out. Come on, you don’t want to stay here.” The officer shook him again, and Jaime stood up, his joints creaky from falling asleep on the bench. He looked up and saw that the spider had disappeared, which for some reason made him smile.
Office Haldon escorted him out of the cell area, and after going through the locked doors, Jaime stopped in his tracks when he saw who was waiting for him.
It was Adam.
“Jaime.” Adam came toward him and embraced him, slapping him on the back. “Jesus Christ, what a mess this is.”
Jaime didn’t hug him back. He didn’t know how to feel about any of this.
“We need to finish some paperwork,” Office Haldon said, “and then you can go. We’ll also mail you information regarding your court date.”
Jaime stepped away from Adam. Filling out so many pieces of paper that his vision blurred, he was shocked to see that it was early morning when he and Adam walked outside. The sky was streaked with orange and purple, and when they breathed, it hung in a cloud in front of them. An owl hooted from nearby.
“Let’s go get some coffee and talk. It’s fucking freezing.” Adam walked down the sidewalk, and Jaime followed him, mostly because he had no ride back home.
Back home. Was Heron’s Landing even his home anymore?
They walked the streets of downtown Columbia, which were deserted. The students at the nearby University of Missouri had all gone home for winter break, and as it was too early for anyone else to be around, it felt like a ghost town. Adam took Jaime to a coffee shop that had a grand total of one person inside, making drinks. Probably a college student who didn’t have the money to travel home, Jaime thought.
After getting two large mugs of black coffee and a few pastries, the two men sat at a table in the back. Jaime wrapped his hands around the mug, only just noticing how cold he was. Adam looked at him and then, without a word, went and got him a large glass of water, which he pushed toward him with another look.
Jaime gulped the water. It helped. Adam pushed a croissant toward him, which he ate with gusto. He realized he hadn’t eaten for almost twelve hours.
Now feeling slightly more human, Jaime sipped his coffee and stared at his friend and boss from across the table. The boss who had betrayed him, and the friend who had bailed him out. He couldn’t find any words to say, so he sipped his coffee and waited.
“How are you?” Adam asked, tearing a Danish into tiny pieces.
Jaime just drank his coffee. “I’m fucking exhausted,” he muttered.
“I’m sure.” Adam kept tearing at the Danish; he hadn’t touched his coffee. “Look, Jaime…”
Jaime put up a hand. “I’m too tired to hear your excuses.”
“I don’t have excuses, just explanations.” At Jaime’s look, Adam sighed. “I didn’t press charges. Sheriff Jennings did. I’ll admit I wasn’t sure what to think when it happened.”
“You thought I was guilty.”
When Adam didn’t say anything, Jaime had his answer. The coffee turned sour in his stomach. He’d thought as much, but there was nothing like having it confirmed.
“I’ll be honest: I thought you were guilty for about a day.” Adam clutched his mug of coffee, having given up on the Danish. “But then I thought about it, and I knew you couldn’t be. And then Grace basically ripped my head off and showed me all of the receipts and checks she’d found in my office…”
Jaime stilled. Grace had confronted her family—for him?
“What did Grace tell you?” Jaime stared at the inside of his mug.
“If you mean, did she tell us about what’s going on between you two? She said nothing. But she’s been looking for evidence to prove your innocence for weeks. She came to my place after you’d been arrested and gave me an earful. She said that if I didn’t bail you out she’d never speak to me again and probably poison my water supply.”
Jaime smiled a little. “She would, too.”
“But although the threat of poisoning was concerning, it wasn’t why I bailed you out.”
Looking up, Jaime saw his friend smiling sadly.
“I did it because I know you’re innocent. I did it because I should’ve worked harder to keep you out of this mess. I did it because I’m sorrier than I can ever explain—for all of this.”
When Adam said all of this, Jaime had a feeling he meant not only the stolen money, but also