Caleb pushed past me in the hallway, with Sam on his heels.
As soon as he spotted me, Eamon exhaled, an overwhelming relief visible on his face. But when his eyes focused on Caleb, his fury was back in spades. “What the hell is this?”
“I ran into June today and she graciously agreed to come in.” Caleb’s tone was infuriatingly even.
“Ran into her?” Eamon repeated. “You expect me to believe that?”
The officer Eamon had been shouting at slinked back, looking happy to be freed from Eamon’s attention, and I moved toward the open door, hardly able to blink back the tears.
“You should have brought her in yourself when she got back.” Caleb squared his shoulders to Eamon, and Sam was suddenly more alert, looking between them.
Eamon took one step forward, pointing a finger at the center of Caleb’s chest. “I told your father. Now I’m telling you,” he growled. “Stay away from my wife.”
Your father.
Eamon’s arm reached out for me, and I walked toward him, swallowing down the cry in my throat when his hand firmly found my waist, pulling me to his side. I didn’t look back as he guided me to the door and through the entrance of the courthouse. I couldn’t even feel my feet as we went down the steps.
“You all right?”
His voice was close to my ear, but I couldn’t speak. I stared at my feet until we could see the truck. A smudge of black marked the bricks behind the tires, and it was parked crooked along the curb, like he’d pulled in too fast and slammed on his brakes. Esther must have gone straight to get him.
He opened my door, and I lifted myself inside as the courthouse doors opened again. Caleb stepped out, watching as we pulled away.
“What the hell was that?” I choked out, wiping at my cheeks as the first furious tears began to fall.
Eamon lifted a hand as if to reach for me again, but he stopped himself with some effort, placing it back on the wheel. “What did he say?”
I sniffed, trying to catch my breath.
“June. What did he say?”
“He wasn’t just taking statements, Eamon. He thinks we had something to do with Nathaniel’s murder. He asked where I was that night. Where you were.”
“What did you say?”
“Esther told me to tell him we were home all night.”
He nodded, letting out a breath. “Good. What else?”
“How could you just lie to me?”
“I knew they wanted to talk to you, but I hoped you wouldn’t be here long enough for this to catch up to us,” he snapped. “Did he say anything else?”
I put my face into my hands, trying to breathe. “They found a shoe and they think it was mine? I don’t know.”
If he reacted, I couldn’t see it. I pinched my eyes closed, trying to erase myself from the moment. There had been several minutes in that room when I thought I might not leave it.
“A woman said she saw me that night. They think I’m involved, Eamon.”
But Caleb hadn’t been interested only in me. I looked at Eamon from the corner of my eye. Caleb had really wanted to know about him. And if what I said was true and he’d left early that night . . .
“He wants to see the letter my mother wrote me saying that she was sick.”
Eamon scoffed, shaking his head. “Of course he does.”
“I have to get out of here. Tonight. I can go to Asheville or Charlotte. Wait for the door to reappear.”
“No. You leave and he’ll be on the phone to every police station within three states telling them to look for you.” When I said nothing, he ran a hand through his hair. “He doesn’t have anything real on you. If he did, you wouldn’t have walked out of that station. And you might be able to run from this, but we can’t. We’re stuck here.”
I looked at him. When he’d said we, he was talking about Annie.
“You leave now and you’ll just convince him he’s right. All of that attention will shift to me, do you understand? You might not give a shit about that, but my daughter’s lost one parent already.”
That’s what this was to him. Not concern for himself. He was trying to contain this thing before it spilled over onto Annie.
“Things had died down before you came back. I thought it was behind us.”
His voice faded out, the words almost inaudible, like he’d thought better of saying them mid-sentence. I studied him, trying to pry their meaning from the silence.
“You didn’t want me to come back, did you?” I said.
His whole body tensed, and his eyes found me, disbelief paling his face. “My life ended the day you left. You’ll never understand what that did to me. So don’t talk about what you think I wanted or what you think you know about me.”
He said it with so much hurt that it was as if the words had sucked all the air out of the truck. I suddenly couldn’t breathe. It was the first time he’d let me see him, really see him, since I’d come here. There weren’t any walls built around that truth—it was unguarded. Defenseless.
Another tear fell, trailing along my jaw as I stared at the road. “Who exactly is Caleb Rutherford?”
Eamon took a long time to answer. “He’s your brother, June.”
Nineteen
My eyes were glued to the side mirror, afraid I’d see that police car again. It wasn’t until the house came into view that I loosened my grip on the door handle. Esther was standing on the porch, arms wrapped tightly around herself. She’d been waiting.
As soon as the truck stopped, I climbed out, boots hitting the ground hard. She looked from me to Eamon, waiting for one of us to speak. But I still wasn’t sure what had just happened. Not in the police station, and not in the truck.
Beside me, Eamon looked almost as dazed as I felt.
“Annie’s inside.” Esther answered Eamon’s unspoken question as she came down the steps to meet us.
Behind her, the windows in the sitting room were half-opened, the curtains pulling in the breeze. I had a nagging itch to see for myself that she was in there, perched on her bed with her doll.
Eamon motioned toward the barn, where Callie was pacing again. Esther and I reluctantly followed, and we didn’t stop until we were standing in a pool of sunlight between the paddock and the field. From here, we were hidden from the road.
“She knows about Caleb. And the investigation” was all Eamon said.
Esther’s arms were still crossed. “All right. What happened?”
I stared at them both, so exhausted that I could hardly muster the energy to speak. I’d been forced to trust them, to put my life in their hands, but it was clear now they’d been looking out only for themselves.
“You should have told me about this.”
“We were trying to keep you out of it,” Esther answered. “It’s complicated enough as is.”
“You can’t keep me out of it. The less I know, the more dangerous it is for all of us. What would have happened if I’d said something wrong in there?”
Esther and Eamon met eyes in a silent exchange. They didn’t argue with that.
“Let’s start with Caleb,” I said.
Esther glanced at the road around the corner of the barn. “He’s Nathaniel and Susanna’s son. He was born two years after you.”