I was ready to protest. The last thing I wanted was to face him when I'd already promised a dozen times to never hurt them. But it didn't take long to realize Ray was right. If I ran, if I avoided him, it would only make me look like the coward I’d claimed not to be.
So, with my head hanging and my heart in more pain than I’d thought imaginable, I trudged down the hall to his room, where I knocked on the door.
“Yeah?” he called from inside, and I entered to find him on his bed, lying on his stomach and reading a book.
Ray had told me once that Noah had always hated reading until he met me. Seeing him with a book now, reading without persuasion, made me smile—even if just a little.
“Hey,” I said, closing the door gently behind me.
“Oh, hi.” He scrambled to sit up and stuffed a scrap of toilet paper between the pages to hold his spot. “Are you okay?”
No fear was reflected in his eyes. No anger or hesitancy. Just concern and worry.
“Um …” I scratched at the back of my head, not sure how to answer. But honesty felt like the best option, so with a sigh, I sat at the edge of his bed and rested my elbows against my knees. “Not really. But … I'm a little better, I guess.”
Noah pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. “I'm really sorry your mom died,” he muttered quietly, almost awkwardly. Almost as though he didn't know if it was the right thing to say.
“Thanks, buddy.”
“Did someone kill her?”
Dropping my gaze to my hands hanging between my knees, I barely nodded. “Yeah, we think so.”
It was a lot for anybody of any age to make sense of and process, let alone a kid who'd never known death in his short thirteen years. And it would figure that, as soon as I had entered their lives, I'd bring with me the black angel of death on my shoulder.
But, I reminded myself, you also brought them the protection and strength they had lacked before. And that counts for something. It has to.
“Do you know who did it?” Noah asked, his brows pinching as he tried to work through the tragic and disturbing truth that someone could be capable of intentionally taking another person's life. That someone could want to.
“I have an idea,” I confirmed while keeping the secret of exactly who to myself.
Had Noah met Levi during his visits with his dad? Had he met my mother? What kind of stuff had this kid seen?
No. I couldn't allow myself to go there. I would never ask. We would never talk about it—unless he wanted to. Wondering about it now would only give my imagination the freedom to run wild, and nothing good could come of that.
“I hope the cops get the bad guys,” Noah said, resting his chin on his knees.
“So do I.”
“But …” His eyes met mine with mature sincerity, our souls connecting. “If they don't … you will, right? You'll get them?”
The booming beat of my heart resounded through my aching head as I suddenly became aware of what Noah had built me up to in his mind.
I was his hero. Superman. A godlike entity most boys envisioned their father being.
I’d never had one of those. I had Grampa, and I'd loved him fiercely, but I'd always seen him for what he was—an old man. My devotions had lain elsewhere—with my mother and the never-ending need to protect her from her own demons.
But I had become for Noah the thing I'd never had, and I wasn't about to take off that mask now.
“If they ever dare to come here,” I said, holding his gaze with the strength of my own, “I'll get them.”
For you, Ray, and Mom … I swear to God, I’ll get them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
BETWEEN THE RAINDROPS
Detective Sam Lewis called me the morning after my mother's body was found.
I was at work, unloading a delivery of produce, when the call came through, and I didn’t waste a second before answering.
“Give me a minute,” I told Howard. “This is important.”
He waved me off with a sympathetic, understanding nod. “Do what you have to do.”
The moment I'd walked into work, I had apologized for not showing up yesterday. He'd been aware that there was a family emergency, thanks to Ray and the phone call she'd made on her way to work, but it hadn’t been until after I came in that morning that he was aware my mother had died.
He wouldn't, however, know that she'd been murdered.
I wanted to avoid the questions. At least for the time being. The last thing I needed was for everyone in town to once again look at me with accusing eyes and questioning glances, wondering if my past had found itself on my mother's doorstep. Not realizing that it was her life that had ultimately stained mine.
I hurried into the storeroom, away from anybody who might be listening, and answered the call before Detective Lewis could hang up.
“Hey, Sam,” I said on a held breath. “How's it going?”
“Well, I call, bearing good news,” he said, giving me the response I'd been hoping for. “We got Levi.”
My brow furrowed with instant suspicion. “Wow, that was quick.”
“He knew we were coming. I mean, believe it or not, he was just hanging out at your mom's place. Said he lived there.”
I nodded toward a stack of canned soups. “Yeah, I just … I don't know. I guess I expected him to run or something.”
“Nope. And actually, he seemed exhausted. You know, almost relieved. It was strange. But, hey, what matters is, we have him. He confessed to lacing her drugs with fentanyl with the intention of killing her, and he agreed to give up the name of another guy he worked with. Someone he said was also involved.”
My glare on the soup cans hardened as my brow furrowed. “Seth.”
“You know him?”
“Unfortunately.”
Sam grunted a contemplative sound, and I wondered what he was thinking, knowing it was unlikely that he'd share it with me.
Instead, he said, “Levi asked to talk to you.”
My jaw clenched, and my fist flexed. “Why?”
“I don't know. All he said was, there was some stuff he wanted to talk to you about.”
“Well, you can tell him to shove that right up his ass,” I replied without hesitation.
Sam offered a humorless chuckle. “That's what I thought you’d say. Anyway, Soldier, I just wanted to give you the update. Either I or Detective Miller will call you with any other developments, all right?”
“Yep,” I muttered, nodding. “Thanks, Sam.”
“Of course. Talk to you soon.”
He ended the call, and I stuffed my phone back into my pocket. I should've gotten back to work right away, knowing Howard was currently lifting those heavy boxes by himself when he probably shouldn’t, but I didn't move from where I stood. Instead, I lowered slowly to sit on whatever was behind me—a stack of boxes containing mayonnaise, apparently—and stared ahead at the chicken noodle and tomato basil.
Levi had been arrested, and I hadn't been there to grin like a fucking maniac as the cops drove him away.
I hoped someone had though. I hoped someone had been there, thanking God that the piece of shit had finally, finally, finally gotten what was coming to him after too many years of slipping under the law's radar.
But Seth …