He Defended My Mother's Killer, Now He Pays with His Life novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Her Mother's House

I read the letter on my mother's back porch, alone, with the necklace in my other hand.

It was one page, in Brice's neat slanting writing.

I could not read it fast.

Victoria, if this is in your hands, then you found the clip, or Samson did, and I lost.

I took her necklace from the gravel that night.

I told myself I would return it.

I couldn't throw it away, and I couldn't give it back.

So I locked it up and let you grieve a thing you didn't know was missing.

I'm not asking you to forgive me. I know what I am.

The first thing I ever said to you was true. You looked lost at that bar, and I thought, I'd like to be the man who finds her.

I was never that man. I was only the man who made sure you didn't look.

The letter was not signed.

I read it twice, and I felt nothing, and then I felt everything.

I folded it into a small square.

I did not tear it up.

I put it in the kitchen drawer with the takeout menus and the spare keys, and I shut the drawer, and I fastened my mother's necklace around my own neck.

The little silver sand dollar settled against my collarbone.

It was warm.

Samson's phone rang as I came back inside.

He stood by the stove with his back to me and listened for a long time.

"Yes, sir," he said. "Yes. I understand. Thank you."

He hung up.

"That was the captain."

"And?"

"The complaint is withdrawn. The commissioner called me himself." He rubbed his face. "My badge is on a desk waiting for me. I start Monday."

"Samson!"

I crossed the kitchen in three steps and threw my arms around him.

He caught me, laughing, and lifted me off the floor.

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