Page 281 of Taken Away

“No, Walter.”

Walter stared at him.

“Harold made his choice.”

Walter looked down again.

“I kept thinking…”

His voice cracked.

“If Aubrey left…”

Burke finished it softly.

“Anne would come home.”

Walter nodded once.

“I thought maybe this time.”

Burke held his gaze.

“She came back. But she didn’t come home. She came back for revenge.”

Walter’s shoulders sagged.

Thirty years of waiting, and Anne had never been coming home.

A tear slipped down his weathered face.

“No,” he whispered.

Burke let the silence sit.

Then he stood.

“The law can’t punish a man for loving the wrong dream.”

Walter looked up.

Burke paused.

“Looks like life already did.”

Walter didn’t answer. He just slumped back in the chair, his hands loose and empty in his lap, every ounce of fight finally gone out of him.

FIFTY-FOUR

Blackwood Ridge

Bennett’s House

Bennett drove Aubrey back to his house without saying much.

There wasn’t anything to say.

She sat in the passenger seat, turned slightly toward the window, one hand pressed against her mouth as if she were still trying to hold herself together. The late afternoon light moved across her face in broken pieces, catching on the tear tracks along her cheeks.