“How did you manage that?”
“Her sister, Gaia, asked my dad to keep her informed of significant paranormal crimes, since she gets pretty busy and can’t be everywhere at once.”
“I had no idea how well-connected your family is.”
Luca chuckled. “The important thing is that bastard won’t be scheming and taking advantage of humans ever again.”
Dawn and Luca were lying side by side in bed at her place, cuddling.
Annette would be staying with the Fierros for a few more days, which thrilled Gabriella, since she had someone new to fuss over. They had notified the hospital administrator to let her know about the circumstances of the midnight release, telling her the night nurse should not be blamed for a missing patient. They couldn’t have been talked out of taking her.
Earlier that day, they had all had lunch in the Fierros’ dining room, including Jack and Mandy. Mandy didn’t seem too badly off, considering what she’d been through. She was grieving the loss of her mother, certainly, but she was obviously happy to be with her daddy. Jack had taken an emergency leave of absence to help them both bond and heal.
Gabriella had promised to check on them later and told Mandy she could come over and play whenever she liked. Mandy had nodded, shoving a huge forkful of pancake, dripping with syrup, into her mouth, making everyone burst into laughter.
Luca and Dawn had dropped off Jack and Mandy, letting them know they would stop by soon. “I can’t thank you enough,” Jack had told them as he held Mandy tightly in his arms. “You’re a hero,” he had said to Dawn.
“Yes, she is,” Luca had said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.
Later that night in bed, Dawn swallowed a lump in her throat. She was no hero. She’d almost failed to rescue the girl. It took three tries to find her. She never wanted to go through that again.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Luca tipped her chin up and drew her gaze to his. “Why so gloomy?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Jack called me a hero.”
“You are a hero.”
“No, I’m not. I should have rescued Mandy that first time.”
“You tried, remember? If you’d gone into that room, Ice might have killed you both.” He tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear. She hadn’t realized how much longer it had gotten. With so much happening over the past weeks, her hair was the last thing on her mind. Luca had told her he loved the soft waves, so she decided to let it grow.
“What if I failed on the last attempt? Mandy could have been killed. I can’t make that kind of mistake again.”
“You sound like a cop,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “If anything like this happens again, we’ll work together as a team and get it right the first time. We were both rookies at this—me a rookie cop and you a rookie psychic detective. But we learned a lot, didn’t we?”
Dawn sighed. “Yeah, we did.”
“And Mandy is with her dad, where she belongs. And Butts is in…well, Karma put him where he can’t hurt anyone.”
“What about Ice and Carla?”
“They’re in jail. Most likely, it won’t go to trial. Lawyers love plea deals. Even if it does, I think Mick will flip on them to save himself. They’ll be put away for a long time.”
“Carla could have turned it around,” Dawn said quietly. “She could have done the right thing, but she didn’t.”
“I guess she’d gotten so used to doing the wrong thing that she didn’t know any other way. Or she let the gang talk her into colluding with them.”
“I almost went down that same road.”
“No. You’re nothing like Carla.” Luca pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her fiercely. “You’re an amazing, caring, courageous woman, and I love you.”
“I love you back,” she whispered thickly. “I love you so much.”
Luca kissed her tears away, then moved back to her mouth. He kissed her tenderly, like he was handling a precious gift.
She almost couldn’t take it. “Let me show you how much I love you,” Dawn said.
Luca grinned. “What did you have in mind?”
