She looked up at him then, her eyes brimming with tears. “You mean it, Liam? You’d give up...you’d have given up...biological kids for me?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I would’ve.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “And you know what? I still would.”
He waited until he saw relief and happiness in her eyes and lowered his lips to hers.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LIAM’S KISS FELT like soothing rain, washing away Yasmin’s anxieties and fears for the future, adding a hope that despite everything, they could be together. She wrapped her arms around him and let the warmth of his embrace carry her to a warm, joyous place. A place even better than where they’d gone before, because this was so hard earned.
When he deepened the kiss, though, something nagged at her, some unfinished business that she needed to deal with before she could truly relax into his arms. She twisted a little away and he immediately let her go, just keeping one hand on her arm.
His eyes on her were so warm. She wanted to treasure that. Because she knew, now, what she needed to tell him. “I...there’s something else.”
“What?” His voice was indulgent.
“The night of the...the murder.” She swallowed. “I was afraid to tell you, but Josiah was there.”
“What? Where?”
Her heart lurched. Best to get it all out at once. “Rocky, too,” she said. “They were...somewhere at the docks when it happened. I still don’t know what they saw, exactly.”
“You think they saw something?”
She nodded. “Yes, I do, because when they got to the center, they wanted to hide. Josiah did, anyway. Rocky was just kind of shell-shocked.”
“And did you ask them about it later?” The warm, intimate tone of voice was gone; he sounded overly patient, like he was speaking to someone with a very low level of intelligence. It wasn’t a voice she heard that often.
“I did try to ask them, but they wouldn’t say anything. And you know, Joe, because of his illness, he’s not always real clear on the distinction between what’s real and what’s delusion.”
He took a step back from her, his jaw clenched, his eyes cold. “You realize this is serious. You should have told the police. Ideally, me.”
She swallowed, nodded. “I was afraid—” She broke off.
He lifted an eyebrow.
Her phone buzzed, but she ignored it. “I was afraid that, you know, Josiah had had something to do with it. That his voices had told him to...but now I don’t think so. Now I know his voices are mostly good, so I don’t think...” She trailed off because he was shaking his head.
Her feeling of hope and optimism took a hit. It didn’t seem like he was going to be okay with all of this, after all.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I thought you respected me as a cop, at least.”
“I do, Liam!”
“You do,” he said, “but not enough to tell me important information about a murder that took place in our town? In the end, you’re still thinking I’m not worth it or good enough?” His voice rose at the end. “How am I supposed to keep this town together, help lift it up, if I don’t have all the information?”
If you don’t have control. Sadness filled her, because she understood his need for control given what he’d been through. “I’m so sorry, Liam. I should have told you, but I... Well, my first instinct was to protect Josiah.”
“Rather than do what was right?”
Clearly, he didn’t understand her reasoning. And maybe she’d been wrong in what she’d done.
Her phone buzzed again, with a text, and then his did, too. He pulled his out, so she did, too.
Miss Vi: Do you know where Josiah is? He was supposed to work tonight but he didn’t show up and he’s not answering his phone. And Rocky just came here looking for him.
Harsh ropes knotted around her stomach and her heart fluttered into a rapid pounding. It was hard to breathe. She looked at Liam. He was frowning at his phone, and then he punched a button and lifted his phone to his ear.
She did the same, made a call. “Miss Vi? What’s going on? Can I talk to Rocky?”
A moment later, Rocky’s voice came through the phone. “His stuff isn’t in the bathroom,” Rocky said. “And he’s not at the library. I think... I think he kind of ran away.”
She licked dry lips. “We’ll find him,” she promised the child, and herself, and ended the call.
Deliberately, she turned to look at Liam. He was frowning at her as he held up his phone. “I’m called in to work because Mulligan’s sick,” he said.
“That was Miss Vi,” she explained. “Rocky’s with her. And Rocky thinks...” She swallowed. “He thinks Josiah is gone.”
“Gone?”
“He was researching ways to disappear,” she said miserably. “I’m afraid he did it.”
“Were you ever going to tell me any of this? Come on.” He started walking double time toward town, and she half jogged to catch up with him. It was full-on night now, and the crashing waves no longer sounded rhythmic and peaceful. They sounded violent. A wind was blowing hard now, and clouds covered the moon.
How had Rocky gotten to the library this late at night? What was Miss Vi doing there after closing time? And where was Josiah?
Her certainty that her brother hadn’t committed a crime was wavering, now that he’d done such a guilty-seeming thing.
They reached the boardwalk faster than she’d have thought possible, grabbed their shoes, and by mutual, unspoken agreement, headed for the car. “I’ll drive you home. You get your car and go pick Rocky up, and I’ll get to the station,” he said. His voice was cold, but then he added, “I’ll see what I can find out about Josiah, and you keep me updated, as well.”
It was a far cry from the closeness they’d started to share, but it was the best she was likely to get.
Five minutes later, they were in front of her house. Liam turned the car off, but she put a hand on his arm. “You don’t need to walk me in,” she said. “I’m just going to grab an extra jacket for Rocky, and go get him.”
