Ivan just gives a short shake of his head, eyes strangely dark. They’re usually a pale gray, like an iceberg floating in the middle of the ocean.
Right now they seem dark, like deep waters.
“Don’t leave,” I whisper. If he leaves now, I’ll have to find a way to leave too. I’d never see him again, and I can’t bear that thought. Not when I’m so raw.
“I have to go.” He presses his mouth to my forehead in a soundless kiss. “This letter proves that someone in Harmony Hills does know where you are. Which makes it a lot more likely that this—” He pauses, and my mind fills in the blank with what he’d say. Fuckhead. Religious nut job. “That this person is involved,” he finishes quietly.
“I’m coming with you.”
“Absolutely not. We’ve discussed this.”
“Ivan, I…I need to go. I wasn’t there f
or her when she was alive, and now she’s—” My voice breaks, and I force myself to go on. “This is the least I can do for her.”
His eyes turn to ice. “It won’t bring her back.”
My breath shudders in my chest. “I know that.”
It’s the only kind of closure I’ll be able to find. They would have already had the funeral, if the lawyer is just now sending me a letter. Funerals happen quickly at Harmony Hills. I have no idea how she managed to even see a lawyer and get that letter stowed away for me, but that won’t change anything. I won’t ever see her plain wood casket or her unmarked grave. All I’ll ever see is that house, without her in it.
It’s the only way I can believe that she’s gone. Why doesn’t he understand?
My voice is just a whisper. “I can’t be like you, cutting out the past because it hurts.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?” That mocking voice again.
I know it is. “Then why didn’t you ever go back to your grandmother’s house?”
“That was a different life,” he says, sounding more tired than anything. “Made for a little boy. Not a shell of a man. I’ll never go back there. I can’t.”
I stare at him, realizing he means it.
He picks up the letter and reads it again, his expression severe.
From here I can see something scribbled on the back, something I didn’t see before. I take the sheet from his hands gently and tilt it, reading aloud.
And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32.
Ivan’s eyebrows rise. “Even I’ve heard of that one.”
“Why is it on the back like this? It’s in her handwriting.”
Ivan just strokes my hair, content to let me fall apart in his arms. I push myself up so I’m sitting on my own. “I’m serious,” I tell him. “I need to go there and see for myself. That’s what she’s telling me. The truth will set me free.”
He looks dubious, and okay, I admit the logic is fuzzy. But the pieces are there. I can’t ignore them. Her writing that Bible verse, scribbled on the back—like an afterthought. But why did she have it? And how did she die? The letter from the lawyer didn’t say. She wouldn’t be the first person to go missing from Harmony Hills under mysterious circumstances. Of course I won’t find out the truth just from looking at an empty room, but I can’t ignore her. I can’t ignore her final plea.
I clasp Ivan’s hands in mine. “Please, take me with you. I need to go.”
He frowns. “Why do I get the impression that if I say no, you’ll find some other way to go.”
My head lowers, eyes closed. This is the closest I can come to prayer anymore. “I left her in that place, in that hell, for years. I thought she wanted to be there. I thought she chose to stay.”
I always thought she picked Leader Allen over me. After all, she could have gone with me. Or she could have made plans to meet up with me later. She hadn’t.
Leave, Candace. Leave and don’t ever look back.
Ivan’s voice is softer than before, his voice almost gentle. “She’s gone, Candace.”