I shook my head, looked away. “I’ll talk to you then.” A set of headlights cut through the front curtains before continuing on. “You need to go,” I said.
“You can come with me. It’s a one-bedroom apartment, but I can sleep on the couch—”
But I knew exactly what I needed to do. I couldn’t take down the Lomans on words alone. You couldn’t fight that sort of power with nothing but belief. You needed proof.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at the dedication, Connor,” I said, opening the front door. Holding my breath. With Connor, I realized, I was always waiting to see what he would do.
He turned at the entrance to say something. Then thought better of it. He peered down the dark road, eyes narrowed. “You’re not supposed to be here, are you.”
I didn’t answer, closing the door slowly as he backed away. Through the gap in the curtains, I watched him walk to his truck, a shadow in the night. And then I watched the brake lights fading into the distance until I was sure he was gone.
* * *
WITH MY NEW UNDERSTANDING of my past, Littleport in the dead of night became something else. No longer were these the winding roads of single-car accidents, of a lack of streetlights, of drifting off the road while you slept. But a town where the guilty roamed, unapologetic. It was a place that made killers of men.
I was on edge, continually checking my rearview mirror, trying to remain unseen as I drove back to the Blue Robin.
Here, I believed, was the scene of the crime. Not the Lomans’ house, or the bluffs, or the beach, as the police had declared last year. But here, on the other side of town.
After I told the police, they would have to search this place, rope it off, close it to civilians. And I needed proof to back up the story I believed.
I used the light from my phone to illuminate the path in front of me as I walked from the driveway to the front door. Up here, with all the undeveloped land, every gust of wind turned threatening, and I kept casting the beam of light into the trees, down the empty road, until I was safely alone inside the house. And I didn’t turn on the lights. In case someone was watching. I could feel them each in a shadow of my memory: Faith, the police, Parker at the edge of the garage. There were so many people who saw things, who knew things. Now Grant and Bianca were here, too, and I knew, just as Luce did—they would do anything to protect the king.
I moved by memory, my hand trailing the couch, the chair, the kitchen counter, as I walked by. The beam kept low and away from the windows. My mother’s painting on the wall, her voice in my ear: Look again. Tell me what you see.
This was the trick, I understood. Not to change the angle or the story, or to take a step forward or back—but to change yourself. I remembered that night, standing behind my mother while she took the pictures on the Harlows’ boat that would ultimately lead her to this. The piece she tackled over and over, like there was something she was chasing. Now I saw everything out of frame, everything that slipped this painting into context—the boat she was standing on, the fact that Connor and I were playing a game of I Spy behind her. The stark clarity of that moment, while the shadows before us kept fading, disappearing into the night. As if the life she was living and the life she was chasing were one and the same all this time.
I backed away from it now, heading toward the closed door at the end of the hall. Luce and I had tried the handle that night, but it had been locked. I’d slammed my hand on the wood then—hoping it had made whoever was inside jump.
Now the door creaked open, shadows of furniture looming in the darkness. With the curtains pulled closed here, I finally flipped the light switch, illuminating the white bedspread, the dark wooden chest, blankets piled beside it. The lid creaked open and I peered inside—the scent of pine, of old quilts and dusty attics.
This had been open, I remembered, when I came over the day after the party to clean. Had her phone been here even then?