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37

Calista

After

The story was simple enough: Declan broke into my house, tried to kill my dog, and then attacked me.

That’s what I told the officers who showed up just moments after Ash sped off in Delilah’s car with Jerry. I explained how Declan had called Fane on my phone, not to ask for help but to antagonize him. To make him listen as he hurt me.

I told them how, at some point, he realized what he’d done. That he started apologizing. Repeating himself, saying sorry and how filled with regret he was. That he knew there was no coming back from it, and then he walked into the living room of my house and shot himself in the head.

I explained how Ashton had shown up shortly after, following a call from Fane. How Ash had taken my dog to the vet after alerting the authorities, who’d already been on their way thanks to the sound of a gun going off inside my house.

“And you’re certain, before arriving in Darling, you had no prior contact with Mr. Thomas?”

“His name was Declan Thomas?” I winced as the nurse gave what felt like a very aggressive tug to the stitch she was putting into my shoulder.

Could I feel it? No, I could not.

But could I imagine in mind-boggling detail what it would feel like? Yes. Yes, I could.

“Did he tell you something different?” The shorter and rounder of the two detectives—yes, detectives, cue pants shitting—stepped forward and flipped open his notepad using only one hand before he settled a serious frown on me.

“No,” I replied evenly, despite the tugging in my shoulder and the churning in my gut. “I just didn’t know his last name. Seems too normal for someone who chased me through town, crashed his car into mine, and then broke into my house to try to kill me and my dog.”

There was a beat of silence, and I got the distinct feeling that maybe, just maybe, I should have been a tad more traumatized than I was.

Before we arrived at the hospital and I was sitting, slumped and exhausted in the open back of an ambulance, I waited. Wrapped in one of those shiny blankets they give you that’s supposed to help you with shock, I waited for the little fissure to form in my mental state.

I waited and waited, but honestly, there were only three things on my mind.

The first was that I couldn’t tear my eyes off the bend in the street that would produce Ashton with news of Jerry.

The second was that the same bend would produce my parents, though by some stroke of luck they were in Cullen Grove, the next town over for an appointment for my mom. If they did come screeching around the corner, covering that distance in that amount of time would have been a world record.

Third, it would be Fane.

The thought of it being him made my throat tighten, and the only thing I felt was heartbreaking rage.

I didn’t need to pretend the tears that were falling down my face were real. They just were. Not for myself, but for the way I heard Fane’s voice break when he said my name. For the words I had missed when Declan’s hand was around my throat.

How he had to, for the second time in his life, bear witness to something evil being done to someone he loved without being able to do anything to stop it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Declan knew just what wound to pour salt on. Just how to break him.

Mostly, I was sick to death of the way Fane continued to punish himself for things that had never been his fault. If I was honest, it terrified me that what had happened would change us for a second time.

I’d only ever experienced one life-altering, terrifying moment before this one, and it ended with me leaving my whole life behind in the blink of an eye.

I knew if I saw him fly around that corner that we would be fine.

I just needed him to come home.

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

I winced at the first thread of the stitch the nurse made on the cut on my neck, making my breath catch in my throat. The numbing cream she applied did nothing, and based on the look of apology she gave me, I’d say she knew it too. It didn’t stop her from doing it again, though.

Between her heavy-handed suturing and the stark whiteness of the hospital room around us, my head was starting to hurt. “What does this have to do with me?”

“It doesn’t,” said the taller detective, his mustache twitching as he offered me a tight-lipped smile. He reminded me of someone, though I couldn’t place who. “We’ve been watching Declan for a while. He’s been linked to a number of allegations.”

“What sort of allegations?”

The detective’s mustache twitched again, but instead of answering, he asked, “Is your boyfriend returning to town?”

