The Truth of Yesterday

Book 4 of the Killian Kendall Mysteries

By Josh Aterovis
Copyright 2026

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Chapter 32

We said very little on the drive home from DC. Since Micah had suffered a slight concussion, I was driving. Tad sat in the back seat, silently staring out the window. I kept an eye on him in the rearview mirror just to make sure he was okay. He dozed off after we'd crossed the bridge back to the Shore.

"He's awfully quiet," I said softly.

Micah twisted stiffly around to check on the dozing boy, who looked even younger asleep than he did awake.

"He's been through such a lot."

"I hate that it has to be like this," I said, emotion thickening my voice.

Micah glanced over at me. "It's hitting close to home, huh?"

I nodded. I tried to speak, but my throat was suddenly too tight to force the words through. I swallowed a few times and tried again.

"It could have been me. If Adam hadn't been there for me, I could have been on the streets like that."

Micah reached over and squeezed my leg. "But it wasn't you."

We rode on a bit longer in silence, Micah's hand resting on my leg. Then he spoke up again. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Kill?"

"What do you mean? Is what a good idea?"

"Taking Tad home like this."

I frowned. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"You haven't mentioned it to Adam and Steve yet."

"There wasn't time. Besides, I'm sure they'll be fine with it."

"I think that's assuming a lot, don't you? I mean, you show up with a kid and just expect them to take him in. They don't even know him."

"Adam took me in."

"That was different. He knew you. You were friends with his son. And they have a lot going on right now with the B&B and trying to work out their living situation. Besides, Kane graduates next year. Maybe they won't want to be tied down after that with another kid."

"So what was I supposed to do? Just leave him there to get taken back to his father so he could be abused some more? Or maybe let them throw him into the foster-care system? How long do you think he'd last in either one of those situations? You know he'd run away again and end up right back on the street."

"I'm only saying that maybe you shouldn't expect Adam and Steve to be overly thrilled about this."

The silence between us was suddenly filled with tension.

After a minute, Micah sighed. "Killian, you can't save everyone."

"Does that mean I should stop trying? Should I just give up and not try to make a difference?"

He looked over at me, studying me. "No, I don't think you should ever do that. It's one of the things I love most about you. You care about people. You want to make the world a better place. That's great, but you need to understand that you can't personally save everyone you come across."

"Maybe not," I said quietly, "but maybe I can save a few."

The rest of the trip was tense, and not much effort was made at conversation.

I found myself becoming more and more nervous about my decision to bring Tad home. Micah was right. I hadn't given any thought to Adam's and Steve's reaction. Knowing Adam as well as I did, I couldn't see him turning Tad back out on the street, but that didn't mean he'd be happy about it.

Tad woke up as we turned off the main highway and onto the twisty back roads.

"Where are we?" he asked groggily.

"Almost to Chicone," I said.

"Is that where you live?"

"Part of the time. Remember I told you my friend's dad took me in after my father threw me out?"

"Yeah."

"His name is Adam. His partner, Steve, bought an old house just outside Chicone and turned it into a bed and breakfast. Adam still has a house in Ocean City, and we kind of go back and forth between them. He has an emotional attachment to the beach house."

"Wow, you guys sound rich."

"Not really. I guess Steve used to be fairly well off, but he's spent a small fortune on the B&B."

"Where do you live?" he asked Micah.

"I have an apartment in Salisbury, not far from here."

"You guys are dating, right?"

"Yeah," Micah answered for both of us.

"For how long?"

"A few months now."

Tad watched the scenery for a few minutes before commenting, "It's really flat here. I've never been on the Shore before. Is it all this flat?"

"You've never been on the Shore?" Micah asked in surprise.

"Nope."

"Not even to Ocean City?"

"I'm not even from Maryland. If we went to the beach at all, which was rare to begin with, we went to Virginia Beach."

I cut in, "Most of the Shore is pretty flat."

"Have you both always lived here?"

Now that he was awake, Tad seemed to be full of questions, but I guess that was pretty natural, really. If he was going to stay with people who were perfect strangers, it was to be expected that he'd be curious about us.

