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I pushed open the bedroom door.

What the hell was that on the bed?

An old, rotted pain sprang to life and coiled up my throat. This can’t be happening. Not again.

Spread out on the bed were my shorts and my new dress. With the backsides cut out.

“Squealer. Ha ha, Squealer!” Cazza and Lolly chanted. “Made room for the piggy tail.”

Cold air slapped my bum and the backs of my thighs. My hand flew to the back of my dress—and felt only my underwear and naked skin. Oh God, what did they do?

Tugging my skirt to the front, I gasped to see a huge hole. Cazza and Lolly were cackling mercilessly.

They’d cut the hole when my skirt fell over the back of my seat during class.

Clutching the hole closed with one hand, I grabbed my backpack with the other as hoots of laughter chased me out of the classroom. I told Mum my skirt went missing in gym class.

Within a week, kids who didn’t know why they were saying the mocking words had joined in.

I collapsed beside the cut-up clothing, the sight filling me with shame and the unbearable knowledge that I wasn’t safe anymore. Why now? Who would do this now?

Here I was, twenty years later, reduced to that cowering, trembling fourteen-year-old who thought everyone hated her, who’d been powerless to stop the torture.

I steeled myself. I’m a grown woman and a journalist, and I can figure out who did this.

Who’d crept in here without anyone noticing? Snow. No wonder he’d cried off dinner. The hair lifted on the back of my neck. It would have taken only a minute.

He’d broken in here, knowing exactly how to frighten and humiliate me. Snow had seen how terrified I’d been at school, and he wanted to scare me again. He’d bullied me for revenge and to silence and humiliate me. The thing was… he’d succeeded then, and he’d got me again.

A cry tore through the room, a heartsick, animal-sounding sob. It was me.

*

Knock. Knock .

Startled, I turned toward it.

“Isla?” came a voice. The door slid open—Declan.

“Sorry, I was—” He rushed to where I was kneeling, my face in my hands, and crouched next to me. “What is it, Isla? Are you crying? What’s happened?”

When I didn’t answer, he winced. “Is it the text? I’m sorry, but I can’t reveal who it is.”

I dropped my hands and choked out, “It’s not about the text.”

“Isla, I’ve never seen you so upset.”

His eyes shot to the ruined clothing on the bed. “Who cut these up?” Pushing himself to his feet, he shook out each of the pieces with a confused look. “Are they yours?”

“I don’t know if it’s about the case.” I held my breath to stop crying. I was worried about my parents hearing me.

Dropping the pieces of clothing, he knelt beside me. “It’s you I care about. Fuck the case. Please tell me what’s going on so I can help you.”

That was it. His tender words and raspy, emotion-thick voice reduced me to full-on, snotty, hiccupping sobs.

He wrapped his arms around my wet, heaving form. “Is this okay?”

Nodding into his chest, I sank into his strong arms and familiar lemon scent.

He squeezed me tighter and eased me back against the bed, one arm around me.

“After Janey died, something else happened…” I told him about the bullying and how my clothes were cut up. I had to stare straight ahead, humiliated.

“Thanks for telling me all this,” he said after I’d finished. He took a deep breath. “This is a horrifying thing you’ve been through. You’re brave to come back here and investigate.”

“This is why I don’t trust anyone,” I said. “I’m a mess. I’ve built up all these walls, and I don’t know how to start pulling them down… Sometimes I look at myself and see this person I’ve become, and I don’t know her.” I ran my hands down my face. “I don’t even know if I like her.”

He put a finger under my chin and turned my face to him. “I like her.”

His words were so simple and sweet that I burst into tears again. I never cried, but now I’d started, I couldn’t stop. After a while, I pointed out how wet and slimy I’d made his T-shirt, and we ended up laughing .

Finally, it was quiet, except for my intermittent hiccups.

“Anyone would have put up a fortress of walls after what you’ve been through,” he said.

Declan held my gaze, and his forehead creased with concern.

“I wish you’d told me from the beginning.

I’m sorry that you felt you couldn’t. But what I don’t understand is, why is this happening again twenty years later? ”

He went into the bathroom and came back with a box of tissues.

“Snow. It’s him,” I took the tissues and wiped my face. “He’s sending me a message.”

Nodding, he rubbed his forehead. “Maybe it’s the heroin case. We’re getting too close.” He took the balled-up tissues from my fist and handed me fresh ones. “And he knows this will undermine your confidence.”

“Whatever I’ve achieved in London,” I said with gritted teeth, “once I’m back here, I’m that loser at school who no one took seriously.” I tossed my head to get my hair out of my face, but it dripped down still.

Declan pushed a strand of my hair, almost completely wet from tears, away from my face and behind my ear. He cupped my face tenderly.

