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As Janelle neared her house, she turned to Evan, who was driving. “I haven’t heard from Guilliam.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s on his way here now, bringing food too.”

She beamed. “Now that’s lovely.”

“Why?” he asked curiously. “It’s not as if you’re eating much.”

She shrugged. “No, but I am getting hungry.”

“That’s good to hear. You don’t eat more than a mouse.”

“Hey, I eat a lot more than a mouse, at least two mice.”

He rolled his eyes at her poor joke, as he parked in her driveway, then motioned toward her house.

“Don’t you wanna check it first?” she teased. “Maybe a boogeyman is inside.”

“Good idea. Sit in the car. Keep it locked and wait until I give you the all-clear signal.”

“Oh, brother,” she muttered. “I guess I had that coming.”

“Yep, you sure did.”

He quickly left the vehicle, and she sat inside, waiting. She wasn’t even sure why she’d brought it up, except for the fact that she still had that underlying fear that this wasn’t over. The way everybody was acting, they didn’t think it was over either, and she didn’t want to be the punchline. When he came back out a few minutes later, he gave the all-clear signal.

She walked up to him. “I guess that was foolish of me. Sorry.”

“No, not at all. That complacency is what we must watch out for. It becomes way too easy for people to forget and to relax their guard. So, if somebody else is involved—which we don’t have any proof of at this point—we still need to keep our guard up.”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it? How do you ever know when it’s over?”

“We don’t. We’ve got the grandfather being very cagey at the moment, and that’s part of the problem. Yet nobody knows of anybody else being involved. We’re doing a full search of his phone records and his visitor logs, but, so far, there doesn’t appear to be anybody else.”

“Then it comes down to possibly a love child thing,” she murmured.

He nodded. “So, I gather you’ve talked to Guilliam.”

“Guilliam, no, I told you that I hadn’t. Yet it makes sense. The old man had zero respect for women, so staying faithful to his wife was hardly something that he cared about. He would have done whatever he saw fit. And since she only gave him two kids, and girls at that, he may very well have wanted more. Plus, since he doesn’t value women, he would have wanted sons.”

“That’s possible,” Evan agreed, “but, if that is the case, why haven’t we seen them yet?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t have a relationship with anyone else, or maybe the mothers were a stronger influence, and he couldn’t push them around in the same way. And, if any other children did exist, he probably didn’t want anyone to know about it. He was a very secretive man, and, if he could keep people guessing, he would.”

Evan nodded. When his phone rang a little bit later with a text, he shared, “That’s Guilliam. He’s on his way.”

“Good.” She smiled at Evan. “Does that mean you get to go home?”

“I’m not sure what Guilliam’s planning yet, so we’ll wait and see.”

She took that to mean no. She nodded. “In that case I’ll make up the spare bed.” When he began to argue, she shook her head. “You need to sleep sometime, Evan.”

“I do,” he conceded, with a nod. “Thank you.”

She went upstairs to the spare room, quickly put on fresh bedding, and added towels to the bathroom.

As she headed back downstairs again, he asked, “Is this your house?”

“It was Mom’s first house here. I lived nearby in an apartment and worked at the hospital, while I was dating Guilliam. Mom found another house to buy and gave me this one. However, when her illness got so advanced, she sold her second house to help pay her medical bills and moved out of state into a small apartment, all to be closer to her specialist and the cancer treatment facility. At that point, I quit my job to be her caretaker. She was living three states away, so I thought about selling this house too. Yet Mom talked me into renting it out to make up for my loss of income, also giving me a home to return to, hopefully with her moving back here too. She even found a property manager for me, so it wasn’t something I had to deal with so much.”

“No other siblings?”

“No,” she murmured. “No other siblings.”

“I’m sorry,” Evan said. “It’s a hard time to be alone.”

She sniffed back the tears that once again threatened and nodded. “If I could just stop being such a watering pot, it would be a lot easier.”

“Give yourself a break,” he suggested. “It’s only just happened, and then you were kidnapped and your life threatened only moments later. You will find that the tears come and go for quite a while yet.”

“Great,” she muttered. “I was hoping you would tell me how I could get over it fast.”

“Nope. And the more you love them, the harder it is,” he added.

She nodded and quickly busied herself, tidying up the kitchen. When Evan opened her front door, she watched Guilliam walk in, carrying several bags of food. She joked, “Oh, obviously you know Evan pretty well.”

