that she had been protecting a murderer, for twenty years. She’d thought she’d been keeping a secret for a killer who deserved to be brought to justice. But she hadn’t. She’d been wrong, all this time. She’d tortured herself for twenty years. She’d ruined her life and lost her marriage over an incorrect assumption. She’d been completely mistaken about the defining moment in her own life. It struck her as an epiphany of the worst kind. Or was it the best?
Her mind was so blown by the thought that Allie might have burst into laughter, if Kyle hadn’t died in this very place. It would forever be where an innocent young man had lost his life. Nothing here would ever be funny. But she realized that more than Kyle’s young life was lost that night. Barton had been right. Her life was lost here, so long ago, too. David had killed himself. Sasha had washed out of a stellar future. Julian had become a ruthless businessman. They hadn’t been punished, so they had punished themselves.
Allie couldn’t tell herself that they’d been innocent, because they’d still played a prank and handed a loaded weapon to Kyle. They weren’t innocent, but they weren’t completely guilty, either. She realized, for the first time, that not guilty doesn’t always mean innocent. Justice isn’t always black and white. This was gray, like purgatory. Like the City of Refuge. And Allie felt finally that she could live in that grayness. Now she could live.
Her heart lifted, just the slightest bit. She breathed easier than she had before, then she ever had since that night. She gathered the bullets, put them back in the box, and rose to take them with her, the same as her memories of what happened here. They would always be part of her, and she wouldn’t try to suppress them, or pretend they didn’t exist anymore. They belonged with her, forever. The past and present. The living and the dead.
Allie was going home.
CHAPTER 66
Larry Rucci
Larry lay still, trying to recover from sex with Lacy. The luxury hotel room was dead quiet, and the walls must have been thick. He doubted anybody had heard their lovemaking, which was a relief. Lacy had yakked up a storm, telling him to do this, do that, then when to turn her over and back again, like she was a girl steak, done on both sides.
Larry thought of Allie. She didn’t give orders or make noise, but he knew when he had pleased her in bed. And with Allie, Larry had been the one who made noise, the guy trifecta of ahh, oooh, and yes. He liked it, all of it. Ovulation sex had made it less spontaneous, but spontaneity was overrated. He liked good, steady consistent lovemaking, like a foundation to their marriage. Their marriage bed had been a bedrock. They’d had that, until the end.
Larry swallowed hard, trying not to remember. He hadn’t made any noise with Lacy, and he realized it was because he didn’t want to hear himself. He was hiding from himself. He had cheated on his wife, that’s what it felt like. He felt regret so deep it could have drowned him, like he could’ve gone scuba diving. He’d need oxygen tanks to get to the bottom of this guilt ocean.
He got up suddenly, trying to shake it off. He had to snap out of it. He had to move on. He walked to the window, which overlooked Rittenhouse Square. Larry found himself looking away from the park, toward the western part of the city, to Fitler Square. It was outside his window frame, but that was where he belonged, where his home was, where his wife lived. He was homesick, lovesick, wifesick.
He would have to get over it. Allie had lied to him about the birth control pills. She had lied every month, when he got his hopes up about whether they’d gotten pregnant. He’d imagine the little baseball mitt he’d buy if the baby was a boy, or the tricycle if it was a girl. He wasn’t sexist, no matter what Lacy said. She didn’t even know him at all. Comment section, my ass.
Larry shook his head. He missed his wife, and he hated himself for that. He loved his wife, and he hated himself for that, too. She didn’t want a baby with him, and their marriage was over. He’d already moved on, having broken the seal on meaningless sex that would end in cardiac arrest.
He went to