When Kasey was on the phone with Devon, he told her about a Boston terrier puppy he’d seen on his run and that he tried to take a pic of it, but it was blurry. He sent her the blurry pic anyway, the pup a black-and-white smudge in the corner. It’d broken her heart, that smudge, because Devon was trying so hard. He was doing the right things. He knew how much she loved dogs even though she didn’t have one. He knew how scarred she’d been when Roy had killed her dog when she was a kid. Talking about the dogs they saw was a fun thing they’d always done together, and Devon was still doing it even though she’d been avoiding him, because he was Devon and her pain didn’t scare him and neither did the walls she put up.
Kasey was thinking about all this as Silas watched her eyes and barely smiled. He threw back the rest of his whiskey.
Slowly, the smile disappeared. Maybe this was it.
“Kase, the Foxberrys are gonna keep pushing. They probably would be doing it anyway, but Trey’s car being in your driveway and his body found downstream from here…they’re not gonna let up. If there’s something you need to tell me, I need you to go ahead and do that so I can help you out best I can. I’ll do that—you know I will. I’ll do anything you need me to do, but you have to be straight with me,” he said.
“The night Roy killed my mom, I tried to scream for you. Just in case you hadn’t driven away yet. Just in case you could’ve heard me,” Kasey said, pointing over Silas’s shoulder. He turned around to look at the wall. “I felt you out there. Did you stay?”
“I sat at the end of the driveway for thirty minutes, and when you didn’t come back out, I left. I didn’t hear you,” Silas said softly.
“I tried to scream but couldn’t, because when Roy slammed me into the wall, I was out cold, and when I woke up, he was passed out. I wished he was dead, but he wasn’t. My mom was.”
“Kasey—”
“Thank you for staying out there, for waiting for me. I don’t know how long I was out…time meant nothing anymore. I grabbed some of my stuff and left for Caro’s.” She finished her whiskey and wiped her eyes.
It was painfully unfair that the first night she and Silas were together like that was also the same night her mom died. She wondered if he was thinking about that too. They were so quiet she heard the train whistle. Most of the time it was too faint to hear from the living room.
“There were some different footprints on the side of the house and by the dock, meaning there might’ve been three people out there with Trey, walking around the backyard. Could’ve been from another night if you had the girls over but I saw the prints and I didn’t say a word about it to anyone else at the station just in case, and I won’t. I even made a mess of it so no one else would notice. Kasey, I put…I put a bag of confiscated pills I stole from the evidence room in his car, just in case I needed to…protect you, so you need to tell me exactly what happened so I can help you,” Silas said gently.
One big ha came out of Kasey’s mouth. Silas Castelow had planted extra drugs in Trey’s car. Ridiculous! She’d been so stupid to panic. Of course Silas was who he was. She knew him. Now everything was happening exactly as it should. She laughed some more. She couldn’t help it.
“What’s…what’s funny?” he asked, tilting his head.
“I…it’s just…wow…thank you, Silas. For thinking of me. But—”
“But what?”
“You don’t have to—” Kasey said.
“I think I do.”
“Did you see some smiley-face stickers in Trey’s glove compartment?”
“Yeah, why? What—”
“Did you put them in a little bag and seal it? Take them down to the station?”
Kasey watched her words register on his face. He shook his head no. “I guess that’s because at that point I wasn’t thinking about him. I was thinking about you,” he said.
“Y’know, when you pulled up…for a second I thought maybe you were here to arrest me.”
“Do you really think I’d do that?” he asked. He put his hand on his thigh and rubbed.
“Well, people change. Don’t they?”
“Nah. Not all that much. I haven’t. Have you?”
“I don’t know. Have I? Is this conversation going anywhere?” she asked.
“I think it can, Kase.”
“How else are you going to help me?”
“By making sure they don’t look harder at this farmhouse. By making sure anytime anyone brings you up as having anything to do with this, I divert their attention. By making sure the women coming forward to tell their stories are heard. By making sure my uncle, the police chief, knows that this was an accident and will stay an accident forever.”
“If I’d killed Roy, he wouldn’t have been able to kill my mom.”
“You were a kid. That wasn’t on you.”
“I was scared to let you come in here with me that night. Scared of what could’ve happened to you, scared of—”
“Hey…I understand. I understand why you did what you did. Everyone does.”
“I left her dead on the floor and I lied about what happened to her,” she said.
“She wouldn’t have wanted you to do anything different, Kase. You know you did the right thing.”
“I’ll never forgive myself for it.”
“You have to,” Silas said, reaching for her.
“Well, I can’t.”
“Come here.” He leaned forward. “You have to,” he said again.
Kasey, crying, crawled closer to him, and he pulled her the rest of the way into his lap. She was so tired of keeping secrets.
*
“I’ve only trusted a handful of men my entire life and you’re one of them,” she said when she was finished telling him everything. “I should’ve told you how I saw Trey acting when I went to Caroline’s that morning. Maybe you could’ve—”
“What he did is not your fault,” Silas said.
It was too much, they were too close, she was running on too little sleep.
The kissing wasn’t an accident.
The lean-in started at Taylor’s wedding, dancing to “Cowboy Take Me Away” and “Strawberry Wine,” and ended with Silas’s whiskey-tongue in her mouth on the couch. They tussled tenderly, kissed some more. Now he was on top of her, with his arm around her waist. His hands moved to her face. In her hair, behind her head. His mouth was on her neck, his breath hot. She opened her legs so he could sink and settle there. Her body was a question in lightning and his was attempting to answer in thunder. She could feel him. She remembered.
Cowboy, take me away.
No, don’t.
“Shit. Shit! Si, you have to go. Like, now,” Kasey said, pushing him.
“I have to go?”
“Yes! You have to go. Right now!”
“I have to, um…physically get off this couch and leave the farmhouse?”
Kasey nodded aggressively and stood.
How long had they been kissing? What happened now?
Silas sat up and put his head in his hands. He stood too.
“Um, all right. I’m obeying your orders and leaving the farmhouse. Right now. Can you please call or text me later? We’re nowhere near finished—”