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“Hey, Willie?”
“Yes, hon?”
“I thought I would just give Luc a quick call. Check in with him, you know?”
From the way Willie pursed her lips, Tess could tell the other woman wanted to give her a reason not to. When she couldn’t come up with one, she nodded instead. Then, plopping down on the couch herself, she said, “Make it quick, yeah? We don’t want to interfere with what the sheriff is doing.”
She was right about that.
“I don’t want to disturb the baby, though,” Tess said. She also didn’t want Willie to overhear it when she told Lucas about what Willie let slip. “I’ll just make the call outside. And I’ll be super quick, promise.”
She didn’t give Willie a chance to say another word. Her shoes—like everyone else who stepped into Grace’s home—were by the front door. Slipping them on, she waved at Willie, then stepped onto the porch.
Later, she’d admit that she was so preoccupied with getting in touch with Lucas that her situational awareness was garbage. She didn’t look around, didn’t even notice that there was a car across the street that she hadn’t seen during her stay in Hamlet.
If she had, she would’ve noticed it was parked close enough to the Harts’s home to make it clear it didn’t belong to any of their neighbors. She would’ve also seen it was empty.
But she didn’t.
She also didn’t notice the leaves crackled underfoot, or the way someone’s breath quickened as they sidled around the edge of the house. They’d been peering into the side window, looking straight into the living room, watching Tess… but she never knew.
At least, not until she managed to get through to someone on the other side of the line.
“Hamlet Sheriff Department. McAllister speaking.”
Kade. She’d only met Kade McAllister briefly, but Grace spoke highly of the most recent deputy—and not only because he married Natalie, killing the female deputies crush on Grace’s husband, once and for all.
“Kade. Hi. This is Tessa De Angelis. My husband is Lucas. I need to talk to him.”
“If you don’t mind waiting, Mrs. De Angelis, your husband is a little indisposed right now.”
She figured as much. Kade probably was, too. “That’s fine. Just tell him that—”
Her message was going to be simple. She wanted Lucas to know that Mason Walsh wasn’t locked up any longer. Whether that had anything to do with Maria’s disappearance or not, she wasn’t sure, but the coincidences were too many to ignore.
However, just before she could tell Kade that, someone cleared their throat.
Not even as distracted as she was could Tess ignorethat.
She looked up. She had just enough time to squeak out, “Mason,” before her trembling hand slid off of the communicator’s button. Before she could squeeze it again, it slipped from her grip, landed on the porch with a cracking sound.
Just her luck, the thing either broke, died, or turned off. Either way, there was no response from Kade. No sign that he even heard her say Mason’s name.
Not from him. But from the blond man with the cruel smile and the black hooded sweatshirt that made him seem far more gaunt than he was three years ago… he reacted by snorting under his breath.
“I’m touched. You remember me.”
Considering he had a starring role in a few of her nightmares, a manifestation of the guilt she’d never quite shake, of course she did.
“What… what are you doing here?” Her gaze darted from him to the closed door over her shoulder. If she screamed, Willie might begin to second-guess her belief that Mason was an innocent man. Because while Tess was one of three—Tessa, Lucas, and Mason—who knew for sure that Mason was innocent when it came to Jack and Caitlin’s murder, the look in his hazel eyes told Tess that he wasn’t the same charming deputy he’d been three years ago.
Jail had hardened him. That was obvious from her first glimpse. It had turned him into the villain that Tess and Lucas painted him as—and the way he was staring at her so intently had her fearful for his answer to her question.
The radio was useless. She couldn’t risk Willie and Su’s safety. Standing there, watching as Mason’s eyes looked her up and down, never blinking, only staring… she swallowed roughly and did nothing.
And then his cruel smile widened. Jerking his thumb behind him, gesturing toward the car that she finally, finally saw, he said, “Get in the car. Come with me for a ride, Tess, and I’ll tell you.”
Her tongue darted out, nervously licking her lips. “I don’t know—”