I answered first. "I've lived here all my life. I grew up in a small town near Ocean City."

"I'm from Montgomery County, right outside D.C.," Micah said. "After I graduated from college, I moved here and got a job with the newspaper."

"What was it like growing up here?" Tad asked me.

"You're from a rural area, right?"

"Yeah."

"Probably not so different than it was for you, then. I never knew anyone who was gay. If I had bothered to think about it, I guess everyone I knew seemed to be pretty homophobic. But it was never an issue for me until Adam's son Seth moved here and started going to my school. He helped me figure out I was gay."

"He's the one who was killed?"

"Yes."

"Was he your boyfriend?"

"No, I wasn't at that point yet. We were just friends."

"How was he killed?"

I didn't answer for a moment. "I'll tell you some other time, okay?"

"I'm sorry," Tad said immediately. "I shouldn't be so nosy. It's none of my damn business."

"No, it's okay. Don't apologize. You're getting to know us better. You can ask questions if you want...I just might not answer all of them right now."

When I turned into the driveway of the bed and breakfast, all Tad's questions fell by the wayside as he caught his first glimpse of Amalie's House.

"Holy shit. That's it?" he asked in awe.

"That's it."

I gazed up at the house, remembering how I'd felt when I saw it for the first time. It was quite grand, a real mansion. It looked very different from when Steve had first considered purchasing it — it had resembled the Addams family's mansion more than a country bed and breakfast — but Steve had watched over every second of the meticulous restoration, and it turned out beautifully.

"Are you sure you're not rich?" Tad said.

I laughed. "Positive."

I parked the car, and Micah and I climbed out. Tad stayed put in the back seat.

"Aren't you getting out?' I asked, leaning back into the driver's-side door.

He tore his eyes away from the house, an anxious expression on his face.

"Can I talk to you alone first?" he asked in a small voice.

"I'll go on in," Micah said, overhearing Tad's request. "I want to get something for my head anyway. I've still got a splitting headache." As if kissing my ear, he whispered, "It'll also give me a chance to warn Adam and Steve."

I waited until he was inside, then turned back to Tad.

"Come on. Let's go for a walk."

He climbed out hesitantly, and we started around the house. I tried waiting for him to make the first move, but eventually my inquisitiveness got the better of me.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

"It's just that..." he started, then stopped abruptly, took a deep breath, and tried again. "I don't want you to think I was eavesdropping or anything, but I wasn't completely asleep when you and Micah were talking in the car."

"Tad, look—"

"No, let me finish. Let's just forget this whole thing, okay? I don't want to cause trouble for you. You've got a good thing going. I don't want to mess it up."

"You're not—"

"I ruin everything!" he said loudly. "That's all I am, a screw up. I screwed things up with my boyfriend, so he left me. I screwed things up with my dad, and he hated me. I screwed things up when I ran away, so I had to become a hustler. I couldn't even do that right. I got sick. Then I screwed things up with Razi, so he hit me."

"Tad, you couldn't help most of those things. It's not your fault your boyfriend wasn't man enough to stick by you when things got rough, or that your dad is homophobic. It's not your fault Razi abused you. Maybe becoming a hustler wasn't the best decision, but you didn't have a lot of options at that point, at least from your point of view. You were just trying to survive."

"What about you?" he insisted. "Think about it. How did we meet? I told you Micah used to be an escort. You didn't know it before that. I remember the look on your face."

"It turned out for the best in the end. It forced us to get a lot of things out in the open where they belong. Hey, we're still together, aren't we?"

"I guess. I still don't think I should do this. I'll screw up with you too, and in the end you'll just hate me, just like my dad. Everybody hates me."

"Tad, I don't hate you."

"You don't even know me."

"Why don't you give me a chance to get to know you?"

Tad looked everywhere but at me. His eyes fell upon the old angel statue among the trees in the back corner of the lawn. He stood staring at it for a minute while I watched him. A tear slipped from his eye and rolled slowly down his cheek.