Guilliam laughed. “Absolutely I know Evan.” He put the bags on the counter, walked over to her, and wrapped her into a hug. She sighed as she melted against him and cuddled up close. “Sorry I couldn’t be with you today,” he murmured. “Today of all days is when you needed somebody.”

“Honestly, it doesn’t feel real,” she noted. “None of it does.”

“Of course not, but it will over time, and all of this will fall into place.”

“So, you say,” she quipped, with a laugh. “I’m not sure I believe it.”

He nodded. “I’m staying here for the night, unless you’ve got a problem with that.”

“No, I don’t. What about Evan?”

“He’s been looking after you all day, so he needs a break. I could send him home, unless you have a problem with that.”

“No, of course not. I didn’t know what his schedule was, so I just made up the spare bedroom for him.”

“Ah.” Guilliam turned to Evan, who had walked into the kitchen. “Do you want to stay for the night or take off and do your own thing?”

“I’m staying for the night,” he replied easily. “I figured I would take her up on the offer of a spare room. Then you can stand watch, while I get some sleep. Afterward we can switch.”

“That sounds lovely to me,” Janelle shared. “Thank you for staying.”

Evan shrugged easily. “That’s what friends are for.”

“Maybe so,” she muttered. “I guess I’ve just never had those kinds of friends before.”

“It’s a different world now,” Evan stated, giving her a smirk. “Besides, you don’t eat much. So, as long as I’m around you, I get plenty of food.”

She rolled her eyes at that and told Guilliam, “The amount of food this man eats is shocking.”

“Hey, I’m a growing boy,” Evan stated, patting his flat stomach.

“Right,” she muttered. She looked over at Guilliam. “I sure hope you brought lots of food.”

“I did. I know what this guy is like. He’s a legend.” Guilliam motioned at the food. “I suggest we eat while it’s hot.” Then he looked at his watch and winced. “I’m a whole lot later than I expected. Sorry about that.”

“But did you come up with anything?” she asked.

As they served up the food, Guilliam launched into an explanation of everything they had found so far.

When he was done, she frowned. “So… that’s the long way of saying no?”

He gave her a lopsided grin, as Evan chortled, nearly choking on a huge mouthful of food.

“Let’s just say,” Guilliam replied, “that we don’t have any proof anybody else is involved, but none of us are terribly satisfied that there isn’t somebody else.”

She winced. “Okay, so that’s not good news then.”

“But it’s not bad news,” he pointed out. “It just gives us a little more time to figure out if anybody else is involved.”

“Then it also depends on whether the person is a male or female,” she added.

“But it doesn’t really,” Evan clarified. “Women do kill and kill a lot. Not as often, not as ugly, but they’re still killers,” he shared. “So if the grandfather has a granddaughter out there gunning for us, it won’t be somebody you’re expecting.”

“That sucks,” Janelle muttered. “We won’t see it coming.”

“You’ll never see it coming,” Evan repeated. “That’s the whole point of this type of assassination. They happen when you’ve relaxed your guard.”

She stared at him slowly and nodded. “And that’s why you’re spending the night, isn’t it?”

His lips twitched into a lopsided grin. “Let’s just say, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Tears collected in her eyes, and she whispered, “Thank you.”

Guilliam handed her a plate of food. “Come on. You need to get some sleep tonight, so eat up now.”

“Wouldn’t sleep be nice. Every time I close my eyes, guess what I see?”

“You see an asshole, who decided to play with your life,” Guilliam replied. “I get it, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s hardly your fault, so you can’t keep apologizing for something like that.”

“It is my fault,” he declared. “If I hadn’t been in your life, your kidnapper would never have made you a target.”

“Maybe. But what will you do? Sit there and apologize for the rest of your life?”

“Maybe,” he said cheerfully. “At least until this is over.”

She groaned, then nodded. “Fine, but I still don’t think you’re responsible.”

They sat down to eat what appeared to be Greek dishes, but she was wolfing it down so fast that she hardly even noticed the flavor.

He patted her hand and said, “It will be all right.”

She groaned, then sat back. “I’m a mess, aren’t I?”

“No, you’re not. You’re doing fine. You’ve just been through a lot, so give yourself a break.”

She nodded and didn’t say anything. She looked over at the two men, as they finished off their first servings and went back for seconds. “I don’t know where you put it all,” she muttered, as she sat back, sighing. “I’m done.”

Evan gave her a fat smile. “That’s what we’re counting on.” With that, he quickly divvied up the rest of the food, and the two men both had heaped-up plates again.

