She slid her bag around to her front and opened its flap, pulling out a thick, quart-sized black plastic bag. “The forensics team has released some items from the arson investigation. Your dad’s things, we guessed. I wanted to give them to you. If you’d like them, that is.”
He stared at the bag, heart twisting, and he felt tears rising, contorting his face. “What sorts of things?”
“A pocketknife, and a belt buckle, and a watch.”
His breath was gone, sucked from his chest. His legs felt funny and apt to give, and he sank awkwardly onto the bench. The deputy did the same, looking concerned.
He reached for the bag with a shaking hand, and the weight of it struck like a battering ram, knocking him hard in the heart, doubling him over. He felt a kind hand on his back, between his shoulder blades. It scrunched his shirt softly a few times, then rubbed.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” the deputy said. She sounded like she meant it, too, not like she was simply reading from the script.
Miah looked up enough to meet her eyes and give her permission to take her hand back. She scooted an inch or two farther down the bench, linking her fingers between her knees.
“I asked to come, to bring you his things,” she said. “I lost my dad, too. He was a cop, back in Chicago.”
“When?” Miah asked. “When did you lose him, I mean?” He was breathing quick, feeling like so much hinged on her answer.
“I was twenty-five, so almost six years ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. You’re a long way from Chicago,” he added.
“Sometimes people need a change of scenery,” she said with a smile.
“Your dad . . . Was he . . .” He trailed off, but she read his mind.
She nodded. “He was shot.”
“How do . . . Does it ever stop feeling like this?” he asked, voice breaking. “How did you ever even manage to keep going, after?”
“I had to,” she said. “For my son.”
“Oh.”
Her gaze was soft, her eyes dark brown and looking infinitely patient. A small comfort. “You must have people who still need you, Miah. Your mother?”
He nodded, a little bit of the steel returning to his spine. “My mother.”
“Nobody’s saying you need to be strong right now,” she told him, and for some reason those words cut straight down to the bone. He started crying—loud and ugly and out of control—hugging his own arms, hurting like his heart was about to rip in two.
The deputy put her hand on his knee, squeezing. “You don’t have to be strong,” she repeated. “You just have to be. Just have to get up every morning, be with your mom, and take turns with her day to day, being the one with their shit together, you know?”
He didn’t know, not yet. But it seemed he’d find out soon.
“It will stop feeling like this,” she told him. “It won’t ever stop hurting, but it won’t always feel like this. You’ll always have the memory. A scar. But the wound will heal.”
He looked to the bag, which had fallen to the floor between his feet. He picked it up, held it out. “I’m not ready for this.”
She accepted it. “Tell me where I can leave it, for when you decide you are ready.”
He thought about it. “In the kitchen, just around the corner. On top of the hutch.”
She disappeared for a few moments, then returned and took her seat once more. “Now, is there anything I can do? For you or your mother?”
He shook his head. “No, we’ll be okay.”
Another gentle smile. “It’s okay if you’re not, for a little while.”
Tears stung anew, but he wiped them away with the back of his hand.
“I’ll give you my card,” she said, reaching into her breast pocket. “In case you think of anything.”
He took it. “Thanks.”
“I can see myself out,” she said, poised to stand.
“Wait.”
She met his eyes, settled back down with her hands clasped patiently on her thighs.
“Did you know Alex?” he asked her. “Alex Dunn?”
She shook her head. “That was before my time. I was transferred shortly after he passed.”
Something cold dropped into Miah’s stomach. “Oh. Were you his replacement?”
“It’s not that simple. A lot of people got shifted around after your sheriff was arrested. But I suppose I was, in a way. You knew him?” she asked. “Alex?”
“Since we were kids.”
“His colleagues have only good things to say about him,” she offered.
Miah nodded. For all Alex’s flaws, he’d been an excellent deputy. He looked down, feeling exhausted and strange and a little high. “What the fuck’s happening to this town?” he asked the hallway at large.
“Change,” the deputy—Nicki—said.
“Not for the better,” he muttered.
She didn’t reply. Miah glanced up, finding a sad smile on her face.
“Thanks,” he said, and tried to let the bitterness go.
“My job,” she said, standing. Miah did the same. “You take care of yourself. And your mother. She’ll try to do all the healing for the both of you. But you step in and take over when you’re up to it, okay? Us mamas, sometimes we need our sons to fill their father’s shoes. But only when you’re up for it.”
He nodded, though filling his father’s shoes . . . He doubted he could ever fit in them. His dad’s steps had felt as long and wide as canyons since he’d been a tiny kid. Looking like the man didn’t make Miah his equal. “How old is your son?” he asked the deputy.
“Nine.”
“He ever have to be the man of the house?”
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 . . .