We’re sitting in his car across the park near the playground watching them. Any time I tell him I’m going to check up on her, Ben pleads for me not to, just like he pleaded with me not to go through with my plan with Reed. Too bad I’ve never been good at listening.
It’s strange how things worked out. In a way, Reed saved my life. If I hadn’t found out about him when I did, I would have ended things for sure. He gave me purpose when I had none. And that purpose was to make him pay for what he’d done.
To the women he conned.
To Evelyn Nash.
To Noah and Ethan.
To me.
And he had paid. I knew it the minute he walked into Zane’s cabin and saw me sitting there. It was like he’d been hit by a truck. When I told him nothing between us had been real, it was like I’d plunged my fist through his ribs and ripped out his heart. It was everything I’d hoped for and everything I’d imagined. But instead of vindicated, his pain left me feeling empty. And when he knelt in front of me and offered me his life in apology, that emptiness expanded into a chasm.
I didn’t want to see it then, but Reed had already suffered—in his own way. Abandoned by his mother. Left to a father who’d raised him wrong. Robbed of the chance to raise a child with the girl he’d loved. Haunted by the death of Evelyn and my family. He’d suffered at my hands, and I’d suffered at his. It didn’t make me feel better. It didn’t bring Ethan and Noah back. It’s true what they say, that hurt people hurt people, and that hate only leads to more hate. I can see that now.
Hate is what led me to do what I’d done to Reed.
But hate isn’t what forced him to walk into the Durango Police Department and confess to his crimes that day. It was … something else. Guilt? Repentance? Remorse? I wasn’t sure. The press picked up the story exactly like I’d hoped they would. A good-looking man who spent his life manipulating women before confessing to his crimes out ofthe blue was too juicy for the media to resist. It made national news.
During the coverage of his trial, I noticed something in Reed I hadn’t expected. Besides the obvious—the shame in his eyes, the agony and humiliation—there was something else. He almost looked at peace in a way, like a weight had been lifted. It’s strange, but I think jail is where Reed finally gained his freedom. And Cora Jenson is where I’d finally found mine.
“Okay,” Ben says, watching her as she helps her mom. “I’ll admit it. You were right to give them the money.”
“Does that surprise you?” I ask.
“Don’t push it,” he says, grinning. “I only have so much humility to offer.”
I return my gaze to Cora, and we both sit there, watching as Cora curls into her mother in the same way Noah used to curl into me—her head planted on her mother’s shoulder, their arms intertwined. I close my eyes, and it’s like I can feel my son there sitting next to me with his torso pressed warm against my side.
I’ll never forget you,I think.I’ll never let you go.
Ben’s fingers brush the back of my arm.
“Hey, are you going to be okay?” he asks.
A laugh I didn’t know I was holding back bubbles up my throat. I wipe my tears and take his hand, give it a squeeze—my brother, the rock. “Yes,” I say with a smile.
And for the first time in as long as I can remember, it’s not a lie.