She just watched in astonishment as the food disappeared. “Good for you,” she muttered. “At least now I know that, if I ever invite you over for a barbecue, I need to get a whole cow.”

Evan agreed with a nod. “You probably do. On the other hand, I might bring wine.”

“That would be nice. How come we don’t have wine now?” she asked, looking around her kitchen. “I don’t even know if I have any.”

“We won’t be drinking while we’re on duty anyway,” Guilliam noted.

She rolled her eyes at that. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“You’re welcome.” He chuckled. “And don’t worry about it, we’re all good.”

“I’m glad you’re all good,” she muttered, “but now you’ve got me worried again.”

“And you can just stop worrying too,” he pointed out.

“Is it that easy?”

“You’ve got two highly skilled and experienced men looking after you tonight,” Guilliam declared. “So I’m saying, yeah, it is that easy. At least for tonight.”

She smiled, got up, and quickly cleaned the dishes, while the two men finished off their meals and then checked outside. Finding nothing to indicate the presence of visitors or anybody watching, they sat down to share more details of their day. By the time they were done eating and talking, it was almost 10:00 p.m.

She looked at them and announced, “I’m heading up to bed.”

“Good idea,” Guilliam said. “I’ll come up in a bit.”

She nodded, walked upstairs, and headed for the shower. She wasn’t even sure what he meant by that. However, with Evan in the spare bedroom, the only other bedroom in her house was hers. Of course that’s where he would stay. She didn’t want him to stay anywhere else. Yet they weren’t quite there yet. They hadn’t had a chance to address any of the remaining issues between them.

However, it didn’t feel as if anything was left to resolve. It was like taking a step back in time, where somebody had stopped the clock for the last three years, while she took care of something important to her. Now the clock moved forward rapidly, leaving her stunned at the shift in her world, because it was like her old world was literally back again.

When she stepped out of the shower, she quickly dried off, got ready for bed, and curled up under the covers. About twenty minutes later, Guilliam showed up.

“Still awake?” he asked.

“I am,” she murmured. “I wasn’t sure if you needed to talk when you came up.”

“No, I’m fine, but I will have a shower, if you’re okay with that.”

“Go for it,” she murmured.

He’d spent many a night in this house with her. Still, it seemed strange to have him back. Yet, once again, it seemed normal.

When he came back out with just a towel wrapped around his waist, he noted, “I didn’t bring an overnight bag.”

She got up, headed to the bathroom, and brought out a spare toothbrush for him. “You can use this at least.” She set it out on the bathroom counter, still in its packaging. He nodded, as she returned to bed and got comfortable again.

He walked over, sat down on the side of the bed with her, and said, “Hi.”

She let out a burble of laughter. “Hi.” She smiled up at him. “It feels very strange and yet very familiar to have you here.”

He nodded.

“Before you say anything,” she began, “I want to ask you a question.”

He stiffened slightly and then nodded. “Go ahead.”

“My mother.”

He asked curiously, “What about her?”

“Did she keep in contact with you over these three years, outside of just recently?”

He nodded. He picked up her hand and explained, “She reached out to me right from the beginning. She apologized for taking you away from me.”

She stared at him, wordless, her thoughts overwhelmed, wondering what made her mother do something like that.

Guilliam continued. “Your mother understood why you were doing it, and she admitted to me how she felt selfish enough to want you there for the journey because she didn’t think she was strong enough to do it on her own,” he shared. “She asked me to let you go long enough to help her through the initial stages. She told me how she was pretty sure she would be okay down the road, and then I could have you back.”

Janelle slumped into the bed and stared at him, her tears welling up and spilling down her cheeks.

He smiled. “It’s okay. She did it with the best of intentions, and out of fear of what was happening to her in her world. I understood that part. I didn’t understand why you felt like a relationship with her had to be exclusive of a relationship with me, and that was the part that I suffered with. However, you made a decision and were pretty adamant about seeing it through.”

She nodded. “I did. I was. But, as she told you, it was never intended to be long-term.”

“Of course not,” he said, “but we never know about these things in life, do we?”

“No,” she whispered. “God, I feel so bad.”

“Why?” he asked curiously.

“Because basically she was asking you to hang on, to wait, and that, as soon as she was done, she would give me back to you. Instead it dragged on and on and on. Yet you still waited, still put your own life on hold.”

He shrugged. “I tried to move on, but you were always there in the back of my mind. I dove myself into my work and took an overseas assignment to get farther away. I got angry and tried to use the anger to force myself out into another world,” he explained. “It worked for a while, but then, well, it just didn’t work anymore.”

