“Great. Have a good night, Evan.” She pulled the door open, and he stepped through, turning again.
“Thanks for tonight,” he said. “Not just for letting me tag along . . . spend time with you and Callie, but for listening to what I had to say about my own investigation. I know it’s not easy dredging all that up. You could have refused to talk about it.”
She leaned her head against the side of the door. “It’s not easy,” she admitted. “But if there’s something I can help with, I will. Just . . . be careful, Evan, about getting dragged back under.”
He nodded, understanding in his expression. He’d obviously thought about the same thing. “I will. Good night.”
“Good night.” She closed the door, engaging the locks and walking slowly toward her bedroom. There were so many emotions swirling through her. Relief, tentative happiness. Hope that positive things would come from Evan’s presence in Callie’s life. But she also felt concerned . . . on edge . . . anxious . . . a tremble of fear racing through her system with the worry that Evan—with her assistance—might have new avenues to follow regarding the crime they’d survived. And the deeper worry that following them might be like opening a Pandora’s box that couldn’t be closed.
A couple of days later, Noelle stood at the window, watching as Callie sprinted down the beach, her red sundress flying out behind her, arms raised, as the kite she was holding rose high into the sky. Evan ran next to her, jogging leisurely but easily keeping pace, his head raised to the sky as well. She couldn’t hear them from where she was, but she could tell they were laughing, and it made her smile.
“He’s a natural, it seems,” Chantilly said, the whir of her wheelchair announcing her presence even before she spoke.
“He is,” she said. A natural father. It made her happy. And it made her ashamed. He’d accused her of robbing him, and she had. But she’d robbed Callie too. She saw that now.
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, my love,” Chantilly said. Noelle glanced at her, her platinum updo as shiny and elegant as always, makeup flawless, her silvery-blue pantsuit perfectly pressed. She was a vision, and Noelle was often startled by her loveliness. She’d come to expect it. There was something about her that simply glowed. Noelle had remarked on it once, and the old woman had told her that if she glowed, it was because she was living her second chance, the life she’d never dreamed she’d have, and it made her shine from the inside.
Noelle had thought about that later and realized that she was living her second chance too. But she didn’t glow. Not like Chantilly.
Because you were given no closure, a small voice whispered. And because of it, you haven’t ever truly left it in the past. It casts a shadow. Not so much that you haven’t moved on. Not so much that you haven’t found peace. But it’s there, and it dulls your light. Even a little.
Okay, but what was she supposed to do about that? She’d formed her life around that unfortunate fact because there was nothing she could do.
Not then. But now?
Noelle sighed. “Yes,” she agreed. “I can see clearly that I should have told him about Callie. But he’s here now, and he seems to have forgiven me. Or at least he’s willing to put his resentment aside. He wants to have a relationship with her.”
“Are you going to tell her he’s her father?”
“Yes. Yes, when the time is right.” He’d been in South Carolina for three days, and Noelle could already see the bond they were forming. Of course, Callie was an openhearted girl who loved easily. But she and Evan clicked in a way she hadn’t seen Callie click with anyone else. Perhaps she recognized herself in him. Maybe their shared DNA called to them both. The same shared DNA that Leonard Sinclair had passed on. But she refused to think about that. About him. “He’s started a new investigation of the crime we survived together,” she said.
“Oh. Oh, I see. Is there still something to investigate?”
“He seems to think so.”
Callie stretched her arms high, the kite caught in a gust of wind, and Evan reached over, taking the strings from her and commandeering the swooping fabric. He ran in a wide circle, obviously pretending to be the one controlled by the kite, and Callie fell to the ground, her head tilted back as she clutched her stomach in fits of joyful giggles.
Noelle couldn’t hear them, but she could feel them between her own ribs, like the phantom kicks she’d felt even after Callie had vacated her body. She breathed out a laugh.