“Fane?” The question came completely out of left field, so much so I jolted. That got a disapproving look from the nurse, who, in my relatively unprofessional opinion, really sucked at giving people stitches. “Why do you—”

“We really aren’t at liberty to say—”

“You should get that tattooed right on your forehead, Beverly,” Ash drawled, strolling into the hospital room, and for one tiny second, my heart lodged itself in my throat, thinking it was Fane.

“Mr. Manning,” Beverly—the short, round detective—let out the most exaggerated sigh I’d ever heard. “Where the odor of illegal activities resides, you’re never too far away.”

My nose scrunched. “The odor of—”

Ash stopped beside me, his hand covering my mouth much to the horror of the nurse, and kept talking like nothing had happened. “Ah, Bev. You’ve been watching Poirot again, haven’t you?”

My eyes bulged so wide I was genuinely worried they might fall out of my head. Ash’s hand clamped down harder, muffling the “SHUT UP!” I still managed to get out.

Beverly’s shoulders straightened, preening like a pigeon. Needless to say, it was one of the less comfortable things I’d witnessed.

“Fane was in Artington for a board meeting with Mackenzie Co. He’ll be back soon. He left when Declan called him,” Ash said evenly.

The taller detective checked his watch, muttered something about being sorry for what I’d gone through, then gave Ash a wary glance before they both left.

“ Poirot! I freaking knew it!” The words flew out of my mouth the moment Ash moved his hand. “But, wait, why are they asking about Fane?”

Ash scratched the back of his head and dropped his eyes. He mumbled something about Fane being Declan’s boss and something else about taxes that didn’t make any real sense. It was a bad lie, and he knew it.

I wanted to push him on it. It was my nature to push, but the last few hours felt like something that both did and didn’t happen to me. It happened to someone else, and I just had all the memories of it. So, even though I wanted to ask, I wanted a nap even more.

“What the fuck even happened today?” I dropped my head into my hands, wincing at the sharp pain radiating from my forehead.

I’d been told I had a minor concussion. The spot where Declan’s face had made contact with mine was tender, but that was it. No bruising, no swelling. Nothing to show for what had happened.

The doctor told me I was lucky.

I stared at him with the fire of a thousand suns until he left with a nervous look on his baby face. That’s when the detectives walked in.

“They seem to know you well,” I hedged, my head tilting to the side as I studied Ash.

“They’re from Artington. We’ve…crossed paths.”

“How ambiguous.”

If nothing else, at least I managed to use my word of the day from the day before. The thought made me realize I really needed to cancel my subscription to that stupid app, especially now that I was still paying for it and didn’t even have a freaking phone.

He’d been poking around the little medical room we were in, a very strong indicator that he was trying hard not to lie again while also avoiding being truthful.

“You okay?” I asked, the frown on my face making the tender skin between my eyebrows ache.

His laugh was humorless. “Me? Cali, you almost died. He almost—”

“But he didn’t.” I cut him off because I’d thought about it too, and it still didn’t make that feeling of peace disappear. “Was I scared? Sure. Will I have nightmares about that deranged psycho watching Fane and me—Oh my god, Jerry !”

I shot out of my seat so fast I nearly toppled over. In two strides, I gripped the sleeves of Ashton’s jacket, my eyes already brimming with tears.

“Hey, no, sorry. Cali, he’s okay.”

“Holy fuck.” My knees buckled slightly, and I braced my hands on them, leaning forward as relief hit me like a wave. “I’m the worst dog mom ever.”

His snort that time was definitely full of humor. “Please, you love that dog more than you love Fane.”

I stood up and palmed away the tears falling down my face. “It’s pretty equal,” I sniffed, trying to give him a smile, but my heart was aching.

Without Jerry, without Fane, even with Ash right in front of me, I suddenly felt very, very alone.

“What did he do?”

“Gave him Benadryl, and only a very small amount for his size. He woke up halfway to the vet. It was probably the best sleep he’d ever had.”

My face crumpled, and I dropped it into my hands. The relief of it all washed over me like when the sky suddenly opened up, and all the raindrops fell at once. Like the second to last thing I needed to be okay clicked into place, and I felt a little less like my world was spinning out of control.

