used to date Randall, but I didn’t even know they were friends until Tony and I had been dating for over a month. And then I didn’t know how. I was stupid. It nearly got him killed. It doesn’t matter if Tony hates me for the rest of his life. Or if you two blame me for all of this. It doesn’t matter. I am just so grateful to God that whatever sadness comes to me is nothing more than I deserve. Forgive me.
“Well, hell,” Baxter said, and wiped his eyes.
Macie leaned her head against his shoulder. “I know. Young love isn’t wise. It’s wild and wonderful and scary. The choices those two boys made have nothing to do with her. They’re the ones who tried to hurt our son. She just wanted to love him.”
“We don’t know how Tony will feel about her,” Baxter said.
Macie was silent a few moments, and then she reached for her husband’s hand.
“Is Tony going to wake up and be our Tony again?” she asked.
Baxter shrugged. “He can be any Tony he chooses. I just want him to wake up, but that’s not going to happen until they decide he’s strong enough to be conscious.”
* * *
The whole afternoon at the office was quiet. Wyrick knew when Charlie didn’t return or call that something was going on with Annie. Her heart hurt for him—for the whole situation—but stoic and tough were what got her through each day, and today was no different. When it was time to lock up, she gathered up her things, pausing in the doorway to look back.
The security lights gave the suite of rooms a pale, eerie glow. It was so quiet and peaceful up here. Almost as quiet and peaceful as her basement apartment at Merlin’s estate. Every day, she had to run the Dallas gauntlet to get from one place to the other, but this was the most satisfied she’d been since childhood.
She didn’t belong to Charlie Dodge. But she belonged with him—helping him do what he did, bringing closure to other people, even though there was no way to fix what was wrong in their own lives.
She sighed, then pulled the door shut and headed for the elevator. A couple of other businesses on their floor were still open. She could hear the soft murmur of voices as she walked, and as she got in the elevator, she was thinking of what she was going to have for dinner tonight on her way down.
The security lights were coming on in the parking lot. She always parked beneath the one closest to the door, but she still paused and looked around, making sure all was well. After her last dustup with Boyington, she was antsy all over again.
Once she was inside the Mercedes, she started it up, then paused to order a pizza to go. It was a fast pickup on her way home, and the question of what was for dinner would be solved.
After that, she gunned the engine, leaving remnants of tire tread on the parking lot as she shot out onto the street.
Speed was her escape. Chocolate was her drug. Pepsi was her habit. Considering the makeup of her DNA, it could have been worse.
* * *
Randall Wells and Justin Young were no longer friends. Getting caught in their lies had changed that, and the lawyers their parents hired for them had turned them into adversaries, posing the questions as to which one of them had the edge and the information to bargain with, which was Justin, and which one of them bore the greatest guilt and had the most to lose, which was Randall.
One was the instigator.
One had abetted in the act.
They would be arraigned tomorrow.
They were in juvenile detention, facing federal charges, and waiting to see if they would be charged as juveniles or adults.
Their lives were no longer their own, and Tony Dawson’s was still a question mark.
* * *
Trish Caldwell was having dinner with her mother, catching her up on what Wyrick had told her, both of them rejoicing that Tony had been found alive, when Trish’s cell phone signaled a text. Normally, they ignored calls at their dinner hour together, but there was too much in limbo to ignore.
“You better answer that,” Beth said.
Trish nodded, then jumped up from the table to get her phone from the counter. When she saw who it was from, she was almost afraid to read it as she opened the text.
Please don’t feel guilty