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I rubbed my eyes before dragging my hands down my face and groaning. “There are so many coincidences here, so many things that needed to fall perfectly into place to find these answers. How can I believe that they were all just that—coincidences?” I pressed my fingers to the bridge of my nose, unsure of whether I wanted her to confirm that she was behind it all or not.
“I assure you, they are purely coincidences. I had no idea you knew Rosa’s daughter. I was surprised seeing her standing on my drive.”
“I didn’t know her until the grant was issued. She’s one of my partners’ researchers. When I was applying for funding, he suggested that I get approval to have non-students do the research course. He had her and her partner sign up.”
Martha asked, “Has it been helpful having them on your team? I imagine that it wouldn’t have been easy for Zali especially.”
“It has been difficult for Zali,” I agreed quietly, my chest squeezing as I thought about what our girl was going through. “She had no idea that her mother was alive—we were expecting to see Benedict—so finding her here was both a shock and incredibly painful. But Zali is strong, and she’s smarter than anyone I know. She’s put most of the case together—she was certainly responsible for finding all the key pieces of evidence. I never would have found half of what she did,” I admitted. I left off any mention of the less-than-legal means by which she’d gathered the data—I wasn’t sure Martha would want to be associated with it, and I didn’t want to risk the funding being pulled now, not when we were so close.
“It was clearly meant to be,” Martha confirmed.
It certainly was.
Twenty-one
Flynn
Igripped Zee’s hand and squeezed, needing the contact with her at the same time as reassuring her that I was there.
Seeing her mum that night was one thing. Telling her dad what had happened was a whole different level of agony, and we were all struggling.
Every time Roe sat at his kitchen table in the future, I was sure he’d picture the five of us around three sides with Zee in the middle and Ry’s mum, Kristy, next to him as we delivered the results of the research and what we’d found on our trip.
Roe was ashen, pale as a ghost and shaking like a leaf. Kristy looked like she wanted to be sick. She had her arm around his shoulders, and Ez squeezed his arm. Our guy was trying to be strong; he was trying to support all of us, but he needed a hug too.
Another tear slipped free and ran down Roe’s cheek. He hung his head low and heaved out a breath, curling in on himself as he absorbed blow after blow.
“Dad, I’m sorry,” Zee whispered.
He shook his head and reached across the table to her. “You haven’t done anything wrong at all. You did what you thought was best—”
“But you disagree.”
“No. I would have wanted to prove Tristan wrong too.” His lip quirked up in a half smile before it fell from his lips, and he closed his eyes, more tears falling. “I can’t believe that she would do that. She stole him from us, and she ran.” He sucked in a shuddery breath. “How could she have thought for a moment that I would condone her actions? Jesus Christ, she stole all that money,” he whispered, the tears falling harder. “We were mourning them,” he cried. “She hurt Ash. Why? How could she hurt our baby?” He buried his face in his hands and sobbed, his heart breaking before our eyes.
“I don’t know,” Zee replied, holding his hand tight. Her mouth was set in a hard line, anger and sadness written in the downturn of her lips and the tears in her eyes. “She was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. Seeing her….” Zali exhaled and shook her head.
“I’ll never forgive her. Never,” he hissed. “Not for hurting Ash, not for encouraging him to get up on that roof. She pushed him. She killed him.” He clenched his jaw tight and closed his eyes again, more tears running down his cheeks. “She murdered my baby.” He cried, his breath hitching and his shoulders shaking as the weight of his grief bore down on him.
“Dad, there’s more,” Zee added, sucking in a breath and bracing herself to deliver the final piece of news. Hopefully this one would help all of us to get some closure. When he looked up, she gestured to Tristan. He was the one who’d taken care of Asher since he’d been handed that bag. Ry had insisted, but he was barely keeping his head above water. Zee wasn’t even managing that. She was drowning in her grief. She was mourning Asher all over again. She was struggling with the knowledge that he was murdered.
Powerlessness haunted me, and I knew Ezra felt the same. All we could do was hold Zee while she cried, listen while she screamed in agony, and clean and bandage her cut knuckles when she lost control. She and Ry were broken, but they had each other and they had us.
Tristan had stepped into a caretaker role, looking after all of us. He made sure Zee and Ry had everything they needed, and his arms were the ones Ez and I cried in when we couldn’t bear the weight of Zee’s and Ry’s grief anymore. And he cared for Asher’s urn with a tenderness that seemed to lift a weight off both their shoulders. He relieved them from carrying that burden, something I would be eternally grateful for.
Tristan had wrapped the urn in a piece of the softest leather I’d ever touched and tied it closed with a thin cord. He carried the urn to the table, setting it down in front of Zee and Ry. He opened it reverently, and Zee reached out a shaking hand, laying it on top of the non-descript, light-grey square tube. It was about half the width of a shoebox and just as long with a plug at one end. Ry closed his hand over Zee’s, the two of them dipping their heads and crying as their loss slammed into them again.
Roe choked out a cry and brought his closed fist to his mouth, his knuckles turning white with the force as he saw what it was Tris held in his hands.
“Asher, we brought you home, mate. Your dad’s here,” Ry murmured, pushing the plastic urn across the table to Roe. The black plastic nameplate had Asher’s date of birth engraved onto it in simple script, but his date of death was missing. We’d hoped it was on there, that we’d find out precisely when it happened, but Martha was only able to give us a general timeframe of about nine to twelve months after Rosa took him.
Roe reached out with both hands and brought the box to his chest, cradling it. A sob ripped from his throat as he shattered right there in front of us.
Roe stood slowly, his chair tipping back as he straightened. We were all on our feet, Ez and Zee moving to her dad and me and Tris going to Ry. I rested my hand low on his back, rubbing the tight muscles in a circle as Tris wrapped his arm around Ry’s shoulder and held him close.
“I’m so proud of you,” Ry’s mum whispered to him, cupping his cheeks in her hands.
He towered over her—she was barely up to his chest—but he could have been a little boy in that moment, looking at his mum with tears in his eyes and hanging on her every word. He needed to hear that she was proud of him and that she loved him. He was terrified that when he finally shared his news with her, that she’d disown him. I could see him taking it all in in case he never heard the words again.
