By the time their wheels finally crest Lore's Hill and the triangle home threatens to poke a hole in the clouds, Kathy is stuffing her son in a minivan. She catches them in her periphery, shields her eyes from the drizzle in the air, and calls out. "What're you kids doing here? Here for Nefyn?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Gideon peps, quickly surpassing Lacey to stop beside the young caretaker.

Kathy smiles and gestures at the front door. "I haven't locked up yet. You can just walk right in, he should be upstairs." Gideon nods, polite as ever, and Kathy turns back to fuss over her child, adjusting the seatbelt. "Alright, Gordy, we ready to say hello to the doctor and get some nom-noms at grandma's?"

Gordy doesn't act as though he heard his mother's question at all. Instead, he stares at Lacey from around the wall of the car as she walks by. Kid hardly even blinks. Even when Kathy shuts the door, his mass of white-blonde hair pops up behind the window and he continues to watch.

She casts her bike aside and sticks her tongue out at him. He ducks beneath the window. That's right. Stare at me like that, you better hide.

The first floor is dark, the front hall lit only by a small nightlight plugged into the wall, but as they take the stairs, the world begins to brighten. They find Nefyn upstairs, as promised, in the warm reading room down the hall from the white room with the big window. A wall of books sits at the back of the room, near the doorway, and the big stone fireplace is lit, shadows and light dancing with one another on the deep green walls. They have to look beyond the wool couch to find him stuffed into an old leather armchair, glasses perched on his nose as he follows his finger in a book.

When they enter the room, the floor creaks, and he peers over the thin frames. The glossy chartreuse of his eyes lands on their pants, each in turn. "What, did you both wade in shit before you decided to drag it all into my house?"

Lacey glances down. True, the fabric is soaked and stained, and she could do the smart thing and apologize for coming dressed in algae juice, but she doesn't want to. "Yes. As a matter of fact, we did." She lifts her chin, indignant.

Instead of getting riled, Nefyn simply claps his book to a close and shrugs. "No matter. It matches your personality quite well."

Oh, now she's had it. She opens her mouth to retort but Gideon claps his palm over her lips before she can. "Real sorry we didn't have time to change. We need to talk to you about some new developments."

He levels an empty stare at them for a while, dead-eyed. Then he eventually caves, sighs, and flicks his book across the room, where it spins across the floor before ponking abruptly against a table leg. When he looks at them next, he could almost look his own age. Big curious eyes. Calm face. Looks younger than her father, as he should. He nods and clears his throat. "Right, then, well. Before all that, you two look hungry and I haven't eaten since morning. Gideon, there's leftovers on the top shelf of the fridge. You know how to work a stove, yeah? Be useful and warm it up for all of us."

Gideon has no qualms with this and promptly goes. Lacey considers following, and by the time she figures out that this is the smartest thing to do, she's already been standing there in the doorway for too long and Gideon is downstairs and ah, shit, she should turn to go now so she does-

"Stop," Nefyn says. "I have a question."

She winces, throwing a look at him over her shoulder. It's never too late to ignore someone. She could just continue on her way but now he's expectant, gesturing to the couch, and crap, now she has to entertain him, doesn't she?

Wary, she steps over to the couch and sinks into the tan wool, picking a spot right in the middle. As Nefyn watches her, she feels a crawling sensation under her skin, but his look is innocent enough. Just observing. Waiting. Wondering. He parts his lips once, then backtracks, and starts again. "I don't get it."

She stuffs her hands under her legs and sits on them. "What?"

"You kids. You've got your hearts to set on finding out what happened, on taking this investigation into your own hands to find this boy and the people who did what they did to that other girl. I don't get it. Why?"

She shrugs. It should be obvious. "A boy is missing. He's in danger."

"But most kids would let the police handle it. You should let the police handle it. And it's more than that. I can tell."

"How can you tell anything? You hardly know me."

He releases the armrests and lets himself fall deeper into the seat. The corner of his lip perks up, and he fixes a hard stare on her face. There's something almost cocky about it. "There's anger in you. Desperation. Something is eating you alive." Well, sure, that's applicable. It's only natural. Her face seems to give this thought away, and he presses his lips into a flat line. "What is it?"