And anyway, it might break my heart to spend even one more minute with you being so cold.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded because she couldn’t speak, got out of the car, and slammed the door shut. Forced herself to march away, march up the sidewalk to her front door. She gave Liam a little wave to show she was safe. There was a short hesitation, and then he drove away, tires screeching just a little. An angry sound.
She was fumbling for her key, eyes blurry with tears, when a voice from her porch swing almost made her jump out of her skin. “Hey, Yasmin, need to talk to you.”
It was Buck.
* * *
AT THE STATION, Liam read Jenkins’s half-baked reports of the day’s activities, looked at Buddy’s notes and prepared to go out to complete Buck’s shift.
He needed to focus on his work, not on the fact that Yasmin hadn’t seen fit to tell him a huge number of things she’d known about the night of the murder. Not on the fact that she hadn’t trusted him to have sympathy for Josiah, to run a fair investigation, to find out the truth.
Of course, he wasn’t in charge of the investigation. Maybe she was right not to trust him. His own department, his own chief, hadn’t.
But those thoughts dissolved when he saw old Mr. Bennet walking down Main Street in his bathrobe. His daughter, Marcy, must be frantic. Liam called her and then drove Mr. Bennet home.
“You’re the best,” Marcy said, hugging him as the old man sat down in a rocker on the front porch as if it were noontime. “I’m so glad you know everyone in town and look out for the ones who are struggling.”
Where else did a police officer get hugged for doing his duty?
And he was good at his duty. He was a Safe Haven cop, and a successful one. Better at the range of d
uties encountered in this job than Mulligan was, or Jenkins, or even Buddy, who’d been at it for thirty years and was getting tired.
If he wasn’t good enough for the council to choose him as chief, if he wasn’t good enough for Yasmin to trust to be fair to her family... Those were the council’s issues, Yasmin’s issues.
But something about that analysis didn’t sit right.
Yes, the council had issues. And yes, Yasmin did, too. But what about him?
He’d been so quick to believe Yasmin had chosen Buck over him that he hadn’t probed into why she’d ended their relationship. And he’d been quick to believe that the council would choose Buck over him, to a point where he hadn’t even tried to talk to Ramirez about all the things Buck was doing wrong.
It was insecurity. His own insecurity, and he felt like way less of a man to admit it, except that admitting you had a problem was the first step toward solving it.
His heart still hurt for what could have been. And his mind reeled with what Yasmin had told him tonight, about Buck, and about the reasons for her breaking up with him. Against his will, sympathy started to build. She’d never had it easy, despite her family’s wealth. And now, with Josiah’s diagnosis...with being uncertain about what he might do under the influence of his delusions...and with him wandering off like this, she had to be totally stressed.
As he drove past the docks, he did his habitual visual sweep and hit the brakes. Someone was down there. He used his searchlight and realized it was a boy. And a dog.
He parked and got out. “Rocky! It’s way too late for you to be out. Didn’t Yasmin come and get you at the library?”
“We left. Didn’t see her.”
Rio trotted over and nudged Liam’s leg, but didn’t jump up. Rocky’s good training. “What are you doing here?” he asked Rocky.
“Me and Rio are looking for Josiah. He’s gone!”
Liam tilted his head to one side. “He’s probably around, right? He likes to walk.” He frowned at the boy. “More to the point, it’s after ten o’clock. Too late for you to be out. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
And going home would give him the chance to check on Yasmin, reassure himself that she was okay and probably find Josiah safe in his own bed by now, too.
As they drove the short distance to Yasmin’s place, Rocky talked on, a teenage mix of how hungry he was, what tricks Rio had mastered today and the fact that Josiah’s toothbrush and shaving cream were missing from the bathroom.
Liam’s concern boosted up a little at that last revelation. They pulled into the parking space in front of Yasmin’s cottage and he walked to the door with Rio and Rocky. They knocked, and then Rocky grabbed the key from under the doormat.
Just where anyone in the world could find it. Liam shook his head.
“Yasmin?” Rocky called. “Hey, Yasmin!”
No one answered.
Rio bounded in, checked his food bowl and ran through the house, tail wagging. Thirty seconds later he was back in front of Liam and Rocky, panting.
He hadn’t found Josiah, or Yasmin, either.
Liam scrolled through his phone to her name and tapped it, but his call went straight to voice mail.
Worry started at the base of Liam’s spine and worked its way up his back. Where would Yasmin be at this hour, if not here? Something was wrong.
“Look,” he said to Rocky, who was ripping open a bag of tortilla chips, “I’m on duty, but I think I’ll call Jenkins, see if he can come in and cover for me.” He kept his voice casual, not wanting to alarm the boy.
But Rocky turned in the middle of pouring salsa into a bowl, causing a big blob to drip onto the counter. “You never call off work. That’s what Yasmin said.”
“I am tonight.” He made the phone call and Jenkins was perfectly agreeable, excited even, about coming in to cover a night shift.
Liam pulled out a chair across from Rocky, who pushed the bowl of salsa and bag of chips his way. He took one, dipped it. “So who are Yasmin’s best friends? She’s probably with one of them. Claire, do you think?”
