“So we’re okay?” I asked.

“Wherever we go, you’ll always be welcome there.”

“Thank you, Jean.”

“Have some more ice.”

“Okay.”

She fed me the ice and I felt my eyes grow heavy. Suddenly, I was exhausted, and I closed my eyes as Jean moved around the room. I was almost gone when she spoke.

“There’s one card you might like to read. It’s more of a letter, actually.” I cracked my eyes. Jean was holding an envelope. “It’s from Vanessa,” she said.

“What?”

“She was here for awhile, but said she couldn’t stay. She wanted you to have this, though.” She handed me the envelope, which was thin and light. “She thought you would understand.”

“But, I thought…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Hank found her at the hospital in Davidson County. She’d gone to the feed store in Lexington and was crossing the street, when somebody hit her.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Nobody knows. All she remembers is a black Mercedes that came out of nowhere.”

“Is she okay?”

“Broken ribs and bruises all over, but she’ll survive. They kept her at the hospital overnight. She was pretty doped up on painkillers.”

“I thought she was dead.”

“Well, she’s not, and she was pretty broken up to see you like this.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t see. The letter in my hand was hope for the future, something I thought I’d lost. I wanted to read her words, to see the letters made by her hands. But my fingers were clumsy.

Jean took the envelope from my hands. “Let me,” she said.

She tore it open, removed the folded page, and put it back in my hand. “I’ll be outside if you need me,” she said, and I heard the door close behind her. I blinked, and when my vision cleared, I looked at the note Vanessa had left for me. It was short.

Life is a torturous journey, Jackson, and I don’t know if I can handle any more pain. But I’ll never regret the day we met, and when you’re ready to talk, I’m ready to listen. Maybe some good can come of all this. I hope so, but I know too well the cruelness of fate. No matter what happens, remember this-every day I thank God that you’re alive.

I read it three times, and fell asleep with it on my chest.

When I opened my eyes again, I felt ten times better. It was late, dark outside, but someone had turned on the lamp in the corner. I saw Mills in the chair, and I managed to sit up in bed before she looked up from the book she was reading.

“Hey,” she said, getting up. “I hope you don’t mind, but Jean has been here around the clock and was exhausted. I told her I’d stick around.” She stood, looking uncertain. “I thought you might have some questions.”

“I guess I should say thanks,” I said. “For saving my life.”

If possible, Mills looked even more uncomfortable. “And I owe you an apology.”

“Forget about it,” I said, surprising myself. “The past is dead. I don’t intend to think about it too much.” I gestured at the chair next to the bed. “Sit down.”

“Thanks.” She sat and put her book on the table. I saw that it was a mystery, and for some reason that struck me as funny, her being a detective and all.

“I really don’t know what I want to hear,” I told her. “I haven’t had much time to think about any of this.”

“I have a couple questions,” Mills said. “Then I’ll start at the beginning and tell you anything you want to know.”

“Okay.”

“Where did you find your father’s gun?” she asked, and I told her about the creek, about my nighttime search down the throat.

“I sent a team through that tunnel,” she said, visibly upset. “They should have found it.”

I explained how I’d found it wedged deep in the debris-choked crevice, but I refused to tell her how I knew to look there. She pushed, of course, but I wasn’t going to give Max to her.

“Somebody tipped me off, Detective. That’s all I can tell you.”

When finally she let it go, she did so as a favor, her way of making up for the harm that she’d done to me. But moving the conversation forward was awkward; letting go was not easy for Mills.

“So you did what you did to protect Jean? Because you thought she might have been involved?”

“That’s right.”

“But why? Why would you think Jean killed him?”

I thought about her question. How much could I give her? How much did she really want? Most importantly, was I still the guardian of Ezra’s truth? I had come to terms with what had happened, with how my mother passed from this place. But would the truth serve any good purpose? I had to ask myself: Would Jean sleep any better? Would my mother’s soul?

“Jean was not at home after she left Ezra’s. I went there looking for her.”

Mills interrupted. “She went for a drive. She was upset and went for a drive. Then she went to your house to talk things over. She got there in time to see you leave.”

I nodded. It was the simplest explanation, but it had never occurred to me. “Jean has not been right for awhile, Detective. She was angry, unstable. I couldn’t take the chance.”

I would keep Ezra’s truth, but not for him. Some truths are best left alone; it was really that simple.

Mills was clearly frustrated. “There’s a lot you’re not telling me, Work.”

I shrugged. “Not as much as you think, and nothing that will affect your case.”

“Was Jean the real reason you wanted to visit the crime scene?” she finally asked, and in her eyes I saw that she already knew the answer. I’d gone to the crime scene for one reason only; and, in spite of what I’d told Douglas, giving Jean details was not it. And now, safe on the other side of everything, I allowed myself a very small smile.

“No.”

Mills did not return the smile. She knew that I’d worked it out in advance and she knew why. My manipulations had caused her great embarrassment and could have cost her much more-the case, her reputation, her job. But I saw that she understood. I’d gone to the crime scene for one very specific reason-to hamper my eventual prosecution. I’d been willing to take the fall for Jean, but I hadn’t wanted to go to prison unless I was forced to. I’d figured that if it went to trial, I could use my presence at the crime scene to confuse the issue-maybe hang the jury, maybe get an acquittal. While no guarantee, it had been something.

“I had to do it,” I said to her. “When Ezra never came back, I eventually figured out that he had to be dead. I thought that Jean had done it. I couldn’t let her go to jail.” I paused, thinking about Ezra’s long absence and the dark thoughts that haunted me during that time. “I had eighteen months to think about things.”

“You had it planned out-from that first day when Douglas called you into his office. The day we found his body. That’s why you pushed Douglas to let you onto the crime scene.”

“Plan is too big a word. I just figured that it couldn’t hurt.”

“You know what I think?” she asked. “I think you’re a better lawyer than Ezra ever gave you credit for.”

“I’m no lawyer,” I said, but Mills didn’t seem to hear me.

“You’re a good brother, too. I hope Jean knows what you were willing to do for her.”

I looked away, embarrassed.

“Let’s talk about how you saved my life,” I said.

“All right. I’ll start there, and if something occurs to you, then stop me.”

“Okay.”

She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. “I was coming to arrest you,” she said.

“Because of the gun?” I asked. “Because you identified me?”

For a moment, she looked startled, and then angry. “Hank Robins told you. That little bastard. I knew he was sniffing around, but I thought I’d kept that information bottled up pretty tight.”

“Don’t hold it against him, Detective. Not everyone thought I was guilty.”

Mills looked pained by the tone of my voice. “Point taken,” she said. “But it’s funny how things work out.”

“How so?”

“If we hadn’t identified you, I wouldn’t have gone there to arrest you. You’d have bled to death on your office floor.”