I followed him to the kitchen like I’d done all those nights as a kid, when he’d whip up Mom’s favorite cocoa drink and make me swear to keep the recipe a secret.
The first thing I did when we reached the kitchen was walk over, unplug his ancient coffee maker from the wall, and toss it in the trash.
“Take it you aren’t going to use that.”
“I offered coffee, not muddy swill,” I said, hearing a hint of his chuckle.
“And what am I supposed to do tomorrow morning?”
I smiled. “I’ve got an extra French press in the Airstream I’ll bring down.”
I’d gotten it for Creighton for Christmas, but then he started avoiding coffee and opting for tea. However, without it now, I’d have to improvise. Thankfully, I’d been taught how to survive when not having the right tools was the standard.
I filled the kettle and started to heat it on the stove.
“So, what happens now, Calder?”
I knew that question. That tone.
“I told the police we’d go give statements tomorrow,” I said, scooping coffee grounds into a glass carafe until it looked like a pile of dirt. “I’m figuring Rachel will be well enough to want to go back to her place as well.”
The water hissed and I flipped off the burner, pouring it over the mound of coffee and using a knife to stir it together.Three minutes.
“And Lara?”
I stopped stirring for one long, painful second. Of course he knew. Trying to hide how I felt about her would be like trying to cover the tracks of Bigfoot with a four-leaf clover. “I’d assume she’s going to stay with her sister and then go back to Phoenix. Back to her life.” Statistically speaking, it was the most likely scenario.
“Is that what you want?”
I was sure Callum’s radar could’ve picked up the storm that went through me right then. No, it wasn’t what I wanted, but what the hell right did I have to say? To ask her to stay?
If I were ... someone else, someone who hadn’t been raised by the man interrogating me, I would’ve claimed this was just another case successfully closed and that Lara was just another loved one. But Stones weren’t liars.
“I’m not sure what I want matters right now.”
After grabbing two mugs, I lined a fresh piece of cheesecloth over the top of the carafe and carefully strained the coffee into each cup. I handed Cassius his mug and went to the garbage to dump out the used grounds, hoping the banging would encourage him to let this go.
It didn’t.
“Calder. There’s a difference between being a survivalist and an isolationist.” Cassius’s voice deepened, and I raised an eyebrow and my coffee to my mouth, trying to remember the last time I’d been taught a lesson by my father. “The difference is choice. The world doesn’t give a survivalist a choice. You either have the tools to survive on your own or you don’t. But an isolationist ...” He exhaled. “An isolationist doesn’t give the world a choice—a chance. I raised you to be the former, and after what happened to your mom, I don’t think I made it clear that we were never meant to be the latter.”
“You seem to be pretty content being isolated out here.”
Cassius’s jaw hardened—his masseter. I noticed it now because she’d noticed it in me. Maybe his rules weren’t the only thing Cassius had given me.
“Rule 41.”
I frowned. “Rule 41?” There were only forty.
“Rule 41. Love makes you vulnerable, but isolation makes you weak. Choose your attachments carefully, but don’t live without them,” Cassius instructed, his voice dropping even farther as he added wearily, “We all have our demons, Calder. Don’t let mine become yours.”
Chapter 37
Lara
My sister stirred, and I lifted my head as her eyes opened. “Lara?”
Tucked into the middle of Cassius’s bed, she looked so small. Too small for all the things she carried.