Chapter 48
FORTY-EIGHT
PRESENT DAY
Madeline
Garrett and I sit cross-legged in the back of his Jeep with the hatch open, gazing out at the moonlight shining on the river below.
When we left Jason’s house after the FBI took him away, we somehow ended up here.
In a strange way, it feels right. It’s the spot where everything began between me and Adam and then ended so tragically.
And now, it’s where we’ll begin again.
Garrett slides an arm around my shoulder, and I lean into him.
“I just keep thinking about you rescuing those kids,” I say. “What if my student had come into my room a minute later? I never would have seen the video. You’d still be in hiding on Sandy Harbor, and I’d still be marrying Jason.”
Garrett settles me against his chest. “It wasn’t an accident that I ended up on Sandy Harbor.
As much as I told myself that I was only going for the day, or that I was only staying because Ian needed me, I always knew better.
It was your childhood home, the place you loved more than anywhere else in the world.
Of course it was going to bring you back to me. ”
The river ripples below us, but my heart drifts back to the sea air and sand beneath my feet on Sandy Harbor.
The laughter in Hudson’s Bar and the crackle of the bonfire on the beach.
I felt more at home in that short time than I did in the last decade of living in Maple Ridge.
And it’s where I found myself after being lost for so long.
“Let’s go back there,” I say.
Garrett looks down at me. “Right now?”
“Yes, right now.” I sit up so I can gaze into his eyes.
I spent years mourning Adam and moving on to build a life with Jason here in Maple Ridge.
Everything in this place has been touched by loss, and sorrow, and now the knowledge of Jason’s lies and manipulations.
I can’t go back to my apartment to face Adam’s hoodie tucked away in a box under the bed and Jason’s shirts still hanging in my closet.
The photo of me, Adam, and Jason is still sitting on the mantel where I left it, and the sight of our teenage smiles might just break me.
When that photo was snapped, Adam and I had so much hope for a future together, so much anticipation, so much love.
And Jason? Was there evil in his eyes back then?
Was he already plotting to steal Waylon’s money and let Adam take the fall when we wrapped our arms around each other and smiled for the camera?
Garrett’s gaze shifts out across the darkness, and I wonder if he’s thinking about the old trailer on the other side of the river.
I can’t imagine how it must be hitting him to be back in Maple Ridge at the site of so much terror and trauma.
To have walked into that warehouse, where Waylon threatened to have him killed, or into Jason’s house, where his best friend betrayed him.
The FBI agents who took Jason away told us that another group of officers had arrested Waylon and found enough cocaine in the warehouse to put him away for a long time.
If Jason is willing to testify against his boss, he might get a lighter sentence and an offer of witness protection.
There’s something karmic about the fact that when Jason gets out of prison, he’ll be sent away to live in a new town, with a new identity, far away from everyone he cares about.
While Garrett and I will be together, finally out in the open, finally free.
I take his face in my hands and kiss him. “Garrett?” I whisper against his mouth.
“Yes?”
“Take me home.”