Page 89 of Hidden Resolution

“Why don’t you take it easy today?” he suggested.

“I can’t. I have to keep moving. The place needs to be nice for Erica’s parents.”

Her eyes were bone dry, which concerned him. She was being too stoic, too matter-of-fact when she should have been a basket case.

“If you shoot me a text with the flight number and time, I’ll pick them up,” he offered.

“I can get them.”

“It’s not a problem?—”

“You have enough to do, Mason, and I’m not a fucking invalid,” she snapped, savagely flinging a freshly plumped pillow down. “I can drive thirty minutes to the airport, retrieve a grieving couple, and bring them back here, all without your help.”

“Look, I’m trying to be supportive here, Shonda. But I’m not taking your shit.”

“My shit?” She visibly trembled with fury. “My shit? You have some goddamn nerve. This”—she waved her index finger between them—“has been your way from minute one.”

She punched another pillow, and he was thankful it wasn’t his face.

“‘I don’t do long-term. If you want this, know that it’s only for the duration of our stay,’” she mimicked in a piss-poor imitation of him. But the speech sounded right. Hands on hips, she rounded on him. “Well, you know what? We’ve played it your fucking way. And now I’m asking you to respectmywishes. You don’t get to pop in and out of my life on a whim, all under the guise of checking up on me. Not anymore.”

Shonda’s fury died out, leaving her hollow-eyed and spent.

He hated how badly it made him feel.

“I love you, Mason. And I can see by your horrified expression you don’t feel the same. The thing is, after everything that’s happened, I couldn’t go another day without telling you.” She deflated and sat. “But there are no expectations, okay?”

His heart hammered as his vocal chords shriveled up.

With a sad, decisive nod, she said, “I also know you’ll run for the hills. It’s all good. I swear.” She closed her eyes. “But could you please go? You don’t have to smooth things over or make life better for me. You can’t. And I need alone time to process everything.”

Part of him urged him to stay and make it work, but the strongest part of him wanted to escape, as she’d predicted he would.

“I’ll text Zack as soon as I pick up Pete and Mary,” she promised. “They can meet up to discuss arrangements after.”

With a nod, he left, cursing himself for hurting her and adding to her grief.

26

The drive to Dane’s house the following day took Mason ten minutes, and thankfully, it wasn’t a lot of time to relive Shonda’s goodbye. Hell, even if it had been longer, he lacked the mental and emotional capacity to relive it. Sleeping the previous night had been an exercise in futility. The entire evening, he stressed about Billy returning to murder Shonda. On five separate occasions, he grabbed his keys, prepared to sit outside her building. But he wanted to honor her request. With Billy’s crimes in the open, the danger had likely passed.

Mason arrived as Zack rejoined the living, and he’d barely made it inside when the slamming of a car door caught everyone’s attention.

Dane admitted Bucky and another plainclothes cop, who introduced himself as Detective Fields.

“Bucky. Detective. What’s up?” Zack asked tiredly.

“Zack, we’re sorry to disturb you at a time like this, but may we speak with you?”

He led them to the living room.

“The coroner pulled DNA samples from the bodies found on the scene. We’d like to test yours against the boy they found,” Fields informed them.

Unease danced along his nerves, but Mason remained silent and waited for them to get to the point.

“Is that all? A phone call wouldn’t have sufficed?” Dane asked.

Zack sat forward. “What aren’t you telling me?”