Neither did she. They sat like that for a long time in the quiet living room, holding on while outside the November cold pressed against the windows and the porch light next door burned steadily through the dark. And somewhere upstairs, Marcus' son slept the deep, uncomplicated sleep of a kid who had won a basketball game and eaten dinner with someone who had asked him real questions and listened to the real answers. And Marcus Reed, who had built his world on the principle of not wanting what he couldn't fix, sat in the warm interior of his own life and understood for the first time in a very long time that some things don't need fixing some things just need time and the willingness to let them be real. He held her hand.
She held his. Outside the light stayed on, but what it meant had changed. It was no longer a vigil. It was becoming something else entirely. Something that felt in the quiet November dark, very much like a beginning.
And then his phone rang. Not a text, a call. At 9:50 on a Saturday night, the number on the screen was one. Marcus hadn't seen in almost 2 years. Ryan Whitmore.
Marcus went very still. Clare saw his face change. What's wrong? He turned the phone so she could see the screen. The color left her face.
He answered it. What do you want, Ryan? Not a question, a statement. Silence on the line for two seconds. Then Ryan's voice controlled the same controlled compression Marcus had heard from the driveway that night.
I need to talk to Clare. She's here, Marcus said. And she doesn't want to talk to you. You don't know that. She's sitting next to me.
I can ask her. He looked at Clare. She shook her head once. Small and absolute. No, Marcus said into the phone.
Tell her Ryan stopped. Something shifted in his voice. The control slipped just a fraction. Tell her I found something in David's papers. Something she needs to know about.
Marcus looked at Clare. She was watching him with her jaw tight and her hands still in his gripping slightly harder than before. What did you find? Marcus said. That's between me and Claire.
Then you're going to wait until she decides she wants to hear it, Marcus said. And that's not tonight. This isn't something she should wait on, Ryan said. And now his voice had something different in it. Not aggression.