“I’m better than okay. I’m thrilled! She took a plea deal! There won’t be a trial.” Her hand went to her heart, and she flopped back against the couch, her face ruddy with exertion from her run over here.
“What? They offered her a plea deal? When did that happen?” I asked with suspicion.
“Just recently. The DA knew he could win in court since they had the knife with my blood and her fingerprints. It was going to be almost impossible for her lawyer to find a defense. When the courts refused to move her trial to a different county, that put another nail in the coffin. Her lawyers were going to struggle to find any sympathetic jurors no matter how hard they tried.”
“Who went to them with a plea deal? Did you okay that?”
She held up both hands and waved them. “I don’t get a say in that, Amber. The DA gets to decide those things. I just got a call saying she’d accepted, and I wouldn’t have to go to court.”
“She better not get just a slap on the wrist.”
“She pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon. She’ll be in prison for five years with ten years of extended parole after that.”
“But she tried to kill you! She should have gotten more than five years!”
“The DA was going to have a harder time proving the attempted murder part. They couldn’t prove that she intended to kill me.”
“She had a knife!”
“Which isn’t illegal to carry by law. I guess what I’m saying is, I’ll take it. It gets the whole looming trial off our backs this summer and puts her away for long enough that she just might wise up while in prison. Maybe she will be a nicer person once she gets out.”
“I’m just afraid of what will happen when she gets out,” I said, grabbing her hands.
“When she agreed to the plea deal, she agreed that she wouldn’t live within fifty miles of Lake Pendle after her release. If she ever makes contact with me, Brady, or anyone affiliated with The Fluffy Cupcake, her probation will immediately revert to prison time.”
I leaned back and eyed her. “And you’re okay with trusting her?”
She gave me the palms up. “I don’t have a lot of say in it. I’m just hoping that she finds some kind of passion or path while in prison. Even if she doesn’t, I’ll never have to see her again. Her father put their house up for sale, and rumor has it he’s retired and moving to Florida. Without her family here, she won’t have a reason to return. I wouldn’t doubt that she won’t try to get placed in a facility in Florida for her sentence. The DA said she was being taken into custody today.”
“It’s really over?”
She nodded once. “It’s finally over. I hugged Brady for a solid twenty minutes and cried. I’m so relieved that I don’t have to deal with the trial or the debacle she would turn this town into again. I want her to go away quietly, which, if you ask me, is what she deserves. She thrives on undue attention. She’s about to find out what it’s like to be no one special in a room full of people far more violent than she is. I wish her well.”
I snorted while trying to hold back my laughter. I reached up and fixed her hair over her shoulder until I could speak. “You are so diplomatic. I hope she’s somebody’s little bitch every day she’s in that prison.”
Hay-Hay bent over laughing, the sound filling my happy meter another few notches. I was learning how to feel joy for the first time in years. I glanced down at the band on my finger and smiled. The guy who put it there wasn’t doing a half-bad job of teaching me.
“BISHOP, ARE YOU HOME?” her sweet voice called out.
I pulled the shirt over my head and jogged to the door, my feet still bare, and my hair wet. “I sure am,” I said, holding the door so she could swing through on her crutches. I closed the door behind her, and she let her crutches fall, grabbing me around the shoulders in a death grip.
“It’s over,” she sighed, her arms wrapped around me and her face buried in my neck. “It’s finally over.”
I swung her up into my arms and stepped over her crutches, carrying her to the living room while she nestled into me. When I sat, I kept her on my lap, cradling her in my arms. “Tell me what’s over. I don’t understand.”
“The trial and the nightmare of Darla McFinkle,” she explained, resting on my chest.
“I thought the trial hadn’t started yet?”
“It didn’t, and it won’t. Darla took a plea deal. We don’t have to go to court. She’s going away. She won’t be able to bother Hay-Hay ever again.” Her words were solid, but they were rough. They told of the unbelievable fear that sudden trauma often brought out. They told me how much she hated what Darla did to her sister and how glad she was that Haylee didn’t have to go through a trial.
I rubbed her back to soothe her and planted a kiss on the top of her head. “How long is she going away for?”
She glanced up at me, almost as though she just realized she was in my arms. “Hay-Hay said five years and then she’ll have ten years of probation. Darla won’t be allowed to live within fifty miles of Lake Pendle, and she can’t contact any of us, or she’ll go back to prison.”
I held her to me and rocked her a few times. “That’s great, sweetart. She’s out of your lives. I’m relieved for all three of you. You get to move on now without the looming trial or threat of Darla being acquitted and staying in town.”
“I’m so relieved,” she said, her voice telling me just how much while her hand rubbed against
