CHAPTER 28 Maya
Maya
Her phone rang as she walked back to her car.
She looked at the screen. Reid.
She slowed, then stopped on the sidewalk and answered.
"Your lawyer is coming to the community center," he said. "Tomorrow. Two o'clock."
Maya didn’t understand what he was telling her. "You called my lawyer?"
"I arranged a meeting. He has to see what you've built here."
"Reid—"
"He needs to understand,” Reid said. "He needs to know who you are before he tells you to plead guilty."
Maya felt her forehead wrinkle. "That's not really how lawyers normally work."
“I don’t care how things normally work,” Reid said. "I only care about you.”
The street was quiet around her.
“You're a force for good in this community," Reid said. “That’s something he can’t just read about it in a file."
Maya closed her eyes briefly.
“He has to see,” Reid continued, his voice dropping slightly, "he needs to understand that you're not pleading guilty. I'm not going to let that happen."
"Reid," she said carefully. "You can't just—"
"Two o'clock," he said.
Maya stood there with the phone in her hand.
She should be annoyed. She was annoyed. He had called her lawyer without asking her, arranged a meeting at her community center, inserted himself into a process she had been trying to manage without him.
She was annoyed.
But underneath the annoyance, something else, something she didn't entirely trust. Because this—a husband who called her lawyer and said she is not pleading guilty, not as a question but as a fact—
This was what she had wanted.
This was exactly what she had wanted. Not just someone who loved her. Someone who put her first.
She needed to be careful.
This wasn’t Reid putting her first. This was simply Reid doing the right thing—Reid who had built the wrong case and was now correcting the record, Reid who understood that a guilty plea would be a miscarriage of justice and could not allow that on his conscience.
Reid the IRS agent. Not Reid the husband.
It was guilt. It was pity.
She had to remember that this was what this was.
Even if it didn't feel like that.
It felt like a husband.
Maya shoved her hands deeper into the pockets of her dress and quickened her pace as the community center came into view.
The walk from the Merritts' house wasn't far, but it was long enough for her to spend the entire time arguing with herself about what it meant that Reid had organized this.
The parking lot was busier than usual. A cluster of retirees and stay-at-home mothers gathered on the lawn beside the center as they arranged themselves into neat rows.
Tai Chi.
Maya recognized several of them immediately.
Mothers whose children were in Owen’s class. Women who had thanked her after she’d helped install the library’s new accessible doors.
Barbara.
Before her arrest, they all would have been happy to see her.
She lowered her gaze and lengthened her stride.
Maybe none of them were paying attention to her. Maybe they hadn't even noticed her.
But she felt the whispers anyway.
Thief. Fraud. Criminal.
The labels that followed her everywhere now.
She slipped through the front doors before any of the Tai Chi group could greet her.
A bulletin board crowded the entryway, layered with colorful flyers and curling notices.
There most prominent announced the community picnic.
Someone had drawn a smiley face in the corner.
The picnic had always felt special.
As a child, she had loved it. Paper plates bending under too much food, running wild across the grass until her face shone with sweat. As an adult, she loved it even more. The picnic was the community at its best.
Every year, Maya ran a bake sale.
Greg made made lemon drizzle. Barbara made coconut cake. Sandra’s parents sent fruit pies. There were brownies from parents at Owen’s school, cupcakes from the library volunteers. Maya made her grandmother’s cookie recipe.
This year, there wouldn’t be a bake sale.
The thought hurt.
Maya stared at the smiley face in the corner of the flyer.
Would she even go? Was she brave enough?
She didn’t know.
She moved farther into the building before she could dwell on it.
Her lawyer seemed surprised by how much of the building bore Maya's fingerprints. The accessible chairs designed to make sitting and standing easier. The hearing loop that was available for use.
Maya watched as the lawyer took it in.
"It was her bookkeeper," Reid said to her lawyer. "He had access to the money. He opened the accounts in Maya's name."
Julian Fucking Cross who had smiled at her and told her not to worry about the compliance checks. Julian who afforded designer suits and high end watches.
Julian had volunteered only when he found out how many grants Maya was winning. She'd been so pathetically grateful.
Her lawyer frowned. "Walk me through what you have."
Reid had a lot. He’d tracked the admin-level access, found the recovery email, mapped the timeline.
The lawyer nodded. “That's a great defense. But it’ll hinge on the jury on the day. I can’t guarantee a dismissal."
