19. Mina

Heathcliff didn't come home from the police station that night.

The next morning, I woke in a tangle of limbs, but when I felt around Morrie and Quoth's sleeping forms, there was a huge, cold expense of bed real estate where my grumpy antihero normally slept.

Still empty.

Panic rose in my chest. I drew Heathcliff's dressing gown around me, breathing in his fresh, mossy, peaty scent, the scent that lingered from his time on the moors. I stole into the living room and collapsed into his chair beside the dead fire, wincing as I pulled a whisky bottle from behind my bottom.

Heathcliff, please be okay. Please come home to me.

I knew that Heathcliff was no murderer – not this version of him, anyway. My Heathcliff was so much more than who he was in his book. He was passionate, true-hearted, and loyal, and he cared deeply about people and animals and wild places. And wedding planning, for some reason.

But because of his mysterious past and the way he acted (and probably because of his heritage, because let's be honest, unconscious bias is a thing), people in the village would always assume the worst of him. If Hayes and Wilson were convinced he killed Iwan, they wouldn't bother to search for the real killer. I'd seen it before. I had to?—

"Stop thinking what you're thinking," Morrie scolded me as he placed my morning cup of tea into my hands.

"How do you know what I'm thinking?" I sipped the tea. He'd made it perfectly. Of course he had.

"Because I know how your mind works, my brave and determined lady. But we can't do anything."

"There's plenty we can do. We can go back to the scene of the crime and look for clues that the police missed. I can talk to Jo and see what she'll tell me about the body, see if there's a clue there, and you can dig into Iwan's past and?—"

"Mina, we're not going to do any of that. We are going to get married."

"We can't get married if Heathcliff's in jail and our celebrant is dead!"

Morrie sighed. "Quoth will go to the police station and see what he can find out. Won't you?"

Of course,Quoth's voice landed inside my head as he flew into the room. I know all the sneaky ways to get inside the station now. And Hayes often has a bowl of nuts on his desk.

Morrie opened the kitchen window, and Quoth dove outside. As he shut the window again, he said, "Why don't you work on your book? That'll take your mind off Heathcliff. I'll even help you. What changes do you want to make?"

My face screwed up.

"Gorgeous, why are you so determined to believe that your story isn't good enough just the way it is?" Morrie knelt down in front of me, his hands brushing my thighs in a way that made my cheeks flush with heat. "Is this why you told that girl you'd find her wayward duck, because you don't want to?—"

"James Pond! Of course!" I grabbed Morrie's shoulder. "If I can't work on solving Iwan's murder and clearing Heathcliff's name, then I can at least find Maisie's duck."

If I can do one thing right, at least I'll know that I'm not useless.

"If that's what you really want to do, then I'll help you."

"I want to look for Iwan's murderer, but you're all being stubborn about that." I made a face. "So we're going to find out what happened to James Pond. Yesterday, before we got the phone call from Quoth, you said you had something to show me."

Morrie explained that he'd found a footprint that matched the one we found beside James Pond's pen…at Wayne Bryant's house. "I think that we need to go and ask Wayne some questions."