The better part of an hour later, another knock sounded at his door. It was his mother, home from the shower and looking for Molly. As he’d searched and searched, he’d been so sure she was hiding to get him in trouble as payback for not letting her play that he’d been mad. But as the hours passed, the search widened, and his parents’ eyes filled with fear and panic, and he’d realized that Molly wasn’t playing a game.
Shane had found the necklace late that afternoon, and he’d had to turn it over to the police to test for fingerprints it didn’t have. They’d returned it to the family a few weeks later, and Shane had kept it on him ever since.
“Jesus,” Nick said.
Only then did Shane realize he’d recounted the story out loud. And that something wet had rolled down his cheeks. He scrubbed the errant moisture away and pinched his fingers against his eyelids, catching a bit more wetness against his fingertips. The last time he’d shed tears over Molly had been the night of what would’ve been her thirteenth birthday. Because it was the age he’d been when he’d lost her, when he’d sent her away, and she’d gone. Never to be heard from again.
“You were a kid, Shane. You didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. You didn’t cause it. You couldn’t have predicted it. It wasn’t your fault.”
Words he’d heard from a shrink. From his parents. They’d just never sank in. “But I—”
“No. The only one to blame was the sociopath who took her.” Nick scooted closer. “Look at me, man. If you had a son, and the same thing happened to him. What would you tell him?” Shane shook his head, and Nick pressed. “What would you tell him? Would you look that little boy in the eyes and blame him?”
“It’s different,” he said, voice strained, mind reeling.
“How?” Nick said.
“It just is.”
“Look that little boy in the eyes, Shane, and tell him who’s responsible.” With both hands on the sides of Shane’s face, Nick forced their gazes to meet. “Tell him,” he said, voice gentler.
“I don’t know,” Shane said, his breath coming in a shudder. “Not . . . him. Not him. Not him.”
“Not him,” Nick said, dropping his hands. “Not you.” He lowered his gaze to the floor, as if he knew Shane felt too exposed, too vulnerable, too embarrassed at the emotional display, at the weakness of his tears.
Shane gulped in a breath and turned his face toward the wall, where he made quick work of removing all traces of the wetness that had somehow appeared there again.
“And you weren’t responsible for the loss of those women last night, either. None of us was. But you know who was?” Nick gave him a sideways glance.
That one was a no-brainer. Shane nailed him with a cold, hard stare. “Church.”
Nick nodded. “Church.” He didn’t need to say anything more. Because Shane knew. If they were going to hurt Church and right the wrongs done against them and their dead teammates, he had to get off his ass and get out of his head. “Marz wants to confab as soon as we’re all up and moving,” Nick said, pushing off the bed.
Shane forced himself up, too. “Wait. I owe you some words,” he said, rubbing a hand over the winged-heart tattoo he’d gotten in Molly’s memory. This Shane could make right here and now, and he wasn’t waiting another second to get his best friend back once and for all.
Frowning, Nick shook his head. “I don’t—”
“The whole last year, I blamed you for falling off the radar. I blamed you for dropping out of my life when we got back in country. I saw your silence as just one more betrayal—”
“I know, and I’m so—”
“No. I was wrong, Nick. Because I was the one who failed you. I should’ve known the Nick Rixey I’d known all these years wouldn’t fall off the grid without a damn good reason. And instead of going the extra mile and finding out what was really going on, I made assumptions that weren’t true. You deserved better than that. You deserved me being a better friend to you than that.”
Nick rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “Okay.” His gaze cut to Shane’s. “Thanks.”
“We’re okay?” Shane asked, extending a hand.
“Yeah. More than.” He returned the shake, pressed his lips into a tight line, and narrowed his gaze. “We’re also kinda fucked up.”
Shane barked out a laugh and scrubbed his hands over his face. “We are all kinds of fucked up, bro.”
Nick moved toward the door and checked his watch. “Getcha ass moving. We have work to do.” He let himself out of the room without looking back.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Shane let his head hang forward. He felt drained, exhausted, and a little hollow. But his head was quiet, and his heart a little lighter.
Shit on a fucking brick, he hadn’t realized the weight of what he’d been carrying until he passed some of it to another to share. And not only that, but resolving this thing with Nick once and for all eased a whole other part of his soul.
And he knew something else that would help, too. Seeing Crystal. Telling her what he wanted. And making it clear it was her.
FRESH OUT OF the shower, Shane was lured to the kitchen by the warm, buttery scent of pancakes. Nick, Beckett, and Easy sat along the breakfast bar, talking over coffee as Becca plated up the hotcakes.
“Morning,” he said from the edge of the room.
“Hey, Shane,” Becca said, smiling. “Hungry?”
“Thanks,” he said. “But I think I’ll just start with some coffee.” He fixed himself a cup and stood at the side of the bar.
“How are you?” Beckett said in a low voice.
Shane’s gut tensed, but no sense avoiding the obvious, that being the fact he’d come close to going off the rez last night. “My head’s on straight again,” he said. “I’m sorry about last night.”
Beckett shook his head and stared into his black coffee. “I appreciate the apology, Shane, but don’t think for a minute it’s necessary. That scene last night was brutal for me to watch, too. And, straight up, I don’t have a missing sister or a girlfriend stuck working for a known trafficker. If I did, I don’t think I’d have held it together as well as you.”
Shane swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. “Thanks,” he managed.
Beckett’s cell rang, breaking up the seriousness of the moment. Thankfully.
“Fucking Marz,” Beckett said with amusement in his voice. He put the phone on speaker and answered. “Are you seriously calling me from across the hall?”
“I seriously am, motherfucker. What the hell are you people doing?”
“Becca made pancakes,” he said, offering a rare grin to the group.
“Becca . . . what?” Marz hung up.
“Five-dollar bets on how fast he’ll get over here,” Beckett said, setting the stop watch on his phone. “I say twenty-five seconds.”
“Forty seconds,” Shane said.
“Thirty,” said Easy.
Nick chuckled. “A minute.”
When the door opened, the whole lot of them erupted in laughter before Marz stepped all the way through.
Beckett held up his iPhone. “Thirty-eight seconds,” he said, grinning. “Damn.”
“Aw, I’m closest. Pony up, suckers,” Shane said, collecting a stack of fives from all the men.
“You sonofabitches bet on me?” Shaking his head, Marz made for the only open chair at the breakfast bar.
Beckett nodded. “On how long it would take you to haul ass over here at the mention of food.”
As Marz hefted himself up onto the tall stool, Becca settled a plate of hot, steaming pancakes in front of him. “Thank you, Becca. You’re a sweetheart.” He winked.