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He looked at me. Really looked at me. Not as a problem, or a sin. He looked at me and the guilt of my actions tugged at my heart. His hazel eyes found mine and held on with an expression I hadn’t seen before. And I would never see again.

His legs went first.

I caught him before he hit the ground and lowered him slowly. My arms went around him, his weight settling against my chest, just like it had the night in his office. But this felt different, heavier. Final. His hand gripped my sleeve, his breathing changed. It became short and desperate. His heart skipped against the wall of his chest, like something trying to break free.

I didn’t look away.

I owed him that much. Or maybe I needed to watch it. Maybe I needed to be the last person he saw, knowing that I was the reason he would never see his wife again.

He went still in my arms. His weight tugging me down until my ass hit the padding of fallen leaves. I held onto him longer than I needed to. Then I laid him on his back. His hair against the dead leaves, his face turned up toward the sky.

I stood.

My hands were shaking.

But under the shaking, there was something else. Something I had no name for yet. Something quiet and certain and entirely my own. It wasn’t peace, and it wasn’t triumph, but something rawer than either, something that felt like it belonged to me and no one else.

I walked back to my truck.

I drove home.

I sat in the cabin until the sun went all the way down, turning the nameless thing over in my hands, learning its weight…

“I’m just saying, it doesn’t add up,” one of them says, their voice bringing me back to the present. “A man like that doesn’t just vanish.”

A few locals linger by the produce section, their heads bent close as they murmur to each other. The sound of their voices pricks at my ears, pulling me closer.

“You think something happened to him?” another replies, her tone skeptical. “People leave all the time, Molly.”

“Not like this,” Molly says sharply. “He wouldn’t just walk away from here, and you know it. Marcie’s not letting it go. She’s been calling everyone she can think of. She even asked the sheriff to call in another form of law enforcement.”

“Like what? The feds? Good luck with that,” the second voice mutters. “You know how Sheriff Gates is, lazy as sin and twice as slow, bless his heart.”

There’s a pause, and then Molly’s voice drops even lower. “I heard she’s looking into hiring someone. A private investigator. Someone from out of town.”

Something in my chest goes cold. The basket in my hand suddenly feels heavier, their words pressing against me. A private investigator. The phrase snags, sharp and unwelcome, refusing to let go. I force myself to move on, grabbing a bag of rice from the shelf and tossing it into my basket. The women don’t notice me, their conversation continuing as I make my way to the register.

The walk back to my truck feels longer than it should. The air is sharp and cold, biting at my skin as I open the door and set my bag inside. Marcie Wolfe isn’t letting it go. Of course, she isn’t. She doesn’t know what kind of man her husband really was. The man who smiled in church, shook hands with the congregation, and returned home to his bottle. You’d think she would be grateful for the fact that she no longer has to live with a man like Virgil Wolfe. How can someone miss a man like him? If she knew, she wouldn’t be making things harder for me. The longer she searches, the closer she might come to the truth.

I toss the two bags of groceries into the passenger seat, turn the key, and bring the engine to life. I grip the steering wheel tighter as I pull out of the parking lot, the words from earlier echoing in my mind. A private investigator. Someone from out of town.

The thought makes my chest tighten, but I push it down. The land takes what I give it. The pigs don’t leave anything behind. I glance at the rearview mirror, catching my own reflection. My face looks calm and composed. But my hands are trembling on the wheel.

No one will find him. No one can.

CHAPTER

TWELVE

It took eleven days to find Dennis Harper. Eleven days of library visits, careful searches, and one phone call made from a payphone in Huntington. He’s been living in Charleston. A roach motel on the edge of town. Tonight, I’m in the parking lot of the dive bar. It’s dimly lit, the single flickering bulb above the door barely holding back the night. I sit in the truck, parked far enough away to avoid drawing attention, my fingers drumming against the steering wheel. Dennis Harper is inside.

I followed him from the motel on the edge of Charleston, the kind of place where even the cockroaches have second thoughts. He moved like a man weighed down by time, his shoulders hunched, his gait slow. He’s not the younger, sharp-tongued predator I once feared. He’s aged, thinner, weaker.

I watched him enter the bar, the door closing behind him with a soft thud. My pulse quickened, but I stayed in the truck a little longer, letting the anticipation settle. This isn’t about rushing. This is about control.

But now it’s time.

I pick up the bottle and press down on the muzzle, a fine mist settling over my wrists and collarbone. The scent rises as I adjust the mirror, wafting up like a ghost from the past, Love’s Baby Soft, the same perfume I wore as a little girl. My father had insisted on it, calling it “appropriate for a young lady.” Now, it clings to me like an unwelcome memory, the sweet, powdery smell almost cloying. It settles heavily in my throat, stirring fragments of uneasy recollections I’ve worked so hard to bury. The nights when the scent hung thick in the air, mingling with the musty stench of the cellar. The way it seemed to mark me, to claim me in ways I didn’t understand at the time but loathe now with every fiber of my being. It’s as if the smell itself bore witness, a silent accomplice to his control. It’s amazing what power smell has to drag up memories you’d rather keep buried. Smelling it now feels like I never stopped wearing it.