Page 50 of Shadow Justice

She’d spent so many evenings here that the place felt stitched into her bones. Memories assaulted her of Roni dragging her through the back door after school, Coraline setting extra plates on the table without comment, and Linc asking if homework had been finished before dessert, then handing over dessert anyway.

Worse, she also remembered Reid passing through the kitchen in a baseball cap, T-shirt, or dress shirt, depending on whether he was heading out for a ballgame, a date, or his internship at the courthouse, older, unreachable, and impossible not to notice.

Every floorboard in that house knew a version of Holly she didn’t show many people anymore.

Reid cut the engine and glanced over. “You okay?”

She looked through the window at the porch, then back to him. “I haven’t been inside since your grandmother’s memorial. I kept meaning to come visit Linc, but something always got in the way.”

His hand tightened briefly on the steering wheel. “Granddad will be glad to see you.”

“It will be good to see him.”

Both things were true, and both hurt.

Blue barked once from the back seat, eager to go in. Holly unbuckled him and gave him a firm look before opening the door. “You’re visiting The Judge. Conduct yourself accordingly.”

Blue leaped out and immediately tried to mark a shrub. Holly stopped him, and the dog gave a snort.

Reid came around the truck with the bakery box, and together they went up the path. Holly carried the coffee, Blue pranced at her side, and the porch boards creaked under their feet with the exact sound they’d always made.

Reid knocked once, then opened the door. “Granddad?”

“In the kitchen,” a gruff voice called, “where breakfast belongs.”

Reid looked at Holly as if apologizing in advance. She grinned and stepped inside.

The house smelled like old wood, coffee, and lemon cleaner. The entry table still held a ceramic dish for keys, though fewer keys sat in it now. Family photographs lined the hallway, some old enough that Roni had braces and Reid looked lean and serious in a high school graduation robe.

Blue tugged toward the kitchen, and Holly let him lead.

Lincoln Fleming sat at the small kitchen table near the window, a cane propped against the chair beside him and a folded newspaper spread open in front of him. He was thinner than the last time Holly had seen him, his shoulders not as broad beneath his flannel shirt, his white hair cut short and a little uneven around the ears.

But his eyes were the same—sharp blue under heavy brows, and when he saw her, the stern lines of his face softened into something that made the years between visits fall away too quickly.

“Holly,” he said. “He told you lemon, right? You didn’t bring any of those nasty blueberry muffins, did you?”

She set the coffee in front of him and leaned down to kiss his cheek. His skin was cool, his jaw rough with a morning shave that had missed a spot. “Good morning to you, too, Judge.”

“Linc,” he said. “I’ve told you that since you were sixteen.”

“And I’ve ignored you since I was sixteen.”

He grunted, pleased despite himself, then looked past her at Reid. “Took you long enough.”

“It’s been twenty minutes,” Reid said.

“Long enough.”

Holly set the bakery box on the table and opened it. “Lemon muffins, plus cranberry.”

Linc peered into the box. “No blueberry?”

“You always say blueberry was a muffin lying about being dessert.”

“It is.” He took a lemon. “That’s my official verdict and I’m sticking to it.”

Reid moved to the counter and pulled down plates. He placed one in front of Linc, then one near Holly, and she caught the quick way he assessed the pill organizer on the counter, the half-full glass of water near the sink, the stack of mail by the toaster. He worried in silence, just like he’d always done.