Set Me Free (16 page)

Rhys flushed darker red. “So what if it does?” His good-old-boy demeanor was starting to crack, revealing the rage that lived beneath. “That doesn’t change anything! She’s still a liar—”

“Miss,” Lacroix said, turning to me, “can you confirm for me that this man gave you that bruise?”

I nodded anxiously.

“And hurt your wrist? And he’s been stalking you?”

I nodded again.

“Works for me.” Lacroix said. “Cuff him, Palmer.”

“
What
?” Rhys’ face was mottled with shock and rage. “You can’t be serious!”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Lacroix said evenly to Rhys, though I thought I saw a slight, grim smile at the corner of his mouth. “Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Put him in the back,” he added to his partner. “I’ve got to talk to these two a minute.”

I watched in complete astonishment as Officer Palmer cuffed Rhys’ wrists. Rhys didn’t resist. He looked too shocked to fight back. As Palmer walked him out of the house, I trembled with relief, but I didn’t let go of Owen’s arm.

“I’d like to get a full, written statement from you, miss,” Lacroix told me. “Or,” he added, glancing at my swollen wrist, “maybe you can dictate it to me.”

“Nick,” Owen said, “can this wait? She needs to go to the hospital.”

Lacroix frowned thoughtfully at me. “Come see me at the station tomorrow morning, then. That way I can help you with the restraining order paperwork, too.” Lacroix started towards the door, then turned back. “For the record, Larsen, I never thought it was you who killed Suzanna White. But practically everyone down at the station does. It wasn’t easy convincing them that you didn’t start that fire. If you keep turning up in bad situations, I don’t know how much longer I can protect you.”

“But you can’t think Owen did this!” I said, with a helpless wave at the bruise on my face.

“No, I don’t, or I would’ve arrested him instead of that asshole,” Lacroix said flatly. “I’m just telling him to be careful.” He looked at me, and for a moment an expression of concern flickered across his stern face. “You, too, miss.”

A
fter the police left
, the house was eerily silent. But inside my head, it was not quiet at all.

God damn it, Miranda, I will teach you how to behave if it’s the last thing I do.

That same panic rose into my chest and throat, until I couldn’t breathe at all.

“Do you want me to call Kaye?” Owen asked. “Or an ambulance?”

I faced Owen, tamping down memories of Rhys.
He’s gone, he’s gone
, I told myself.
He can’t hurt me now.
But I’d thought that before, too, and look how that had turned out.

“You should get your wrist looked at,” Owen insisted.

“Oh,” I said. “Right.” I had almost forgotten about my wrist, despite how much it hurt. It couldn’t compare to how I felt.

Owen was standing only a few feet away, leaning against the breakfast bar amongst the remains of the barstools, staring down at the floor with his hair falling over his eyes. His shirt was misbuttoned and one of his shoes was untied. He’d looked so big and fierce when he’d pinned Rhys to the floor, but now he just looked…sweet.

“Or I can take you to the E.R., if you want me to,” he said.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. I couldn’t believe he had done this for me. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“Mind? No.” Straightening his big shoulders, Owen went to the freezer. He emptied half a tray of ice cubes into a dishtowel and handed it to me over the breakfast bar. “Here. For the trip there.”

Gingerly, I touched the ice to my throbbing wrist. The lightest pressure hurt, but the coldness was wonderful. “I’ll need to get my purse, and maybe some clothes that aren’t pajamas, but…”

“But?”

“I don’t think I can pull down the stairs to my attic.”

“You live in the attic?” A sad smile tugged at his mouth. “Did you guys run out of bedrooms?”

“I love my attic,” I told him, almost smiling back. Almost.

He gestured for me to lead the way. I waited on the second floor while he pulled down the stairs and went up into the attic to fetch my things. Even at a time like this, I felt a little self-conscious about my inevitable messiness. At least I’d covered my painting of Suze to protect it from the sun.

A moment later, he came back down, slid the stairs back into place, and handed me a bag full of clothes and shoes to choose from, my handbag, and my leather jacket. After I pulled on a pair of jeans and my jacket, one-handed, in the bathroom, we went back downstairs. I’d have to text Kaye about the chairs later, when my wrist hurt a bit less.

Outside, in the cold, clear night, Owen’s truck, with its cheerful company logo and its bed full of two-by-fours, sat in our driveway. I climbed up into the passenger seat. Leaning my head back, I closed my eyes and listened to Owen get into the driver’s seat beside me. Even when I was this tired and wretched, my skin tingled from being next to him.

