For a few seconds, only the hum of the engine filled the car.
The morning had already warmed, that soft Gulf Coast brightness stretching across the roads and low buildings of Sandpiper Shores as the town came awake around them. A woman in tennis shoes walked a golden retriever along the sidewalk near the harbor. Two men stood outside the bait shop with coffee cups in hand, deep in the kind of conversationthat probably involved weather, fish, and local politics in no particular order. A delivery van rolled past Teacups more slowly than it needed to, because this was still a small town and people couldn’t help looking.
Normality, June thought. Always normality on the surface.
Then Holt shifted beside her again.
“Also…” He cleared his throat. “I, ah…”
June frowned and looked at him briefly before returning her attention to the road. “What is it?”
“I might owe your sister an apology.” Holt’s eyes met hers as she glanced at him.
“Why?” June asked. “What did you do to her this time?”
“Nothing,” Holt said quickly. “Well, not recently, anyway. It’s what I did when… when my sister was dying.”
June’s brow furrowed. “What did you do to Carmen?”
He gave her a flat look. “You know exactly what I mean.”
Then she did. Recognition came over her in a slow, unpleasant wash.
“Oh.” She took another glance at him and then back at the road, giving a slow nod. “That.”
It was the incident that had led them to agree never to speak of it again after the initial fallout it had caused between them. She had been angry with him for days afterward, and she never carried anger around with her. Once she had aired her grievances, June usually let things go. But not that time.
“Yes. That.” Holt swallowed and looked out his window for a second. “When I accused her friend of stealing my sister’s jewelry. When I all but ended any possibility of friendship between Carmen and me.”
Her brows lifted at Holt actually voicing what he had done out loud.
June let out a quiet breath. “Right. Not your finest moment around my family.”
“In my defense,” Holt said, and she could hear the old frustration still tucked beneath the guilt, “I knew Annie Smythe a little better than Carmen did.” He paused. “I had grown up with Annie, and she’d always been the town rebel since the minute she learned to walk.”
That pulled the faintest smile from June despite everything.
“Annie was quite the rebel.” The smile faded into something sadder. “I still can’t believe she died in that yachting accident when she was only twenty-five.”
“I know. Annie loved to sail, and for the town rebel that she was, she won all the sailing competitions for the town.” Holt rubbed a hand over his jaw. “But her death makes my feeling of guilt even worse now, because I can’t apologize to her.”
“Yes, but you didn’t accuse Annie directly,” June reminded him. “I don’t think she even knew you’d accused her.”
“That’s right. Carmen threatened me with grievous bodily harm if I said a word to Annie without concrete evidence. She reminded me in no uncertain terms that she was an EMT with a father who was a criminal attorney.” Holt shifted in his seat again, adjusting the seat belt across his lap.
“Carmen said that?” June gaped. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to upset you any more than you already were after I accused your sister’s best friend of being a thief,” Holt said quietly. “I attacked your sister for bringing Annie into our house while my sister was dying and for stealing a terminally ill person’s valuables.”
“That did give you one more black mark with Carmen,” June admitted. “But I’m sure she forgot about it long ago.”
That was not true, and both of them knew it. Her sister had a memory like an elephant. She never forgot a thing.
Carmen had never truly trusted Holt before that incident, and not at all after it. She had tolerated him when required, and in more recent years she had been polite on June’s behalf, but Carmen never forgot.
Holt shook his head. “I don’t think so. She’s tolerated me because of you. That’s not the same thing as forgetting.”
June kept her eyes on the road. “What brought this on?” Her eyes met his for a brief moment. “Why are you bringing up the jewelry now?”
