Page 150 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

“I felt that too.”

Her blue-green eyes widened. “You did? When? I didn’t know you’d seen him.”

“I didn’t. But when I returned to the alley the day after the murder to try and find your phone, I felt it, especially at this one spot near a wall.”

“Where he killed her.” The fingers Jules ran over the bright, cheerful daisies sprinkled across the plastic tablecloth—a stark contrast to what they were talking about—were trembling slightly.

“That’s what I figured. This dark force circled my neck until I could hardly draw in a breath.”

Jules bit her lower lip. “What did you do?”

“The only thing I could think to do—say the name of Jesus over and over.”

“And?”

“The darkness lifted, and I could breathe. I’d already found your phone, so I got out of there as quickly as I could.”

“I don’t blame you.” Jules used her own napkin to swipe at a splotch of steak sauce on the tablecloth. “Unfortunately for me, it was a bit trickier, since I was handcuffed to a towel rack.”

Despite the trembling fingers, her tone was light. Dante had noticed that about her, that she made a joke whenever they approached a topic of conversation she clearly wasn’t comfortable with. Did she have any kind of faith?

She surprised him then, by drawing in a shuddering breath and saying, “I prayed too, when he had me pinned to the wall.” So much for that theory. He’d been prepared to allow for a subject change, but she had dragged them right back to the one he thought she’d been attempting to steer them away from.

“You did?”

“Yes.” Jules dropped her napkin on her plate before continuing to trace the white and yellow daisies with the tip of one finger, not looking at him. “I prayed that God would help me, that he wouldn’t allow us both to die that way, for my mother’s sake.” She looked up, a stricken expression on her face, as though she’d said something she hadn’t meant to.

Even so, Dante pressed her on it. “Both of you?”

Her finger stilled on a daisy as her gaze swung to the lake. When the only sound to break the silence between them was the haunting call of a loon, he said, gently, “You didn’t become a firefighter because ofBackdraft, did you?”

Jules swallowed, still looking out over the water. “As much as that movie did impact me, no, it wasn’t the primary reason I chose my career.” She tapped her finger on the daisy as though considering, like he had last night, whether she should—or could—share her story. When she drew in a slightly shuddering breath, he knew she had decided.

“After I was born, my parents wanted other children, but my mother wasn’t able to get pregnant again until I was nine years old. Then Louisa was born.” Her eyes softened. “From the moment they brought her home from the hospital, she was mine. I held her, rocked her, crept out of bed to sleep on the floor next to her crib so often my parents finally moved my bed into herroom. When she took her first steps, she was walking to me. Her first word wasJules. As soon as I got home from school, I would take her out to the backyard where we’d chase butterflies and make necklaces and crowns out of daisies.”

Jules pulled her feet up onto the chair and pulled her bent knees to her chest. “When Lou was three, my dad went away on a business trip. That night, I woke up to the smoke detector going off and my mother standing in our room screaming, ‘Where is Louisa?’

“I glanced over, and my sister’s bed was empty. My mother and I ran through the house, frantically searching everywhere, refusing to leave without her until the firefighters literally dragged us out. They had to hold us back to keep us from going in again as the house went up in flames and the roof finally collapsed.”

Dante’s chest ached as badly as Jules’ must have after she’d escaped the burning house. Back then and a few days ago. “Jules. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how horrific that was.”

She shook her head slightly. “No, it is unimaginable. Like all my memories are to me. Which, in this case, is a blessing.” She rested her cheek on her knees, looking over at him, finally. “They figured out later that Lou had snuck into bed with my mother at some point. When my mom heard the alarm go off, she flung back the blankets, covering Lou, and jumped out of bed. Lou must have been missing my dad because she never went to Mom’s room. My mother blamed herself, of course, but it wasn’t her fault. It hadn’t occurred to either of us to check her bed.”

Jules let out a shaky laugh before lowering her feet to the patio stones. “Anyway, that was a whole lot more than you were expecting, I’m sure. Did I see you unpack ice cream?”

“I did, and I’ll get it in a minute.” Dante stood and lifted his chair to carry it over and set it in front of her. When he sat on it,his knees were an inch from hers. “That wasn’t more than I was looking for, though. I want you to open up to me, Jules.”

She had rested one arm on the table, and he touched her hand lightly before pulling away. “Is that why your mom is in the hospital?”

Jules rubbed the tips of her fingers hard over the tablecloth, as though the cool plastic grounded her. “A few months after the fire, my dad suffered a massive heart attack and died. I’m pretty sure it was more heartbreak than heart attack, though. He never got over Lou dying while he was away. Like my mom, he blamed himself. He felt he should have been there to protect her, to protect all of us. Shortly after his funeral, my mom had a complete mental breakdown and has been in and out of institutions ever since.”

“You lost your whole family.” His voice had thickened, and he cleared his throat.

“Pretty much, yeah. I have friends, especially Brie and Kelli, who have been such close friends since kindergarten that they’re like family. Otherwise, besides going to the cemetery every week to visit my dad’s grave and set a fresh bouquet of daisies against Lou’s headstone and visiting my mom as often as I can, I’m basically alone in the world. I think that’s why I’ve always resisted the idea of getting seriously involved with anyone. As much as I might want a family of my own, what if I lose them too?”

“I understand that fear. Believe me. But all those memories you have of your mom and dad, of Louisa—and I know how deeply you feel them even if you can’t visualize them—would you give those up? As heartrending as they might be, would you exchange that pain in order to feel nothing? To remember nothing?”

Jules ran the tip of her finger over a daisy again and again, as though she didn’t realize she was doing it. “I can’t answer that.What I can tell you is that, when you said you lost your faith that God was good and only wanted the best for us, I truly did get it. I grew up going to church and I thought I loved Jesus with all my heart. After everything that happened, I realized I didn’t even know who that Jesus was.”