Wes looked at her.
She stood near the porch steps with her arms folded tight across herself. The composure she’d held through the detectives’ questions was still there, but thinner now.
Caleb was right. She needed to tell her family the truth—all of it.
“I’ll only be gone for a few hours,” he said.
Rowan looked up. “You don’t need to rush back on my account.”
“I know.” He held her gaze a beat. “But I want to be here.”
She opened her mouth then closed it again as if changing her mind.
Wes stepped off the porch before she could argue.
Wes disappeared in Caleb’s truck around the curve at the end of the drive.
Rowan stared after it longer than she needed to.
Beside her, Caleb was quiet a moment before saying, “I think we need to go inside.”
She looked at him, knowing there was no dodging her family’s questions now.
“All of us.” His voice was gentle but firm. “As a family. No more secrets, Ro.”
She nodded once and followed him in. She quickly took in her family.
Her mom, who’d also spent the night last night, had put on a fresh pot of coffee. Naomi sat with Grace asleep against her chest, one hand moving in slow circles on the baby’s back. Millie had slipped quietly to the far end of the table, present but giving the family their space.
No one rushed Rowan.
That was almost harder than being pressed.
She told them what she could. Not everything—she couldn’t walk back through every second of it, and she suspected she’dalready said the hardest parts out loud once today. But she told them enough. About Vince. About what she’d seen in that hallway. About the earring and the texts and the photograph that had arrived at the gate addressed to her.
About running and why.
When she finished, Naomi’s eyes were wet. She didn’t try to hide it.
Caleb sat with his forearms on the table, his jaw tight, and he stared at a fixed point somewhere between his coffee mug and the window.
Finally, he looked up. “This man sounds like someone who’s never been told no in his life.”
“He hasn’t,” Rowan said. “Not in any way that stuck.”
“And you’ve been dealing with all of this since you left California.” Naomi’s voice was soft but her eyes searched Rowan’s face.
Rowan looked down at her hands. “I didn’t want to bring it here. I didn’t want any of this near you. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“That’s not how this family works,” Caleb murmured.
She knew that. She’d always known that. It hadn’t stopped her.
“There’s something else. Thayer’s sister reached out to me.” Rowan looked at Caleb. “She said Thayer sent her files before he died. Evidence. She thinks she has what I need to prove Vince covered up more than Thayer’s death—that he’s been doing it for years.” Rowan swallowed. “She’s missing now. And I think it’s because she contacted me.”
The weight of that settled across the table.
Caleb exchanged a look with Naomi before his gaze returned to Rowan. “Wes knows about this?”
