Page 148 of The Quiet Witness

“The truth isn’t pretty, Kate. Are you sure you even want to know? Because there is no going back after it. And I would… prefer it if you didn’t know.” The plea was practically written on his face. Please, don’t ask. Not again.

But she didn’t, couldn’t live that way.

Her shoulders straightened in sync with her chin. “The truth, Lucien. Nothing but the truth. Ever.”

He nodded. “I was afraid you might say that.”

Lucien stepped back, leaving her personal space to go and drop down on the bench that sat in front of the piano. His fingers skimmed over the instrument, soft notes coming to life beneath them. Ghost brushed past her, soft fur tickling her palm before he joined the lonely man at the piano.

Funny, in all other arguments the wolf-dog had leaned against her, now he was pressed tightly against Lucien’s legs. Offering his support. Her eyes narrowed at the creature in front of her. She had thought it was treats keeping the dog in check at first, but she’d come to learn it was a companionship unlike any other she’d seen before.

Do I need to… trust his judgment? Maybe she had all this time.

“You should go and sit. Please.” He gestured towards the couch. A glint of unease spread in his green depths.

“Okay.” Kate forced her quacking legs into motion, shuffling over the concrete before plopping down on the couch. Bracing her elbows over her knees, she waited to hear what he was so hesitant to share.

His lips opened, and it spilled over. “Isabel. She died.”

It took a second to hit her.

“Well, technically she was in a coma.” Now Lucien had started, he kept going. An endless stream of hurt. “I was there, asked the doctors if there was a chance for her survival.”

Died. Isabel died.

“They told me there wasn’t. I was the one responsible for the decision. And I signed the form. I was there, Kate. She was so pale. I kept waiting for a sign of life. A squeeze in my fingers, a flutter of her eyebrows. But she was gone.”

A form… a form for what?

“So I let her go. I know you, you value freedom over everything else. The opportunity to go where you please, to never be held back again. I get it. It’s why I signed, to give Isabel the same. When it happened, I stayed with her so she wasn’t alone.”

The girl with the sparkling blue eyes, her mirror image. The one she hadn’t managed to save. Gone.

She couldn’t say anything. Frozen in place. She wanted to cover her ears, shut him out. But her limbs wouldn’t listen.

“Don’t… make me say the rest.” He shook his head. Pleading. “It’s enough, sweetheart. Knowing won’t make anything better.”

“No. Say it.” Her voice was cold. But if she didn’t push now, wouldn’t face it head on, she’d curse herself for whatever time she had left.

“Fuck.” His hand clenched around Ghost’s fur. “Just know. If I could have done it any other way. I would have.”

Kate had this sinking feeling of balancing on a knife’s edge. What could he have done that made him squirm? The man who had thrown threats her way like it had been a game. And he had done it to save her life?

A scarlet pool on the concrete, flowing out of Isabel’s wound. Like a dam that couldn’t be stopped.

Lucien cleaning off the blood on her hands, telling her it wasn’t her fault. Letting her fall asleep on him, his heartbeat calming her, teasing her to sleep in his arms. The final image silenced the raging in her head. And she knew, whatever he would say. She would live with it, whatever he had done… she could take it.

“She died. And I-I buried her.”

The words hit like a grenade.

I can take it, I can take it. By God, how am I going to take this?

“Isabel and you, looking so alike. The perfect cover-up. So when I was called to the meeting, I told them the same. To get them off your back. Kate.” He leaned forward to catch her eyes. “You are free.”

Free at the expense of another.

“But at what cost?” Her eyes were glued to the concrete. Isabel, truly gone. “Why couldn’t you tell me?”