Page 8 of One Cry Too Loud (Coastal Crime Unit #9)

“ S o, that’s what it is,” Holly said, pulling at her fingers as she took a seat in the War Room.

She wasn’t behind her series of monitors this time, though.

Today, Holly was sitting in the main area with the rest of us.

Looking at her, that struck me as strange.

The way she moved, the way she straightened her skirt as she looked around the room; it was like she was trying to hide.

I wondered, for a moment, if this had to do with more than just her telling her story today.

I wondered if, in addition to allowing her to do her job, those monitors and that desk maybe helped hide her.

I wondered if that was something the woman wanted.

She looked up at Kat and then, blinking a few times in a row,she let her eyes drift to Charlie for just a moment.

It was just for a second, but in that second, I saw an extra layer of something in her eyes.

As much as she might have been afraid for Kat to know all of this, she seemed even more afraid of Charlie knowing.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said.

“Who on earth are you apologizing to?” Kat asked. The woman shook her head, stood from her seat, and moved as close as she could to Holly. From there, she dropped to her knees so that she was on eye level with the computer genius.

“To you,” Holly said. Her eyes flickered to Charlie again. “To him. To all of you.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Kat said, taking the woman’s hand and squeezing it.

“I lied to you,” she said. “I almost got myself killed. I almost got Jack and Nate killed. I got some poor young girl hurt, and it was all because I lied.”

“You don’t owe your past to us, “ Kat said. “We don’t get to know every inch of your history just because we work together.” She wiped a tear from the woman’s face, pushing her glasses a bit up the bridge of her nose.

“We don’t even get to know it because we’re friends… or because we’re practically family.”

“We are, aren’t we?” Holly asked, breathing in deeply as though she was trying to steady herself, as though she was trying to make herself steel. “We’re family, aren’t we?”

“We’re the closest thing to family that I’ve known in years,” Kat answered.

“I just, I didn’t know what it would mean if you knew,” Holly answered, looking down at the floor.

“I spent so long trying to keep this secret. I even kept it from myself for a while. I think I convinced myself that it wasn’t real, that it was just some dream or something.

Maybe part of me wanted it to be. Does that make me awful, Kat?

Does the idea that I wanted my daughter not to be real make me a terrible person? ”

Kat looked over at me, and the pain in her eyes broke my heart.

“You are one of the kindest, most charitable people I have ever known in my life. Your heart could fill up a football field. There isn’t anything about you that I would consider as awful, Holly.

That’s who you are.” She took a slow, methodical breath.

“You are something else, though. You’re traumatized.

You have been threatened and hurt and screwed over by a person who did not deserve you.

I won’t call him a man, Holly, because men don’t do what he did.

Men stand behind their choices. Men do the right thing.

Men are a boon to the women they interact with and they take pride in the lives they build, create, and better.

He’s no man, Holly. What he was, and what I assume he is, is a scoundrel and waste of space.

What is he, in addition to a terrible cyber criminal who has bitten off more than he can chew, is someone who has missed the opportunity to have you in his life.

And, Holly, as someone who has had the immense honor of knowing you, I could tell him that the mistake he’s made is monumental.

He doesn’t get to know how amazing you are.

He doesn’t get to know how absolutely life changing knowing you is.

He has to do without that, and I pity him. ”

“Thank you, Kat,” Holly said, crying openly.

“Don’t thank me. I’m not saying any of that to make you feel better.

I’m saying it because it’s true. Something else is true too, though,” Kat said.

“We will find your daughter. We will get her back to her adoptive mother, and we will make sure the person behind it pays the price for what he’s done to that little girl. ”

“He’s powerful, Kat,” Holly said, her voice cracking. “He’s dangerous.”

“So am I,” she said, squeezing the Englishwoman’s hand. “So are we. We’ve fought back bigger and badder monsters than him, and we’ll do it again. This time, though, I’m doing it for you, Holly. I’m doing it because you’re amazing and you deserve it.”

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” Holly said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“You were just you,” she said.

Holly turned to Charlie. “Charlie, I just want to-”

“It’s okay,” he said, taking a deep breath and looking away from the woman. “I need to go out on deck for a moment, but it’s okay.”

My eyes widened. What was going on? Was Charlie reacting poorly to this? Was his reaction so bad that he was actually walking away?

“Charlie,” Holly started. “If you would just-”

“It’s okay,” he said, already walking toward the door. “Honestly, it really is. I’ll be back soon.”

And, with that, he was gone.

“What was that? Holly asked, obviously brokenhearted.

“I don’t know,” I said, standing up myself. “But I’m going to go find out.”

I followed Charlie up to the deck. A sweet salt air breeze brushed against my face as I moved under the moonlit sky.

I found the man standing there, facing the pier. As I grew closer, I saw that his fists were balled and his face was red. He was angry. No. It was more than that. He was absolutely furious.

“Charlie,” I said, walking toward him.

“I need a minute,” he said without looking at me. “I told you guys I would be back soon.”

“She thinks you’re upset with her,” I said, still bridging the gap between us.

“I told her I wasn’t,” he reminded me.

“Yeah, right before you stormed out like she had betrayed you or something,” I said. “Listen, I guess this was a shock for you. I know you and Holly are close. Maybe you had an idea of her in your mind and this bit of news changed that, but that’s not her fault. She needs-”

“That’s not what this is!” He shouted, finally meeting me with his gaze, more angry than it had been just a few seconds before. “This isn’t about anything she did. I don’t blame her for any of this. Of course, I don’t.”

“Then tell her that,” I said. “Because she needs you, and the look on her face when I followed you out says that, right now, she thinks she doesn’t have you.”

“She has me,” he answered, his fists still balled up “She always has me, but I can’t do that right now. I can’t do anything right now. I need to go. I need to leave.”

“Charlie, this is important to her,” I said.

“Don’t you think I know that?” He balked. “A child is missing, the child of someone I love. I understand that I’m needed, but I can’t right now. I need a second. I need-I need to leave.”

“You’re leaving?” I asked, my eyes wide. “You can’t just-”

“I’ll be back,” Charlie said. “Tell her I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Then the man, a man I had seen face down things that would make comic book heroes run away scared, bolted off the ship. As he yelled how sorry he was back to me over his shoulder, I thought he might have been crying.

I turned and walked back into the War Room. As I did, Holly stood to meet me.

“Is he okay?’ She asked, her accent tipping up the end of her sentence.

“He’s gone,” I said mournfully.

Her eyes filled with something like regret, something like shame.

“He said he was coming back,” I added quickly. “He said to let you know that he doesn’t blame you and he’s sorry.”

“He’s sorry?” She asked, her mouth turning down into a broken frown. “I am too.”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Kat answered, slinging an arm over the smaller woman’s shoulder. “He should be about the awful reaction he just had.”

“I know,” she said. “I know Charlie. He’s not like that. I just-I don’t understand it.”

“Neither do I, but whatever it was, it isn’t important,” Kat said. Her eyes turned to me. “What’s important is what happens next. Jackson, we need to go find that little girl.”