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“And what was that?” Thurrock asked. “What did she tell us?”
His eyes flicked toward her for just a glimmer of a second. “My bed wasn’t empty Monday night,” he said. “I wasn’t alone.”
Yes, and she’d never thought relief would be the prevailing emotion when that became public knowledge.
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Thurrock asked.
“She’s the superintendent’s daughter,” Connel said. “You want to be the one to tell him?”
Fear and anxiety seeped out of her, loosening her muscles. On an exhale, she turned to make eye contact with Lachlan, then went back out into the corridor.
Just a couple of steps later, Lachlan’s voice rose behind her. “You don’t want to hear the end of this?”
“I was there,” she called without turning around. “Your people can feed on the details.” She paused to look back at him. “I really am sorry, Lach. I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
But he had, and by morning, the whole world would know.
FIFTEEN
SHE FELL FACE FIRST onto her bed. Her mind was so busy, she couldn’t even focus on a single thought. Was she just tired? Exhausted? Sunk by emotional overload? Yeah, definitely that last one.
What would change?
Everything. Everything would change.
Some amount of time passed. Might have been ten minutes. Maybe ten hours. The solid thump on her front door jolted her awareness to the present.
“Sersha!” Her father. Of course her dad would be the first to get to her door. “Open this door!”
Rather than comply, she slithered off the bed and crawled across to lock the bedroom door. If her father was there, Lachlan wouldn’t be far behind. Someone had to break the news to him. Ire McDade wasn’t their culprit, not for Henry McLeod’s murder. For sullying his little girl on the other hand…
It was laughable.
Her father could be outraged. And he would be. No one did indignant better than her father. All her life she’d been aware of disappointing him. How she wasn’t what he wanted in a child. Nothing she did was good enough. Nothing met his standard.
But it was only there, in the freedom of admitting her connection to Connel, that she found herself at peace with it. If she would never be good enough, why waste time trying?
Forcing herself onto her feet, she went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and stared at herself trying to figure out what was different. Something was different. A weight lifted with honest words. Why hadn’t she given them their power earlier?
She jumped when the pounding on the bedroom door started. Her father wanted to lose it. She’d talk to him. Eventually. But what would she get for it now? He’d shout, she wouldn’t get a word in edgeways.
Funny then that as she departed the bathroom, she heard her brother on the other side of the door with their father.
“You need to calm down,” Lachlan said. “She won’t talk to you like this.”
“Won’t talk to me?” her father blustered. “She owes us an explanation! How could she do this to our family? How could she debase herself—”
“This isn’t helping.”
No, it wasn’t and thank God Lachlan was there to say that. Debase herself? She was offended. Connel had shady connections, he was in a dangerous line of work, but he wasn’t scum. No surprise that her father saw Connel as beneath him; he thought everyone was beneath him.
“She needs to come out of there.”
“And she will. Maybe in the morning, we can—”
“The morning? No! It is the damn morning! The rest of my people are on their way. We need to deal with this tonight. We’ve lost ground with the investigation and need to redouble our efforts. And we have to get our evidence out of here. God only knows what she’s told him about the investigation.”
“This is Sersha,” Lachlan said. “She wants to find Henry’s killer as bad as we do.”
