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Silas takes the driver’s seat while she jumps into the passenger side, and it’s a stone silence over the three of us for the first of the two-hour drive back to Hilton Head.
“I didn’t have a choice.” Her voice finally cracks the quiet.
And me.
“Pull over,” I bark.
Silas slows off the edge of the Lowcountry highway. He finds an unmarked sandy road, probably someone’s driveway, and parks us there. I jump out. Crickets scream around me while the noise in my head is worse.
Cade jumps out, too. “Are you gonna talk to me?”
“I gotta piss.” I drop my fly and seek this mindless task because all else leads to ruin.
“Then piss and talk.” She’s by my side and doesn’t flinch at my stream. It flows like the rage in my veins. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That’s just it, though.” I shake the dew off and adjust myself. I won’t look at her. The storm blowing in overhead is far calmer. “You did something, didn’t you? You always gotta do something.”
“What are we gonna do? Let him get away with what he did to us? To other women? Let him keep Cam prisoner somewhere? Let him keep Pamela forever? Because he’s got her—”
“And how the fuck does that bring her back?” I glare her way. “Admit it. You lose your temper, you gotta get your revenge, and you forget tactics. You piss Gentry off too much, and Pamela will disappear for good. Wherever she is, she’ll join TJ wherever you dumped his body if you keep this up.”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job.” She steps my way, and we know this fight. It keeps playing in our lives, and it won’t stop. “If you push a man like Gentry like I just did, he’s gonna react. I got him to admit the golf course he’s using—Sea Oaks—just by pushing him enough.”
“Decide. Decide now because every time you push him, you push me too! This is how it was with TJ, and now it’s Gentry. Last time, you picked TJ. When are you gonna pick me? Pick us? When is our love more important than your revenge?”
Silas steps out of the car, and God, he’s perfect because he knows to let us fight this out. He leans against the door. Not entertained. He’s concerned.
“I don’t have a choice,” Cade shouts back. “You or Gentry? No, it’s been you and Gentry for over ten years. Face it. We can’t run from him anymore.”
“Face it? Fuck you! I remember it. Every time you poke that snake, a new memory comes up. And they make me wanna drink. But thank God, I’m stronger now; I can fight it off, but I’m tired, Cade. I’m fucking tired.”
Her expression softens. “What do you remember?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Try again.”
My eyes slam shut with my inhale.
Dammit, she’s right.
The secrets eat my soul away.
“I remember Gentry laughing and holding down my ankles. I remember sand in my mouth. I was choking on it. Whatever they did to me? It hurt so much that I sucked in a mouthful and thought I’d die. With Derek watching. With TJ doing the damage and Gentry laughing about it.” It burns in my throat. The words. The truth. “And I wanted to die. Of humiliation. Of pain. Of anger I couldn’t act on. That’s what I remembered today because you had to talk to him.”
She rushes me, crying and wrapping her arms around my neck.
I don’t hold her back.
“When, Cade? When will you let this go? When can we finally be happy?”
“Life isn’t always happy.”
“No shit.” I pull back from her arms. “I look at my ass in the mirror every day, and I’m not fucking happy. But I don’t go around making it worse.” I point to Silas. “I wanna be like him. I wanna feel free and able to move on, but you won’t let us. You keep dragging us back.”
“I have to stop him. I have to catch Derek. I have to find Cam and Pamela too. Can’t you understand that? It’s my job.”
The violet pools of her eyes. I’ve been swimming in them for years. I know their storms and their placid days. I know when she’s bright and when darkness takes her over.