Ash was not one for physical touch, so when I felt him pull me into a hug, his arms a little stiff around me, I leaned into him and wrapped my arms around him, hoping he could feel how grateful I was that he was there.

There to save me from Declan.

There for Fane over the last two years.

There for Jerry.

Here for me, right now.

“Ash?”

“Mmm?”

“What if he doesn’t come back?” My voice was small, like the deep-rooted fear of what the answer could be was shrinking me. It felt like he might be the only person in the world I could ask that question of, and who would know why it was one I even needed to ask in the first place.

“Jerry?”

I pulled back and wiped my eyes before rolling them at him so intensely I could’ve set him alight.

“He never left you,” he said simply. “Not really.”

I scoffed. “There are two years between us that say different.”

Ash’s expression hardened. “Two years of him working himself half dead. Of learning how to invest the shit out of everything he earned, living on scraps just so that he could come to your door and make sure he could give you everything you’d ever need and want and dream of. Two years of paying your mom’s hospital bills—”

“My what?”

Ash froze, his face an instant mask of regret. Like he’d just incorrectly used an enema. “I—”

“What did you just say?” The wobble in my voice wasn’t even something I could’ve hid if I tried.

“Cali, he doesn’t even know I know,” he said quickly. “Your dad said something a while ago in passing, and I did a little digging.”

“I’m going to kill him,” I choked, overwhelmed by the weight of the truth, the love it carried. My heart swelled in my chest, too big, too full.

“No, you’re not.” Ash’s face softened, and he reached out, tapping his knuckles gently to my chin.

“No, I’m not,” I whispered.

* * *

I clutched Ash’s phone in my hand. While I’d been sobbing in his somewhat stiff but still comforting embrace at the hospital, I’d blubbered a culmination of words that he somehow managed to translate into “I need to call Fane.”

I did call him. I called him four times, and each time went to voicemail.

“Something’s wrong,” I mumbled to myself and then shook my head. “No, it’s not.” Followed by another mumble a second later. “Fuck, maybe—”

“This is fascinating to watch.” Ash didn’t sound worried in the slightest, and I couldn’t tell whether that was because he was freaking out and wanted to keep me calm or he was genuinely fine.

He released a sigh, “Cammy, he left in the middle of the night after working all day, and I would wager a guess that his phone died.”

“I…hadn’t thought of that.” I frowned. “You’re right.”

“Papa’s always right.”

“Who’s Papa?”

“ I’m Papa?” He was smiling, and I felt like it was a public service when I licked my finger and stuck it in his ear.

“What the fuck, Carla?!”

“You’re never allowed to refer to yourself as ‘Papa’ ever again. It gives off leopard print mankini vibes, Andrew. This is why you’re single.”

“I’m positive it’s not,” he mumbled under his breath.

“It certainly doesn’t help your case.” I stuck my tongue out at him and he just stuck his back.

Regardless of Fane’s lack of contact, he should be getting to Darling soon. It was around a five-hour drive, but he had always been a little pedal-happy. I held onto that thought and let it soothe the swirling in my stomach.

* * *

Pulling up to my little, loving shit box felt surreal.

It looked the same as always. Well, it looked the same as it did when Fane left.

His marks on the house were everywhere. The eaves no longer sagged. The small garden that had been growing in the gutters was long gone. The single panel of wood on the second step to the door—the one too rotten to save—had been quietly replaced. Fane had fixed it without saying a word, while I’d always just stepped over it instead of stepping on it.

My eyes snapped to my front door. “What’s that?”

I didn’t wait for Ash to reply before I jumped out of the car and headed straight for it.

It was an electronic panel. On the wall next to it was a very fancy-looking doorbell.

“These aren’t mine.” I looked back at Ash, who loitered on the steps behind me with his usual, easy going grin plastered on his face.

“They are now.”

“You’re smiling like a weirdo.”