That's a question. She pulls her hands out from under her legs and splays them out - much to her own dismay, since they're damp now, too, and smell faintly of rotting wood. "Eugh. I mean, what do you mean? Someone I was close with once is dead. Stella died and I saw her wash up and the same thing could happen to Erie for the same reasons and- and I should be angry. I don't need to justify my own grief, or anger, or guilt to anyone. It's mine."

"Guilt?" He raises a brow. He doesn't say anything more. He doesn't have to.

She could shut down now. Stop talking, get up and walk away. This is an option and she sees it more plainly on the table than anything else, and yet, she continues to sit there, staring down at her own hands in her lap, twisting them around one another and tugging at the knuckles and listening to them pop. He doesn't say anything while she works through each finger, and it's comforting, almost, this patient presence, this new version of Nefyn that isn't just a grumpy less-than-middle-aged man. He sits and waits and she takes her good old time trying to deal with the jumble and then another card slides onto the table out of the corner of her eye, and when she flips it over in her mind, it says let it all go.

She clutches this metaphorical card to her chest. "I left Carrick when Stella needed me. I didn't come back until it was too late. She wanted things that I couldn't give her and I don't exactly blame myself for that, but I could've been more understanding to the situation and maybe if I'd done things differently, things would've turned out and she'd still be here. Or if I'd come back sooner or tried to keep contact."

She swirls her wrist until it, too, pops. "And then Erie, I tried not to make the same mistake, and we kept contact but I guess I thought we were closer than we were, and that one is my fault because I only wanted to talk when I wanted, about me, on my terms, and I never really asked about him. It was always me, me, me. To make myself feel better. But I don't think we really knew each other all that well as time passed. If we did, he'd've told me about Stella. How he was trying to find her. I could've gotten him to stop. But I didn't. And now he's out there. Probably dead by now. The-" She stops herself before she spills about the fates and makes herself sound like a crazy person.

With a sigh, she finishes cracking her knuckles and lays her hands atop one another, calm and collected. "So, yeah. Guilt."

"You want to make things right," Nefyn states; it's not a question. There's some type of curious wisdom in his face. Maybe that's why she was wild enough to spill all of...that. He starts to say something, but then switches words. "Thank you for being candid with me."

She simply shrugs, flippant, and as her shoulders droop, Gideon's heavy footfalls enter the room. Thank God. A rich aroma enters with him, and she turns back, stomach roaring with a fierce pang. Nefyn chuckles, and she rolls her eyes. Meanwhile, Gideon conducts a risky balancing act with a half-full tray of lasagna, plates and utensils stacked atop the sides of said tray. Eventually, he gets everything situated on the coffee table, but the warm ooze of cheese and sauce wraps around Lacey's nose and everything that is wrong in the world disappears. She scoots aside to let him sit, and he starts handing out plates.

"So: about why we're here. Don't ask how, but we found Ro-Anne Foster's body today." Gideon lifts a melty portion of lasagna onto a plate Lacey holds, and she delivers it into Nefyn's unsteady fingers. He never takes his eyes off Gideon and his thumb plunges right into burning sauce. He curses and sucks his finger.

"Are you two trying to get yourselves killed?" Nefyn snaps around the thumb, brows set in a queer fury as he looks between the pair. He pops the finger out of his mouth. "This is worse than idiotic."

"It was fine," Gideon stresses, piling Lacey's plate next, then his. "We found her behind a wall. The police are investigating and...collecting the body as we speak. I heard the sirens go out that way as we were coming here. But the thing is, as we were leaving the place she was uh, unceremoniously buried, we ran into Clint."

"Who?"

"Doesn't matter." He shovels a spoonful of the meal in and covers his mouth, still full, as he speaks. "What's important is he's the one who led us astray with Stella, and, get this, he works for Isaac Boone."

