Page 207 of The Woman Left Behind

She said it was clear he wasn’t looking for the back door, but instead a hostage, and “There’s no hostage taking in a holiday shop!”

She’d become kind of a local celebrity because of this, something I thought she’d like, but she detested it.

“If one more person speaks of it to me, I’m shooting them,” she told me and Harry (loudly) one morning in Aromacobana.

Considering she’d already discharged her weapon, and she was more than a hint crazy (in a lovable way), no one mentioned it.

At least, not to her.

Even so, Harry took her out to dinner one night at the Double D to have a chat and take her pulse.

Kimmy might be a bit loopy, but she was good to the bone, and Harry learned she wasn’t the kind of person who could shake off shooting a man, even if he was a bad man, and what she did, she did to protect other people.

She and Harry had a couple more dinners before she told Harry he was off the hook, and she was good.

Harry still kept an eye on her.

So did I.

As far as we could tell, she told no lies. She was good.

We still did it.

Harry told me Clifford Ballard’s mother came to visit him.

Harry closed that case, certain that Ballard was murdered by Abernathy.

She sat in his office, weeping and thanking him for giving her answers.

“And that’s why you do it,” I whispered after he was done sharing, knowing this already, because he gave the same to me.

“That’s why I do it, sweetheart,” he replied.

I knew it was more than just that. Much more.

I was simply glad Harry got a win.

And Mrs. Ballard got answers.

Mom and Dad’s suitcases and the letter Mom wrote me were released by the Idaho police.

I also got their wedding rings and Mom’s engagement ring. They were in the grave with them.

Make no mistake, I’d wondered where they were, but I thought Abernathy had taken them.

So I was beside myself they were returned to me.

When they were, they were clean as a whistle, bright and shiny, courtesy of some woman named Lynda.

I sprang for an expensive gold chain that dangled low, close to my heart, and wore them around my neck every day.

I also got Mom’s journals back, of course, but I didn’t read them.

I told Harry enough people were privy to her private thoughts, so for now, I wasn’t going to become one of them.

I also told him I’d read them later, for the sole purpose of making sure they weren’t too private, and if they weren’t, when the time was right, I’d let our kids read them so they’d know how much their grandma loved their grandpa…and me.

Just to say, Harry and I took a trip to Coeur d’Alene so I could meet that woman named Lynda, and Harry could take her out for a steak dinner.

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