Isobel frowned at the story, recalling the note Mr. Nethers had left in the Cougar’s glove compartment that day at Nobit’s Nook. In the note, he had commanded Varen to stop playing morbid games and come home now. Isobel now understood that the note had been an attempt to coerce some solid response from Varen, some definitive evidence to prove to Mr. Nethers that he wasn’t going crazy, and that his son still existed in this world. That he was, at the very least, alive.
“We were both there today, you know,” Darcy went on, “at the funeral. Joe sat in the car, though, because he couldn’t come to the tent. He’d been certain that Varen would be there, and when we didn’t see him, he . . . well, he’s running out of hope. We are running out of hope.”
“I . . . ,” Isobel started, but she didn’t know what to say. Like her, Varen’s parents had made Bruce’s funeral their final resort. They’d had the same idea she’d had. And the same result.
But if Mr. Nethers had been there, then . . . “Why didn’t you show him the note?” Isobel asked.
“I couldn’t,” Darcy whispered, eyes brimming. “You heard Joe tell me to post an ad for the Cougar in the paper just now.” She shook her head. “He’s not trying to get rid of the car. He’s trying to hang on. I can tell he thinks that somehow, Varen will see the ad and come back for it. You don’t know him. Joe’s not going to stop until something solid comes up. Isobel, you are that something. So please, please, please tell me that piece of paper wasn’t a suicide note.”
Isobel drew a sharp breath, but it caught in her throat, lodged there by the utterance of that single hissing word.
By giving up the note that morning, Isobel had wanted to bring both herself and Darcy some semblance of closure. Not more despair and uncertainty. Not more pain.
True, Darcy had glimpsed the other side, but she still didn’t know all that Isobel did.
Nor could she ever.
She hadn’t been there. In that nightmare realm that gave as much life to the terrors and sorrows of Varen’s mind as it had to those of Poe’s.
“What you saw in the mirror was real,” Isobel said, choosing her words carefully. “I was there with him. On the other side. And . . . I’m here now, aren’t I?”
Aren’t I? The question echoed in her head, taunting her as Slipper hunkered low before the gap in the door, her tail twitching in agitation.
Isobel’s focus fell to the cat—then to the wavering shadow on the floor just outside.
“What is it?” Darcy hissed. “Who is that out there?”
Isobel pulled slowly on the doorknob.
Darting through the opening as soon as it grew wide enough, Slipper rushed out, dashing pell-mell past the form that stood waiting on the top step just outside.
16
Perils Parallel
“You know where my boy is?” Varen’s father asked.
Mr. Nethers pressed his fist to the wall, barring Isobel’s way, as if he thought she might follow the cat’s lead and try to barrel down the stairs to escape him.
Isobel had meant it when she’d told Darcy she wasn’t afraid of him, though.
Stepping out of the office, she drew nearer to Mr. Nethers. As her shadow drifted over him, she watched the dullness in his eyes sweep clear, the mask of anger fall away. A different man now stood before her from the one who had greeted her at the front door. Or the one she’d seen yelling at Varen in his room—at Bruce in the bookshop.
This man was present. Awake. Aware. Not just an empty suit.
His lips quivered as though he wanted to speak again, but he held back, waiting, it seemed, for Isobel to speak first, to tell him something that would ease his pain.
Nothing she could say held the power to accomplish such a feat.
Still, the sadness—the sheer devastation radiating from him—felt too real to ignore, and though Isobel had wanted to hate him, she found she couldn’t now.
The office door creaked behind her. She sensed Darcy watching, waiting for her cue to step in and play her practiced part of umpire.
The game to win control had already come to an end, though. And in her hand, Isobel held what felt like the final score.
She extended the photo of Mr. Nethers’s son out to him.
“This photograph,” Isobel said. “How closely did you look at it before you framed it?”
His big fist left the wall, and with shaking fingers, he took the picture.
As he looked down at it, tears formed in his eyes. They spilled, falling with audible pops against the stiff, glossy paper. His other hand—so strong and fierce before—quaked as it went to cover his face.