Nefyn hasn't touched his food. He lowers the plate onto his lap and closes his eyes. "You're kidding. This smug fuck really is behind all this, isn't he? Shit, I was wrong when I said he wasn't capable of murder." His eyes fly open, and he chews his cheek. "Wasn't wrong when I said he'd get others to do the dirty work for him, though, piece of-"

Lacey holds a hand out, halting him. "So you think Isaac knows about it? Just had Clint do the killing for him? I figured Clint did it on his own and framed Isaac. But then that begs the question of who was working with him."

"Still working on that 'hunch' about there being two, huh?"

She answers by leaning back into the couch and filling her mouth with lasagna. It bursts with flavor. She makes a decision then and there: she'll let the boys talk. She's busy with this and will be for a while. Kathy is a goddess. She must be. Then her brows knit. "Wait. You said Kathy leveled a gun at Isaac once. Maybe she-"

Nefyn's face contorts furiously. "Don't you even start. She's a good woman and the place I think you're going is ridiculous and might as well be slander. Cast it out of your mind."

"Well, I just ask because-"

"Ro was shot," Gideon finishes. "It's not unreasonable to consider anyone with a gun who we know has had...contact? With some of our other suspects."

"Well," Nefyn says, stabbing the lasagna with his fork until a fountain of red squirts out. "It is unreasonable. So leave it be. If I see that woman's name on my wall, I'm burning your whole board. Understood?"

Gideon ducks his head. "Understood, Nef."

Nefyn grunts approval and finally takes a frustrated bite. He waits until he's done chewing before speaking, and the men continue to discuss, argue, what-have-you. In all honesty, Lacey tunes out for a great deal of it, absorbed in the food and speculation. Something about Kathy doesn't sit right with her. And her son, Gordy. The gun. Ching, pow.

The food loses flavor. It churns in her gut uncomfortably. She sets the fork on the plate and sets the plate on the table. "I'm done," she says quietly.

Gideon, chewing his last bite, stacks her plate atop his, and Nefyn hands his barely touched plate in, too. The boy chuckles at the two of them. "What's wrong with you both? This stuff's delicious."

"Lost my appetite," Lacey and Nefyn say in unison. It makes her blood run cold.

Gideon simply shrugs and pfts at them. He gathers everything in his arms. "Right, well. I'm gonna dismiss myself to take these down and wash them. Shouldn't take too long."

Lacey is quick to stand, wiping her palms on her shirt. "Need any help?"

She expects him to say yes, to wholeheartedly accept her company, but much to her personal shock, he offers her a warm smile and shakes his head. "I'd appreciate the alone time, just for a few minutes. I need to think. Thanks, though."

Although she doesn't want to give this to him - she wants to leech off of his presence, off of the comfort of it - she eventually lets him go, and with her nails awkwardly pinching into the skin of her palms, she settles back on the couch, stiff.

Nefyn stares at her.

Eventually she can't take it anymore. "What?"

He doesn't seem like he wants to say the words he's thinking (his lips curl into his mouth, and he shifts his gaze away), but she pushes again, and he forces them to come. "You don't know how I came to be paralyzed from the waist down, do you?" He shakes his head quickly. "Gideon wouldn't have told you, he doesn't know either. But do you?"

Lacey, suddenly feeling like the worst person in the world for not seeing the struggle behind his eyes while they were eating and talking before, turns her body slightly so she can face him better. She chooses her words carefully. "...No. I hardly know you and you're not exactly a public persona."

His lip twitches, not like a smile or a frown, just a muscle spasm. "It came from my guilt, too."

And this is what she gets for being candid. A story. This man's own lore, and ah, there the name comes into play, there the legacy sits. She leans forward, and briefly she spots the sky outside, tinged the dark blue of a dying day. Two windows cry and sweat under a light rain. Just looking at it puts a chill in her bones - there's not a day that goes by where she doesn't keenly know what outside feels like, cold and wet - but the orange glow from the fireplace warms her cheeks and illuminates the hollows in his.

He loosens the navy scarf around his neck and tugs on it, finding it too tight. His fingers tangle in the thin fabric, and the contradictions in his face come out: the softness, warm eyes and big ears; the sharpness, jagged bones and a strong jaw; playfulness, always stuck in his features even when he isn't smiling or retorting; anger, always stuck in his features even when he isn't frowning or yelling. It strikes her then just how painfully human he looks, he is, sitting there trying to get the words out.

