Page 72 of Sadie's Guarded Harbor

Happiness tightened his chest. The next couple of hours would be tough, but at least he’d have Sadie by his side. He climbed in the car and took her hand after she returned the wheelchair and buckled into the driver’s seat. Silence settled between them, his mind fixed on what was to come. By the time she pulled into her spot behind the station, his nerves were as taut as a tightrope.

She shut off the engine. “Ready?”

He sucked in a shuddering breath. “As I’m ever going to be.”

They walked hand-in-hand into the station, neither giving a damn who saw them or what they thought. Melissa sat in the interview room, a cast covering her leg where Sadie had shot her.

Tommy led Sadie to the room beside it where he could watch the police chief of Water’s Edge, Chief Buckman, squeeze whatever he could out of the disgraced judge. The gun used to shoot Shawn and Sadie had been found in Melissa’s house, so she’d go to prison no matter what she divulged. But the need to find out exactly what happened to his mom beat a constant rhythm in his heart.

Katherine, Theo, Owen, Marie, and his dad shot to their feet the moment he stepped across the threshold. Pappy sat in the corner, arms crossed. Tears streamed down Katherine’s face. She rushed toward him and threw her arms around his neck.

He kept one hand locked with Sadie’s and secured his free arm around Katherine’s back.

“I can’t believe it.” Katherine kept her face pressed against him as she spoke. “After all these years, we find out who killed her.”

His dad approached and rested a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Good work, Son. Your mother would be proud.” His words came out thick, as if his throat would close at any moment. Tears misted his eyes, and he pressed his lips together until the pale pink turned white. “I’m proud.”

Owen sniffed back emotion and gave one brief nod, no words needed to be spoken to understand the depth of his feelings.

“Let’s sit. You shouldn’t be on your feet.” Marie gestured toward the line of chairs in front of the two-way mirror.

Tommy fell into the cushioned seat. His dad sat beside him, then Katherine with Theo on her other side. Marie crossed to sit beside Pappy while Owen stayed on his feet behind her.

“I should step outside,” Sadie said. “You need to be with your family. I’ll wait for you.”

“No way.” He pulled her onto the empty chair to his right. “You’ve been beside me from the start of this, and I want you by my side all the way to the end.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Katherine said. “Please, stay.”

Sadie nodded and linked her fingers with Tommy’s.

Tommy licked his dry lips and faced forward, latching his gaze to the back of Melissa Downs’ head. Her lawyer sat beside her. Chief Buckman entered the room and took a seat across from her at the long rectangular table, and the interview began.

As the interview progressed, anger mingled with sorrow. Listening to the woman who killed his mother tell the story of fighting with Shawn while she drove his car, distracted and furious because she wanted him to dump his girlfriend back at college, made his skin crawl.

Tommy had always known his mom had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he’d never imagined a stupid argument between Melissa and Shawn had caused the driver—Melissa—to jump the curb, hit his mother, and speed away.

Revulsion churned his stomach, but he couldn’t look away—had to hear every detail. Even an estranged wife explaining how her husband’s desperation to confess led to shoot and kill a man she’d once loved.

By the time the interview was finished and Melissa was wheeled out in handcuffs, every nerve in Tommy’s body shook. “Melissa Downs is a monster.”

Mike stood and faced him. Katherine rose and cuddled against her father’s side. Owen squeezed Marie’s shoulder as she wrapped an arm around Pappy’s thin shoulder.

“You’re right,” Mike said. “And she’ll spend the rest of her life in prison to pay for what she’s done.”

“It won’t bring Mom back,” Tommy whispered, unable to stop the moisture from pooling in his eyes.

Sadie squeezed his hand. “Nothing will. But you’ll keep her alive with your memories and stories. And now, knowing the person responsible for her death is being punished, you can heal. Not completely, but enough so that you can think of your mom with a smile and joy instead of only rage and questions.”

She was right. The pain of losing his mom would never go away, but a new sense of peace—of justice—had already begun to grow within him. The path to finding Shawn’s killer had taken him in a direction he never expected, but it had given him answers he’d longed to have for so many years.

And had given him Sadie.

EPILOGUE

Sadie stepped into her living room and smiled at the cluttered mess that would have driven her crazy three months earlier. But not now. Now, the mess meant Tommy—the man she loved—was home and waiting for her.

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