Finally, he spoke, his voice so soft I had to step closer to hear him. "Because I'm scared."

I moved without thinking, slipping my arms around him and pulling him against me in a hug. He stood stiffly in my embrace, not hugging me back but not pushing me away either. Of course he'd be afraid — terrified to open his heart for fear we'd just turn on him and abandon him, or let him down the way everyone else in his life had.

"I know you're scared, but give us a chance. Okay?"

"What if they don't want me?"

"Then we'll figure something else out. I promised you I wouldn't leave you, and I meant what I said. Look, why worry about that yet? You're getting too far ahead of yourself. Let's go talk to Adam and see what he has to say. Maybe none of this will even be an issue."

Tad sniffed a little and nodded, pulling away to rub at his face. He followed me back to the house, where we entered through the back door.

In the hallway we ran into Steve, who quickly pulled me into a hug. "You've got to stop almost getting killed."

"Next time I'll try to get the job done right."

Steve answered that with a soft smack upside my head. "How about if there is no next time?" He turned his attention to Tad, who was hanging back uncertainly. "And you must be Tad. I'm Steve." He held out a hand, which Tad tentatively shook. "It's nice to meet you."

"Hi," Tad murmured.

Steve flashed him a warm smile. "Come on, let me show you around this huge hulk of a house."

I opened my mouth to argue, but Steve gave me a glance that quickly shut me up.

"Killian, why don't you go find Adam?" he said, and, although his voice was light, I could tell there was more to it than just a simple suggestion.

Uh oh, I thought darkly.

Leaving Steve to give Tad the history of the house, step one on the official tour, I found Adam talking to Micah in the front parlor. Adam definitely didn't look happy. I felt my stomach clench. Adam stopped speaking abruptly as I appeared in the doorway.

One look at his face and I knew this would be better off as a private conversation.

"Micah, Tad is being given the grand tour of the house, and he might be more comfortable if you're along," I suggested.

"No problem." He gave me an encouraging smile as he walked away, leaving Adam and me alone.

"Look, Adam—" I figured a good offense would be my best defense, but he cut me off quickly.

"I don't know what to be angriest about," he said in a voice like a whip, "the fact that you just ran off without even telling me where you were going or what you were doing, the fact that you needlessly risked your life yet again with no thought of anyone else, or the fact that you come waltzing back in here with a kid in tow — a kid, I'm told, you've already invited to live here."

I took an involuntary step back as Adam's anger washed over me. Then my own anger rose up at his accusations.

"First off, I didn't know I had to ask you for permission to do my job. I was working. I didn't have time to run around asking if it was okay for me to go play with my friends. I felt it was urgent that I get to Razi quickly. I was acting on instinct, which turned out to be right. By the time the police got around to acting, assuming they ever even got that far, Razi's informant would have tipped him off, and he would have run. And maybe even killed Tad. Considering I solved a crime, caught a killer, and quite possibly saved a kid's life, I wouldn't exactly call that needlessly risking my own life."

"I—" Adam started to interrupt, but I cut him off.

"No, let me finish. As for Tad, I have not invited him to live here. I told him he could stay with me until he figured out what to do. I thought you were the kind of person who would be willing to help a kid in need. His dad abused him, and he was living on the streets before Razi — a homicidal maniac — took him in and made him his sex slave. With Razi arrested, he had nowhere to go but back to the streets. I thought we could be some sort of support for him since he's never had any his entire life."

"We don't even know him."

"You didn't know me either when you took me in."

"That was different."

"How? Because I knew Seth? Why should Tad suffer just because he didn't have the privilege of knowing Seth? He needs help, Adam."

"You can't just drag home every stray you come across, Killian."

My breath caught in my throat, and my eyes stung with the tears I was determined to hold back.

"Is that what I was?" I asked, my voice shaky with anger and hurt. "A stray?"

"Killian, no!" Adam said, all anger melting from his expression to be replaced with concern and remorse.

"Why did you take me in, Adam? Was it out of pity? Or was it just because you were so grief-stricken from Seth's death? Is that it? Was I just a replacement for Seth?"