Rocky nodded. “Or Rita. She’s been spending a lot of time with Rita. In fact, I think she said Claire’s out of town.”
Great.
The last thing he wanted to do was go to his so-called mother’s apartment, but Yasmin didn’t answer her phone. So he put Rio in his crate in the back of his truck, and he and Rocky headed across town to Rita’s place.
Rita’s face broke into a huge smile when she saw Liam. Then, she glanced at Rocky and at Liam’s face, and her smile faded. “What’s up? Want to come in?”
Liam updated her on their search for Yasmin “and Josiah,” Rocky threw in, making Rita turn to Liam with a frown.
“Sit,” she told them, grabbing her phone. “You can bring the dog in, by the way.” She called Norma, then Claire, and on that call, relief crossed her face. She clicked off and came over, perching on the edge of an armchair across from the couch. “Claire thinks she’s at a party,” Rita explained. “She’s going to call her friend who’s hosting it and check. She said she’d call me right back.”
That didn’t sound like Yasmin, especially if she was worried about where Rocky had gone. And she hadn’t mentioned anything about a party when they’d been together earlier tonight. He hoped Claire was right, though, because he didn’t like to think of her out looking for Rocky and her brother alone.
Rita put on a late-night cartoon channel for Rocky and draped an afghan across his feet. She put down a bowl of water for Rio. Then she beckoned Liam into the little dining nook off the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator, held up a pitcher. “Iced tea? Beer?”
“Tea’s fine. Thanks.” Liam watched her deft movements in the kitchen and reviewed her calm way of handling Yasmin’s absence, her easy hospitality.
That’s my mother.
He let the words repeat across his mind, trying them on.
But hostility kept nudging at him. Yeah, your mom who didn’t take care of you, who abandoned you.
She plunked a glass on the table in front of him, pushed a sugar bowl his way. “I don’t sweeten it,” she said. “I’m from the North.” Then she bit her lip, and added, “at least, what I remember about myself is from the North.”
Liam took a sip and studied her. “I don’t like it sweet myself,” he said. “You really don’t remember this place?”
She shook her head. “Glimmerings, that’s all. Same with my life before we all came here, which means I’ve lost all of your baby years.”
But while Rita wasn’t finding her memories, Liam’s were all coming back to him. He remembered his mother, more and more. Remembered how she’d taken them fishing and made them study, how she’d had a ready laugh.
How that laugh had gone underground whenever their father was home.
“I really feel for Yasmin,” Rita said. “I hope she’s out having fun. She’s told me a little about what she’s been dealing with, while I was volunteering at the center. She’s been trying to stand by her brother and a child.” She nodded toward the front room where Rocky was. “She has an impossible situation.”
He nodded slowly. “She does,” he said. “I wish she’d shared some information with me, that’s all.”
Rita studied him shrewdly. “Could she do that, and be sure of being understood?”
The question hung in the air.
It was a question that hit home. The way a mother’s question would.
He’d been judgmental of Yasmin from the start, he realized. Judging her for being with Buck, when in truth, she’d done it to try to protect him. Judging her for not revealing that Joe and Rocky had been at the docks on the night of the murder, when, again, she’d been doing it to protect her brother and a child who needed to depend on her.
Nothing she’d done had been for selfish reasons. She was loving, protective, caring. An
d as soon as he found out where she was, he was going to her, party or no party. He was going to apologize for the condemning way he’d acted and see if he could get her to forgive him. After that...well, one step at a time.
Rita was looking steadily at him, a sympathetic smile on her face. “If you need to do some thinking, I can leave you alone.”
“I’ve judged you, too,” he said, blurting out the sudden realization. “I’m sorry.” He couldn’t call her mom, not yet, but when she reached a hand across the table, he took it and squeezed.
It was a start.
After that, they both went into the front room and watched the cartoon while Rocky dozed on the couch. It wasn’t long before Rita’s phone buzzed.
She listened, frowned and asked a question. Then she clicked off the call. “She’s not at the party,” she said to Liam, looking worried. “It’s awfully late. If she’s not there, where is she?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
YASMIN LOOKED OVER at Buck’s handsome profile, comfortable and confident driving his SUV, and then at the wooded bayou around them. So dark. So mysterious.
Was Josiah really out here? It wasn’t his kind of place.
And Buck wasn’t his kind of guy. “Why did he come out here with you?” she asked. “He’s not normally supersocial.”
“I picked him up hitchhiking,” Buck said. “Talked him into chilling out a couple days at my country place.” He smiled over at her. “I figured I’d better try to let you know. He’s not exactly competent on his own.”
The disrespect in Buck’s tone grated, but she was thankful he’d brought her brother here rather than leaving him to take his chances with anyone who might pick him up off the side of the road and take advantage of him.
They pulled up to Buck’s place, a fairly new, two-story white house with a porch overlooking a lake that faded into the bayou on the other side. She reached for her door—she really wanted to see Joe and she didn’t want to be in the car with Buck anymore—when he put a hand on her arm.
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