My eyes swing over to him. "Yoga?" I raise an eyebrow. "You don't really strike me as the namaste type."
"I hurt my back a few years ago, and it never fully healed. The doctor said yoga might help stretch it out and make my muscles stronger to reduce my pain," Ian shrugs.
Payton laughs softly. "But you're not wrong about your assessment of him. I think he lasted two classes."
"Just long enough to ask her out," Ian chuckles.
Payton leans into him, and Ian presses a kiss to her head.
"So, you really haven't been together that long," I say.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ian asks.
"It's an observation. That's all."
"We were on a trip when she died," Payton offers as if she's trying to gloss over the discomfort. "When the doctors told us there was nothing else they could do for Peter and he died, I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t know what to do. I just couldn’t be around here anymore.”
“Frankly, I was worried about what she was going to do to herself,” Ian adds. “She was completely distraught, and I knew I needed to get her out of the situation just as she needed some time to process through it. Not that it was going to make it better, or she was just going to be able to move past it. But I thought getting away for a few days would clear her mind and help her over the initial shock.”
“Where did you go?” Sam asks.
“A bed and breakfast in the country,” Payton says.
“It actually, um… turned into our honeymoon,” Ian says.
My mind goes blank. I couldn’t possibly have heard what I think I just did.
“Your what?” I ask.
“Our honeymoon,” Ian says again.
“You’re married?” Sam asks in disbelief.
“Yes,” Payton says, turning a teary-eyed smile toward Ian. “It wasn’t planned or anything. It just happened.”
“Why didn’t you tell us? This is a murder investigation. You need to not keep things from us,” I frown.
Payton looks at me strangely. “I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. We just decided with all the turmoil going on, we would just keep it between us for a while. We didn’t get married for anybody else. We got married because we wanted to.”
“That close to your son’s death?” I ask, a little more coldly than I mean to.
Her spine straightens, and she lifts her chin with indignance.
“I can't possibly expect someone with no children to understand, and I'll thank you not to judge my choice right to my face,” she huffs.
“I'm not judging you. I'm trying to figure out what would possess you to do something like that,” I say.
“Emma,” Sam whispers, trying to quiet me.
“It's alright,” Payton says. “I'm sure other people will ask. We might as well start explaining it now. I never thought I would be a mother. It's not something I ever wanted or envisioned for my future. But they say the universe has a way of working your life out for you and the way you're supposed to have it, not necessarily the way you think it should be. That's absolutely the case with Peter. And when he came along, I discovered a love I couldn't even describe. Just because I am not equipped to be a full-time mother and would rather him be raised by a wealthy, privileged father who adored him and would give him anything doesn't mean I didn't love my son. I thought about him every day. I looked forward to every visit. When he… when he…”
Now the tears are starting to come back in her eyes, and some part of me feels bad for doubting her. I stuff it down. We still don’t know who killed Peter, or Everly. For all I know, she’s still a suspect, and I can’t let myself get manipulated like this.
Ian offers her a tissue. She dabs her eyes and continues.
“When he died, it ripped a piece of me out. I've never experienced pain like that. And on top of the pain of losing my child, I had to deal with the guilt that he wasn't with me that night. I was out. I was just living my life. He was home with Everly. If I had been with him, he wouldn't be gone. Maybe if I spent more time with him or split custody or any of a thousand different things that went through my mind. I knew that day would, for the rest of my life, be excruciating. So, Ian offered an alternative. We got married in Peter's honor. That way, every year, the pain of losing him would be softened by celebrating our anniversary. He would want us to be happy. To celebrate life and the future to come. Not waste any day in sadness."
Chapter Thirty
I rest my elbows on the table in front of me and dig my fingers back through my hair. Exhaustion burns my eyes, but I'm not going to give in.
“I still say it doesn't make any sense,” I say as Sam comes back into the conference room with a bag of Chinese food.
"Which part of it?" he asks, handing me a container of pepper steak and a pair of chopsticks.
“Any of it,” I concede. “But especially them getting married. It's just really bothering me.”
“Payton strikes me as a pretty impulsive person. I know couples who got married after a matter of weeks. It's not really that fast,” he points out.
“It's not about it being fast,” I say. “It's about it being on the day her son died. Within hours of finding out her toddler was dead, she was prancing up to the altar? Who does something like that?”
“You don't buy her explanation?” he asks.
“About trying to cover up the pain of his death with her wedding anniversary? Absolutely not. No mother would do something like that. She would want to spend that day every year memorializing her child, not drinking champagne and toasting to another year together. It just isn't right.”
“I thought about you saying nobody knows how they're going to react to something until they go through it? Maybe this really is just her way of grieving,” Sam says.
“No,” I say. “I know what I said, and I believe that. But not about this. A mother that devastated about her child dying in mysterious circumstances doesn't just run off and get married. And that bullshit about him not wanting her to be sad and wanting her to celebrate life? Peter was three years old. She's giving him the responsibility and thought processes of an adult. No. There's something else going on. We just have to figure out what.”
I take a few bites of my food and realize Sam is staring at me. I look up at him with raised eyebrows.
“How did the investigation into Greg go?” he asks.
I sigh and shake my head. “I said we don't have to talk about that. That's not my investigation. I did my consulting, and it's done.”
“But it's not done, Emma. You know that, and so do I. I overreacted, and I'm sorry. I just remember another time when you told me the FBI was just what you had to do, and you left Sherwood.”
“I told you I was coming back this time,” I protest.
“I know. But you still left to go search for an ex-boyfriend who is also in the Bureau and knew you in this whole new version of your life. I know it's pathetic, but I felt insecure. And it made me angry.”
I reach out and run my hand down the side of his face.
“That's not pathetic. But it is way off base. I might have dated Greg during a time when you and I weren't in contact, and he might have been in the Bureau, but that doesn't mean anything. You still knew me well before he did and know me in a way he never did. And if I can take the liberty of stealing some of Bellamy's words, he was quite possibly the most boring FBI agent I ever knew. That doesn't mean I don't worry about him and wonder what happened.”
“And you should. That would be something wrong with you if you didn't,” he says.
“You don't need to be jealous. I promise,” I smile softly. “Greg and I are over. That’s ancient history.”