Maya crossed her arms over her chest, as if she could feel comforted from a hug she gave herself.
But there was no comfort here. Only harsh reality.
Her choices were to risk prison of confess to a crime she didn’t commit.
Reid was close enough that she could feel the warmth of him along her arm. Standing next to him was a habit she would need to break.
She clung to herself tighter, but it was a poor substitute for a real hug.
Then she felt Reid move, felt his arm coming around her shoulders.
Her body leaned into him, the way it always had, toward the warmth of him. His arm tightened around her.
“I’ll testify,” Reid said, above her head. “I’ll explain.”
She twisted to look up at him. This close, she could see the line of his jaw, the steadiness of his gaze. He looked calm.
Her lawyer made a note. “Is this the official IRS position?”
“No,” Reid said.
He looked down at her. His arm around her was solid and familiar. Like she belonged there.
She wanted to belong there.
Reid's arm stayed where it was. She stayed where she was.
The lawyer clicked his tongue. “It’s risky. A plea deal is still the surest way to avoid prison.”
Reid’s arm tightened around her.
Her lawyer checked his phone. “I’ll be in touch about the next steps,” he said.
And then it was just her and Reid, alone in the hall, with his arm around her shoulders.
She wanted to stay here, Reid’s arm around her. To let herself believe, just for a second, that everything would be okay.
It wasn’t.
She knew it wasn’t.
She knew she had to step back. She turned into the embrace instead.
Reid’s arms wrapped around her, strong and tight and safe. She felt him exhale.
Her hands came up, fisting in the fabric of his shirt and she pressed her face against his chest, her body relaxing now it was in the place it had always gone, the place it knew.
She stood there and let herself be held.
The sounds of the community center fell away.
The case. The lawyer. The plea deal and the charges and Julian Cross and all of it—gone, for just this moment, under the weight of his arms and the solid warmth of him and the unbearable familiarity of being exactly here.
She didn't know how long they stood like that.
Long enough that her breathing slowed.
Long enough that his did too.
It would be so easy to stay there. To pretend none of this had happened. To let herself believe that this was still hers.
It wasn't.
She knew it wasn't.
One of his hands was at her back, the other cradled the back of her head.
Slowly, she pulled back.
He let her go. His arms loosened, fell away. He didn't try to keep her.
She folded her arms across her chest again, but it didn't feel as good as being in Reid's embrace.
Nothing did.
They stepped outside into the middle of the Tai Chi session.
Maya kept her eyes forward, willing them to ignore her. Reid walked beside her, he seemed oblivious to the atmosphere.
She could feel them watching. Waiting. Judging.
“Bold of you to show your face here.” Barbara stood with her arms crossed, chin tipped slightly up.
Maya opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
What was she supposed to say?
“Maya is innocent.”
Reid’s voice cut cleanly through the space.
Maya blinked.
He stepped in front of her, placing himself between Maya and the group outside.
Barbara’s brows drew together. “You were the one who arrested her.”
“I was wrong.”
Barbara let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
Maya stared at him.
He didn’t look at her.
His focus stayed on Barbara. On all of them.
“I made a mistake,” Reid said.
There was no defensiveness in it. No attempt to soften it.
“I arrested an innocent woman,” he added. “My wife.”
Barbara opened her mouth again, but Reid didn’t give her the space this time.
“She didn’t steal anything.” His voice didn’t rise, but it carried. “I was incompetent. I was stupid. I fucked up.”
Barbara looked unconvinced.
Reid carried on. “She is the best thing that has ever happened to this community.”
Barbara’s gaze flicked to Maya, then back to Reid. Then her chin came back up. "That's not enough for me, Agent Lawson." Her arms stayed crossed.
Maya couldn’t take it anymore. She stepped around Reid.
The movement broke whatever hold the moment had. People shifted again, conversations starting in low, uncertain murmurs.
Maya didn’t look at anyone as she stalked past them all. She sucked in a breath like she’d been underwater.
Reid fell into step beside her without asking.
“They’re not going to just… change their minds because you said so.”
“I know,” Reid replied.
Something in his voice made her turn.
It twisted something in her chest.
He believed her now. It was too late.
“They loved you,” he said quietly. “Before all this.”
Maya let out a short breath. “People just liked me because I was useful.”
Reid frowned immediately. “That’s not true.”