He smiled and added, “Sometimes you just realize that there is only one person for you, and, if you’re lucky, it works out. And, if you’re not lucky, well, it doesn’t,” he stated. “I’m hoping that now, maybe your commitment will be to yourself and to us, not just your mother.”

She put her arms around his neck and hugged him close. “Yes,” she whispered. “God, yes.” She leaned back ever-so-slightly and added, “There were a lot of times when I cried because of the decision I made, knowing that I had to let you go. It just wasn’t fair to keep you on a string like that, but I desperately wished that you would be waiting for me, but I knew I didn’t have any right to ask.”

“And yet your mother did,” he stated, with a wry look in her direction.

“She never told me. She never once said a word about it.”

“She apologized somewhere along the line, when her treatments weren’t going so well, asking if I was okay to hold on a little bit longer. She thought she could beat it. One of the last messages I had from her was that she couldn’t beat it after all, that she was done fighting, and that it was time for her to accept the inevitable. Still, she hoped that I would be there because this was not the answer she had hoped for. That was a much harder journey for you, so she wanted me to be there for you.”

He swallowed, then faced her fully. “I had a couple short-term relationships. However, that last message from your mother was the clincher, making me realize that, no matter how many times I tried and failed at other relationships, I wouldn’t ever walk away from you.” He shrugged. “That is also why I was so angry when I first saw you because nobody wants to spend years waiting for somebody who had intentionally excluded you from their life. Your mother was an awesome person. I had no problems with her, and I wouldn’t have had any problems with your being there for her,” he said. “It was the part about excluding me back then—”

“I know,” she admitted, interrupting him by placing her finger on his lips. “It was all about why did I have to cut you out of my life to help her? I’m not sure I have an answer for you. Maybe I figured the long-distance relationship wouldn’t work for us,” she replied softly. “Yet I made a decision for both of us, without giving you a chance to share your own opinion. I see that now, but I never saw it before. That’s the God’s honest truth,” she muttered.

“It’s hardly something that I can explain. It was just this overwhelming emotional need to give back to my mother, after all those years of her giving her life to raise me as a single mom,” she said. “She fought me over this decision time and time again, but I just wouldn’t listen. I was hell-bent on doing the right thing , and now that her life is over, somehow it feels like all those years have just disappeared, in a way.”

“And yet they haven’t,” Guilliam argued. “They’re still there in some ways, and there is still this wall between us that needs a bit of clearing.”

“The only thing I can think of to clear it,” she said, “is to apologize, yet again.”

“That is the last thing I want. I understood what you did. I didn’t necessarily like it, and I sure as hell didn’t like the part that involved my being left behind, but I am proud of the fact that you helped your mom through this period in her life, regardless of how it ended up. At the end of day, she was a wonderful woman, and I’m sorry that she had such a hard time.”

Janelle sniffled again, and he smiled.

“I’m really not trying to make you cry.”

“Doesn’t take much to make me cry, particularly today.”

He just held her close. “I know it’s not good timing, and the final arrangements for your mother still need to be made and all that, but I would very much like a chance for us to start a relationship again.”

Hearing those words that she had desperately wanted to hear for so long, she burst into tears and just held him close. When she could finally talk, she whispered, “Yes, please.” Looking up at him with her tear-streaked face, she nodded. “God, yes. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He leaned down and kissed her gently. But that small and gentle act ignited a firestorm that blew them both away. When he finally lifted his head, he was gasping hard for air. “Jeez,” he muttered.

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s been a long time for me.”

He held her close. “It’s not even about time. It’s all about us and what we always had, that joy, that wonderful sense of togetherness,” he murmured. “That knowing how we were exactly where we were meant to be.”

And she knew that once again he was thinking of all the years he had spent without her because of her own stubbornness. “I’m so sorry.”

He leaned over and kissed her hard. “That’s enough of that. We don’t need to keep apologizing for something that has now changed and has turned into something very different. Now it’s our time.”

And this time when he kissed her, she found herself flat on her back, her nightgown tossed to the floor, and her thighs spread wide, ready for him, almost as if by magic. She groaned as his fingers slipped into the moist curls below. She twisted beneath him, gasping, crying out in both joy and urgency.

He murmured, “Take it easy. We have all night.”

“No,” she whispered. “You have all night. Me? I’ve been wanting this way too long.”