It was Adam's turn to gasp. "Killian!"

"I'm sorry I dragged home another stray. And I'm sorry this stray has stuck around for so long, burdening you and ruining your life. You won't have to worry about either of us from now on."

I turned sharply on my heel, but before I'd taken two steps, Adam caught me, both of his arms wrapping tightly around my body.

"Killian, stop. Listen to me. That was a horrible thing I said, and I didn't mean it. I was just so worried about you when you left the hospital without a word. I've been frantic ever since. I reacted badly when I saw you, all my fear and worry turned to anger, and I took it out on you. I'm sorry — so, so sorry."

I refused to look at him, keeping my back purposefully to him.

"You're not a stray. You were never a stray. You want to know why I took you in? Because I looked at you and saw a hurt, scared young man and my heart broke. You're right. I barely knew you. In that sense, maybe I did take you in out of pity, but I very quickly grew to love you. You were never a replacement for Seth. Never. Not then, not now. You've always been Killian. I love you as if you were my own son, and I've never once regretted asking you to live with me. You've never been a burden. You've only enriched my life."

I couldn't hold back the tears any longer. I burst into harsh, ragged sobs as I turned to him, his arms once more circling me in the comforting hug I'd come to take for granted.

"Doesn't Tad deserve to have that too?" I sobbed into his chest.

"Of course he does. Absolutely. I just don't know if I'm the person to give it to him."

"It could have been me."

"What?"

"It could have been me on the street if you hadn't been there to take me in. I owe it to him to be there for him the way you were for me. I can't just turn my back on him. I can't."

Adam squeezed me fiercely and was quiet for a moment. "I won't ask you to."

I pulled away, swallowing mid-sob. "What?" I asked, wiping my eyes and sniffling. "What do you mean?"

"Someone very special to me once told me to pay his kindness forward when I asked how I could repay him." He sighed. "He also told me to open my heart and build a family."

I wiped my face. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I won't ask you to act against your conscience."

"You'll let him stay here?"

"Temporarily."

"Oh, Adam!"

He held up a hand. "I'm not promising anything, Killian. I haven't even met him yet. All I'm saying is that he can stay here while we look at his options."

"You'll help him do that too? Figure out what his options are?"

"Yes, I'll do what I can to help him, within reason."

I ignored the proviso and threw myself into Adam's arms for a hug. He held me tightly.

"I'm so sorry, Killian," he whispered into my hair. "I can't believe I said that."

"I'm sorry I left without telling you where I was going. You're right. I didn't stop to think how worried you might be. All I could think about was getting to Razi."

"That's what makes you a good investigator." He held me out at arm's length and looked me over carefully, his face suddenly breaking into a grin. "You're a mess. Go wash up, then we'll tell Tad the good news."

After a good night's rest, my first thought the next morning was Jake. He was still technically in police custody, even with Razi’s confession, but I managed to pull a few strings and get in to see him.

He was propped up in his hospital bed, TV flickering in front of him, one side of his untied gown slipping off his shoulder.

"How do you even manage to make a hospital gown look good?" I asked from the doorway.

His head snapped toward me, eyes widening. He looked miles better than the last time I’d seen him — his lips no longer smudged with charcoal, his eyes clearer, color returning to his cheeks.

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. I look like death warmed over."

I strolled to his bedside. "I don’t know about that. I’m happy to say you look plenty alive to me."

"Thanks to you."

I shrugged. "All in a day’s work."

"I hear I have to thank you for clearing my name too."

"No thanks needed. Just doing my job."

He shook his head. "We both know it was more than that. Thank you. Really."

I just nodded. Gratitude was never easy for Jake.

"So what happens next?" I asked, changing the subject. "Are they releasing you?"

He frowned. "I don’t know. They said something about possible drug charges."

"What?" I nearly fell backward. "You were a victim!"

"Your lawyer friend — what’s her name?"

"Ilana?"

"Yeah. She recommended somebody, a criminal attorney. Judy hired him, and I guess he’s working on it. He said I might have to agree to rehab."

