Page 6 of Evidence of a Folktale

“I love you too, little sis. Merry Christmas.”

“Why are your bags packed?”Reese asked as he entered the kitchen the following morning.

“Because I’m going home,” Bel answered from where she sat at the table with a pot of freshly brewed coffee, Cerberus lying at her feet to warm her toes. Briar’s words had lit a fire inside her, and she wouldn’t rest until she metaphorically slapped Eamon upside the head. She might physically slap him as well if the conversation called for it. He’d had his turn to voice his fears. It was her turn to speak.

“But it’s Christmas,” her father argued.

“And I belong with him today,” she said.

“Isobel.” Reese used her full name, which was never a good sign. “Did I fail you as a father? Did I not love you enough?”

“Of course you loved me.”

“Then why are you returning to an abuser? By hisownadmission, that man almost killed you. You’re forever marked by him, yet you want to go back so he can hurt you again.”

“Eamon isn’t an abuser, and he won’t hurt me.”

“Don’t make excuses for him. You’re better than that.”

“I know,” Bel said. “I deserve the world. You, Mom, and Briar taught me that.”

“So why reduce yourself to a man’s punching bag?” Her father’s shoulders sagged, the pain of what he suspected she’d endured eating him alive, and Bel ached for the people in her life. She wasn’t the only one who paid the price for hunting down the world’s monsters. Everyone she loved suffered alongside her.

“I’ve always known I wouldn’t love someone unless he loved me the way you cared for Mom,” she said, her voice softening. “For me, that’s Eamon.”

“Isobel—”

“Dad, please sit,” she interrupted because she couldn’t leave this house until her father understood, but every second she spent apart from Eamon was another second that the hole in her heart burned wider. “Because it’s true. Eamon left these scars on my neck, but you don’t know the whole story. The truth… you can’t judge until you learn it, but before I tell you, I need to ask you a question because what Ihave tosay will change everything.”

“What are you talking about?” Reese sank to the chair across from her.

“The truth was thrust upon me, and I can never unlearn it, but you have a choice I didn’t,” she said. “I don’t have to tell you everything. I can tell you just enough so you understand, but if I confess the entire truth,it’ll irrevocablyalter how you see the world.”

“Of course I want to know.”

“Don’t answer now,” Bel said. “Griffin knows some of what’s going on, and he’s made it very clear he wants to learn nothing more. I’ll give you the same option, andI need you tothink about how much you want me to divulge. I’ll tell you some because you need to understand Eamon isn’t the villain. He’s saved my life more times than I can count. He used his own body as a shield for mine when the bullets started flying. That man would die for me. He’s killed for me, and I’ve been dying to tell you the truth, but the extent of what I share is your decision. You deserve the choice I never got.”

“What do you mean, he’s killed for you?” Reese pinched his eyebrows at his daughter.

“Remember my first case in Bajka?” she asked. “The woman who built people into furniture? She was living next door and came after me in the woods.”

“I recall.”

“Eamon stopped her. Cerberus helped, though.” Bel reached below the table and scratched her pitbull’s head. “But it was mostly Eamon. She was… like him, and she wouldn’t stop coming for me. He killed her to save my life. He also killed the kidnapper in the Darling case. You visited me in the hospital. You saw how he beat me up. The official report says I fought Peter Pann off, and he broke his neck in a fall. That isn’t the truth.”

“Eamon broke it?”

“He did. I was on the ground, and I couldn’t move. I was going to die, but Eamon came for me. He always comes for me.” She paused, wondering if she should continue because her father looked seconds away from passing out. “You might think these deaths make him violent, but they don’t… not when you know the truth.” She decided to barrel onward. She’d started this. Her father deservedshefinish it.

“What did you mean‘like him’?” Reese asked, circling back to her earlier comment. “You said your neighbor was like him. Was the kidnapper in the Darling case the same?”

“In a way,” Bel answered. “You were at the morgue when Eamon figured out Blaubart hadn’t killed me with that staged car crash. Haven’t you wondered how he knew I was alive when myownfather confirmed I was dead on the table?”

“Yeah…” Her dad paused. “Griffin believed him immediately, and I worried they’d both lost their minds… You said the sheriff knows?”

“Some, yes.”

“I guess I assumed that…” He took a deep breath. “I assumed Eamon realized it wasn’t you because you two are intimate, and he noticed a discrepancy on your skin that I wouldn’t recognize.”

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