And when he lowered his head and suckled on one nipple, her world exploded, tightening around his body, her thighs clenching him tight as she came apart in his arms.

As she relaxed afterward, he muttered, “That’s a good start.” Then he rose up over her, sliding gently inside, making her shudder and come apart all over again.

“Dear God,” she whispered. “That’s always been where you belonged.”

Those words seemed to send him into an explosion of movement as he pounded deep into the heart of her, coming apart with his own orgasm right afterward. With his release, she came apart for a third time. He groaned as he settled beside her, pulling her up close. “I’d forgotten how responsive you were.”

“It’s probably way more right now,” she murmured, “just because it’s something I so desperately want.”

“We have all night, but you do need to get some sleep.”

“And so do you.” She chuckled, as she curled up in his arms. “But this moment, I don’t ever want it to end.”

“And it doesn’t have to. You don’t have any more parents to look after, right?” he teased.

She chuckled. “No, no. Like you, I’m an orphan now.” And once again the tears threatened to choke her.

He tapped her gently on her chin. “But you’re not alone because now we’ll build a life for just the two of us. We’ll create our own family and have everything that we ever wanted together,” he murmured. “It’s all good. It’s all about our tomorrows.”

And with that thought, she fell asleep in his arms.

*

Guilliam woke with a start to a harsh whisper.

“Move,” Evan said.

Guilliam bolted out of bed and woke up Janelle beside him. “Get your clothes on. We’ve got a problem.”

She tried to see him in the dark, with sleep-clouded eyes.

He leaned over and kissed her hard. “Wake up, now.”

She shuddered and bolted to the dresser, throwing on a T-shirt and jeans as fast as he did.

And then he smelled it. “Jeez, this is not the way I wanted this evening to go.”

She didn’t understand, and he regretted what was about to happen next. Pocketing his phone, he headed to the top of the stairs, his hand holding hers. Downstairs, he heard something. He called out, “Evan?”

“Yeah, I’m trying to get through the damn doors. Come and give me a hand, will you.”

They raced down the stairs and realized all the doors had been bolted from the outside.

She stared at them in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“You will soon,” Evan declared, his tone hard.

And suddenly one window, then another, and then another all shattered, as things were thrown inside.

She stared in shock and horror, when suddenly the rooms were engulfed in flames. “Oh my God,” she shrieked.

Guilliam grabbed her and wrapped towels around her face and yelled, “Get down to the floor and stay with me.”

He ran, with all three of them racing from one room to the other. They headed for the French doors, and Evan backed up, then plowed forward, literally throwing that heavy weight of his body through the glass door and onto the patio outside. The smoke was black, with flames licking away at the walls of the structure, quickly climbing up the sides of the house, already lapping at the roof. They couldn’t hear any sirens.

Guilliam noted her bare feet and picked her up in his arms and said, “Hang on tight.”

She wrapped her arms tightly around him, as he stepped through the glass door out into the blackness of the night, now lit up by the horrific flickering flames that shone all around them. The noise of the fire was deafening too. As he raced away from the property, Evan grabbed his arm, directing him.

“This way,” he cried out.

Still stumbling from the smoke, their mouths covered, he was directed through another yard into another space. Once there, they all stopped. Guilliam gasped for breath, pulling the cloth down from his face, and crying out, “Did you see him?”

Evan shook his head grimly. “I’ll leave you two here. I’m going out on the prowl.” And, with that, he was gone.

Guilliam slowly lowered her to her feet, pulling the towel off her face. Leaning her over, he said, “Cough to empty out your lungs and fill them up with fresh air,” he murmured.

He did the same, even as he looked around in the distance. Now he heard sirens on the way.

She looked up at him in horror. “My mother’s house.”

Guilliam nodded. “I know,” he whispered, the sorrow evident in his tone. “I’m so sorry.”

She just blinked at him, and he realized she wasn’t processing what this would mean to her. He hoped it didn’t mean as much as he suspected it would. She’d lost so much already that losing her mother’s house and everything in it would be a heavy blow. With this fire, no way anything would be salvageable either. His main concern right now was whoever had set off the fire.

Then a voice behind him spoke in a snarky tone. “Look at that. You got out of there. That’s just too damn bad because now I will have to do this myself.”

Guilliam turned around and saw a stranger staring at him, holding a gun.

“Why do you have to do it at all?” Janelle whispered, looking at him. “Haven’t I been through enough?”

“I don’t care what you’ve been through,” he muttered. “You’re just making my life really hard.”

