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“If the group existed, it would existbecauseof me. Becauseof me going to Retta after a terrible case, a life-changing case, knowing she would listen because she’d buried her murdered best friend years before.”
“Excuses.”
“No, reality. Retta knew on an intimate, painful level about the system’s failures, law enforcement’s ambivalence, and the public’s short attention span.” Faith’s voice never lifted above a harsh whisper, but fury rattled through it. “You have no idea what it’s like to help someone only to have the system that’s designed to protect them suck away their hope then fail them.”
Gabby didn’t want to hear justifications and sad stories. “You knew what would happen to Jessa when she got to Baines’s house. You sent Trent.”
“We protect the group at all costs.”
Not a denial. “That’s madness. Do you hear yourself?” Gabby looked around, hoping to see reinforcements, but then would she even recognize them? Anyone could be in this group or related to it or working for it. The tentacles seemed to have endless reach. “You explain away the things you do with an end-justifies-the-means mentality while gleefully playing judge and jury.”
“Are you done talking yet?”
“Never mind that innocent people, people who aren’t part of the abusive crowd you want to eliminate, get hurt and killed in the process. Rob and Tami. Do you remember them? The reporters. They’d just gotten engaged. Baines. Poor Jessa.” Gabby could see how the hideous process justified itself, but this was too much.
“Regretful but necessary.” Faith’s expression didn’t change. “But the group didn’t touch your precious ex.”
This woman.“I guess you accept a certain level of collateral damage. Is that how you justify the string of deaths? Do you pretend they aren’t really people? Write their lives off to the good of the cause and keep on making judgments?”
“You don’t know anything about us or what the group believes. We live and die by these decisions and grieve every loss.” Faith tapped her hand against her chest. “We fix the mess others create and make it safer for you to travel around in your insular, wealthy world without fear. So you’re welcome.”
“You talk a good game, but you ordered the murder of your best friend.” Gabby saw Faith flinch and kept going. “Who does that? You can argue about justice and the system’s failures all you want, but how can you justify a betrayal like that?”
“I had no choice.Yougave me no choice.”
Gabby would not take on that responsibility. She had always been honest—maybe too honest—with Jessa. “You sound like one of those abusers you hate so much.”
“She had been warned over and over. She knew she was being tested and ignored every alarm and warning, including mine.” Faith shook her head. “She didn’t know about my role, but she made it clear she was under fire, and I gave her support. She promised she would stop engaging in dangerous activities, but you kept dragging her back in.”
Gabby could hear what Faith didn’t say. There was nothing accidental or heat-of-the-moment about Jessa’s death. She’dbeen hunted by her best friend’s paid killer. “Was I supposed to die, too?”
“The cause comes first.” Faith separated each word, emphasizing the horror. “And listen to you being all high and mighty, above it all, and disdainful because you don’t like the results this one time.”
Faith didn’t see how the power had corrupted her. Gabby didn’t know how a smart woman could miss it. “You think a lot of yourself.”
“Hypocrite.” Faith shook her head. Let out a heartless little laugh. “When it came time to make a deal to save your daughter and brother-in-law, you jumped right in. That result was fine.”
“I didn’t agree to that.”
“Maybe you weighed the pros and cons for a few seconds, and the guilt eats at you a bit, but when the decision was to keep all your secrets and guarantee your family’s safety, then—what a surprise—justice wasn’t a bright line. You shifted your beliefs and assigned blame to Darren. You probably felt justified doing it because a part of you decided Darren deserved being taken down.”
Gabby hated the ring of truth in those words. She had looked the other way when she figured out what Baines had done to his sister because proving it had seemed too daunting. She’d limited Liam’s role in Kennedy’s life because it was easier.
Still, she didn’t want to be lumped in any group with Faith. “I would point out I was blackmailed by Retta. That’s why my line shifted. She shifted it.”
“Poor you,” Faith said in a mocking tone. “And don’t throw around legal terms when you know better. You were faced with adecision, not blackmailed. You needed a way out, and you took it. Screw courtroom justice.”
Gabby refused to let that be true. “You’ve been doing this too long. You can’t separate out truth from fiction.”
“Retta and I were faced with similar decisions. Could she live with the murderer of her friend and godchild being made into a martyr? Could I live with women and children being used as legal fodder to ensure their powerful poor-me husbands remained free?” Faith let out a harsh laugh. “See, when you’re the one who needs to answer, you revise the question. Your sense of what’s right and what’s justice slides because the system doesn’t work.”
“Then change it from the inside.” Gabby knew it was a lame response. A knee-jerk one people threw around on social media when they secretly knew a good solution didn’t exist. “What you do is vigilantism, not justice.”
“If you do the former correctly, it becomes the latter.”
Gabby got it now. There wasn’t an argument she could make to convince Faith. This wasn’t about reasoning with her or showing her logic inconsistencies or problems in her thinking. The system had failed, and Faith had given up on it. She’d created a new way where she could bend it to her satisfaction.
“What happens now?” Gabby asked.
