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“I’m sorry.” That was all he’d had to say.
“What do you know?”
“I don’ expect you to forgive me. But I did what I did ’cuz I had to save my daughter.”
That was the first time I met his eyes with mine. “What do you mean?”
“He threatened my family. My daughter... she was into some bad stuff. She got mixed up with the wrong people. She... and he got hold of some videos. They could ruin her future, Mr. Burton. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He began crying like a blubbering child, his face splotched with tears, sweat, and the grayness of regret.
“A week ago, my girl... she up and disappeared. Andhebegan sending me threatening messages. He told me to take care of your missus, and if I didn’t, he’d get rid of her. People like me... we don’ stand a chance with the law. She’d be dead if I—”
“Who?”
I’d heard enough. I was not in the space of mind where I could afford to feel sorry for this man. I did not want to know what could have happened to his daughter.
Maybe that made me selfish. But I’d lost my wife. I’d seen her, one of her eyes so damaged it looked like it had retreated into her skull.
I’d seen the injuries and the marks and how she couldn’t even breathe. My strong, capable, clever, beautiful, independent June.
He’d done this. He was responsible. And no good reason could justify it.
It didn’t matter to me. It might have, in another life. One where I felt more human. One where I wasn’t so bogged down by the need for answers.
The papers had passed it off as a case of drunk driving. I’d known, even then, that there was more to this.
So had Noah and Benjamin.
Call it a hunch, but when you love someone with more than your heart—when you love with your soul and everything in-between, you know them in your blood. Whatever happens to them ricochets in your bones.
I didn’t think that was a coincidence. And when I thought of love, that was what made June and me special.
It wasn’t monogamy or the undying, festering need to depend on each other till the end of time.
No. It was teamwork. It was in the comfort of understanding I’d met the other half of my soul’s rhythm, and she and I would work it out.
That for this life, I’d encountered my match.
I looked at Ken one more time. I could see how desperate he was for forgiveness.
It just wouldn’t come.
“I need a name, Ken.”
“That guy who done that shit at East Harbor. He’s some hotshot there, ain’t he?” His lower lip jutted out in a desperate appeal for forgiveness.
“A name.”
“Emory. Emory Abbot.”
I’d gotten up and left a half-second later. But at the door, I’d turned to say one last thing.
“What you did? You think you had a reason. But it was a shitty one. Nothing will ever justify it. So if you’re seeking absolution, you called the wrong person.”
I didn’t stick around to look at his face. My thoughts were already elsewhere.
That evening, when I got home, Sally was sitting with Sophia in her bedroom.
