Page 72 of Silencing Stolen Whispers

Shane moved past her without responding to her question, carrying the humidity from the night air and something else—a tangible anger that seemed to radiate from his skin.

Kinsley slowly closed the door, pausing briefly to steady herself against whatever had upset him. He waited in the center of her living room, seeming both out of place and unmoving. He hadn't sat down, which she took as a silent sign that he didn't plan to stay long.

“Would you like something to drink?” Kinsley offered, holding up her beer.

“No.”

She knew he would refuse, but she was doing her best to stay polite. His one-word reply lingered between them, and she suppressed her irritation.

“Then what can I do for you, Shane?”

He met her gaze directly for the first time since he had arrived, the blue in his eyes resembling ice. She waited, her pulse fluttering as he stared at her with an intensity she had never experienced.

This wasn't the Shane who had laughed with her over old reruns ofI Love Lucy. Nor was he the man who reached for her hand across a restaurant table or even caressed her knuckles with the pads of his fingertips.

The man standing before her was Detective Shane Levick. And he was glaring at her as if she were a suspect. His eyes scanned her face, searching for guilt, fear, or some sign of deception.

Kinsley swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. She had to be wrong. Hadn’t she already handled the situation with Beck Serra?

She needed to say something—anything—to relieve the mounting tension.

“Is this about Chloe?” Kinsley asked, keeping her voice light despite the heaviness in her chest. “I noticed she wasn't at the game on Sunday.”

Kinsley’s living room suddenly became too small and the air too thin.

“Alex mentioned you took some personal time,” Kinsley continued when Shane didn't respond. “I thought maybe something happened between you two.”

Her words hung in the space between them, paper-thin and inconsequential. Shane's expression didn't soften. Not once. If anything, the line of his jaw grew more pronounced as he clenched his teeth.

“This visit has nothing to do with Chloe,” Shane finally responded in a way that was unfamiliar.

“Then what is it, Shane?” Kinsley asked tersely, fighting to keep her voice steady. She set her bottle of beer down on the side table before reaching for the back of the couch. She needed something solid to ground herself. “I’ve got to say that I don’t appreciate…whatever this is.”

Kinsley waved her hand, but she quickly lowered it to clutch the fabric of the cushion. This couldn’t be happening, yet everything inside her screamed that this was it—her consequence.

“I have one question for you, Kin. Just one.” Shane paused, his chest rising with a deep breath. “And I want the truth.”

One question, followed up with the truth.

Such simple concepts, and yet they bore the weight of everything she had been carrying for two years.

Kinsley's breathing became shallow, her pulse quickening until she could literally feel it throbbing in her throat, her wrists, and behind her eyes. A cold sweat broke out across her back, dampening her t-shirt between her shoulder blades.

She realized—God, she realized—what this was about.

The moment she had been fearing since that fateful night. The moment that jolted her from restless sleep, gasping for air, with the phantom sensation of the trigger beneath her finger as real as it had been back then.

She thought of Noah and the silent pact they had made. Of her father, who would defend her until the end. Of her career and her freedom, both hanging by the thinnest of threads.

“Ask your question,” Kinsley whispered, her words barely audible in the quiet house.

Shane took a step toward her, closing the careful distance she had maintained. The lamp in front of him cast the upper part of his face in shadow, but she could still distinguish the intensity in his eyes.

Not just anger now, but something deeper, more complicated.

Hurt, perhaps.

Betrayal.

“Did you kill Calvin Gantz?”

Five words. Simple, direct, and devastating. They hung in the air between them, altering everything—the room, the night, their relationship, and her future. How and what she answered next would either preserve or destroy it all.

~ The End ~