He kissed her, turned her to the car, rounded it, and got behind the wheel. “She’s no more a murderer than the child you were.”
“No. If she’d just snapped, I’d have thrown what weight I could toward diminished capacity, and I wouldn’t have been wrong. But I kept asking myself if it was because of her, because of the circumstances, or if it was because of me.”
“It’s all. Because of you, you were able to see her and the circumstances more clearly, understand them more clearly. I’m unspeakably proud of you. Don’t say it’s your job,” he told her before she could. “This was more. Strazza was your victim, but so was she, in every sense. You uncovered the truth for and about him, but you stood for her. The one who most needed it.”
“She’ll get through it.”
“I believe she will.”
“So will the Patricks, even though this is going to shake their foundations and leave a hell of a crack in them.”
“They have each other, as you said. So do we.” He lifted her hand, kissed it. “I want that walk with you.”
“Until we’re half frozen, then we can thaw out by the bedroom fire.”
“What do you say we get a little drunk by that fire, see what happens next?”
“I say: I know what happens next, and I’m all for it.”
Steadier, much steadier, she looked out the window. Snow blackened against the curbs, people rushing to get somewhere else, traffic thoroughly pissed off. Horns blasting and ad blimps blaring.
The city she loved, Eve thought. Her place. It looked absolutely perfect to her.