Page 123 of My Beautiful Sin

But why not fess up? She knows I’ve been looking for Peter’s former girlfriend. Either she didn’t think she had any insight for my article or she was embarrassed. We’re close to the same age, and it makes sense that she wouldn’t want me to know if she’d been sleeping with my uncle.

For that matter, maybe she didn’t want Devlin to know. She obviously hadn’t told him back then. Did she think he wouldn’t approve? Or was there something darker going on? Was Peter truly involved in porn? Had he sucked Anna in somehow?

I reach for the phone again, then yank it back when I realize I’m moving on autopilot, reaching out to call Devlin to run my thoughts by him.

I don’t have the right to do that anymore. Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

The thought twists me up inside all over again, and I shut my laptop and slide off the stool. I’ve been working at the kitchen island, and now I go and open the refrigerator, then stare inside as if I’ll find answers along with a snack.

In the end, I don’t find either.

All I know is that I don’t want to think about Peter anymore. Not today.

I’m not sure when I make the decision, but soon I’m pacing the room with my earbuds in waiting for the person on the other end of the line to pick up. After five rings she does.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Laura? It’s Ellie Holmes.”

“Ellie,” she says. “The article you wrote was lovely. It was nice to read about the rescue, and all the rest, too. It made my heart lighter to know that people understood even a little bit what my baby went through.”

Laura’s daughter, Sue, had been imprisoned in the mansion of a monster, Terrance Myers. She’d been one of the lucky ones, having survived to be rescued.

I know that the foundation provided support for the rescue. And I know that Devlin shot Myers after an appellate court ordered his release from prison on a technicality.

“If the article gave you even a little bit of peace, I’m glad.”

“But I’m getting you off the subject,” Laura says. “I don’t imagine that’s why you called.”

“No,” I admit. “I was wondering if you’d learned who killed Myers.”

She makes a scoffing noise. “No. I wish I did, though. I’d give them a medal.”

I feel the smile tug at my lips. “How’s Sue?”

“Doing better. Her nightmares are less. She’s playing more. Laughing more. It’s as if she has a guardian angel watching out for her.”

“I think she does,” I tell Laura, but even as the words pass my lips, I feel the regret wash over me. Because the truth is, that angel got there too late. Myers took the lives of so many kids, and once he’d walked free, he would have surely done it again had Devlin not taken him out.

A guardian angel? Yeah, that was about right.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be entirely comfortable with what he does, but I trust the heart of the man. More important, I love him. And I’ll fight for him.

It’s not the Grand Canyon that separates us. More like a bubbling brook, and that’s easy enough to cross.

That’s what I want to do right now, in fact. Cross it.

Cross it, and find myself in Devlin’s arms.

I make my apologies to Laura, telling her that something came up and that I have to end the call.

Then I take a quick shower and get dressed, managing all of that in record time.

I hadn’t put Shelby in the garage last night, so I leave through the front door and walk to the driveway. I have a view down the length of the street as I back out, and I see the black Tesla parked at the end of the block.

I smile. It doesn’t have a front license plate, so I can’t be certain, but I’d bet money that Devlin’s in that car. And he’s been sitting there waiting for me to finally realize what he already knows—that whether we have to cross the Grand Canyon or a bubbling brook, at the end of the day, we’re supposed to be together.