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The two men hung up without another word, and Lawson pocketed his phone long enough to lock up his apartment and shrug on his jacket. He jogged toward the nearest staircase, his boots tossing the sound of his departure against the enclosed space. No sooner had his foot left the bottom stair than he was pushing a call through to Justice. He still didn’t know what time it was, but his sister had always been a night owl.
“Son of the law—it’s late. Why you callin’?” she asked, and he could tell by her voice she hadn’t yet gone to bed.
“It’s Steele.”
“Shit,” she whispered. “It’s almost two in the mornin’. I knew it couldn’t be good. What do we know?”
Any other time, her question, exactly the same as his, would have made him smile. They’d always been two peas in a pod. Always. But he didn’t have it in him to be amused.
“Just heard from Judge. Reed said he was stabbed. Wasn’t wearin’ his vest.”
“What?” she gasped. “Well—where was he stabbed? Is he gonna be okay?”
“Lady Jay, I don’t have any answers. We’re on our way to Vanderbilt now.”
“Okay. Okay,” she breathed. “I’m comin’.”
Before Lawson could disconnect, Justice called out, “Wait—has anyone called Mitzi?”
Lawson paused a second as he reached the driver’s side door of his truck. Mitzi Bates had recently come back to town and stolen his brother’s heart. He didn’t mind, seeing as how she’d offered hers right back. That meant one more person would be holding their breath as they awaited more news. He hoped to God it would be good.
“Lawson?”
“No. Judge got me, I got you.”
“Right. I’ve got Mitzi. Law?”
“Yeah?” he muttered, climbing behind the wheel.
“Drive careful.”
Seemed like a silly thing to say, but they both knew he’d drive like a bat out of hell to get to the hospital. No one would dare pull him over. And if they did, it’d only end in an escort. Brother to one of Shelbyville’s finest detectives, son of a prominent judge,no one would blame him for his desperate desire to get there as soon as possible.
It had been a normal evening. They’d stopped at the grocery store on their way home. Then Nora made dinner, which she and Evie ate together at their small, round, dining room table. Afterwards, while Nora cleaned the kitchen, Evie practiced her reading before it was time for a bath. At bedtime, Nora-Jean sang her little girl to sleep. When she exited her daughter’s room, leaving the door cracked open a sliver, Nora stepped into the hallway, accompanied by the silence she faced every other night—the silence coupled with the solitude she’d come to accept as the single mother she was.
She remembered it had been almost eleven o’clock when she crawled between the sheets of her own bed. She’d closed her eyes expecting to be roused by her alarm clock in the morning, which was why she was startled when her phone rang atop her nightstand three hours later.
Since Evelyn was born, it didn’t take much to pull Nora from slumber. She’d learned maternal instinct made it possible for her to find rest and be hyperaware of her surroundings at the same time. This was why her phone only rang twice before she was awake, squinting at the screen in confusion.Reese McKnight’s name was showing on her caller ID. It didn’t make any sense to her sleep-fogged brain, but the two had been friends since high school; not to mention she trusted Nora with her head full of gorgeous blonde hair—so she only hesitated a second before swiping her thumb to pick up the call.
“’ello?” Nora mumbled.
“Hey. I’m sorry to wake you.”
Nora frowned, pushing herself upright at the tone of Reese’s voice. Instinctively, Nora knew she wasn’t speaking to Reese, her old cheerleading buddy—she was speaking to Officer McKnight, of the Shelbyville PD. Knowing this to be true, she tried to crawl a little bit further out of sleep in order to pick up on the background noise she thought she heard on the other end of the line.
“What’s wrong?” Nora asked as she raked her fingers through her hair, pulling it away from her face.
“It’s Steele. He’s in the hospital. There’s a group of us here…”
Reese continued speaking, but Nora couldn’t hear her, her friend’s words drowned out by her initial thoughts on what she’d been told. It was the middle of the night, and Officer McKnight was calling to tell her Detective Steele was in the hospital. She squeezed her eyes closed tight as it began to register what that meant.
Nora had known Steele for what felt like most of her life. He was Lawson’s older brother. For a while, her love for Lawson was so profound, even without a ring on her finger, that made Atticus Steele something like her brother, too. But that was no longer true. It hadn’t been for years. Yet, regardless of the different directions life had taken Nora and Lawson, Steele never ceased to be kind in the wake of their split. Even more, he was a sweetheart to her little girl. He always had been. He was noble like that.
“Nora? Nora are you there?” asked Reese.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry—what? What happened?”
“Steele was stabbed. There’s a group of us here at the hospital,” Reese repeated patiently. “We don’t know much at the moment. The doctors are workin’ on him now. But Mitzi—she wanted me to call you. She’s a bit of a mess, as you can imagine.”
