She smiled deeper, eyes crinkling. “More often than I care to admit. But he does me proud, same as you’ll do for your own mother.”

He tried to smile back, not feeling so sure.

“Take care, Miah.” And she turned once more and opened the door, closed it softly behind her.

Chapter 28

Casey, Vince, and Miah were in the Churches’ den watching the noon KBCN broadcast later that day, Don’s death still dominating the headlines, no shock. Vince clicked off the TV as yet another uninformative report wrapped, tossing the remote to the next couch cushion and rubbing his face. The gesture said exactly what Casey was feeling. It’s another fucking murder mystery in Fortuity, then, is it? But of course now was a time to keep one’s frustration and anger to oneself. The tone of the room was Miah’s to set, after all.

The man was quiet, sitting in the rocker, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees, staring at the now-dark screen. His expression was stony. He looked ancient, with circles under his eyes and the drawn cheeks of a man who hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in days. But there was life in those eyes again, Casey thought. Determination or strength or at least anger, whereas last night there’d been nothing but blankness.

The floorboards overhead creaked now and then, the sounds of Abilene gathering up her and the baby’s things. She was going to move out. She’d told Casey the previous morning. Rightly, she wanted to give Miah and Christine the space to deal with the brewing investigation, as well as their grief.

She’d talked to Raina and Duncan and would be staying in the guest room of their apartment above the bar until she found her own place.

She was treating Casey kindly. Being friendly, even, though there was sadness weighing down the edges of their conversations. Regret. Maybe a little taste of the mourning now suffusing the farmhouse, though for the death of their romance as well as that of a good man.

Vince broke the heavy silence. “Beer?” he asked the room at large.

Miah shook his head, gaze on the floor.

Casey shook his, too. “I’m helping Abilene move any minute.” At least she’d agreed to let him help. She didn’t hate him—she just couldn’t love him. Last night she’d let him watch Mercy again while she went in for a short shift at Benji’s, and he hoped she’d keep relying on him. He cared about that baby, more than he’d ever have guessed he might, and to hear Abilene say she wasn’t comfortable with that anymore . . .

He sighed and stood.

“Grab me a bottle while you’re up,” Vince said. “Looks like I’m drinking for everybody.” And given that it was noon on a Thursday, he’d told his bosses at the quarry to go fuck themselves. Certainly not the first time.

Casey fetched him the beer, then headed up to check on Abilene’s progress. He knocked softly on the door.

“Come in.”

He found the room nearly stripped. The bed where they’d come together was bare to the mattress, the bedding rolled up in a tangle at its foot. “Wow, that was quick.”

She smiled and shrugged. “I never had much to begin with. Was that the news you guys were watching?” He’d filled her in on the previous morning’s events yesterday afternoon.

“Yeah. Bean died of shock in the back of the ambulance. From the drugs as much as anything, it sounds like. Not from Miah shooting him.” And it seemed the man had spilled enough to implicate himself before he’d gone under for good, if not to name any of his alleged bosses. “If anything, Miah’s going to wind up a folk hero,” Casey said. “People around here loved his dad, and they love justice.”

“I guess that’s something. That he won’t be in trouble, I mean.”

“It’s a lot. Last thing the ranch can handle right now is to lose two of its owners.”

Christ knew poor Christine was in no shape to handle it all on her own. Some of her family had arrived from out of state, at least—two sisters and one of their husbands. They were downstairs now, cooking and handling the endless incoming calls with stern efficiency. The phone seemed to ring ten times an hour, but never with any insight into who’d wanted Miah dead, or why.

Abilene didn’t ask Casey anything more about the news, and he didn’t blame her. Everyone had information overload, and that combined with the grieving was enough to fatigue anybody. It reminded him way too much of the aftermath that had followed Vince’s exposure of the now-late Sheriff Tremblay’s involvement in Alex’s death.

“Can I help with anything?” Casey asked.

“You could break down the crib,” Abilene offered. “If you can find the right screwdriver.” She paused, gaze catching on his left hand, its first fingers wrapped in a bandage. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing, just a little nick.” Just a nasty little flesh wound from a pair of wire cutters, from when he’d been furiously snipping his old cell phone’s SIM card into tiny slivers that morning. He’d lost himself in a frantic fit of anger, and his finger had paid the price. The rest of the phone had met its maker courtesy of a hammer, and he’d enjoyed every seething, righteous moment of it. He knew what that phone had been, with hindsight—an escape hatch. He’d hung on to Emily’s number, kept himself accessible in case he ever needed an out, an exit ramp straight back to easy street for when the going got tough around here. In the wake of Don’s death, he hated what that phone represented. He hated himself for having hung on to it for so long, and had felt better once those plastic shards had disappeared into their shallow grave . . . if only a little.

He held up his hand, pressing his finger and thumb together and pretending the pain didn’t scream like an unholy bitch. “It’s nothing, plus I’m right-handed. I can handle the crib.” Anything for you. Anything she needed, anything she asked for. As for himself, he’d never needed to collapse into somebody’s arms as badly as he did hers, right now. Except he couldn’t. And he knew better than to even wish it.

He wasn’t a fool. He wasn’t going to play the same part he had since the fall, Mr. Useful, Mr. Reliable, and expect that, given time, she’d get over his past. Because it hadn’t been completely in his past, just like she’d called it. He’d been considering that last job. He squeezed his hand into a fist, just to make his finger shriek.

He carried the bedclothes down and left them on the washing machine, found a couple screwdrivers in the Churches’ junk drawer.

“Success,” he told Abilene when he joined her back in the room.

She smiled politely, checking the caps on her toiletry bottles before tossing them in a suitcase. Something flashed at her throat.

The cross, he realized, taken aback.

“You’re wearing it,” he blurted.

She blushed and put her hand to the pendant, nodded.

“I wasn’t sure if you would.”

“I wasn’t, either. But these last few days . . . Let’s just say I’ve needed it, more than ever.” She pressed it to her skin with her fingertips, like a tiny prayer, maybe. “Thanks.”

He nodded and decided to let it rest at that. It was too dangerous to read anything into it. Dangerously hopeful.

The baby was in the crib, and she stared up at Casey with those wide blue eyes. Then she smiled at him. He smiled back, remembering the couple weeks before she could do that, back when he and Abilene had debated every little expression on her face. Happy or gassy? He straightened to look at Abilene.

“Okay if I take her out?”

She laughed, the sound like bells, cheering him some. “I didn’t expect you to take it apart with her still in there.”

“No, I just . . . I wasn’t sure if you wanted me doing that now. Touching her or whatever. I know when I’m babysitting, it’s different, I didn’t want to assume. Or seem too familiar, I guess.”