Owen didn’t start up the truck. Opening my eyes, I cast him a worried glance. His large, graceful hands were curled around the steering wheel, but his gaze was lost somewhere in the night.

“Miranda,” he said quietly, “are you sure you don’t want me to call Kaye?”

The question filled me with shame. I shouldn’t impose on him. We weren’t dating. We weren’t really anything to one another. And he had already done more than enough to help me tonight. “If you don’t want to go—”

“No,” he said at once. “No. It’s not that. It’s—I don’t want you to feel unsafe. Around me. After what’s just happened.”

“Oh.” I frowned down at my lap. The thing was, he was right. I
shouldn’t
feel safe with him. I should be afraid of him, like Kaye was. Like everybody was.

I just… wasn’t. I had missed him so much while he was gone. I had longed to see him. And tonight, he’d been there for me in a way no one ever had.

There was something else, too—something about him that I’d learned after the terrible events tonight, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“To tell you the truth,” I said, “there’s no one else I’d rather be with right now.”

Owen didn’t look away from the windshield. In the darkness, his expression was almost imperceptible—just the slightest crease between his eyebrows, a sadness in the set of his mouth. Without a word, he started up the car.

* * *

A
t the E.R. in Bellisle
, they diagnosed me with a wrist sprain, gave me a brace and some painkillers, and told me I’d be better in a few weeks. The doctor looked warily at Owen when I explained to her that my ex had grabbed me by the wrist, so I made a point of telling her that the police had arrested him after my friend—with a gesture at Owen—had called 911.

“All right,” the doctor said, pursing her lips, “well, just make sure you keep icing it.”

She walked off, and I glanced at Owen, remembering how tense he’d been after Rhys had accused him of attacking me. He was slumped forwards in the tiny hospital chair, his forearms resting on his knees.

“Owen?”

He looked up at me, his face pale and drawn. I slid off the bed and stood in front of him, wanting to touch him. He ran a hand through his hair with a tight sigh. “We should get you home.”

We went outside, passed an ambulance idling at the sliding glass doors, and crossed the empty lot to Owen’s truck. As soon as I climbed into the passenger seat, my heart started to pound. I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to the house. After the police had arrested Rhys, I’d been so relieved that I’d felt almost…okay. But now what had happened kept flashing into my head, over and over again, and each time it was somehow worse. I didn’t know if I’d ever feel safe in that living room again—if I could ever sit on that couch without seeing Rhys walking in through the front door.

He took everything away from me, always: my friends, my money, the plane tickets to go see my dad, and now, the sanctity of my home. Thanks to my sprained wrist, I wouldn’t even be able to paint for the next few weeks. He had even taken that.

Owen cleared his throat. “You all right?”

I was shaking so much that it was hard to speak. “I d-don’t want to go b-back there.”

“Stay with me.” Owen spoke so quietly that I could barely hear him. “I would sleep on the couch, obviously. I understand if you don’t want to, but…it would make me feel better if I could keep you in my sight for a little while longer.”

I stared at him. “It would make
you
feel better?”

“Right.” He cast me a rueful sidelong smile in the darkness. “Do it for me.”

I leaned back against the seat, thinking, again, that there was something I’d learned tonight, something about Owen. But what?

“All right,” I said. “For you.”

When we pulled into the driveway, Owen’s house was dark, except for a single light shining through the small garage door windows. He must have been in his workshop before he came over. The thought of him in his workshop was strangely soothing. I loved his workshop: the scent of wood dust, the light playing across the violins on the wall. I could imagine him bending over his workbench, carefully measuring out the wood for the sides of his cello.

I followed him up the front stoop and into his kitchen. The last time I’d been here felt like an eternity ago, even though it had only been a week.

My phone jangled inside my handbag. For an awful, heart-stopping moment, I wondered if it was Rhys.

I pulled my phone out of my bag and saw, to my relief, a text from Kaye.
What happened? Are you ok?

I texted her back:
Long story. Sorry about the barstools, I’ll pay for them.
Biting my lip, I debated telling her where I was, but I didn’t think she’d understand. Eventually, I just sent her a second text:
I’m okay. Be home tomorrow.

“Was that…?” Owen began, his brow furrowing.

“Just Kaye,” I told him. I glanced at my phone again and realized, to my surprise, that it was already midnight. “You have to get up for work in four hours! I’m sorry—”

He laughed, shaking his head. “No, no, don’t be. I scheduled tomorrow off. And even if I hadn’t, it would be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.” He stepped closer to me in his dark kitchen. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”

“Thanks to you.” I twined my fingers together. “If you hadn’t come over…”

“Don’t.” He took my hands in his, enfolding them completely inside his palms. “Don’t think about what-if’s. You’ll drive yourself crazy with it.”

