Page 87 of Whispers in the Dark
Charlotte swallowed. “He didn’t ever say his name. But I think he wanted me to figure it out.”
Alex stared at her, then turned and locked the door behind him. “We’re not leaving this room,” he said, “until I understand everything.”
Charlotte stood there, rooted in place, the coat heavy on her shoulders, the air in the room colder than it should’ve been. Alex leaned back against the door, arms crossed. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.
“Start talking,” he said. “All of it.”
Charlotte took a breath. “The first time I visited him was eight months after the sentencing. I didn’t tell anyone. Not Graham, not Chuck, and later on, not you.”
“Why?” Alex asked again, sharper now.
“Because I needed answers,” she said. “Not about the case. About me. About why I couldn’t sleep. Why I couldn’t look at Chuck without feeling like I was drowning. Ward… he looked at me like he knew. Like he’d already lived it.”
“That’s not a reason,” Alex said. “That’s an excuse.”
Charlotte nodded. “Maybe it was. I hated him, Alex. I still do. But I needed to look him in the eye and understand what kind of man could destroy people and still sit calmly behind a wall like it didn’t matter.”
“And instead,” Alex said, “it was different the next time and the times after that.”
“He wasn’t trying to manipulate me. He knew. One of the sessions I was interrogating him, he noted I was pregnant. I wasn’t showing. He had a way of seeing through me,” she said. “He was worried the stress of the case would hurt the baby. He asked me about Chuck. Ward was a gifted psychiatrist. He saidsomething was coming, and I’d need to decide whose side I was on.”
Alex’s mouth tightened. “Did he tell you about Rook?”
“No. But he talked about blood. About legacies. About consequences that skip generations.”
She looked up, voice softening. “And then he said something I didn’t understand at the time.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘When he comes to me, he won’t be my son. He’ll be the reckoning.’”
Alex’s breath caught in his chest. “That’s Elias,” he said. “They call him Rook.”
Charlotte nodded. “I realize that now.”
Alex paced, running a hand through his hair, his voice low. “You could’ve told me. I could’ve helped you carry that burden.”
She stepped forward. “I didn’t want you to carry it. I didn’t want to let it infect my life. And by the time I realized what I’d stepped into, it was too late. We were already in it.”
Alex faced her. “So where does that leave us?”
Charlotte’s voice broke slightly. “That depends. Can you forgive me?”
Alex stared at her, all that weight between them. His voice was quiet. Worn.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But I’m not walking away from the case. Not until I know what Ward meant and what Elias is really here for.”
She nodded. “Then we find out together.”
The silence between them wasn’t peace, but it wasn’t distance either. It was the beginning of something harder. Truth.
Alex sat on the edge of the table, his elbows on his knees, head down. Charlotte stood a few feet away, arms crossed under his coat, watching him in the dim light, trying to read the tension in his posture.
“You said he was worried,” Alex finally said. “Ward. Worried about you?”
She nodded. “Yeah. He asked if I had someone steady. We had just started seeing each other. He asked if you were someone I could trust in the long run.”
Alex looked up, eyes narrowing. “What the hell does that mean?”
