“What happened doesn’t erase who you are. You’ve got years of experience and instinct and skills to protect you. But if you thought you might lose it, why didn’t you tell me?”
“This is why. Because of what you’re thinking right now. Because of that look on your face. I don’t know how to trust anyone anymore. Not them, and not you.”
I broke eye contact, but he caught my chin and lifted my face level with his. “You may not trust me, but I trust you,” Tim said. “I didn’t know any of this, and yeah, it’s alarming. But we’ve been working together for months. You’re a good person, and a good investigator. But you have to trust yourself. Why do you think those psych screenings exist? There are thousands of officers who’ve been through traumatic situations. They get the help they need, and they move on. You can, too.”
“My situation is different.”
His expression was indecipherable. “Who told you that?”
“It just is. I was taken. Locked in a room for a week and—”
“The therapy you got after it happened,” Tim said, interrupting me. He was still looking at me, but his gaze was unfocused. “It was from Carson, wasn’t it?”
“He was doing his job. I stopped seeing him professionally before we started dating.” I couldn’t keep the defensiveness out of my voice. I wore what Carson told me after we met like a brand on my skin, how Bram went from enemy to ally in my mind because without his help my basic needs wouldn’t be met. Carson said that’s why I couldn’t see him for the criminal he was. There was more to it than that, but I couldn’t deny he was right. “Carson helped me figure things out. It was his idea to move up here. Get away from the bad memories.”
“Was it his idea for you to go back to work?”
I hesitated. “He knew I would eventually.”
“Did he? Does he support what you’re doing, Shana? Or is he still telling you you’re unbalanced so you’ll be the dutiful wife he always wanted? That’s why you didn’t tell me,” Tim said. “Carson has you so convinced you’re crazy you couldn’t even tell your closest colleague about the most significant event of your life.”
Closest colleague. Tim wasn’t wrong about that, but even though his words were sparse and sounded bureaucratic I found them strangely touching. I could see the struggle in his deep-set eyes. He took my injured hand in his and moved his callused thumb along the edges of my burn. “I can’t understand what you’ve been through, and because I respect you, I won’t pretend I do. But whatever happened, whatever’s happening now, we’ll figure it out together.”
It was so completely different from how I’d imagined the conversation would go that when it was done, shock glued my feet to the floor. Tim’s hand was warm and dry and covered mine completely in a way that left me feeling protected. Safe.
I won’t deny my devotion to Carson was tied to the fact that he’d freed me. I came out of that basement feeling shame more profound than I’d ever thought possible, and Carson rationalized my depraved behavior. If it hadn’t been for him in those early days after my release, God only knows where I’d be.
Something unexpected happened during my time with him, though. Despite his insistence that I was still broken, I began to heal. I was a long way from being whole, but I wasn’t adrift anymore—at least not all the time, the way I used to be. There were consequences to Carson’s warnings I don’t think he anticipated. He hadn’t known the me who lived before the day I disappeared. To him I was a victim to the core. But I didn’t want to be a victim anymore. It took until that moment with Tim for me to understand why I’d been delaying the wedding and biting Carson’s head off every time he reminded me I was too fragile, too shaky, too weak.
Tim was proof that McIntyre’s faith in me wasn’t a fluke. Here he was, offering the same kind of support that made the sheriff and me grow so close so fast. I was sure I’d squandered my chances of ever having mutual trust with another officer again, but Tim made me feel separation from my trauma was possible. That maybe even the most terrifying of my evocations could be overcome.
I hadn’t forgotten about Jasper and Abella, but for a second I felt a lightness in my chest I hadn’t experienced in a long time. McIntyre was right. I needed to come clean—and clean was what I felt. It was a temporary fix, but it felt so good I allowed myself to enjoy it, if only for a little while.
Neither of us spoke for a long time. Eventually Tim let go of my hand.
“I’ll call McIntyre,” I said quickly. “I know you’re right about the storm, but things are different now. This is an active murder investigation. There has to be a way.” I checked my watch. “At six on a Saturday night she’s usually walking her dog or eating fried perch at the Thousand Islands Inn.” I’d joined her for both of those activities on multiple occasions, and on one especially nice night in early fall we’d combined them, taking her Maltipoo to the Clayton restaurant with us for takeout and eating while watching tankers glide through the channel. “With this rain, though,” I added, “who knows.”
“Perch.” Tim stuck out his tongue. “Don’t know if I could do it after being in that boathouse.”
I inclined my head, thinking about what he’d said. As Tim walked away I mumbled, “We’ll never think of fish the same way again.”
I didn’t want to call McIntyre from the hall. The last time I stormed out of the house, a woman wound up dead, and even with Tim watching over the others now, that course of action didn’t feel safe. Camilla was asleep in the library. As far as main-floor rooms out of earshot of the parlor went, there was the sun-room, Norton’s bedroom, and the kitchen. The kitchen was closest, and it smelled of roasting chicken. I pulled out my phone and dialed McIntyre’s office as I followed the mouthwatering scent. With the weather such as it was, I guessed she was still managing storm-incited mayhem.
“Sorry I haven’t been in touch,” I said when she answered. “We’ve got a situation out here.”
Explaining Abella was dead, Flynn was injured, and we were trapped on the island took surprisingly little time. I suppose that’s because I heeded Tim’s advice and gave the details of the shooting a wide berth.
“Christ on a bike, in all my years,” said Mac. “Think you can keep them under control?”
“We don’t have a choice,” I said. Then I asked her to check into one more lead. I could tell she found my request puzzling, but she agreed all the same.
“I’m not going to give up on that boat,” she told me. “In the meantime, I’ve got something new that might prove useful.”
Like Tim, McIntyre was a local with deep Thousand Islands roots. She’d asked around and discovered someone else had been doing the same. Two months ago, the real estate office in Alexandria Bay received several calls from a man inquiring about selling an island. He wanted to know what a three-acre private estate and immaculate vintage six-bedroom house would fetch. The property the man described matched Tern to a T.