Chapter 19: The Ring Goes Back On

Miriam's POV

I gave my statement at nine on Saturday morning, in a gray room with a recorder and a paper cup of bad coffee.

I told it all, from the Tin Roof to the shoebox.

I signed every page, Miriam Halsey McMahon, in black ink.

Declan sat beside me the whole time, and under the table his hand lay on my knee.

At eight, the board had voted him out as chair without him.

He found out from a text while I was describing the tire iron.

He read it, put the phone face down, and said nothing.

When I looked at him, he only squeezed my knee.

"You're not going to ask?" I whispered.

"There's nothing to ask. I'm here."

Nobody had ever chosen me over something that big.

I had to look at the wall until I could breathe again.

That night he drove me to the Lakeshore Hotel.

"Why here?" I said in the elevator.

"Because the last time I got you here, I did it wrong."

He opened the door to the honeymoon suite on the fortieth floor.

The bed was made.

The headboard was clean white padding again, and the lake lay black beyond the window.

I walked in slowly and stopped at the glass.

Declan came up behind me and did not touch me.

"Miriam," he said.

"Yes."

"I don't want to ask for anything tonight."

"I know."

"So tell me what you want."

I watched his reflection in the window, his hands at his sides and his eyes on me.

I held out my left hand.

"Put it on," I said.

He took the ring out of his pocket.

I had handed it to him that morning, outside the police station, and told him to keep it safe.

His hands shook as he slid it onto my finger.

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