Page 33 of Forever Gone

“Connor, this is Selena.”

Static answered, followed by Connor’s voice.

“Go ahead.”

“I’m turning in for the night. Hannah Montgomery didn’t give me much, but I’ll send you the notes.”

“No worries. I’ll read them when I get back.”

Selena reached for her jacket.

Connor continued, “I was at your dad’s earlier.”

Her hand stopped.

“Yeah?”

“I got the impression you’re not staying there.”

“I’m not.”

A brief silence passed over the channel.

“Tell me you’re not still at the Wilson motel.”

Selena lifted the radio closer. “Guilty. Once I find a place I can call my own, I’ll leave the motel.”

“Can’t be easy staying there.”

“Are you offering me a room?”

The question carried more humor than intent. Connor did not answer immediately.

“You wouldn’t like my place,” he said.

“Oh? Why?”

“Because half the rooms are still full of things I never learned how to throw away.”

“You still live alone?”

“Yeah.”

“After all this time?”

“Solitude has its benefits.”

For years, Selena had pictured Connor moving on: a different house, new furniture, someone else’s photographs on the walls. She had never asked where he lived after the divorce.

Memory arrived in pieces of their old home, now in the hands of someone else. The narrow kitchen where they ate standing up after late shifts. The bedroom window that rattled during storms. A mark inside the hallway closet from the time Connor tried to install shelves without measuring properly. Selena had spent years insisting the marriage belonged to another life. But the memory still made its home within her.

She searched for a response that did not expose too much.

None came.

Connor spared her from finding one.

“I’ll let you know when I’ve got something on Gerry Tomes and Hinkel.”