Page 14 of The Sweetest Obsession

That gentle hand falls away.

I turn too quickly, heart in my throat, and watch as he walks back to his patrol car. His broad shoulders sway with the rhythm of his steps.

It’s so strange to think that after all these years, Grant’s been here with my mother.

Not me.

But I’m the one who ran away, aren’t I?

Yet, I’m so close to breaking into wretched sobs right now—this time with relief because I know for sure that coroner’s van wasn’t taking Mom away.

“Then who?” I ask faintly. “The coroner’s van, I mean.”

Grant stops at his patrol car, one big hand on the driver’s side door, the other on the roof, glancing back at me.

“Maid up at the big house.” He looks past me to the looming sharp outline of the Arrendell house. “Suicide.”

“Oh, that’s terrible! I’m so sorry for her family.”

Again, Grant says nothing.

He just looks at me for a fraught moment—then ducks into his car.

The engine starts and the patrol car backs up before U-turning onto the road.

Just like that, he’s gone, following the van with the poor dead woman out of town.

Leaving me alone on the side of the road with bad phantom memories and a heart he shouldn’t be able to break again.

I turn to stare at the elegant house on the hill, hating its mystery, while the cold seeps in and numbs my bones.

3

ONE DAY AT A TIME (GRANT)

Fuck, I should’ve told her.

I slouch at my desk at the dilapidated little Redhaven PD precinct office, staring at the paperwork on the Cora Lafayette case. My pen taps restlessly against the half-filled report.

I just need to wrap up my notes. Once we get the coroner’s report, we can file this away. Should only take five minutes or so.

Instead, I can’t stop thinking about it.

I should’vetoldher.

I should’ve told Ophelia that her younger sister is engaged to Aleksander goddamned Arrendell.

I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I could hardly get a fucking word out at all, not after seeing her for the first time in—damn, how many years has it been?

Too many after she went tearing out of Redhaven the second she was college ready, heading to nursing school out of state and never looking back.

Ten years.

I remember a girl—slim and lithe and headstrong—with a dancer’s delicate build and a bulldog’s determination.

Butterfly.

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