Chapter 15: Surprise Visitor
The sound of the sea was a constant, gentle roar tonight, a white noise that usually soothed but now felt like the echo of her own restless thoughts. Teresa sat at her cluttered desk, a student’s essay on Twain open but unread. The words blurred. All she could see was the evidence photo on Callum’s laptop—those dark, dense woods—and feel the ghost of his arms around her, a solid reality that made her own cottage feel too large, too empty.
She’d been staring at the same paragraph for twenty minutes when a firm knock rattled her front door.
Not the tentative tap of a neighbor. A detective’s knock.
Her heart did a stupid, hopeful little stutter. She stood, smoothing her hands over her jeans and a worn-out UCLA sweatshirt, and pulled the door open.
Callum stood on her weathered porch, silhouetted against the deep indigo twilight. He held a large paper bag in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other. He looked different here, on her turf. Less like a piece of the station furniture, more like a person. The salt wind off the cliff tugged at his already-mussed hair.
“Hey,” he said. A faint, awkward smile touched his lips. “I was in the neighborhood. Figuring you hadn’t eaten.”
“The neighborhood being a solid twenty minutes from your place,” she said, raising an eyebrow, but she was already stepping back to let him in. The smell of garlic and herbs wafted from the bag, making her stomach clench with sudden, realized hunger.
“Traffic was light.” He moved past her, his shoulder briefly brushing hers. He took in the room—the overstuffed bookshelves, the nautical charts framed on the walls, the quilt draped over the couch. His gaze lingered on her desk, on the scattered papers that were only half about Twain. “You grading or investigating?”
“A little of both. Mostly avoiding.” She closed the door, sealing them in with the sound of the waves. “What’s in the bag?”
“Linguini from Mario’s. The good place, not the one by the precinct that gives you heartburn.” He set the bag on her small kitchen table and held up the bottle. “And this. It’s probably terrible. The guy at the store said ‘red’ with confidence, so that’s the extent of my expertise.”
A laugh bubbled out of her, genuine and light. “That’s the most honest wine review I’ve ever heard. Plates are in the cupboard above the sink.”
They moved around each other in the small kitchen with a tentative, domestic ease. She got plates and forks. He unpacked steaming cardboard containers. The air filled with the rich scent of marinara and garlic bread. He uncorked the wine with a satisfying pop and poured two generous glasses into her mismatched tumblers.
They sat at the table, the ocean a vast, murmuring presence beyond the windows.
“How was the DA?” she asked, twirling pasta onto her fork.
Callum sighed, a weary sound. “Like talking to a very smart brick wall. Thorne’s lawyered up, obviously. They’re pushing the narrative that he was just a misguided enthusiast, that his ‘collection’ of Cassadee was born of obsession, not predatory intent. That the worst of what happened was... incidental.”
The linguini suddenly tasted like ash. “Incidental.”
“Their word. Not mine. Never mine.” His green eyes were hard, the professional detachment gone, replaced by a cold fury. “We have the physical evidence from the boathouse. We have Cassadee’s testimony, fractured as it is. But it’s going to be a fight. They’ll try to pick her apart on the stand.”
Teresa put her fork down. The comforting fantasy of a normal evening evaporated. “She’s stronger than they think.”
“I know she is.” He reached across the table, his fingers brushing the back of her hand. The contact was electric, a jolt that grounded her. “But I wanted you to hear it from me. Not from some court summons or a rumor.”
She turned her hand over, letting their fingers lace. It was becoming a habit, this wordless anchoring. “Thank you.”
They ate for a few minutes in silence, the weight of the future settling between them. Then, deliberately, he lightened his tone. “So, Twain. Huck Finn still causing trouble?”
“Always. This one kid wrote that the river symbolized Huck’s desire for a bath.” She grinned, watching a real smile break across his face. “I wrote ‘literally and metaphorically?’ in the margin. I might be a terrible teacher.”
“You’re the least terrible person I know,” he said, his voice low. The simplicity of the statement disarmed her.
After dinner, they migrated to the couch with the wine. She curled up at one end, pulling the quilt over her legs. He sat at the other, a careful, respectful distance that felt both safe and agonizing. They talked about nothing. The awful town council plan to put up more parking meters. The new coffee shop that burned every bean they touched. The strange, melancholy song the wind sometimes made through the cliffside pines.
The wine, as predicted, was not good. But it was easy to drink.
“I keep thinking about your couch,” she said later, the wine making her tongue loose. “It’s more comfortable than it looks.”
“It’s a decade-old hand-me-down from my dad. It’s a miracle of springs and duct tape.” He swirled the dark liquid in his glass. “You’re welcome to its mysteries anytime. You know that.”
She looked at him, really looked. The lamplight caught the gold in his stubble, the earnest tension in his shoulders. The man who brought bad wine and good pasta because he knew she’d be alone with her thoughts.
“Stay,” she said. The word was out before she could weigh it, before she could cloak it in a joke or a qualifier.
He stilled. “Teresa.”
“Not like that. Well, not… only like that.” She took a breath, her courage feeling wild and new. “The sea is so loud tonight. It’s just… really loud. And I don’t want to be alone with it.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, a silent conversation passing between them. He saw the shadow of the dock in her eyes, the echo of the gunshot she’d fired to save a life. She saw the weight of every victim he couldn’t protect, the ghost of his sister’s boyfriend’s older sister that had led him to her door in the first place.
He put his glass down on the coffee table. “Okay.”
He stood first, offering her his hand. She took it, let him pull her up. They didn’t turn off the lights. They walked down the short hall to her bedroom, a space filled with soft blues and whites, the relentless sound of the ocean clearer here.
Without discussion, they fell into the same rhythm as the night before. She slipped under the covers in her sweatshirt and socks. He toed off his shoes, removed his holster and phone, placing them carefully on her dresser with a soft, heavy clunk. He lay down on top of the duvet, on his side, facing her.
But this time, when she shifted onto her side to face him, the space between them vanished. Their knees touched. Her hand found its way to his chest, over his heart. His arm came around her, his hand splaying across her back, drawing her in until her forehead rested against his collarbone.
“This is better than the couch,” he murmured into her hair.
“My bed appreciates the compliment.”
He laughed, a quiet, warm puff of air. They lay like that, fully clothed, breathing together. The terrifying intimacy wasn’t terrifying anymore. It was an answer. The sea’s roar became a backdrop, no longer a void.
She was nearly asleep, lulled by the steady beat of his heart under her palm, when he spoke again, his voice thick and drowsy.
“We’ll go see Cassadee together tomorrow. If you want.”
She pressed closer, her nose against the soft cotton of his shirt. “I want.”
His hand stroked slowly up and down her spine. It was a promise, a plan, a thread forward. And for the first time since the world had fractured, the path ahead, though difficult, didn’t look like something she had to walk alone.