“ So sorry about that ,” she snapped. “ Not . I’m getting awfully tired of assholes screwing up my life.”

He snorted, raised his gun, and replied, “I don’t give a shit, but I don’t need the headaches that you keep presenting.”

“Yeah? And what headaches are those?” Guilliam asked, watching Evan closing the distance behind their gunman. “I don’t understand what you’ve got to do with any of this.”

He shrugged. “And you won’t. That’s just the joy of it, right? There’s always got to be that extra little twist. And you can bet that the old man knew exactly how to make those twists happen,” he told them, nodding.

“So, who are you?” Janelle asked. “The illegitimate child or just one more of many hired hitmen who the old coot thought he would need.”

The man laughed. “Do I look like a kid?”

“In the darkness, I can’t tell, but maybe.”

A dark, almost growling sound came from him. “Just keep that shit up,” he warned, but then he laughed. “Not bad though. You just sit there, crying, trying to find some way out of this scenario. That’s about as good as I can expect from you.”

Guilliam pointed out, “She just lost her mother and was kidnapped, and now you’ve just burned down her house, her mother’s home, so every single possession either of them had is now gone.”

The man stopped for a moment, then turned to her. “You had a shitty day.”

“Ya think?” she snapped, her tone caustic. “And more than that, I’m damn tired of assholes like you controlling my life,” she muttered.

“Yeah, well, when you get mixed up with assholes like this, things are bound to happen.”

“Assholes like the old man?” she asked. “Why do people keep getting mixed up with that old guy? I just don’t see why someone would. So I need somebody to explain.”

“It’s called being friends with the wrong people.”

She shook her head. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“No, you don’t, and that’s a good thing.”

At that, an odd sound came from behind their gunman.

He turned and motioned at Evan. “Just in case you think I didn’t see you, get your ass over here.”

Evan stepped forward and glared at him.

“Oh, look at that face. You don’t seem happy. You’re a fucking investigator. That’s who you are.” But this time he had turned to eye Guilliam. “And that bloody Jasper. Apparently he just stepped in and took over, didn’t he?”

“Jasper?” Guilliam repeated.

The gunman shrugged, as if suddenly aware that his identity might become something they could guess at. “It doesn’t matter.”

Guilliam replied, “If it doesn’t matter, then tell me because I don’t understand. I’ve met Jasper, and, yeah, he’s taken over the investigation department, but what difference does that make to you?”

“It doesn’t make any difference,” he said smoothly.

“Apparently it does.”

Then Janelle added, “Unless you’re one of the old investigators.”

A moment of ugly silence passed, and then he snorted. “I’m not sure who the hell you think you are, but you better keep that mouth of yours shut.”

She nodded. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re one of the former investigators. That’s how the old man kept tabs on what was happening on the base. You’re the one he had in the hole, the mole—the one guy who could get access to information Greg’s granddad needed, who could give access to information needed for blackmail. That’s how the old man got a hold of everybody, so he could twist their arms and force them to do this shit,” she cried out in a fury.

The gun pointed in her direction.

She nodded. “Yeah, so maybe I will die right here. I’ve already been in that situation not all that long ago, and I don’t even know how many goddamn times, and that’s just today,” she yelled at him. “But now I find out that you’re supposed to be one of the good guys, you’re supposed to be one of the men in that navy department that looks to solve these crimes? How many criminals have you given a free pass to over the years, huh ?”

He shrugged. “A couple, but only if they had the money.”

“So, freedom was something that you charged for, depending on what their bank account looked like, didn’t you? And you probably had access to those balances, so you could determine exactly what that amount would be.” Janelle stared at him in shock. “Have you no shame? Does your mother know what you’re up to?”

He snorted at that, as Guilliam grabbed her arm and whispered, “Easy.”

She glared at him. “No, I won’t take it easy. Do you realize what that means to somebody like me? Somebody who believes in law and order, who believes in right over wrong, who believes in good against evil. Then you find out that a piece of shit like this guy is out there, playing his own little games, killing people, letting criminals off, blackmailing innocent people. And why is that?” she asked. She turned and looked at Guilliam. “So, how come you haven’t met this guy yet?”

“Because,” he replied, looking at the gunman, “you’re Steve, the investigator who’s off on medical leave, right?”

The other man gave him a small smile. “Yeah, nice to meet you. Glad I missed all that fun stuff with Morgan. You probably thought Sam was guilty, didn’t you?”

