couldn’t sever a bond like that.
Her breath came a little faster as she thought of what Arthur had done to her father, and for a moment, it was hard to breathe for the lump in her throat. But Arthur hadn’t meant to do that. He’d just made a mistake, and Dad?
Isobel swallowed her fear. He would pull through, like he always did.
Dad would want her to forgive Arthur for what had happened today. He always said that just as scion cuts were grafted onto a damaged tree to preserve it, people sometimes came into your life who changed you forever, and healed you in ways you couldn’t anticipate. Arthur had never been a charity case to them. From the moment he’d shown up, he’d filled a hole in their family they hadn’t even known was there.
Still, when Isobel closed her eyes now, she saw Arthur snapping her father’s branch, the horrible sound so much like a breaking bone.
“I care about you,” she said to Dane, stepping closer so she could knit her fingers into his hair. “And I want you to get your answers.”
Wanting, she’d learned, wasn’t always enough. But sometimes it was all you had.
Dane dropped his forehead against her stomach, his shoulder blades squeezing together as he tried to hold back a wave of emotion. Dane Walker felt things in silence. In stillness. In strength.
If only she could siphon off this grief.
