“I didn’t know how to help you,” his father said quickly. His throat sounded like it was constricting too. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“Do you feel that way now?”

A pause, as Dr. Holloway swirled his drink around. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But everything’s going to be different now.” He reached out, clutching Raven’s arm across the desk. His grip was fierce, his gaze desperate.

Raven’s heart cracked. “I don’t want to be mad at you,” he confessed, sliding his arm out of his father’s grip. “I know what losing Mom did to you. You lost yourself, and every time you heard me laugh—”

“I will never leave you again. You and I are family, and no one’s going to take you away from me.”

“No one’s trying to take me away from you,” Raven answered, and it was the truth. At least for the moment. But maybe his father knew what was coming, because he downed the rest of his drink in one gulp. “Why don’t we go and visit your mother tonight?”

“What?” The room swayed a little. Raven thought it was the oddness of his father’s suggestion, but something was rising in his stomach. He set his drink down. “I can’t leave. I have friends over.” Those friends were waiting for him in the living room. He’d needed them to wait there, because he’d had to do this alone.

And he’d known his father wouldn’t hurt him.

“Your friends will understand.” Dr. Holloway swept around the side of the desk, his black slacks brushing against the edge of the wood. He was wearing a matching jacket and a shirt that hadn’t been properly buttoned underneath. Shoes but no socks. Raven’s stomach clenched at the sight of him. “Just get into the car with me—”

“No.” Raven jerked out of his chair as his dad lurched toward him. His shoes slid across the heating vent on the floor, and he wondered if his father had heard him talking in the living room. Blood rushed through his ears. “I’m not abandoning my friends. That’s the difference between us.”

Dr. Holloway sucked in a breath as if Raven had punched him. “My son was sick. I wanted to help him.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here! You always do that. You decide things without asking me. You married that woman and you never even talked to me about it.”

“That was a mistake.” Dr. Holloway slid an arm around Raven’s shoulders, guiding him toward the study door. “I told you, I wasn’t seeing clearly before, but I know the truth now.”

“Because of what you found in the heating vent the day Evelyn died.”