“Just enjoying the look on your face.” He pulled out his phone and snapped a photo. “I’ll make this into a poster for Fane’s birthday.”

“I’m missing something crucial here.” I waved my hands in a panic while miming punching numbers on an imaginary number pad. That’s when Ash strolled up, punched four numbers into the real one, and the door unlocked with a faint beep. He stepped aside, ushering me in with an exaggerated flourish.

Everything looked the same. Everything except the shaggy rug that used to live in my living room—it was gone. And so was Declan.

“Who did all this?” I asked, my voice smaller than I’d intended.

“Fane,” Ash said simply. Then he shrugged. “Well, me, but through his minimal direction and credit card.”

“When did he tell you to do this?”

“When he called me.”

The call that came somewhere between me stabbing Declan in the ass and running for my life.

Ash leaned casually against the doorframe. “He messaged me first. I was almost here when he called. Told me, ‘I’m on my way back. Make sure you fucking kill him and install that goddamn security system.’”

“He knew you’d do it?”

“Which part?” His head tilted in the same predatory way I’d seen Fane move, but it was different on Ash. Darker.

“All of it?”

“He’d already asked me to get the security system. It just so happened to arrive this morning. I was supposed to install it while you were at work, but…things came up. It’s the same system I have in Artington. My guys installed it once the police cleared the scene.”

“And the whole killing him part?”

“Yes. He knew.”

“How?”

Ash’s face didn’t flicker. “Because I never miss.”

He didn’t say it with cockiness, just straight truthfulness. And something else. Regret, maybe. Sadness.

He dropped my new keys into my hand and mentioned that Jerry would be ready to come home in a couple of days. Even though he was okay, they didn’t want to risk any allergic reaction or the small chance of it affecting his liver or kidneys.

Those words were like another slap to the face, but I listened with no more than a tremor of my bottom lip, because I was capable of holding heavy things. That much, I knew. I nodded, holding onto the knowledge that he was in the best place for him. That he’d be home soon. That he was probably wooing all the nurses within an inch of their lives.

With a final nod back, Ash turned and walked away.

I stood in the doorway, watching as he strode down my gravel drive and disappeared out of sight.

The moment he was gone, the silence pressed in.

I looked around the house—the house that had always felt full of life, even when it was falling apart—and hated how empty it felt now.

I’d never been here, not once, without someone else under the same roof. The weight of that reality was suffocating.

When I looked around, I wasn’t plagued with the ghost of Declan’s presence. The horror of seeing Jerry unresponsive in the entry room. Of the glimpse I saw of Declan’s unmoving form in my living room, of the blood that had ruined the carpet.

I saw Fane and Jerry sleeping on the couch. I saw Fane in the kitchen, and me on the counter. I saw the two of us carrying out all the bedding with Jerry trotting behind us, laughing until I cried at our horse of a dog trying to make a nest in the pillows and blankets while Fane was still trying to set it all up, and the moment he got so frustrated, he flipped him off with the most aggressive silent middle finger I’d ever seen.

I walked to the basket of blankets next to the couch and grabbed one, wrapping it around my shoulders before heading back out the door, and sank down onto the front steps.

The house wasn’t a home without them in it.

So, I kept my eyes fixed on the bend in the street and waited for Fane to come back to me.

* * *

A poke on my shoulder startled me awake. I didn’t even realize I drifted off, but the man who I looked up at wasn’t Fane.

“Ash?” My voice was groggy as I rubbed my eyes, wincing at the sharp pull of the stitches near my collarbone. The motion sent a throb radiating through the bruises on my face—the patchwork of reds and purples Declan had left behind.

“Cali.” The tone of his voice made my spine snap straight, and I could feel the blood drain from my face.

“What is it?” I asked, but I knew. I knew.

He stared at me for a while. He shook his head, barely perceptible, like he was trying to resist the truth of his own words. Words he spoke anyway.

“We can’t find Fane.”