“I don’t want to move on!” she screamed, her whole body tense.
I made my voice soft and tipped my head down to rest my forehead on hers. “Yes, you do. I see it in your eyes every time you look at me. Every time you laugh at my stupid jokes. Every time you ask me that one single, solitary question about my kids. But just because I have a fucked-up past too does not mean I’m your ticket out of hell. You have to find that within yourself.”
She laughed without humor and stepped out of my reach, tears pouring down her face. “There is no ticket out of this kind of hell, Porter. And if you think that little dip in the river was anything more than you pretending to have found yours, then you’re worse off than I am.”
I blew out a hard breath and hated myself before I ever said the words. But she was about to go back into hiding, and this time, I feared she wouldn’t be coming back.
“He’s dead, Charlotte.”
She blanched, staring at me with feral eyes.
“I know you love him. And I know there is nothing you wouldn’t give up to have him back. But there is nothing you can do anymore. He will always be your son. Ten million years from now, that will still be true. But the opposite of love isn’t hate the way I always thought. It’s agony, sweetheart. And you’ve been living with that for too long. Let. It. Go.”
She blinked again, and then her whole face crumbled. “He’s my son.”
“And he loved you. Do you think—” I didn’t make it any further because her body turned to stone.
“What?” she breathed.
My eyebrows knitted together. “What, what?”
“He was a baby, Porter. He didn’t love me. He needed me. And I failed him.”
My chest got tight. Fucking hell. She didn’t know that her son loved her. I’d never forget the day Travis first told me that he loved me. Of course, I’d already fallen crazy in love with him. He was five and Catherine and I had been married for just over a year, but knowing he loved me had ignited something I hadn’t known existed inside me. Kids did that to you. They made you whole even when nothing was missing.
From that point on, Travis would always be my son. Maybe not by blood, but he was mine all the same. Love had bound us together. I’d asked Catherine that very same night if she would allow me to legally adopt him, and I’d never looked back.
And it cut me deep, knowing Charlotte never got that from her child.
“Oh, Charlotte.” I closed the distance between us and pulled her into a hug. Her arms remained slack at her sides, but I didn’t let it deter me. “Of course he loved you. You were his mom.”
Her breath hitched, and she stammered, “And…I failed him.”
“And he still loved you,” I whispered.
“He shouldn’t. I left him alone.”
“And he still loved you.”
Her legs wobbled and she circled her arms around my hips. “I chose to help a complete stranger over taking care of my own son.”
“And he still loved you.”
“Why?” she whined.
“Because, just like he will always be your son, ten million years from now, you will still be his mom. Nothing you did changes that.”
And then Charlotte Mills finally let it go.
Her knees gave out and the weight of ten years’ worth of guilt swallowed her.
She cried, mumbling unintelligible words. Some I assumed were apologies to her son. Some were apologies to me. Some were angry and aimed at the universe. Some were bitter and aimed at herself.
All of them wrecking her.
But, in some way, all of them healing her as well.
This wasn’t the end for Charlotte. It was very much the beginning.
And, no matter the cost, I was going to be there every step of the way.
After about fifteen minutes of standing, Charlotte sank to the ground. I followed her down and pulled her into my side, where she continued to cry for what seemed like an eternity.
I helplessly held her while unconditional love and guilt destroyed her.
And, during that time, I stared down at that river and let it all destroy me too.
We sat there for well over an hour. Holding each other. Grieving pasts we couldn’t change.
The same pasts that had brought us together.
And, ultimately, the same pasts that would tear us apart.
* * *
“No fucking way,” Tom Stafford growled, his hand shaking as he stared at the DNA results for the unidentified baby Johnny Doe. “This has to be some sort of mistake.”
Charlie Boucher uncomfortably rocked onto his toes. “No mistaking it. Now, before you lose your shit, I did discover a few things that I think you might find interesting.”
Tom jerked his head up and scowled.
“Right. Okay,” Charlie mumbled. “They got three different DNAs off the body. The first from the clothing. Definitely Lucas Boyd. The second from the body. Definitely not Lucas Boyd. And one from the lining of the bag he was discovered in. A woman. And this did not belong to Charlotte Mills. We got no hits in the database on it. However, the first bit I found interesting is it appears that the unidentified child is related to the unidentified woman. As in…she was his mother.”
Tom blinked, the wheels in his head starting to turn. “Cause of death?”
“It’s an old body, Tom,” he warned.
“We’ve done more with older,” Tom shot back.
Charlie shook his head. “There’s no clear cause as of yet—at least, not physically. They sent a few samples off, but it’s going to take a while to get the pathology and toxicology back.”
Fuck. He knew from experience that that shit could take forever.
Tom pinched the bridge of his nose and dropped the file on his desk. His sour gut turned downright toxic as he tried to figure out how the hell he was going to explain all of this to Charlotte. Break her heart all over again. Fuck. Why the hell had he told her before he had been positive?
Oh, right. Because he’d been so damn hopeful that it was finally over for all of them.
Himself included.
Tom knew he was a good cop. But he was too close to this investigation. He should have passed it off years earlier, when he and Charlotte had started getting close, but he hadn’t trusted anyone not to file it away as a cold case. He’d sworn to himself that he could stay objective. Look at the facts and not allow his emotions to rule his decisions.
Clearly, he had failed.
“You got anything else for me?” Tom asked through his frustration.
“Actually, I was just getting started,” Charlie replied downright cheerfully.
Tom gave him his gaze back and scowled again.
“Whoever this little boy is, dental suggests he was around twelve to sixteen months old when he passed away. But, for that to be interesting, I should have started with the fact that we got a set of prints. A woman.” He swayed his head from side to side. “If I were a betting man, I’d bet that DNA belongs to her.”
Finally, good news. Really good fucking news, Tom thought as he blew out a heavy breath and settled behind his computer, barking, “Who?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa… Simmer down. Let me get to why it’s interesting.”
“Don’t fucking—”
“She’s dead.” Charlie spoke over him. “Killed herself a few years ago. Drove herself into the river with her kids in the car.” He paused. “Her son. Her only son got out alive.”
Tom’s whole body locked up. “So, if we got her only son in the morgue, who the fuck was the kid in that car?”
Charlie leaned forward, settling his elbows on his knees, and whispered, “I’m guessing Lucas Boyd.” He picked the file up and flipped it open. “I vote we pay a little visit to the kid’s dad.” He scanned the page with his finger then glanced back up. “Porter Reese.”
And, with those two simple words, Tom exploded from his chair.
* * *
My eyes hurt.
My face hurt.
My lungs hurt.
My body hurt.
My brain hurt.
But my heart… It continued to beat in my chest.
Lucas was dead.
And I had to keep living.
Tipping my head back, I caught Porter’s blue gaze and whispered, “I think I’m done.”