“I told you, Kaegan. I’m here for closure.”

He nodded. “Okay. Then let’s go inside.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

KAEGAN STOOD ASIDE and let Bryce go down the stairs first. He read the question in her eyes and said, “Yes, I had new stairs installed when it became too hazardous to use that old rusty ladder.”

“Do others know about this bunker now?”

Was she wondering if he’d brought another woman here? Not only had this been a secret place for them, but it had also been one for him. It had been his refuge from the wrath of his father when sleeping outside on the boat at night or walking to town to sneak underground through the passageway into Bryce’s parents’ house became too risky. Especially after that night when one of Sheriff Phillips’s officers had stopped him and asked why he was out so late and off the reservation.

He’d been only fourteen and full of anger at the way his father had been treating his mother yet again. That night Kaegan hadn’t been able to contain his anger and told the police officer he’d asked a stupid question because Native Americans in Catalina Cove didn’t live on reservations. They lived on the bayou, but only because they chose to do so. He was certain the red-faced angry cop would have hauled in his ass if Bryce’s parents, who’d been returning from the movies, had not seen the police with him on the side of the road.

Chester Witherspoon, like Reid LaCroix, demanded respect. Everybody knew him and when he spoke everybody listened, even one of Sheriff Phillips’s men. He had demanded to know why Kaegan had been stopped. When the officer gave some lame-assed excuse, Mr. Chester had called it just that and accused the man of harassing Kaegan. He’d further stated if he heard about it happening again, he would have him fired from the police force. The man knew not to test Mr. Chester’s threat and had even given Kaegan some flimsy apology before he got into his police cruiser and took off. The Witherspoons had taken him to their home...as if they’d known he’d been headed there anyway. He discovered later that they had.

Bryce and her brothers had been up watching television, and when her parents had walked into the house with him in tow, a twelve-year-old Bryce had run to him and hugged him. She had always been his safe haven from whatever storm that had been in his life. That night the Witherspoons told him and Bryce they were fully aware that he’d been using the secret passageway under their home and would sleep there on occasion. They had no problem with that, but preferred that he knocked on their front door because they would always have a guest room for him to use that was better than one of those drafty rooms underground. He had never taken them up on their offer because he feared being stopped by another cop on the streets of Catalina Cove. So he’d risked going through the swamp instead to Eagle Bend Inlet.