“No, but your actions killed him,” she said, completely ignoring the logic of her own actions. “You have to die for what you did.”
The two men marched Maggie to the kitchen chair and sat her down, but they didn’t let her go.
Joshua looked at Charlotte and asked, “Zip ties?” She walked over to a drawer, then pulled out several. They zipped Maggie to the chair, her legs and hands behind her.
Then Charlotte collapsed beside the woman and said, “I’m so sorry.”
Nico said, “Enough of that. Stop the guilt. This isn’t your fault.”
“It was something that I couldn’t stop either, but this poor woman’s life has been ruined.”
“I think it was ruined a long time ago,” he said gently. “Not everybody survives the loss of a child in the first place.”
Charlotte stared, and then comprehension hit her, and she nodded. “I guess that’s when it started, isn’t it?”
“It definitely is,” he said. “So be sympathetic and empathetic but don’t feel guilty. That won’t help anybody at this point.”
She sighed, stood, walked over, and wrapped her arms around him. “How did you get to be so wise?”
“Life,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to learn the lessons the hard way. And, in this case, she’ll have to learn whatever her lessons are. Those she has yet to learn, I’m sure she’ll learn them in her jail cell.”
“And me?”
“Well, I’m hoping to set you free,” he said with a chuckle. “At least from the guilt. You’re not responsible for your husband’s death. You’re not responsible for how he suffered. You’re not responsible for how you suffered or for your response to his suffering. Even before all that, you were not responsible for your parents’ deaths or for Joshua being taken away from you. This is all about you letting go of all that guilt and finding out why you do what you do and finding out what you want to do with your life. Not what you feel compelled to do for reasons that are no longer valid.”
“Sounds good to me,” she said. “Are you planning on being anywhere around at the same time?”
“Well, I was thinking we were going back to that same conversation about one day, one week, one month at a time?”
“I believe you added one year and a lifetime in there,” she said in a teasing voice.
He grinned and wrapped his arms around her, then held her close and whispered, “I’m good with that.”
“Me too,” she whispered. Then she lifted her head and kissed him gently.
Behind him, he heard Joshua and Keane cheering. Unfortunately Maggie was now crying. He looked over at her and said, “I’m so sorry for what you suffered. But what you’ve done about it is unforgivable.”
And he ushered Charlotte to the living room, where they didn’t even have to deal with Maggie. It was time for them to face forward and deal with the good things in life, which, as far as he was concerned, was what they each had together.
Epilogue
A week later Keane walked down Fisherman’s Wharf in Seattle. The place was jam-packed with people, and he wondered what the hell he was doing here. Surely there was a better place for a meeting. Of course, if you want to get lost in a crowd, this was the place to be though. It was overcast with a threat of rain. Still he couldn’t, for the life of him, imagine why he was here. But somebody with greater wisdom had decided this, and so a meet up was needed. He walked down the pier where he was expected, and, as he found the spot, he sat down and turned his back on the crowd behind him.
Charlotte and Nico had holed up in Charlotte’s house for the last few days, and Keane had been more than happy to take a break. He was eager to join the Mavericks with his own mission to head up and had listened to stories about many other ops from the others who had gone before him. He was okay with that. He was just waiting for it to happen.
When a hand landed on his shoulder, he turned in surprise and looked up to see Lennox staring at him. Keane’s eyebrows shot up. “Man, am I glad to see you.”
“Good,” Lennox said. “Are you willing to work with me too?” He held up an envelope. “We’ve got orders.”
Keane and Lennox sat on the side of the wharf, while the noise of the crowd around them completely faded away. Keane said, “I was given very little information on it.”
“That’s because very little is to be had,” Lennox admitted. “I’ve never been on a mission with less information.”
“So, what do we know?”
“A group of people went out for a day of sailing. Two of them were washed overboard.”
“And the coast guard didn’t find them?” Keane asked, staring at Lennox in surprise. “Not terribly unusual, I suppose, given the size of the search area.”
Lennox replied, “The coast guard and private yachts haven’t seen any sign of them.”
“The currents, depending on where they were at the time, could have taken the bodies to any number of places.”
“Well, they went missing in Puget Sound,” Lennox said.
“Seriously? Puget Sound is interconnected to multiple waterways and basins, not to mention the Pacific Ocean. The currents can change and can run really deep,” Keane said. “A search like that involves any number of issues. They may never be found.”
“Exactly,” Lennox said. “In this case a special request has been made for us to look for them.”
Keane gazed at the long lampposts that dotted the pier. “Are you serious?”
Lennox gave him half a grin. “Never more so.”
“What? We’re in the business of looking for bodies now?” he asked incredulously. “I was expecting to go up against a serial killer or work in the midst of a civil war in a dictator-ruled country or God-only-knows-what,
