Page 57 of Behind These Four Walls

“You’d run too if cops were chasing you in some strange town.”

Detective Bowen continued, “It was more than cops chasing you, Isla. You were worried before we got there. You wanted to tell us something.”

Isla debated if she could trust Bowen. She didn’t know him. But she needed someone closer who could help if she needed it. She needed an ally, and if he was still anything like the kindhearted officer from ten years ago, he could be trusted now, with limitations. She couldn’t decide where to begin. “My best friend disappeared, and I was a runaway who could have been sent back if I was caught. I’m back to find out what happened to her.”

“Care to share a name? I can run it through the missing persons database.”

She gave him a quick smile. “Not yet. There are things I need to figure out first.”

Bowen’s expression was grim. “I won’t press,” he said. “But I advise you to be careful. Whatever you’re digging up, whoever you’re trying to find, I don’t know how that relates to the Corrigans. But when you’re dealing with that family, if you’re not careful, they’ll chew you up and spit you out, just like they’ve done to everyone else.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Isla and Bowen left the library, and she knew she owed him something now. He had behaved, kept quiet while she looked, asked very few questions for a cop. He was definitely very different from his partner back then.

He asked, “My turn now?” They stood between their parked cars, one cop, one civilian.

She clutched her bag, holding the printed copies of the article to her side, and nodded for him to continue. She braced herself for what she would tell and what she wouldn’t. He studied her.

“Why the rush to leave back then?”

When she and Bowen had crossed paths back then, she hadn’t known him and had said nothing. Today, she knew him a little more and still said little because she still didn’t know enough. “I had a bus to catch?”

He narrowed his eyes, not buying it. “Now you’re at the Corrigans’. Word like that goes around fast. Plus, you’ve been talking to people in town.”

She nodded, shifting and making it obvious their time was running out.

“Now you’re back,” he said. “And running up against an extremely powerful family with unlimited resources. You’re playing with real fire here, you know? Are you sure you need to continue down this path?”

She was too far on it to get off. The only way was to see it through to the end.

He straightened, his gray eyes concerned. He handed her a card with his contact information.

“I hear you, Detective Bowen.” He, like Myles, was warning her off. “I appreciate your concern.”

He waved her off, breaking their eye contact. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t able to help you back then, and the way you ran off has always bugged me. This is the least I can do. I can help if you need me, but you have to be careful.”

She planned to return to the estate and spread everything she had accumulated in her research across the bed in her room. The timeline was falling into place, and the picture was clearer now but far from complete. She went back to her talk with James—his cryptic words and profound guilt—and reread the note in Eden’s scrawl that had been tucked intoMommie Dearest, alluding to an incident that had happened before. The old Abbott farm. Something had happened there on Eden’s last night. But before that, something else had happened that had changed Eden, Sara had said. Was it a stretch of the imagination to think someone had made sure to keep silent about the accident, worried about the fallout?

The fact was this: Something horrible had happened afterward that had changed both James and Eden, something that James could never forgive himself for and that had to do with Eden’s eventual departure. Truth just beyond Isla’s reach pressed on her as she stared at the scattered evidence. She wasn’t sure what was scarier—the secrets she was uncovering or the realization that she was now a part of them. Isla was tugging on a loose thread of a tightly bound ball begging to be unraveled.

Chapter Forty-Five

When Isla received the text from Jackson that said he had finally cleared time to meet with her but wasn’t at the estate or Foundation but working from home, it was the last text she wanted. The tone of the message indicated that if she didn’t take this opportunity, there wouldn’t be another. The last thing she wanted to do now was talk with Jackson when she was worried about whether Victor would finally hand down her marching orders over that drink. But talking to Jackson could get her closer to finding out what had happened to Eden, so she gritted her teeth and reversed course for Jackson’s home.

Jackson was already at the door when Isla arrived, and she followed him inside, where he gestured toward the couch in his living room. His home was like an art gallery of paintings she couldn’t decipher and sculptures too fragile to touch. With expensively glossy wooden floors, recessed lighting, and abstract art hanging on the walls, the place felt more like a gallery than someone’s home. There were large potted plants with wide, spiked leaves fanned out and exotic flowers she bet came from his employer’s greenhouse. The sterile, cold house suited Jackson’s personality perfectly. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was about the house or Jackson that felt less than hospitable.

She chose one of the chairs over the couch.

“There aren’t many people who find a reason to visit me outside the estate.”

She didn’t like the way he said “find a reason” as if she had an ulterior motive for wanting to be around him. She forced a smile and declined when he offered her a drink. “Maybe you don’t give off welcoming-kind-of-guy vibes.”

He chuckled, sitting on his sleek leather couch, making himself comfortable. “You just have to get to know me.”

“You’ve been with the Corrigans for a really long time. Thirty years,” Isla began, notepad in hand. “You could retire if you wanted to.”

Jackson chuckled softly. “Are you saying I look old?”