“It is.” She shrugged one shoulder. “I make things easier for people. Easier buildings. Easier access. Easier lives. People like that.”
“That’s not true. The reason they've turned on you like this is because they loved you, Maya.” She looked at him. He was watching the road ahead. “They’re attacking you so they don’t have to admit how much it hurts to lose you.”
For a second, she wasn’t sure they were talking about the neighbors anymore. They turned onto the quieter residential street leading toward the Merritts’ house.
Behind them, the sounds of the Tai Chi group faded into the background.
“You know,” she said after a moment, “when Owen got hurt, I thought I’d go back to architecture school eventually.”
Reid walked beside her, not interrupting.
“I only finished one year.” She smiled faintly, without humor. “Then suddenly people were telling my brother to use the service entrance behind buildings because the front only had stairs.”
She didn’t know why she was telling him this.
“So I fixed it.” Another shrug. “And then there was always another thing to fix.”
Reid glanced sideways at her as they walked.
“I’m good at it,” she said quickly. “The community work. I know I am. And it matters. I know it matters.”
“You don’t have to convince me.”
Something in his voice made her chest ache.
Maya stared out across the lot again. “I just…” She stopped. “Sometimes I wish there was more.”
It felt strangely embarrassing to admit this to him. Reid didn’t interrupt.
“I still want to solve problems,” she admitted quietly. “I’m just tired of patching things.” She laughed softly. “I’ve learnt so much. I can look at a building design now and immediately spot six ways it’s going to fail somebody in a wheelchair. But nobody ever asks me before they build it.”
It wouldn’t happen, she knew it. But she kept talking.
“I know all the regulations,” she continued. “And the upcoming changes. But I also know what people actually need, not just what passes inspection.” She shook her head once. “They should hire people like me before they build things instead of after someone complains.”
“They should,” Reid said immediately.
She glanced at him, surprised by how serious he sounded.
“But that’s not really a job,” she said. “Not a real one.”
Reid’s expression changed slightly at that. Something sharp moving behind his eyes.
“And anyway, even if it was…” She exhaled softly. “It would be greedy.”
Reid’s brows pulled together. “Greedy.”
“Yes.”
“Maya—”
“I know how lucky I already am,” she said quickly. “I get to do meaningful work. I help people.” She folded her arms tighter across herself. “I know that’s more than a lot of people get.”
“What do you want?”
They turned onto the Merritts’ street.
“I want…” She shook her head. “Something bigger than constantly fighting with city councils over curb cuts and accessible parking permits.”
Reid didn’t say anything. The confession sat between them.
It sounded selfish.
Maya laughed quietly at herself.
“But that’s not how life works, right?” she said. “Everybody compromises. Everybody settles.”
Reid was still watching her with that same unnerving focus.
“Maya,” he said carefully, “none of those things are unreasonable.”
She smiled faintly. “They feel unreasonable.”
Because people needed her.
Because there was always something more practical to choose.
Reid’s jaw tightened slightly, like something she’d said had genuinely upset him.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Reid said quietly, with absolute certainty, “You should have everything you want.”
The Merritts’ house stood just ahead of them. Reid had walked her home.
Just not to his.
Maya was still thinking about Reid's words. She’d been sitting on the porch steps for twenty minutes, Jenny beside her, not saying much.
A familiar car turned into the street.
"Oh," Jenny said, sitting up a little straighter.
Maya glanced at her. Jenny was watching her brother pull up at the curb.
He reached back into the car for his folded chair. The assembly was quick and practiced—frame, wheels, a couple of clicks—and then one smooth pivot and he was in it.
He leaned back into his car and emerged with a Tupperware container. He balanced it on his lap, and wheeled up the path toward them.
He held container out toward Jenny. "Here. Cookies. I, uh, made them myself. They aren't, uh, they aren't great."
Color was staining his cheeks.
Jenny took the container. "Thank you," she said. "That's—thank you."
Owen straightened his shoulders. "I shouldn't have said those things. I'm sorry you heard, but even if you didn't hear, I shouldn't have said them. I didn't mean them. At all."
He cut his eyes to Maya and gave an awkward shrug.
Jenny was blushing now, too. She opened the lid and Maya recognized the cookies immediately. They were their grandmother's recipe. The ones Maya made for the picnic every year. The dough was waiting in the freezer at home.
No, not home. Reid’s house.