Page 78 of Jayson
“Close or not,” he presses, “he’s your blood. You didn’t even try?”
My throat tightens. The room swims slightly, blurring at the edges. “He wasn’t the kind of man you go looking for,” I say, the words barely a whisper. “He was the kind you run from.”
Lopez’s pen stills. “What does that mean, exactly?”
I fold my arms across my chest, tipping my chin defiantly.
“You look like a smart woman, detective. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
“I still find it hard to believe that you didn’t report him missing.”
I open my mouth, then close it again. There’s too much in the air—Riley’s voice echoing from the past, my father’s shadow clawing at my skin.
“You think I did something to him?” I ask, quieter now.
“We don’t know what to think,” Hawthorne replies.
There it is. The quiet accusation. The unspoken suggestion that I’m the common denominator between two missing person’s cases.
Jayson shifts beside me, moving slowly, deliberately, until he’s eye-level with the detective. No words. No theatrics. Just presence. Solid, unmoving, unbothered.
The air thickens between them, a silent standoff.
He doesn't need to say a thing. His stance does the talking—You don’t intimidate me.
“You don’t get to come into this house and strong-arm Keira,” he says, stepping slightly in front of me—not shielding, exactly, but drawing a line in the sand with his body. “You don’t get to sit here and make accusations against her.”
“No-one is making any accusations,” Lopez says, sliding her eyes in Hawthorne’s direction. She closes her notebook with a faint thud, but the sound lands like a warning shot.
“We’ll be in touch,” Hawthorne says, his eyes still pinned to me. “We’ll be speaking to anyone who might help… fill in the blanks.”
He doesn’t say what blanks. He doesn’t need to.
The air in the room changes like a weather front rolling in. Energy rolls off Jayson, tight and heavy, more dangerous.
“No,” he says, voice low and final. “The next time you get “in touch”, you can’t speak to her without a lawyer present.”
Lopez raises a brow. “Excuse me?”
Hawthorne squints. “I didn’t quite catch your name.”
“You don’t need it,” Jayson replies coldly.
Lopez eyes him like a puzzle she’s not sure she wants to solve. “And you would be…”
I cut her off before she can get another word in. I step forward, hand wrapping gently but firmly around Jayson’s forearm.Possession.
“Jayson’s my husband.”
Silence. For a beat, no one breathes.
Lopez blinks. Hawthorne straightens, then blinks rapidly as though he’s been blindsided.
“You’re… what?” Lopez finally asks, her voice dropping an octave.
“We’re married,” I repeat, letting the words settle like dust between us.
The pause that follows is thick with implication.
