Bennett headed into the den. He grabbed his holster and checked his gun. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him that Ivy had followed him. She stood at the edge of the hallway, with the sheet wrapped around her body.
For an instant, he just stopped. Lost, in her. “Sometimes, I would forget,” he heard himself say, “just how beautiful you really were.”
Her gaze held his. “I hated what happened. I went to the police, I told them that they needed to investigate my father more after that accident. I begged Hugh to talk, but he said…he said he never saw my father take a drop to drink that night. But when my dad hugged me at the scene, I could smell the booze on him.” She shook her head. “I am so sorry for what happened to your aunt. To you.”
He shook his head. “I never blamed you.”
“Didn’t you, Bennett?” She pulled the sheet up a bit. “Isn’t that why you left?”
He glanced down at the gun in his hand. He put it in the holster. “I left because I was ashamed. My mother…she took your father’s money. She took it. She sold her sister’s life for fifty thousand dollars.”
He heard her sharply indrawn breath. “I didn’t know—”
“It wasn’t just that…” His breath heaved out. “I went after your father.”
“What?”
“I broke into his house.” This was a shame he’d carried for too long. Because he’d broken down and given in to his rage. “You weren’t there. I had this idea, this crazy idea, that I could make him confess. So I went in through the back door. I found the bastard there and he was in his study. Drinking. Drinking again…when she was barely cold in the ground.” His chin lifted. “I lost it. I attacked him.”
She took a step toward him.
She should be backing away.
“Hugh was there. He pulled me off your father. Told me to get the hell away. To stay away—from his father. From you. He said I was the dangerous one.” He could still see that scene. His first punch had busted the senator’s nose. The man hadn’t even tried to fight back. He’d just taken the blows. “I think Hugh was right.”
Ivy shook her head.
“I’m the one who attacked. I’m the one who fought. I’m the one who could have gone to jail.” His laughter was bitter. “One phone call. That was all it would have taken. Your father came to see me the next day, you see. He made me a deal…get the hell out of town. Or go to jail.”
“No!”
“Oh, yeah, he did. But that trip out of town—it came complete with a college education. A ticket to start over, just like the ticket he had given my mother.” His breath rushed out as shame burned through him. “And dammit, I took that ticket.”
She touched his arm. “You were young, Bennett. You—”
“Didn’t want to go to jail? Didn’t want to throw my life away? No, I didn’t. I gave in to his threats. I took his money—just like my mother did—and I left behind the only thing I really cared about.”
Her hand squeezed his arm. “I’m here now.”
She was.
“We can’t change the past,” Ivy told him starkly. “I wish to God that we could, but it’s over. The most we can do is go forward. Try to make things better.”
“Like you did with the Sebastian Jones murder?” He threw that out to see her reaction.
Her expression shut down. “I guess I should have expected you to go dig in my life. Only fair, since I was doing the same thing to yours.” Her smile turned bittersweet. “Let me guess…was Dr. Battiste the one who told you about that case?”
Bennett nodded.
“I figured he might do something like that,” she murmured. Then she softly sighed and said, “When he learned about the accident that my father caused, my grandfather had a stroke. He was in the hospital for months.”
And I was gone. I’d left Ivy.
“My grandfather’s recovery was slow. He had to learn how to speak again. How to walk. Every moment tore out my heart, and I just wanted to help him.” She glanced down at her hands. “So I didn’t go away to college. I transferred to a school here. I stayed close to him. I visited him as often as I could, and I tried to give him a reason to fight.”
He waited.
“Cold cases.” She nodded. “That’s what we started with. The cases that the cops weren’t trying to solve. I would go in to his room each day. Tell my grandfather about them. Read the files. He had…friends…who were happy to pass those files along to me.”
“Friends like the chief?” Bennett murmured. “And Dr. Battiste?”
“He wasn’t the chief back then.” She turned away. “But yes, like them.” The sheet trailed behind her. “My grandfather’s body was weak, but his mind was sharp. He hated the way things had become with my family. Once, his investigations business had thrived. It had the best reputation in the southeast.” She glanced back at him. “He didn’t know that my father had used the employees there to dig up dirt on his competitors so he could win political races. He didn’t know that the business he’d built with his blood and his sweat had become a blackmail tool for my dad. We all learned that, too late.”