lost fellow soldiers during her tours, friends she’d never see again, whom she’d watched get blown apart. The acid brew of death and guilt was no stranger to her.
“I feel like I should have been able to stop it,” Jessie finally said. “I knew Kyle was a threat. I knew what he was capable of. I should have pushed harder to take him down. I shouldn’t have trusted the FBI to watch him. Nobody knew Kyle like me. Even the people who believed he had ill intent didn’t comprehend how clever he was, the depth of his hatred. I should have made them understand.”
“You tried,” Kat insisted.
“Not hard enough. Or else we wouldn’t be here.”
Kat sighed. After a few seconds, she tried a different tack.
“At least he’s no longer a threat to anyone else. That’s because of you.”
Jessie nodded. And then, before she could stop herself, the words were out of her mouth.
“I liked it,” she whispered.
“What?”
“When I was choking him and I heard his windpipe snap, I liked it. The feeling was satisfying, almost…thrilling. I’ve had to kill people before but I never felt like that when I did it. What does that say about me?”
Kat took her hand and squeezed.
“All it says is that he pushed you to that point. He was threatening everything you held dear. Stopping him—ending him—was your only option. I don’t think you were feeling thrilled in that moment. I think you were feeling relief.”
Jessie looked her friend in the eye. She couldn’t tell if she was sincere or just trying to make her feel better. Either way, it didn’t change how Jessie felt.
“I’m not so sure.”
*
There were easily a thousand people at the funeral. Jessie knew it was being carried on closed-circuit television too, with the feed going directly into monitors at police stations all over the city. Though it was a private event, local news was sure to get the footage one way or another and air it to millions.
She took the seat that had been reserved for her, between Hannah and Captain Decker. She wasn’t entirely sure when or how she’d changed her mind about coming but she was here now. Kat stood a little distance away.
The rabbi said a few words, and then recited a few prayers. After that, the deputy director of the FBI, who had flown in from D.C., spoke. Captain Decker got up next and talked for a bit. Jessie didn’t hear any of it.
At some point she realized there were no more speakers and that everyone was silent. She looked up. Several eyes were on her. She leaned over to Hannah.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
“The rabbi asked if anyone from the family wanted to speak.”
“He doesn’t have any family.”
“That’s not true, Jessie,” her sister said.
She was right ,of course. For some time now, Jessie had known that Garland Moses viewed her as a surrogate daughter. His wife had died young of cancer, though he’d never mentioned that to her. He never remarried nor had children of his own. But without ever saying it out loud, he’d made it clear in countless unspoken ways that he viewed Jessie Hunt as the child he’d never had.
She found, much to her own surprise, that she had risen to her feet and was walking over to the lectern. And then, without really knowing what words would come out of her mouth, Jessie began to speak.
“I only knew Garland Moses for about two years, although of course I knew of him for many before that. I was scared of him at first, intimidated, though he never gave me a reason to be. It was his reputation for hunting down the worst of humanity that made him seem fearsome.
“But once I screwed up the courage to talk to him, to seek out his counsel, to get to know him, I discovered that he wasn’t so fearsome after all. He was gentle, which he hid by being quiet. He was kind, which he masked by seeming absent-minded. He was warm, which he veiled in crustiness. He was generous, which he pretended was inadvertent. He never once refused me help when I asked or advice when I needed it.
“Most importantly, when I doubted myself and feared that what I knew to be true might be false, he refused to doubt me. He believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself and that allowed me to believe again. He was always there for me. And isn’t that what family is supposed to be about?