Happily, very happily, she hadn’t had to deal with wallpaper here, and had painted the walls a calm lake blue, and the trim a crisp white.

The bath? Well, wallpaper. This time fish, a whole lot of fish, bug-eyed and circling the walls. The sellers had left the shower curtain on the tub/shower combo. More fish.

It was downright creepy.

She’d take care of it, but for now she just had to live in the aquarium, and with the sad, peeling vanity and bucket-size sink, and the toilet that rocked just a little whenever she sat on it.

Better than camping, she told herself as she walked the few steps to her bedroom.

She had a bed, or at least a new mattress and box spring, and lovely new sheets and pillows. She had the view from the window, which was worth everything.

She just needed time to get to a furniture store and fill out the rest. And a decent chunk of time, more than decent effort, to rid herself of the wallpaper.

In here it ran red and gold, in what she thought they called flocked. She supposed some tastes might have deemed it elegant, but she found it creepier than the fish.

She showered off the day, dressed in the cotton pants and T-shirt she’d sleep in. In the kitchen, she stuck a frozen pizza in the oven.

Darby considered frozen pizza and microwave popcorn staples of life.

She carried her pizza and a glass of wine up to her office, turned music on—loud. And spent a very contented evening working on plans for her house and headquarters.

* * *

While Darby ate her pizza, Zane sat at a high-top in the bar section of Grandy’s Grill. Ashley spoke truth about the selection of local brews, and plenty of locals, a good smattering of spring tourists kept the waitstaff hopping.

The place had the feel of a good Irish pub, a lot of dark, gleaming wood, quiet lighting, the long bar with an easy dozen or so draft beers on tap backed by a brick wall, shelves lined with bottles.

He hadn’t ventured into the dining area as yet, but from what he’d seen through the wide opening between the two sections, business looked brisk.

Since the night’s highlighted beer was Hop, Drop ’n Roll, Zane went with it. Dave, who sat with him, drank a Dark Angel.

The man, one Zane firmly believed had helped save his life, looked good. Time had threaded gray through his hair, but it suited him. Always the health and fitness guy, he now wore a tracker watch. The cotton shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, fit broad shoulders, strong arms.

Clearly, he still made good use of his weight room.

They talked lifting awhile, home gym setups. Once Zane moved into the new house, he had a whole lower level, and intended to install a home gym.

With the ease of longtime friends, they segued to town talk.

“I guess you know Grandy,” Zane began.

“Yeah, sure. Nice guy. He and Ashley put a lot into this place.”

“It works.”

Dave cocked an eyebrow. “Not carrying a torch there, are you?”

“God, no. But I’m always going to have a soft spot for her, seeing as she was the first girl I thought I loved, and the first to break my teenage heart. It’s good knowing she’s married to a nice guy, and they’ve got a good place here.”

“How about your place?”

“Getting there.” Since they were in front of him he popped a couple of bar nuts. “On both fronts. I can’t believe Maureen’s working for me. I think of her running the car pool, making me and Micah Hot Pockets, telling us to wipe our feet, damn it. Now she’s basically running the office.”

“We’ve got ourselves an empty nest with Chloe married and living on the Outer Banks, and Micah with his own place.”

Like Zane, Dave glanced toward the bar screen when a few cheers ripped out. March Madness.

“She’d been looking to go back to work for a while, just couldn’t find anything that got her off the mark. Then, there it was. There you were. It’s good to have you back, Zane.”

“I wasn’t sure I’d be able to say it and mean it all the way, but it’s good to be back.”

“How about that big, fancy house of yours?”

“You know, when I’m down here in town, or over at Emily’s, at Britt’s, I think about it and wonder if I lost my damn mind.” Baffled at himself, Zane popped more nuts.

“Then I go up there? And it’s freaking great. Everything about it just clicks. When I’m moved in, organized, I’m having all y’all up. We’ll test out the killer grill that came with the place.”

“Name the day, we’re there.”