I perched carefully on the edge of his bed. "Would that be such a bad thing?"

"I don’t need rehab," Jake snapped.

"You almost died from an overdose…"

"I don’t know what Fenton gave me. He may have tried to kill me."

"Jake, let’s be real. You told me yourself you were out of control, trading sex for drugs long before you met Fenton Black. I think you need help."

His shoulders went rigid, his gaze skittering away.

"Look, I know it’s hard—"

"No, you don’t know," he shot back. "How could you know? Everything always works out perfectly for you."

I blinked at him. "Oh yeah? Like my best friend getting his throat slashed? Or me getting stabbed when I found his body? Or my dad punching me in the face and calling me a faggot? Or almost dying in a house fire trying to save your life?"

He opened his mouth to argue, but I pressed on. "Yeah, I was lucky Adam took me in. If I didn’t know that before, my last two cases have made it painfully clear. But you’re lucky too. You’ve got Judy. She loves you more than you realize."

His shoulders sagged. "Yeah, I know," he admitted softly.

"And I love you. I’ve done a lousy job of showing it, but I’m here. I’m not going anywhere."

His eyes flicked toward me. "You’ve said that before."

A guilty pang hit my chest. "Yeah. And I fucked up. I’m sorry, Jake. I won’t let it happen again. You won’t have to go through this alone."

His hand inched across the sheet, tentative, like he wasn’t sure I’d take it. I reached out and clasped it in mine.

For a long moment, we sat there, neither of us speaking.

Jake’s grip tightened, almost desperate. "I don’t know if I can do this," he whispered.

"You can," I said. "And you won't have to do it by yourself. We’ll figure it out together."

His eyes finally met mine — haunted, but with the smallest glimmer of hope breaking through. For the first time, I believed he might actually let me help him.

I shifted a little closer, still holding his hand, and reached up with my free one to brush a stray lock of hair off his forehead.

He stiffened at the touch, then let out a shaky breath and relaxed, leaning back against the pillows. His eyes fluttered closed for a moment, as if even that small gesture was more comfort than he’d expected.

"You’re gonna get through this," I murmured. "You’re tougher than you think."

He gave a tiny, disbelieving huff. "Yeah, right."

"I mean it," I said. "You’ve survived this long with everything stacked against you. Imagine what you could do with people in your corner."

His hand squeezed mine again, not letting go. I could feel the tremor in his fingers, the vulnerability he usually fought so hard to hide.

We sat like that for a while — no more words, just the low drone of the TV and the quiet weight of everything left unsaid.

Eventually, his breathing evened out, eyelids growing heavier with each blink until they finally stayed closed. He didn’t let go of my hand even as he drifted into sleep.

I stayed there, still holding on, watching his face ease into sleep. For the first time in years, he looked younger — almost peaceful. It was a fleeting glimpse of the boy I remembered, the one he used to be before everything went to hell. He was still in there, buried beneath the damage and the scars. He’d never be the same, but maybe, just maybe, he could heal.

"Sleep, Jake," I whispered. "I’ve got you."

Several weeks had passed since Razi’s arrest, and Thanksgiving was only a few days away. In that short span, so much had changed.

Jake had accepted the rehab deal and checked into a 60-day inpatient program. The first week was rough — he’d been on total communication blackout during detox and orientation — but once that ended, we managed to talk several times a week. The calls were brief, sometimes no more than a few minutes, but hearing his voice steadier, clearer, was enough to unknot the tension in my chest.

He admitted it was hard, harder than he’d expected, but he was sticking with it. For the first time in a long while, there was something like hope in his tone. I told him I was proud of him, and I meant it. A part of me even dared to believe that maybe, just maybe, he’d make it through this.

Meanwhile, Razi was staring down a mountain of charges: the murders of Paul Flynn, Fenton Black, and both of Black’s bodyguards, plus the attempted murders of Micah and me. The DA had chosen not to drag Tad’s part in all this into the spotlight. If they had, Razi would also be facing a long list of sexual-abuse counts. Even without them, he had more than enough stacked against him to guarantee he’d never breathe free air again. And hanging over it all was the still-unresolved question of that politician’s death.

