Page 42 of Deliver Me

“We are so happy to meet you,” Lilly said, “You’ve made Kennedy happier than I think I’ve ever seen her.”

At that Alison smiled back at them, some of her tension draining away. “Nice to meet you, too. Is this your first time at Pride?” she asked, voice barely carrying over the noise as she looked curiously at all of them, including the whole group in her question.

“Yeah,” Lilly acknowledged, “and it’s great!” She turned to Kennedy and gestured at the shirt she wore with its glittering rainbow flag. “If someone had asked you last summer if you’d be here like this in just a year—happy and in love—would you have believed it?”

Kennedy shook her head. “I don’t think I would have believed that Ieverwould have been able to do this. I couldn’t see a future beyond my parents.”

“You’re better than them,” Alison said fiercely. “They didn’t deserve you.”

“No, they didn’t and that’s why we had to come and support Kennedy,” Bryce said with a grin. “She’s been through a lot and it’s good to see her smiling again. I’m glad she has you.”

Alison’s cheeks flushed as Kennedy leaned in for another kiss.

Mia smiled, her heart full at her friend’s obvious blossoming, but her gaze slid from one happy couple to the other and the space between her own fingers felt empty.

She was alone and the hole in her life where Gabriel should have been was becoming a constant ache that had settled deep in her chest. They were all moving on—Kennedy was planning to move in with Alison at the end of summer and that had set Lilly and Bryce thinking about their own apartment—and each beat of her heart was a reminder of the part of her that was missing, each breath heavy with the weight of the passage of time, but how could she admit that to anyone, especially him?

He wouldn’t blame her for how she felt, but she blamed herself.

Gabriel watched as Amy settled into the seat on the other side of the table, her face set as she spread the papers in her arms out for him to look at. There was at least an attempt made to keep the air conditioning working in this part of the prison so the suit she was wearing was only slightly wilted as she passed him a neat stack of paper.

“What’s this?”

The P.I. report,” she explained, pressing a perfectly manicured nail to the first page, dotted with familiar names. “He was able to make contact with Michael Lansing, as well as Vincent Russel, David Hu, and Chris Mendoza. They’ve agreed to testify.”

He swallowed. It was a short list out of all the ones he’d given her. “The others?”

She averted her eyes. “It seems association with Seth Wiseman was as dangerous as you claimed. Andre Lewis diedthe same year you were convicted. Shooting. Ramon Vasquez committed suicide a few years later and no one can find Thomas Wilson. He’s simply disappeared.”

Gabriel nodded, unsurprised but heartsore. He had little doubt that whatever happened to Thomas had been unpleasant and irreversible. “None of the others from Richard’s?”

“Wealthy families and all that,” she said quietly. “Most of them won’t even respond to the P.I.’s inquiries, or they’ve slapped him with legal orders to force him to keep his distance.”

He nodded, again unsurprised. Wasn’t keeping the family reputation intact the reason most of them had been sent to Richard to begin with? Still …

“Brittany?” he asked, unable to shake the hope that maybe, after all these years, she had forgiven him.

Amy shook her head and he looked away at the unexpected sympathy in her eyes. “She was the first to file for him to desist his attempts to contact her. I know she was key to a lot of this, the final straw that drove you out and into Seth’s clutches, but we can’t get to her.”

“What now?” He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, worrying the soft flesh as he rapped uneasily on the table with his knuckle. Disappointment and hurt feelings wouldn’t help him get out of here, it wouldn’t help him get to Mia.

“We wait.” Amy leaned back in her chair, regarding him calmly over the expanse of the table.

He nodded wordlessly. He was guaranteed the right to a speedy trial, sure, but both sides needed time to prepare. He wasn’t going to have tomorrow, or next week, or next month. There was nothing else he could do, nothing he had been able to do for years.

Just wait.

Fall

Mrs. Newberry smirked over the rim of her cup of cider as she approached, and Mia set her teeth. It had been a while since their last encounter, Mrs. Newberry had been mostly quiet the past few months, since she’d realized that nothing had come of her previous gossip. They’d started to believe that she’d given up and Mia had been too busy with classes to pay much attention to her anyway, but the sudden glint in her eye meant she must have found some new bit of information to torment them with.

“Mia, dear,” she said silkily, standing just a bit too close so she could lean in conspiratorially, “you look positively exhausted. Those classes of yours sure do seem to be taking a toll on you.”

Mia opened her mouth, rage coiling at the tip of tongue, but the other woman flashed a quick smile and plunged on without waiting for an answer. “Have you heard the good news? Mr. Prescott is engaged. It seems he foundquitea sweet and God-fearing young woman in Emily, and I was just sure that you would want to know since the two of you were such good friends!”

“I hadn’t heard,” Mia said coldly. “I’m sure he’ll be very happy.”

“It is a shame that you won’t have the same opportunities, isn’t it? How are things going with you and that prisoner?”

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