Best Kept Secret (Rochester Trilogy 3)

“You did,” she says softly. “You did come back here.”

“Not soon enough.”

She doesn’t ask me what I was late for, and I don’t know. All I know is that every moment away from Jane Mendoza is a knife through the ribs. I’ll bleed out from loving her, and I’ll deserve it.

Jane puts a hand on the back of my neck and holds tight. “What are we going to do?” she asks.

What the hell are we going to do? I know it’s the right thing for Paige to go back with her mother. I know it. Emily was reasonable today. She’s done plenty of unreasonable things in the name of staying alive. I’m doing an unreasonable thing right now. But if Paige goes back to her, it will tear a hole in my life. It hurts to imagine it. The little flashes of the life I’d have. No Paige doing her homework at the kitchen table. No Paige running on the beach. No Jane, beaming at her paintings, at the rocks she likes to collect, at her ruthlessness at Monopoly. Who will Jane have to smile at if Paige isn’t here?

No one smiles at me forever. Eventually, I fuck it up beyond repair. I cause too much pain. How long would it take to do the same to Jane? I’ve already done damage. I can feel it in her body against mine. She’s guarded in a way she wasn’t before.

“We’ll figure it out in the morning.” There’s nothing to be done about any of this tonight. The problems Emily is facing—that we’re all facing—can only be solved in the light of day, with the help of other people, if they’re willing to give it. Only one problem can be solved tonight.

Damn me. I want her. More of her. Always more of her. Jane doesn’t stop me. She parts her thighs for me and pulls me close. The ocean beats at the shore. Jane doesn’t say anything. I don’t know if she believes me. She’s afraid I’ll send her away.

She should be afraid I’ll keep her here.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Beau Rochester

The district attorney’s office shares space with the county courthouse off the town square. I’m at the building, with its red brick and its bell tower, before the janitor finishes unlocking the front door. I drove out to the A-frame as soon as the sun was up and found Emily already awake. Don’t know how she couldn’t be. The uninsulated A-frame lets in all the sound from the surrounding forest and the birds make a racket. This time, I didn’t go in. We talked on the threshold, Emily’s voice still rough from sleep or a lack of it.

Nobody will be able to rest until this is solved.

I follow the engraved brass signs and stand beside one of the chairs by the DA’s office. The click of high heels on the tile arrives a moment later.

Lauren Michaels comes into view.

She’s all grown up now in a skirt suit and jacket. The memories I have of Lauren from high school mainly involve her cheerleading uniform. I was a shallow high school boy. Now I’m a man with a family to protect. She holds a stack of folders tucked into one arm and a travel coffee mug in the other. I step forward as she approaches. My knee protests this. Turns out falling down a cliff tends to linger.

“Rochester,” she says. “You’re here early.”

“You need help with that?” She’s balancing her coffee mug on top of the folders and reaching into her purse.

“No,” she says, and from her tone I know she’s used to this kind of refusal. I catch her sidelong glance at me as she turns the key in the lock. “Thank you,” Lauren adds, and then we’re stepping inside as she flips on the lights. Lauren’s office is off to one side. “Have a seat,” she says as she distributes her things neatly on the surface of the desk. “We can get started, if you’d like.”

“Thanks for meeting with me.”

She arches an eyebrow, takes her seat, and reaches for her coffee. “I got your message on the way in. It sounded urgent.”

“Yes.” It is urgent. It’s all of our lives on the line. Not the act of living itself, but the shape and form. I want to know whether mine looks like an overfished bay or whether the water teems with silver flashes. All my money and influence will be a cold comfort if I’m left with nothing. I don’t deserve much more than that, but for a very limited amount of time, I still have it. “The topic is…delicate.”

Lauren checks to make sure the door is closed. It is. “If you’re here about the Coach House investigation, I don’t have much insight into—”

“It’s not about that. It’s about Emily Rochester.”

An emotion I can’t name flashes through her eyes. Lauren’s next sip of coffee is studiously deliberate, though her cheeks have gone pink. “I was sorry to hear about her passing.”