Page 98 of Only Be Mine

Whoever’s left.

The words made my stomach turn. John’s parents had died a few years back…

“Whatever happens in there,” he said, voice rough, “don’t…” He stopped. Restarted.

“Just… stay close.”

To him.

The irony almost made me laugh.

I opened the door before I could.

The lobby smelled like disinfectant and exhaustion.

Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, too bright for the late hour. A TV mounted in the corner played muted news to an empty row of plastic chairs. Somewhere down a hallway, a phone rang and rang until it stopped.

We walked up to the front desk - bulletproof glass, a narrow slot at the bottom, and a woman behind it flipping through paperwork like nothing in the world had ever mattered less.

Seth cleared his throat. “We got a call. About John Rosewood.”

The woman didn’t look up right away. She kept writing. Kept turning pages. Kept letting time stretch.

Seth’s foot started tapping.

My stomach rolled. I could feel the whiskey and the wine climbing back up my throat like they wanted a second chance.

Finally, she lifted her eyes. They landed on Seth. Then me. Flat and practiced.

“Name?”

“Seth Peterson,” Seth said, then glanced at me.

“Cate,” I managed. “Catherine Larkin.”

The woman’s eyebrows lifted, just slightly. “Relationship?”

The word relationship felt obscene.

I opened my mouth, and what came out wasn’t exactly the truth, it was reflex. The name I still carried in the hollows of my life.

“I’m his fiancée.”

I heard Seth inhale. Heard the faint shift of his shoulders, like he’d felt the same sting I did, because was I? Could you still be someone’s fiancée after ten years of silence?

The woman’s gaze sharpened, like the word unlocked something in her head. She reached for a phone without another question.

I stood there, frozen, while she spoke in a low voice I couldn’t make out. When she hung up, she said, “Detective Marshall will be out shortly.”

Detective.

So we were here for questions. That made sense. That was what police did, right? Asked what I knew. Where he’d been. What he’d said the last time I saw him. Whether we fought. If he’d had enemies.

I could answer questions.

I could survive questions.

Seth turned and paced a few steps away, came back, then paced again. His anger was a live wire. Mine was quieter, buried under something worse.