"When I was younger, I was arrogant. Probably a bit deluded too, I think. But mainly arrogant. Wasn't always that way. I remember being told I was a sweet boy in the elementary years. Then something happened and I had to protect myself, so I told myself I was the only version of me, and the best version of the people around me. 'Sharp as a blade with an ass of steel,' I'd tell myself in the morning when I got up and looked. And I was. Still am, just...stress hasn't done me well and, hm, we won't mention the state of my ass here. Point is, I was an ass.

"I'm not sure why. I was cocky all up through my teen and young adult years, and I attributed it to confidence, but I also don't think I was living in the clearest of realities. I was the perfect son and I had to stay perfect because I was the only one. That was part of my redemption, I thought. Giving my parents that much. I went to their functions and I kept myself active and I made myself known in the community, I sailed and ran and hosted events in their stead and did everything I could. I did everything I could.

"But that reality, it didn't feel real. My grandpappy, he'd raised me on old tales. I was a boy built from old tales and it made reality feel like a dream. That was how I protected myself too, I think. But stories, that's all they are, and dreams end. Guilt ate away at the pretty words and left behind a...a bunch of blank pages bound together. The fantasy of it all, pretending I could be everything people wanted and more, it got sucked out. And see, my family, they built us up out of values of honesty. I never told a single lie in my life but one. That lie did me in. I had to tell someone. I had to.

"So I did. I talked to these friends of mine, because I told them everything else and I trusted them and I wanted...I wanted support, I think." His hand curls into a fist around the scarf and he slowly pulls it off until it drops into his lap, sinking into itself like a shrivelling snake. His eyes drop, shadowed, and his jaw tightens. "I didn't get it. They came for me at night when I was sleeping over at another friends' house. He went to pick up beer for us, since we'd already drank what was in the fridge, and there was this red light screwed into his ceiling fan, I remember it. And the banging on the front door. And the yelling from the people I thought were my friends.

"Long story short, they got in. They ran up those stairs and when I tried to hold the bedroom door shut, they got in through that, too. I remember trying to get out through the window and I ripped the blinds out and got it open but they pulled me back. I remember how the air felt when they started to hit me. They threw me into the mirror. It shattered. They dubbed me 'the storyteller.' A liar. Mirror-boy." The nickname rolls off his tongue with venom, and he grunts. "'Take a good look at yourself, Mirror-boy,' they said.

"When all was done, they left me on my friend's floor, covered in blood. I don't remember how I got up. You had to crawl over the bed to get to the window, so I did." He swallows and takes a deep breath, and when his cheek shifts slightly in the firelight, it glistens. Lacey's brows knit together with worry. It's always strange to watch a grown man cry. "And that guilt, it was still eating me. So I jumped out. But I landed wrong. On something in the yard, I think, something hard, and I landed on the base of my back. There was a crack and I remember not being able to move."

A hand runs over his face, still clutching the scarf, and he rubs his cheek with it. He sighs and leans into his fabric-laden fist. "My friend came back and found me. He dropped the beers and I remember thinking, 'What a waste of beer.'"

"Dear lord," is all Lacey can muster. Her nails are in her mouth and she didn't realize she was chewing them or that she even had a nail-chewing problem until now.

"Yeah. And then, y'know, clearly, here I am now still. People had to help me do everything. I could've pressed charged, but if I did, y'know, all would be out there. So I just sat back and let people take care of me. Before we had a caretaker, we had Dolores. I'd met her at some function, like she told you. We'd gotten to know each other pretty well and she offered to stay with me."

"That was awfully nice of her," Lacey says, but the words fall hollow. She's not good at this. "Doesn't seem like it went well with how she talks about you, though."

"Mm. Well, there was a...fleeting relationship there. I needed it. She helped me come to the realization that I needed to decide for myself to not let that guilt eat at me anymore. It nearly got me killed. It ruined everything I had going for me. I should've just moved on, and I kept telling myself that, every time I looked in the mirror. I still regret it. Just...cast it out of my mind and leave it forever."