“We cleared him of any wrongdoing today,” he shared, “but, yeah, his attitude sucks. So I was hoping he was guilty. I wanted to smack that man across the mouth a time or two.”

“I’m sure you did,” Steve agreed, with a laugh. “As it turns out, he’s one of the good guys. It’s just, he,… he’s got mannerisms that make you want to kill him anyway.… You don’t know how many times I wanted to kill that miserable fucker. As for Morgan, I knew he was on the take, but I didn’t understand how deep he’d slid.”

Steve looked over at Janelle and sneered. “You just keep believing in all those lies, those fallacies. We need people like you around. We can take advantage of the gullible ones like you,” Steve shared, “and you’re right there with them.” He shook his head at that.

“And what is your relationship to the asshole behind all this?” she asked, staring at him. “There’s got to be something. Have you been helping Greg, the grandson, or just keeping watch and taking care of your own little sideline blackmail business on the side?”

“Both,” Steve said. “Keeping track of the last-standing grandson because he’s generally okay at what he does. However, he has one focus and one focus only, and that’s entirely money-oriented. The minute you get that happening, you get all kinds of little shits changing the rules to fit whatever it is they want to have happen,” he shared, with a laugh. “And that doesn’t work out so well for the old man.”

At the phrase, old man , Guilliam studied him, figuring out what was driving Steve. In the distance, the roar of the fire crackled, lighting up the sky with bright orange and yellow hues. Sirens filled the air, and Guilliam knew the firemen were working hard to stop the fire from spreading to every other corner of the neighborhood. “So, you had to torch her house, didn’t you?”

“You were all supposed to be in it,” he noted, with a sad smile and a mocking expression in his eyes. “It would have been so much easier.”

“You should have shot us first then,” she stated, sneering at him. “Because now there’s no way you can cover this shit up. Three bodies, all at once, in the neighbor’s backyard? That won’t be so easy to hide.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he snapped. “Besides, I might have somebody helping me,” he added, with a laugh. “So, we’ll just take you all away from here.”

“Yeah? Dead or alive?” she asked.

The gun was cocked and pointed at her again.

“If I’m dying tonight anyway, I might as well go out with a fight. If I’m a prisoner, that’s my right, isn’t it? I’m supposed to fight back, aren’t I? I’m supposed to make your life miserable,” she declared, glaring at him.

Guilliam wasn’t sure where she got such spitfire bravado from, but, as he well knew, it came up at odd and inconvenient times, particularly when she was riled. Right now, she was riled. He motioned at her to step off to the side, but she refused.

“Nope, I will stay right here,” she argued, standing in front of Guilliam. “You shoot me, and you probably shoot through both of us.”

“You’re right,” Steve agreed.

“And then what will you do?”

“I’ll use the third guy here, the big one, to carry your bodies to the vehicle.”

She glared at him. “Wow, you’re an asshole, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am,” he admitted, with a laugh.

Then he flicked the gun in the direction of Evan, who had taken one step forward. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

She shifted forward and turned to Evan. “Yeah, Evan, you’re the big heavy guy, so you’ve got the job of carrying our dead bodies.” While Steve was glaring at Evan, and Evan was glaring at him, she quickly took several steps forward and kicked the gun in his hand. It didn’t come free, but it knocked him off balance, and both Evan and Guilliam jumped Steve. Evan body-checked and dropped Steve, just like Evan had plowed through her beautiful French doors. The gunman didn’t move. She walked closer, then crouched to see if he was still alive.

“Hey, I’m not heavy ,” Evan corrected in a mild tone. “I’m muscled.”

She grinned at him. “Yeah? Tell that to my French doors.”

He patted his tummy. “I’m not heavy. I’m fit.”

She smiled. “So I don’t have to share grub with you ever again?”

“In that case it was worth it.” He looked down at Steve and back over at Guilliam. “So, this guy?”

“No, I don’t know him,” Guilliam shared, as he stared down at the man on the ground. “But, when Jasper took over the department, one of the original team members was off on medical leave. I thought his name was Steve, so I took a chance.”

“Which it appears to be,” she pointed out.

He nodded, then pulled out his phone. “Now at least we have somebody else to grill.”

“Do you think it’s over?” she asked.

He looked over at her and frowned. “What do you think?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. There’s just something about this, something I can’t quite place.”

Both men turned instantly to her, and she shrugged. “I don’t know what it is, but something’s nagging at me.”