“You know, Micah came up, went over the system—music, lights, TVs, security. I can do it all from a tablet, or my phone, how it’s set up. Which meant I had to ask him to come back, run it through for me again. But I think I’ve got it now.”

“If you don’t, he’s the man.”

“Yeah, he really is.”

“Now.” Dave took another pull of his beer. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really on your mind?”

Zane studied his own beer, then studied Dave. The same strong face, Zane thought, the same eyes, both shrewd and kind.

“Graham’s coming up for parole next week. He’ll likely get it this time. I could go in, speak, and maybe hold it back, but it’s just postponing.”

“I’d go to the hearing again, Zane. So would Lee, Emily, Britt.”

“I know it, just like I know how the system works.”

After all, he’d been the system.

“He’s served eighteen years,” Zane continued, “stayed out of trouble, done the counseling, worked in the prison infirmary for six years now. The board’s going to consider him rehabilitated. He’s exactly the sort of inmate they want to move out, and I don’t want to put Britt through another hearing. Or any of you.”

“And what about you?”

He’d thought it over, hours of thinking, lying in bed, turning his baseball in his hand.

“It’s going to happen, so there’s no point. And sometimes you have to just close the book.”

“Is that why you resigned from the DA’s office, came back here?”

“Part of it,” Zane admitted. “I don’t have to forget, I sure as hell don’t have to forgive. But it was time to, you know, close the book, open another.”

“Okay. Okay then.”

“Parole’s not a cakewalk.” Zane lifted his beer. “He’ll never practice medicine again. He’ll have to report in, submit to drug testing. He won’t be able to leave the state. They may restrict him to Raleigh, slap him with mandatory anger management. He’ll have to get a job.” Zane shrugged. “He’ll move in with Eliza. She’s got a house, quiet neighborhood, works part-time in a fancy dress shop.”

When Dave lifted his eyebrows, Zane shrugged again. “I felt better knowing where both of them were. Anyway, I’m closing the book, but I wanted to say something to you, something that’ll move right from one book to the next. You’ve been more of a father to me than he ever was. You and Lee, but you as far back as I can remember. You’re the one who showed me by who and what you were, how to be a man.”

Dave took a moment, another sip of beer until he could speak. “That’s a hell of a thing to hear. It’s a hell of a thing to hear from a grown man I’m proud of.”

“What you did for me—”

“Don’t start on that.”

“No, not just that night, Dave, and not just the days after.”

And he needed to say it. Like writing it in a notebook, saying it made it real.

“Not just being there for me when I had nobody, fighting for me. Not just that. For all the time I spent at your house, or around you. You showed me what was real. Real family, real parents, even real husband and wife. Without that, without you … Abuse is a cycle. Without you, I might have become like him.”

“Not in a million years, champ.”

“Can’t know. But the thing is, you, Maureen, Micah, Chloe, you added the weight to the other side of the scale. I’ll never be like him, and that’s the most important thing you’ve done for me.”

“I’ll tell you something back. You were never anything like him, or her. It used to puzzle me a little, how you and Britt seemed so different from them. I knew things weren’t right at home for you, but I never saw what it was. I wish I had, but I didn’t. What I did see? Graham was an arrogant prick, and Eliza, kind of a polished-up void.”

“Jesus, that’s good.” After a breath, Zane took a pull on his beer. “That’s good. ‘Polished-up void’ is exactly right.”

“You and Britt? Just nothing like that, not the way I could see little bits of me and Maureen in our kids. Just little bits. Not even little bits of them in the two of you. What I saw in you? Heart. Neither of them had any.”

Those clear, kind eyes held Zane’s. “I don’t forget either. I don’t forgive.”

“Then it looks like we’re on the same page of the new book.”

Dave smiled at him. “Looks that way. How about we order ourselves some of those loaded nachos and another beer?”

“Sounds good.”

* * *

On a morning of April showers, Zane met Nathan Grandy at nine sharp when Maureen escorted him and Ashley into his office for their consult.