With that, he’s gone.
*
“Oh, honey,” Kady says, rushing through the front door and charging toward me. I got a few of my things from my desk and have been waiting for her to come and collect me, because I’m not sure I can drive in my emotional state.
Kady wraps her arms around me and I let her hug me for the longest moment. When she pulls back, she cups my face in her hands. “You’re going to be just fine. Two weeks off, that’ll be so much fun. We’ll go shopping.”
I force a smile. “Can you take me home?”
“Of course,” she whispers. “Of course, honey.”
I walk down the hall, and as I pass Vance’s office, I look in to see him at his desk. He stares at me and then turns away before I have the chance to express anything to him. I drop my head and walk out to Kady’s car.
We get in, and when we’re on the road, she says gently, “So what happened?”
“I fucked up, I got suspended.”
“You didn’t lose your job, though.”
That doesn’t take away the pain. “No,” I mumble. “But what does that matter in the grand scheme of things?”
“Grace, your job is everything to you. You’ve done the right thing.”
“He mattered to me,” I whisper. “Right now I … I just … I don’t care about my job.”
She reaches over, taking my hand. “You’re allowed to feel like that. Maybe this is why Don always held you back. Maybe he knew this would happen.”
“Yeah,” I say, staring out the window. “I’m starting to think that now. I thought I could do it, but all along, they’ve all been right. I’m a woman and that leaves me vulnerable. I can do a lot of things, but I was never going to be able to bring Raide in.”
“That’s not true,” Kady protests. “You could have brought him in.”
“If I didn’t fall for him.”
She’s silent.
“I’m a fool, Kady. I begged to be given the chance. I threw my hands up and told them all to take me seriously.” I laugh, low and bitter. “And I fucked up on my first case. What must they all think of me? If it’s anything like what I’m thinking about myself, then I know how pathetic it all seems.”
“Grace,” Kady says, her voice hardening. “Don’t you dare. You made a mistake, you’re only human. Do you think Don or Vance or Julio have never screwed up? You can fix this.”
I nod, but the truth is, I don’t really believe her. I put my heart and soul into my career, I begged to be given a chance, to be looked at the same as the other guys, and the one chance I got, I threw away because my compassion got in the way. And now, a huge part of me knows that I’d go back and do it all again—for Raide—and that scares me.
“Can you take me to my parents’?” I ask.
“Of course.”
Twenty minutes later, Kady pulls into their drive. I climb out of the car. “Do you want to come in?”
She shakes her head. “I have to work, but call me when you want to pick up your car, and we’ll go and get it, okay?”
“Okay, thanks, Kady.”
She smiles at me. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I hope.
Chapter Twenty-three
Dad and I sit in silence, beers in hand, staring out at the darkness. The streetlights wash a warm light over the yard, and the evening is quiet, everyone sound asleep. I spent the last hour telling him my story. Now he’s staring out, saying nothing.
“You know,” he says. “I would have done it for your mama.”
I turn to stare at him. “Pardon?”
“I would have risked the same, if it was her I was chasing. I fell for her so hard and fast, it happened quicker than I could have ever imagined. I think if she was my case, and I’d met her, and felt for her the way I do, I would have risked the same thing.”
“Thanks, Dad, but we both know you excelled at your job.”
“You have a good heart, Gracie,” he says softly, turning to me. “It’s big and it’s kind. You might be a hard-ass on the outside, but you’re good and soft inside. You were trying to help a man, you fell for him. If love could be controlled, the world would be an easy, peaceful place.”
I smile. “You’re right about that.”
“You’ve been around long enough to know how rare it is to find someone you adore. You’ve had a few scattered relationships, but you’ve never fallen in love. It happened at a bad time, but it happened all the same.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat and say, “He’s gone now and there’s a good chance I’ll never see him again.”
“Do you really believe he’s innocent?”
I nod, taking a sip of beer. “Yeah, I really do.”
“Then help him.”
“I don’t understand—”
“You just need to get someone to help you.”
“I’m not following you.”
He turns to me. “York.”
“York?” I question.