Her eyes widened with surprise. “Really?”
“If it’s what you want.”
“Please don’t sound so enthusiastic about it,” she said with an eye roll. Her brother’s tone couldn’t be less happy with her plan if he tried.
Jem laughed. “Gracie, I'm happy about it. I am. I know you will make an amazing therapist, and no one would be better equipped to help victims of crime. You’re smart, empathetic, have a great ability to read people, and while I think you would make an excellent profiler, I agree you would be fantastic helping people deal with trauma. That’s not what I meant. I just don’t want you to make a decision you’ll regret later because you're so insistent to try to move on with your life.”
“I know what I'm doing, Jem,” she assured him.
“Then I’ll help you make it happen.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead before taking her hand and leading her across the parking lot and inside the facility.
It was exactly as she remembered it, same light gray paint on the walls, same dark wooden floorboards, same paintings on the wall. Nothing had changed, it was like the last five and a half years hadn't happened.
At least that was how Grace felt until they stepped inside her mom’s room, and she laid eyes on her mother for the first time in so long. The last time she’d seen her mom was the weekend before she’d been kidnapped. She’d been twenty-two then, busy balancing studying for her masters in criminal psychology with working part time at a local bookstore, with volunteering to get as much experience in her field as she could. Then there were friends, and when she had time the occasional boyfriend. She hadn't visited her mother as often as she should have, something she now deeply regretted.
Her mom had aged so much. Back then, it had only been a few months since the stroke. Her mom had been determined to regain as much function as she could even though the doctors said she would never walk or talk again, never feed herself, and never be able to do anything but lie in a bed, trapped inside her body.
While she had been trapped in Emmanuel’s house Grace had worried that her only daughter’s abduction would make her mom give up, but as her mom’s eyes moved toward the door, and she saw the spark of fire still in them, she knew that she shouldn’t have worried.
Like mother like daughter, her mom was a fighter, and had obviously instilled that same determination in Grace. It was the only way she could have survived for so long as Emmanuel’s prisoner.
Grace flew across the room and wrapped her arms around her mom, careful not to mess with the tubes and wires that kept her mom alive and monitored her vital signs. She pressed her face against her neck, and even though her mom couldn’t move, couldn’t hug or hold her, Grace felt her love as surely as if she could.
There was no place on earth like your mother’s arms, no matter how big you were.
* * * * *
8:49 P.M.
“Okay, Matt, I think we should call it a night.”
Matthew glanced up at his partner’s voice, but he shook his head. They were working on a list of names of potential victims. In addition to the dozen he’d found yesterday, they’d been able to add another six to that list. Plus, another three where someone had been charged and convicted of a murder of a woman they knew, where the victim also had a recently acquired tattoo on her ankle. While he intended to speak with Grace and find out if she could positively identify the women as Emmanuel’s victims, for now, he was working the theory that they were and he and Rylla were trying to simultaneously look for more and try to find any links between them.
He didn't want to go home for the night until he had something concrete.
The drive to find Emmanuel was unlike anything he had experienced on any other case. He was always driven, you had to be to do this kind of work, but this was something else. This growing thing between him and Grace was consuming him, and he had to bring her the peace she needed to be able to live the rest of her life to the fullest.
“Matt.” Rylla rolled her chair over from her desk to beside him. “I know you want to fix this for Grace, I remember how I felt when my sister was abducted, how badly I wanted to find her, so I get where you're coming from. But that doesn’t mean running yourself into the ground is the answer. You like Grace, it’s obvious, I'm guessing since you’ve been hanging out with her a bit that she likes you too. You want to be her hero, ride in on your white horse to save her, but remember there’s more than one way to save someone. Maybe Grace needs you just to be there more than she needs you to solve this case.”
Not giving him a chance to reply, she stood, squeezed his shoulder, then returned her chair to her desk and gathered her things.
Matthew sat there watching her walk away, her footsteps echoing in the mostly empty bullpen. Everyone else had gone home for the night except for Heidi, who was in her office, working late like she always did. The drive to close Grace’s case hadn't diminished, and her safety depended on Emmanuel being caught, but maybe there was a little truth to what Rylla had said.
With a sigh, he shoved back from the desk, shutting down his laptop for the night. It would still be here in the morning, and his stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly reminding him he hadn't eaten since lunch.
Grabbing his cell phone and keys, he headed for the parking lot. He’d stop off, grab something to eat on the way home. If Grace had still been in the hospital, he would have been tempted to take something around to hang out with her for a while, but now that she was at her brother’s house he couldn’t do that.
Would that change things between them?
Not that therewasmuch between them, but Grace had kissed him, and she hadn't said she wasn’t interested when he’d told her he liked her. In fact, the way she’d admitted to being coerced into shooting some of Emmanuel’s victims said the opposite. She’d been protecting her heart, giving him an out which had to mean that she was interested too.
Now that she was home, ready to rebuild her life, would she decide there was room in hers for him?
He’d just climbed into his car when his cell phone rang. He debated ignoring it. There wasn’t anyone he wanted to talk to, and besides, all his friends were married now, had kids, or were thinking of starting families. Unless they had made plans, he didn't usually hear from them after nine.
Had Emmanuel struck again?
The fear that he’d made another attempt at snatching Grace was the reason he pulled his cell out of his pocket. It was an unknown caller, and yet he accepted the call even though it was likely a scammer, usually the only calls he got from someone not one of his saved contacts.