Ivy turned. She searched his face, but it was shielded as he massaged his wrist below the wounded palm. He took a deep breath and then let it out, as if attempting to find the right words but instead, like her, he came up short. He slid off the examination table and leaned against it. They stared at each other, only a few feet between them, but with a history of broken trust separating them.
Joel’s brows furrowed. An unspoken plea for her to give him understanding reflected in his eyes. “I was wrong to wait so long to come home,” he said, then paused. “I knew you’d be furious. Then I got myself into my own spot of trouble. All that to say, I had some growing up to do. After I did, the years—they melded into each other as I learned my trade in Chicago. But I never forgot, I couldn’t forget, and as time went on, I knew I needed to come back to Oakwood. To try to reconcile.”
“Reconcile.” It was a lot to ask. Perhaps Joel had reasons for being away so long. Immaturity, a penchant for trouble, his career. But with each passing year, the pain had only dulled into a tarnished memory for Ivy, fully awakened now with his presence.
“I need you—your help, Ivy.” His tone seemed to release her from anything too personal. Yet Ivy’s face warmed and she looked away.
He continued. “We know Gabriella’s baby may still be out there, and you’re the only one who’s seen her killer.”
“I hardly saw him—I could never identify him.”
“I know. But I still need you to come with me—to Foster Hill House. Tomorrow morning.”
My, my. Ivy drew in a shaky breath and blew it out through her lips. What a shift in conversation. From his painful absence to solving a murder. The man gave her conversational and emotional whiplash.
“What would returning to that house even accomplish?” she asked.
She caught a whiff of Joel’s cologne as he closed the distance between them. It bothered Ivy that she hadn’t the courage to look him in the eye when he took her hands. Their fingertips touched and formed peaks, like mountaintops. Mountains they had yet to climb since they had just found their balance on the tenuous ground of renewed friendship.
“I don’t want you hurt, Ivy. I want to keep you safe, whether you believe it or not.” Joel’s voice lowered, resonating in her ears. “But, if there’s a chance taking you back there just once more helps you remember something from the night you were attacked, that you couldn’t recall the first time, then I need you.”
He needed her. She needed him. She had for years. Ivy lifted her face, and their gazes met.
“Why didn’t you at least write to me?” she whispered. Her fingertips tingled but she didn’t pull away.
Joel closed the gap between their palms, his bandaged hand scratching against her skin. “I did. I wrote to you not long after I arrived in Chicago.”
She shook her head. “I never received a letter.”
Joel squeezed her hands. “I explained everything in the letter. Why I left, and why I had to stay away. To forgive myself before I could expect you to forgive me.”
“Then the letter was lost. Somehow.” Ivy stared at their fingers. “Or you’re just saying that you wrote to convince me to help you now.” There was instant regret as the words escaped her mouth. Joel’s hands stiffened, but this time she sensed the frustration flowing through his grip.
Ivy searched his eyes. There was challenge in them.
“Do you really think I never loved Andrew, or you? That I would just leave here and only return to use you? You never returned correspondence, your father never came to look for me. It was as if, when Andrew died, the Thorpes severed ties with me. As if I were to blame. Coming back here to Oakwood has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I came back to say I’m sorry without knowing if you or your father would even listen to me. But I had to come back. To bring closure for myself, if not for you.”
She dropped her hands. “How dare you,” she whispered.
“I dare,” Joel said, and tipped his head to the side, “because when it concerns me, you ignore the need to examine the evidence. Not what you think happened, but what really happened.” He reached for his coat and stuffed his arms into the sleeves. “But then you’ve had twelve years to concoct a fictionalized version of the truth.”
His words stung, like alcohol on an open wound. Joel stalked across the room, then turned on his heel, his face set. Ivy wrapped her arms around herself, bracing against the chill in his gaze.
“I’ll be by in the morning. At least I know you care to find the actual truth for Gabriella and her baby. Which is more than I can ever hope for myself.”
The door closed behind him, and Ivy was left alone once again. Only this time she knew it was all very much her own fault.
Chapter 26
Kaine
Here she was again in Grant Jesse’s house. Olive lazed on the floor at the feet of the barstool Kaine was perched on. The night sky was black and moonless, yet Kaine fixated on it for a long moment, the kitchen window opened wide over the sink.
“I just can’t believe it.” She was still stunned over her discovery beneath the floorboards.
“I never expected to see that myself.” Grant lifted dishes from the drying rack beside the sink and stacked them before putting them in the cupboard.
Kaine leaned on the granite top of the kitchen island. She stretched out her bare foot to scratch Sophie’s broad pit-bull neck with her toes. Olive, unaffected by the other dog, only groaned in her relaxation. She liked it here. So did Kaine.
The image of the find was burned on Kaine’s mind. “Great Expectations pages. Like the one I found in the library downstairs. The scribblings in the margins. Lines so telling it’s hard to breathe, as if a woman sat in that room day after day and wrote her thoughts on the only paper she could find. From a book! I just—I just can’t get over it.”
Grant shut the cupboard door with a smack and turned his back to the counter, bracing his hands against the sink. “Why hide them under the floor?”
Kaine waved her hands. “How would I know? Most women hide their journals, though. I hid my diary under my mattress.”
Grant smiled. “That’s original,” he said wryly.
Kaine gave a sheepish grin in response. “I was only seven.”
“Okay. Hold on.” Grant pushed off the sink and slid his elbows onto the island, crossing his arms and leaning forward. “So Ivy’s locket was upstairs in the attic. You have her quilt that was stolen from the museum back in the sixties. Now some buried treasure of Great Expectations turns into an antique, Facebook-style status bar? Could it be from Ivy?”
“I think it was the girl who was murdered at Foster Hill House.”
The kitchen clock ticked. Olive’s tail thudded on the floor once, then stopped. Sophie rounded the island to lick Grant’s foot.
Grant frowned. “But how did they survive all this time?”
Kaine had already thought that through. “They were hidden in the floor, which blocked out sunlight and moist air.”
“Crazy that no one has discovered them until now.”
Kaine nodded, again prepared with another answer. Her brain had been spinning since she’d pulled the pages from beneath the floor. “I know. But those are the original floorboards, which means no one has ever seen the pages except for whoever put them there to begin with.”
“That floor’s one hundred years old—or more.”