Kingsley’s legacy of cruelty and horror had died with him. Ellie would never mourn his death. She only wished that they’d stopped the monster before his final, murderous act and prevented him from killing his own granddaughter.
Her knuckles tightened on the steering wheel before she flicked the signal on and turned left at a green light. Ellie navigated the Explorer half a block and then pulled into a drive that led to a brick building and parked in an empty spot out front.
When Ellie shut the engine off, Clay draped his arm over her seat back and peered out the windshield. “What’s here?”
Ellie met Clay’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “You know how for the last month, I’ve been meeting my mom for lunch at least once a week?”
Her odd subject change sent the FBI agent’s eyebrows disappearing into his cowboy hat, but in true Clay fashion, he didn’t question it. “Right, I remember you saying as much. I reckon family feels pretty important, given,” he slanted a quick glance at Bethany, “how things played out.”
“It does. I realized I was taking mine for granted, and decided to fix that, stat.” Ellie toyed with a loose curl. “I also decided that having a family with money comes in handy sometimes…like when you need it to hire three private investigators to track down a single woman.”
From his bemused smile, Clay hadn’t deciphered where this was leading yet. He would, though. Soon enough.
Ellie cleared her throat and leaned across Bethany to unlock the glove box. “For me, one of the toughest parts of being a law enforcement officer is how thin we spread ourselves when we work multiple cases. Lucky for all of us, Helen Kline is a damn smart lady. She insisted on paying for the investigators, believing that more eyes solely dedicated to this one missing person would help. Turns out, she was right. No surprise there, although, if you ever tell her I said that, I’ll deny every word.”
No laugh for her little joke. “What are you saying?” Clay breathed the sentence like a prayer, with hope and doubt underlying every word.
Ellie pulled the thick envelope and stuffed animal from the glove box. She didn’t have to check the mirror to confirm that Clay’s eyes were glued to both. “Last year, a homeless young woman was taken to the hospital with pneumonia. Thanks to the help from a couple of dedicated social workers, she was placed in an adult group home once she recovered, where she’ll spend the next few months healing from long-term trauma before hopefully being released to live independently.”
His throat bobbed. “Is that…are you saying…?”
Clay faltered, his brown eyes glimmering with unshed tears as he reached out with a tentative hand to accept the stuffed animal she offered.
A pink pig.
His mouth gaped, and he blinked rapidly, lifting his head to meet her eyes. “Ellie, I…” Something past her caught his eye and he just stared, “Oh my god.”
Ellie spun in the seat to see what had turned his cheeks ashen beneath his tan. The front door of the brick building was open, and two women stood on the porch. One wore baby blue nurse’s scrubs and had brown hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. The other one was blonde, dressed in gray sweatpants and a pale pink t-shirt.
It was the second of the two women who Ellie knew Clay stared at like he’d seen a ghost. “Caraleigh.”
The reverence with which he whispered his sister’s name tightened Ellie’s throat. He repeated it a second time. Louder. “Caraleigh!”
When he wrenched his gaze to Ellie, the tears spilled from his eyes unabashedly, even as pure joy radiated from his smile. “Thank you.”
Too choked up to speak, Ellie nodded, then jerked her head at the door while urging him on with a silent command. Go on, doofus, get out and see her already.
Clay’s smile widened, and he bounded out of the SUV. His long legs ate up the sidewalk as he crossed the short distance to where his sister waited.
Ellie held her breath when Clay stopped a couple feet short, and after the smallest of hesitations, opened his arms wide. Please don’t reject him.
She needn’t have worried. After a tiny hesitation, Caraleigh launched herself at her brother, laughing and crying all at once. Clay wrapped his arms around his sister, picked her up off her feet, and swung her in a wide circle.
“Who is that lady with Mr. Clay?”
Bethany had been so quiet up until now that Ellie had all but forgotten she was sitting there, taking the reunion in with cautious eyes.
“That’s Clay’s little sister. She’s been missing for a very long time, but he’s finally found her again.”
Bethany studied Clay and Caraleigh as they hugged and cried. Her smaller hand snaked into Ellie’s.
Guilt stabbed Ellie as she tore her attention from the emotional pair on the porch. Idiot. This was clearly too much, too soon for Bethany, after losing her own family. Ellie should have worried less about surprising Clay and more about Bethany’s fragile mental health. “I’m so sorry, honey, is this upsetting you?”
After what felt like minutes, Bethany slowly shook her head. “No. I was just wondering…do you think Clay’s sister likes Wonder Woman better than Batman?”
The hard, aching knot in Ellie’s chest loosened, and she huffed a teary laugh. “I don’t know, but I bet we can ask her one day soon.”
She squeezed Bethany’s fingers before turning back toward the group home. Together, they watched as Clay handed the stuffed pig over to his sister. The delight that lit up her pale face caused the knot beneath Ellie’s ribs to loosen even more before disintegrating into dust like it had never even existed.
For the first time since that fateful day at age fifteen when a single teenage rebellion had landed her in a killer’s sights, Ellie could breathe one-hundred-percent freely again. She