I melted into his touch, and my hand reached up to his. His eyes burned into mine, drawing me closer. His throat moved with a swallow, pulling me out of the moment. No. We couldn’t jeopardize the case. And he had someone. I jolted away.

“Hey, listen, I have walls of my own,” he said. He dropped his hand, as if reading my thoughts. He clasped his knees and his gaze sought out mine. “The person who texted me last night? You’ve been open and trusting and vulnerable with me. I trust you, too, and I want to tell you. ”

I braced myself. Here was the truth about the woman he loved.

“It was my daughter. Her name is Sephy—Seraphim. She’s thirteen.” He pushed his hands through his hair. “I don’t tell anyone about her because, in one case, someone turned up to her school saying I’d asked them to pick her up. Could have been…” He let out a long breath. “It terrified me.”

The room whirled and tipped.

He had a daughter. He was a dad. I could barely take it in.

I’d felt like I was getting to know who he was, but I didn’t know him at all.

I’d wanted to define him, as I did everyone I came across.

In London, after my birthday night, I’d written him off.

Then I’d resented him for being inactive, blocking me from investigating the way I wanted to.

And even when I’d started to feel something for him, I still hadn’t thought about him as a three-dimensional person who had a life beyond this investigation.

“Her mother died.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “We weren’t together long. She was on the periphery of one of my cases, a relative of the guy we were targeting, and she had drug and alcohol issues. She quit while she was pregnant, but after the birth, she went back to it.”

“So sad for you and your daughter.” I touched his arm. With a rush of understanding and compassion, I saw the connection to his statements to Snow about addiction.

“Sephy can’t remember anything of her mother. My two sisters are like mothers to her now.” He gave a wry smile. “Which sometimes is a bit much.”

“Who looks after her when you’re away?”

“She’s at boarding school. That’s another thing about this job, that I have to send her there. I hated boarding school, as you know, but she loves it—which, bizarrely, makes it worse. She’s spent a few holidays with my sisters while I’ve worked, too.”

I pulled my legs from under me. “It must be so hard to be away from her during holidays.”

“It is. And to be honest, I’ve been having reservations about the job for a while. I mentioned a case where I put myself in the shit?”

“What happened?”

He took a breath. “I lived with some villagers for months, and I could see they were only growing poppies because they were farmers, and it was a crop they could sell to feed their children.” He threw up his hands.

“Who would benefit from arresting any of them? So I tipped them off, and they all left town. Still devastating for them because they were homeless and running, but alive. Time and again, it was the same story. The workers got punished, and the bigwigs at the top escaped somehow, or their lawyer got them off, and they started again somewhere else. I’ve been questioning not only what I do, but the whole system. ”

I leaned toward him. “I can see how it would start to feel dispiriting.”

“It’s such a relief to tell someone.” He held my eyes. “As you can imagine, I can’t talk about this at work because I’m up for a promotion. Clearly, they’re not going to promote someone who doesn’t toe the party line that we’re making impressive inroads into the war on drugs.”

“But what about this case? We’re trying to stop Snow from exporting heroin—isn’t that the right thing? Surely hard drugs will corrode this town? And what about the users? Some of them must be kids?”

“I’m not as certain anymore. I sometimes wonder if we shouldn’t legalize all drugs.

Doesn’t stop kids from taking them, but we can monitor their use, and everything’s out in the open.

” He sighed. “I used to love this job, and nothing at home could compete with the thrill. Now it’s not thrilling or satisfying.

I see myself becoming cynical, and that’s not who I want to be.

I worry that I’m losing myself, mirroring other people.

I guess my promotion won’t improve my state of mind because it’s still undercover, but it will be shorter assignments.

It’s part of my job, and I’m good at it, but being around you has shown me its limits. You’re always yourself.”

I rolled my eyes. “Prickly, impatient, judgmental.”

His mouth hitched at the corner. It was one of my favorite smiles on his handsome face.

“Other things too. It’s part of my job, and it’s always worked, but I was ashamed for the first time.”

Maybe he needed to leave police work and use his skills in a different area.

A deep understanding had grown between us, and I felt I could say anything to him now.

But I was so exhausted I needed sleep. I barely had the strength to take the first shower, brush my teeth, line up the pillows again, and climb into bed. Declan turned out the light for me.

When he slipped under the covers, that understanding turned to something else. His heat radiated through the lined-up pillows—or was I imagining it? His breathing was disturbed. For the first time, he struggled to get to sleep, twisting his legs, rolling onto his stomach, shifting to his side.

I had never been more aware that his entire body was a pillow away from mine, barely covered.

I thought about what I could do after the case was resolved.

I would say his name. Tip the pillows off the bed.

I pictured all that skin and muscle edging closer, his lips on mine, his fingers tracing my hand and my thigh, his leg hooking over my hip.

I would find out what he likes and hear the sounds he makes when I touch him.

But how would I be certain he felt the same about me?