Page 185 of The Final Cut

I stay beside her because every part of me wants to pull her away from the woman who just touched a wound with bare hands, and every part of me knows yanking Reva back now would do damage of its own. My hand settles on the floor near hers. Close enough for her to choose. Not closing over it yet.

Deacon’s voice cuts through the room, quiet and hard.

“We don’t know that Reva made the call.”

Every head turns. He hasn’t moved from the door, but the air around him sharpens.

Delia looks at him. “What?”

“You saw her on the phone.” Deacon pushes off the doorframe. “You heard Isabel speak to her.”

“Yes.”

“Did you see Reva dial?”

Delia opens her mouth. Stops. Her brow furrows.

Deacon takes one step toward the center of the room. “Did you see her take the phone out of Frank’s drawer? Did you hear the call connect? Did Reva tell you she called Nana, or did you walk in after there was already a voice on speaker?”

Delia’s face changes by degrees. Memory moving under pressure.

“I…” Her gaze goes to the desk, then away from it, as though this office has become the one from fifteen years ago. “I don’t know.”

Reva is still shaking between Marisol’s hands.

Deacon keeps his voice even. “Isabel could’ve placed the call.”

Marisol’s breath catches.

“She could’ve called the phone,” he continues. “Reva could’ve answered because she heard the phone ring, and then she recognized the voice or because she was alone and curious. Frank may have left it out. Someone else may have forced the connection. We know what Delia heard. That isn’t the same as knowing how the call began.”

Nash’s eyes narrow.

He is already turning it over. Angles. Possibilities. Proof. The way a strategist does when emotion gives the room a story too simple to be trusted.

Delia presses both hands to the edge of the desk. “I only heard her talking.”

Reva lets out a broken sound.

Delia looks at her sister. “I only heard her talking, Reva. I didn’t see you call. I don’t know if you did.”

The possibility should change something. Maybe for someone else, it would.

Reva’s face twists, tears cutting down both cheeks. “It’s still my fault.”

“No.” This time, I take her hand.

She grips mine hard enough to hurt.

“I talked to her,” she says. “I was talking to her. I told her things. I must have. I was little and stupid and I missed her, and I told her something that helped her find us.”

Marisol makes a wounded sound.

Reva pulls her face free from her mother’s hands, not violently, but enough to breathe without being held. “I did this.”

“No, no, you didn’t, sweet girl,” Marisol says.

“I did this.”