“Shit.” His hand slipped from the curtain.
“What is it?”
“Shit,” he said again, turning toward me.
Quietly, I moved closer to him so I could see what was out there. A police car was parked inside the gate, a drift of dust still swirling in the air from when it pulled in. I looked to Eamon. The muscles of his arms and shoulders were flexed beneath his shirt, his entire body rigid.
“Don’t say a word.” His voice was so low I could hardly hear it.
I searched his face, the fear in his eyes now flooding into my own veins.
He came closer, hand finding my arm and gripping me tight. It pulled me toward him until I was looking up into his face. “June, do you hear me?”
I glanced down to where his fingers touched my skin before my eyes lifted back to his. I nodded.
He let me go, and I slipped into the bedroom silently. I watched around the corner of the door as he went back into the living room, his gaze landing on that rifle again. There was a split second when I was sure he was going to reach for it.
What the hell was going on?
Again, the pound on the door echoed, and Eamon finally opened it, letting in a blinding light. My mouth went dry when the man on the other side came into view. It was a police officer. Not the man we’d seen on the riverbank. This was someone else, and as soon as my eyes focused on him, the house seemed to fill with a bitter cold. He took the hat from his head, tipping it in Eamon’s direction. His blond hair was cut short and combed in a neat, waving swoop over his brow and his dark, narrowed eyes.
His chin lifted in a greeting, and the door swung wider. “Eamon.”
I pressed myself into the wall, not making a sound.
“Caleb.” Eamon was doing his best to look relaxed, but he wasn’t succeeding. He was still wound up tight, the line of him like stone.
“Heard June finally made it home.”
The man Eamon had called Caleb was peering into the house now, and I drew away from the crack in the door.
“Just got in a couple of days ago,” Eamon said.
“I heard.” A pause. “Thought I’d come welcome her back to Jasper myself. Have that little talk I’ve been waiting so long for.”
“It can wait, Caleb. She just got back.”
“Now, you’re not the only one who’s been waiting for June to come home.” There was something dark beneath the smooth cadence of his voice. I could almost hear a smile in it.
“Another time.” Eamon’s tone didn’t waver.
I couldn’t tell if my breath sounded as loud in the room as it did in my ears. My head was light with it. I chanced a look through the crack again to find Eamon’s hand gripped tight on the edge of the front door.
“Well, it’s waited this long. I suppose another day or two couldn’t hurt.” Caleb’s mouth pulled in a sterile smile as he set the hat back on his head, but there was a threat in his eyes. A menacing glint. “You all have a good day now.”
He turned, going down the steps, and Eamon closed the door. He stood there, waiting until the sound of the car was gone. When I came around the corner of the sitting room, he ran a hand through his hair, letting out a tight breath.
In the nook, Annie was awake, sitting on the edge of her bed with her knees drawn up into her chest. She looked from me to Eamon, her small mouth crooked like she might cry. In an instant, something thorned was growing inside of me, and I could feel myself moving toward her. But Eamon was already crossing the room, scooping her up, and her arms hooked around his neck as she buried her face in his shoulder. He brushed the hair from her face, avoiding my gaze.
“What was that?” I asked, going to the front window to check the road. The police car was out of sight now.
Eamon looked at me over Annie’s blond head. I could see him trying to decide how to answer. Or maybe deciding if he would answer at all. It was the same look he’d had a few minutes ago.
He passed me, going into the kitchen and taking an apple from the bowl on the shelf. “Why don’t you go say good morning to Callie?” His deep voice softened, his mouth pressing into Annie’s hair as he placed it into her hands.
Her fingers closed around it, and he set her down, her nightgown swaying around her skinny legs. Then she was pushing out the back door, letting the screen slap behind her.
He watched her go. “It’s not important. He just has some questions.”
“About what?”
Eamon hesitated, and my eyes narrowed on him. He was sifting information, deciding exactly what to say.
“Not long before you left, something happened.” His hands slid into his pockets. “He’s interviewed everyone in town about it as part of his investigation, and now he wants to talk to you.”
Slowly, the pieces strung together in my mind. “The murder,” I said.
Eamon hesitated just enough for me to notice. “Yes.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Nothing. He’s the sheriff, June. It’s his job. That’s all.”
That definitely wasn’t all. Eamon didn’t want me talking to him, and I supposed the fact that I didn’t actually remember anything was the reason. If I was questioned about the murder, I’d have no clue what to say. But that didn’t explain why those newspaper clippings and a photograph of Nathaniel Rutherford were hidden in the bedroom or why Eamon had gone white when he saw that police car outside.
This was what Esther was talking about when she said I’d come at a complicated time.
Eamon glanced out the window again, jaw ticking. Down by the barn, Annie’s small frame was clinging to the fence of the paddock. The mare was sniffing her tangle of blond hair, and Annie’s hand was hooked around her snout as if the horse were a puppy.
The sheriff had shaken him, that was clear. There’d been no mistaking that panic in his eyes before he opened the door. I could still feel the place on my skin where he’d touched me, the way his fingers had slid down my arm and squeezed. He’d been afraid in that moment. For me, or for him, I didn’t know. But Eamon had something to hide.
Sixteen
I’d abandoned all hope of waking up.
I tore into the weeds, ripping them up from the soft earth one fistful at a time. The overgrown vines hid me from view as I worked, clearing another section of the garden inch by stubborn inch.
Eamon had left for Esther’s as soon as Margaret arrived, and I’d caught her watching me out the window more than once. Even now, decades before I’d know her, she couldn’t hide that concern on her face.
I’d known for days that this wasn’t a dream, but that morning had been the first time I’d felt like what I was doing here was actually dangerous. Nathaniel Rutherford’s murder happened only a couple of weeks before I left, the same day as the Midsummer Faire. I hadn’t put that part of the timeline together before and judging by Eamon’s reaction in the kitchen that morning, I had to question whether it was a coincidence.
What would have happened if I’d been questioned by the sheriff, unable to account for anything he knew to be true about me? Jasper was the kind of town where you couldn’t hide things. It was too easy to unearth them when you knew so much about everyone. And people talked. You could always count on that.