Micah, on the other hand, had become the Shore’s newest media darling. His corruption exposé had blown the story wide open, reaching farther than even he’d imagined. Every week seemed to bring new charges, fresh resignations, another twist in the scandal. Some of the wetlands had already been lost to development, scars we couldn’t erase, but the courts had issued an injunction that froze the bulldozers in their tracks. For now, at least, what remained was safe. It was a hollow victory, but still a victory.

And then there was Tad. Things with him were moving more slowly, haltingly. Adam had taken to him quickly, offering the same patient, steady kindness he’d once shown me, but Tad kept himself guarded, skittish, like a stray that wasn’t sure if it wanted to stay or bolt. He seemed most at ease around me — not that I was exactly a calming presence — but it was something. I tried to make time for him despite my already packed schedule, offering what little stability I could.

Adam had gone the practical route, consulting Ilana about Tad’s situation. She’d reached out to his father, but so far there had been no response — radio silence. That left everything in limbo, too unsettled for anyone to feel comfortable making long-term commitments. For now, all we could do was give Tad a roof, a place to breathe, and the faint beginnings of something like family.

Most nights, when the house finally went quiet, I found myself lying awake, wondering how I’d gotten here: juggling the wreckage of Jake’s life, the uncertainty of Tad’s, the fallout from Micah’s story, the shadow of Razi still lingering over everything. It felt like I was trying to keep too many plates spinning at once, waiting for the crash.

But then I’d remember Jake’s voice on the phone, tired but determined. Or Tad’s fleeting smile when he let his guard down for half a second. Or Adam’s hand on my shoulder. Those little things reminded me why I kept fighting, why I couldn’t afford to let any of those plates drop.

Maybe we were all broken in different ways. But maybe, if we held on long enough, we could start to piece something whole together.

Perhaps the biggest surprise came one evening when Micah was hanging out with me at the beach house.

Micah, Adam, and I were sprawled in the den, half-watching some cheesy sci-fi flick with rubber monsters and bad special effects. When it ended, the news came on. None of us were paying much attention, chatting over the anchor’s voice, until something on the screen snagged my eye.

“Wait! Who’s that?” I cut Adam off mid-sentence, leaning forward.

“Who’s who?” Micah asked, following my gaze.

“Shh!” I grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.

The newscaster’s voice carried over the room: “After the events of the last few weeks, many of us thought we’d seen it all. But the latest arrest in the Wetlands Conspiracy has shocked even the most hardened among us.”

“A new arrest?” Micah sat up straighter.

“Shh!” I hissed again, my eyes glued to the screen.

“The corruption surrounding the illegal sale and development of protected wetlands has reached all the way to the top,” the anchor continued as footage of a gray-haired man being led toward a police car in handcuffs played on the screen. “Senator Tom Day was indicted today for conspiracy to commit murder, along with several other charges. Police allege that Day conspired with murdered businessman Fenton Black to kill Henry Gartland, a local environmentalist who’d been protesting the wetlands development.”

Adam frowned. “Who did you—”

“Shh!” Micah and I said in unison.

“Day was suspected early on in the official investigation, but police lacked sufficient evidence to bring formal charges.”

“I didn’t know that.” Micah muttered under his breath, quietly enough to not get shushed.

“That evidence,” the anchor went on, “came from an unlikely source.”

The image changed — and my stomach jolted. It was her. The bird-lady from Novak’s mystery case.

“Day’s own wife hired a private investigator to look into her husband’s business dealings. Justine Sterner spoke with the PI earlier this evening.”

“She hired Novak,” I breathed, glancing at Adam and Micah.

Onscreen, the feed cut to an earnest young reporter with close-cropped dark hair and wide, dewy eyes. “I’m Justine Sterner, and I’m here with local private investigator Shane Novak.”

The camera panned back to show my boss standing stiffly beside her, looking as thrilled to be on camera as a cat in a bathtub.

