Page 16 of To the Grave

I laughed. “No worries. Thanks for the coffee. I’ll pay my tab next time I come in when it’s not so busy.”

Fridays and Mondays were always the worst during peak tourist season. City people took extra days off to pack their social media profiles with pictures from a long weekend of apple- and pumpkin-picking, microbrewery tastings, and bonfires.

“I’m not worried about it.” Cassie narrowed her eyes like she was noticing something new. “You look good. Catch up soon?”

“Yes please.”

She smiled. “I’ll text you to make plans.”

She hurried back to the counter where Drew and Kaylee were busy serving customers and I grabbed a window seat. I didn’t entirely trust Wolf and Otis not to renege on our agreement to stay in the car, especially if they couldn’t see me.

I thought about Blake’s phone while my coffee cooled. I’d only had the phone back for a day, but so far I hadn’t found anything new. I kept thinking I could unlock his secrets with our shared history — like I had when I’d figured out the password to his phone was connected to our childhood dog — but so far I’d come up empty.

I took my first sip of the hot, creamy latte, then looked up as the bell on the door rang and Ruth stepped into the coffee shop. I hadn’t seen her since Jace’s death, and she looked even more beautiful and grown up than she had when I’d taken her to the ground-breaking ceremony for the resort.

I’d called her on her birthday the month before to see if I could treat her to a spa day. She’d said she’d get back to me and never had. I’d been too far gone to hound her about it, but honestly, I was a little hurt that I hadn’t heard from her after Jace’s death.

It wasn’t like it was a secret. The local news had been filled with breathless coverage about the fact that one of the Blackwell Beasts had died in the fire at the Blades compound. But Ruth obviously didn’t care and the whole thing had been too confusing to deal with when I’d been in the worst of my depression.

Could I blame Ruth for not caring that one of Blake’s murderers had died? She couldn’t know how much Jace had meant to me, and even if she did, that didn’t mean she had to care about him too. I’d told her about Blake’s involvement withthe kidnapped girls, but I’d also told her my dad was involved and I’d been wrong about that, so my credibility wasn’t stellar.

“Hey,” she said, dropping her bag. “Let me grab something.”

I watched her as she stood in line, then ordered her coffee. She seemed a little taller than the last time I’d seen her and she’d filled out even more, making her look less like a sixteen-year-old high school kid and more like a twenty-something college student.

Worry nagged at my stomach. Between the time I’d caught her in bed with one of the Blades and her expert flirting with Gray at the ground-breaking ceremony, I wasn’t at all sure Ruth knew her limits.

Or that she even had limits.

My argument with Gray in the kitchen at Cantwell reared its ugly head, the mean shine in his eyes when he’d talked about Ruth.

I had no intention of ever putting that psychopath in the same vicinity of my sister ever again, but I wasn’t dumb enough to think he was the only threat to Ruth’s safety. The world was full of danger for women and girls, and Gray Cantwell was proof that danger was sometimes closer than you thought.

Ruth hadn’t learned that lesson yet. She thought she had the world figured out, but she was just sixteen, still giddy with the freedom of being able to drive, especially since our dad had given her a brand-new white Audi for her birthday, something I only knew because Ruth had plastered it all over her socials.

“God, it’s always so busy in here this time of year,” she complained, sitting down with an expert flip of her glossy brown hair. She turned her phone upside down on the table.

I took a sip of my latte. “It won’t calm down until Thanksgiving.”

“Speaking of Thanksgiving,” Ruth said, “are you coming home?”

“For Thanksgiving? I don’t know.” I hadn’t even thought about the holidays. Like, at all. I’d lost all sense of time since Jace’s death, was still trying to orient myself in the here and now.

Ruth frowned. “Youhaveto come home for Thanksgiving. You can’t stay away forever.”

“I’m not going to stay away forever,” I said. “Don’t be dramatic.”

She pouted. “I’m not. I’ve hardly seen you since you moved out.”

I drew in a breath. “I know. It’s just been… a lot.”

She chewed her bottom lip. “I’m not going to say I’m sorry he’s dead.” Her words stung like a slap to the face. “But I am sorry you’re… I don’t know, sad?”

The breezy description of the hole in my heart was such an understatement it almost took my breath away. “Yes Ruth, I’m sad.”

I couldn’t hide the bite in my own voice. I’d tried to be understanding about Ruth’s feelings about the Beasts. Why couldn’t she do the same for me?

Not that I’d ever told her I was in love with them, but she knew I liked them. Knew I’d defended them.

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