I gave in to what I’d wanted to do the whole time at the E.R. and hugged him. At first, he tensed, but after a moment, he pulled me in closer to him and stroked my hair. I breathed in his scent and felt almost happy.

Eventually, he pulled away. “You should sleep.”

It was hard to imagine ever sleeping again, though I was unbearably tired. Even on the night I’d driven to Fall Island from Connecticut, I hadn’t felt like this.

I followed Owen across his spotless living room and up the stairs. Inside his bedroom, his guitar leaned against the chair by the window. An open box of guitar picks sat on the nearby table. For Owen, it was almost messy. The thought made me smile.

“Just going to grab some sheets,” Owen was saying, opening the door to his closet.

Self-conscious, I sat down on the edge of his bed.

“Owen,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to sleep on the couch.”

He shut the closet door and ran his hands through his hair. “Miranda…”

“It’s not like we’ve never shared a bed.”

“I can’t, M.”

“Please,” I whispered.

“I—look, I just can’t. Not unless I know what’s going on with us. And it’s not exactly the right time for that conversation.”

“I know.” I stared at the toes of my shiny flats pressed into Owen’s plushy carpet. What could I say? It was so hard to wrap my mind around all of this, especially after the night I’d had.

And yet…here I was. Alone with Owen. No one knew where I was. But I’d never felt safer. I wouldn’t have felt safe with anyone else, but I did with him.

I’d learned something tonight—something that put it all together. But I was so worn out and rattled I couldn’t figure out what it was.

Owen hugged his arms to his chest, still not quite facing me. “I can’t be around you like this without wanting to touch you. I…I want you, Miranda. I want to be with you. I haven’t felt like this about anyone since—well, since Suze, and even then…” He scrubbed his face with his hands, while I stared at him in silent amazement, wondering if I could possibly have heard him correctly. He
wanted
me—he wanted to
be with
me.

“I know it’s crazy, because we just met,” Owen continued, “and I’m sure you don’t believe me, that I didn’t…”

He trailed off, but he didn’t need to say it out loud for me to know what he meant.
That I didn’t kill Suze.

Suddenly, all of the pieces clicked into place. I knew what I had learned. I’d had it all wrong—I hadn’t learned something about
Owen
. I’d already known he was nothing like Rhys, though tonight had made that even clearer.

Instead, I’d learned something about
myself
—that I’d believed in Owen’s innocence from the beginning. I’d been afraid to trust my own judgment, but I’d believed in him. I’d just needed to believe in me.

“Um,” Owen said, and I realized that several silent seconds had gone by. “Okay. I’ll go then—”

“Don’t go,” I said, standing. “Owen, I know you didn’t hurt Suze. You…you are the sweetest, kindest, bravest man I’ve ever met. The truth is that I was more upset that you and your mum didn’t tell me about it than anything else. I knew there was no way it was you. You loved her. You
still
love her. That’s why you haven’t left the island—it would be leaving her, and you just
can’t
.” I flushed. “The thing is, a lot of people here know that, truly they do. They just don’t want to admit it, because if
you
didn’t do it, then they don’t know who did. And for them, that’s worse than making your life hell.”

He had grown paler as I was talking. “They think I’m guilty,” he whispered. “I’m sure of it. Even Jenny did. She said the fact that I’d been acquitted was good enough for her, and it was time for everyone to move on. But I knew that in her heart she worried about it.”

I took a few steps towards him. This close, I could see that he was actually shivering, though it wasn’t very cold. My heart aching for him, I traced my fingertips up his arms to his shoulders, then gently touched the sides of his face. He flinched, but he didn’t pull away.

I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed him, very lightly, on the lips. “I believe you.”

He unlocked his arms and pulled me into him, still shivering, his movements jerky as he dug his hands into my hair. “Say it again.”

“I believe you.” I kissed his lips again, trailed kisses down his throat. “I believe you.”

His hands twitched in my hair. “I can’t tell you what that’s like. To hear that from you.”

“I mean it,” I said, drawing back so I could look up at him. I brushed his hair back from his forehead with my good hand. “I swear that to you. I’ve never been more certain of anything.”

He took my hand in his and kissed it, the way he had at the beach. His eyes falling closed, he swallowed hard. “I’m so glad you’re all right. When I got that phone call…the stuff he said to you… No wonder you were afraid of me.”