“Mr. Novak helped police obtain the evidence they needed to charge Senator Day. Mr. Novak, you were hired by Mrs. Day, were you not?”

“Yes, I was,” Novak said flatly.

The reporter waited for him to elaborate, but of course he didn’t. Adam chuckled at his classic stonewalling.

“Do you know why Mrs. Day hired you to investigate her own husband?”

“Yes. But wouldn’t that be better coming from her?”

The reporter flushed but pressed on. “What can you tell us about your investigation?”

“Very little. That’s police business now.”

“Is there anything you can tell us about the charges against Senator Day?”

“They’re serious. If they stick, I’d imagine he’ll be locked up for a long, long time. Tom Day’s political career is finished.”

“How is Mrs. Day holding up through all this?”

“She’s been a trooper.”

And that was it. Novak clammed up, leaving the poor reporter staring at him like she’d just watched her exclusive turn to dust in her hands. The feed cut back to the newsroom.

Adam burst out laughing, and I couldn’t help grinning despite my shock. “God, he’s impossible.”

Later, Novak filled me in. Mrs. Day had overheard her husband on the phone plotting Gartland’s murder. She had no proof — just her memory of what she’d heard — and had been terrified to go to the police directly. She’d feared for her life if her husband discovered she’d betrayed him. That, plus the political sensitivity, explained all the cloak-and-dagger secrecy.

With that case finally wrapped, Novak suggested I take some time off. I had to admit, for the first time in a long time, the idea of a break sounded…not just nice, but necessary. Novak wasn’t the type to hand out vacations, so I took him up on it.

Steve couldn't get away on such short notice, but Adam, Kane, me, and Tad piled into the car and headed west. No destination, no plan, just driving until the last few weeks were a memory in the rearview.

We ended up at a run-down inn tucked against the mountains in Western Maryland. The kind of place with peeling paint, creaky floors, and a view worth every flaw. It was a quirky place built in the 1800s, with a local-history museum and a speakeasy with an old cock-fighting pit in the basement, and an off-beat cafe in the lobby. It wasn't luxury, but it was exactly what we needed.

Adam parked himself on the back porch with a small stack of books, Kane went off in search of hiking trails and single girls, Tad drifted around exploring the rambling building and his freedom one cautious step at a time, and I...I tried to remember how to breathe without waiting for the next punch.

Nights were quiet. Too quiet. It left space for the ghosts to crowd in. Not real ghosts this time, but memories of Jake in his hospital bed, Micah bleeding on the floor, and bodies staring at me with dead eyes. But every time I thought I'd crack, Adam would glance over, steady as always, or Kane would make a wisecrack, or Tad would wander back with some half-smile he didn’t know he had, and I'd remember why it was all worth it.

The truth is, cases end, but the lies don’t. The truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow. The villains rot or reinvent themselves, and the truth gets buried right alongside them. That’s how the world works — always has, always will.

All I could do was keep trying — try to make the world a little better where I could, try to help the people I loved, and try to hold on tight to what was real in front of me. Adam. Steve. Kane. Tad. Micah. Judy. Jake. And that thin line of light breaking over the ridge at dawn, reminding me every day that nothing stays dark forever.

The rest? It was just smoke.

Judy would find me a teacher to help me understand and control my gifts — or she wouldn’t, and I’d have to hunt one down myself. The B&B would thrive and become self-sustaining — or it would stumble, and we’d rebuild from the ashes. Tad would settle in, slowly weaving himself into our strange little family — or, if he couldn’t, we’d do everything in our power to make sure he found a safe place to land. Micah and I would grow into something stronger, something lasting — or we wouldn’t, and I’d learn to live with that, too.

None of it was guaranteed. Life never was.

But I knew this much: I’d survive. More than that — I’d keep moving forward, even when the road bent in directions I didn’t expect. Because that was the only choice, really. Keep walking, keep learning, keep opening myself up to the people who mattered. The future would bring what it brought, and I’d meet it head-on.

And maybe — just maybe — that was enough.

Continued in Book 5

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