“Great,” Evan muttered. “That whole there’s something but I don’t know what it is just isn’t helpful.” She glared at him, but he smiled. “I agree with you on that. Something else is definitely going on.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe what a shitty day this has been.” As she turned to look back at her house, she didn’t even know what to say.

“I’m sorry,” Guilliam whispered. “Losing your mother’s home on top of losing her has got to be about too much to take.”

The way he said it just made everything hurt that much more. She nodded. “I could look at it that way, or I can look at it as granting my mother some peace. I won’t be hanging onto any remnants of the last three years. I do have some special mementos and things that I had in storage because I was looking at selling the house and moving on,” she murmured. “And I guess this is exactly the time to do that.”

“It sounds like it to me,” Evan said. “Nothing is salvageable here.”

“I see that.” She looked down at the clothes she wore. “Before we go anywhere today, I will need a change of clothes.”

“I think we all do,” Evan agreed.

Both men were in jeans but had no shirts on. She asked, “What about the vehicles? Do you think any of ours survived the fire?”

“Yours was in the garage,” Guilliam noted.

“Oh, crap,” she muttered. “So, in other words, not mine.”

“Exactly,” Evan replied. “Ours, however, should be okay.”

“Great. That’s something at least.” Janelle shook her head.

They waited until Jasper arrived, and it wasn’t long before he came around to the backyard where they still stood guard over their prisoner.

Jasper frowned at them and asked, “Are you all right?”

“Sure,” Janelle said. “I’m just struggling to keep the bitterness out of my tone. This was my mother’s house.”

“Oh crap,” he muttered, as he turned to look at the charred smoking remains behind them. “It went up so fast.” He looked over at his men, and both nodded.

Evan explained, “He bolted the doors from the outside, then threw multiple Molotov cocktails into the house. It went up instantly.”

Jasper groaned. “At least we’ve got one more asshole to interrogate.” Jasper turned on his flashlight and pointed it at the prisoner. He nodded. “When you told me who it probably was, I had to go look it up in the files. We’ve got Morgan in jail, and Sam is still as obnoxious as ever. Lichen just got back from holiday. They are all culpable as far as I’m concerned. It’s time to clean house.”

“Good thing you have your own team in process,” Janelle said.

“They are shocked over this news too.”

“That’ll be interesting for the new investigative team to interrogate the old investigative team,” she noted. “I’m hoping that won’t involve me.”

“It shouldn’t,” Jasper stated, looking at her. “I’m not sure what to say or what to tell you to do now though.”

“She’s coming home with me,” Guilliam declared. “We need to go shopping and grab a few items. She’s lost everything, which also means she’ll need to deal with insurance, et cetera,” Guilliam warned.

She winced. “I am so tired of this shit.”

“I suppose you had a little bit to say to Steve,” Jasper noted, with a wry smile.

She glared at him. “Yeah, and I would have had a whole lot more to say if I thought anybody would listen,” she muttered. “But apparently nobody’s listening to me these days.”

Guilliam just chuckled.

The prisoner sat up. He glared at everybody but stayed quiet.

Jasper nodded. “Good idea, Steve. Just stay quiet. We don’t want to even think about talking to you right now.”

Steve shrugged. “You won’t get anything out of me anyway.”

Jasper laughed. “You would be surprised. Everybody says that shit to us. Then the next thing we know, they’re all trying to make a deal, once they realize they won’t see daylight for another twenty years.”

Steve shrugged. “I highly doubt that’s the case.”

“Of course not,” Jasper quipped, as he marched Steve forward, heading for the MPs, who had just arrived.

Guilliam turned to Janelle and opened his arms. She raced into them. He held her close, as the rest of the men walked away, giving them privacy.

“Is it over?” she asked.

“I hope so.” He frowned. “We can’t be sure just yet. It still seems unfinished, but that could just be me still looking for bad guys when there aren’t any.”

She tilted her head back, frowning at him.

He smiled. “Let’s go. We need rest. We’ll sort the rest out tomorrow.”

“The rest? Like us and our relationship?”

“Nope. Nothing left to sort out there,” he whispered. “You’re exactly where you belong.”

Her gaze warmed, as she stared up at him. “Are you sure?”

“I was always sure. Sometimes the timing just doesn’t work out, but now hopefully, for us, it will.”

“I’m so—”

He placed a finger against her lips. “No. No more apologizing. We’re here together now. And the future is ours. Now let’s go enjoy it.” He released her, and she held out her hand.

“Together …” she repeated.

Guilliam laughed and interlaced their fingers. “From now on… always.”