Chapter 30
Sam
I woke up before the alarm.
The light was coming in sideways through the blinds—pale and Sunday-soft. Jamie was warm against my side, her hair was in my face. Her hand was on my chest over my heart, the way it always ended up by morning. I lay there for a minute and didn't move.
Her side of the closet had half my shirts in it now.
My records were on the bookshelf in the living room next to hers.
A single box of my stuff was still in the corner of the bedroom, the last one I hadn't gotten around to unpacking.
There was no rush. I'd closed out the apartment a week ago, handed the keys to the landlord in a parking lot, and driven away from the only place I'd lived as an adult without looking at it in the rearview mirror.
It hadn't felt like losing anything.
Jamie shifted against me. Her hand moved, slow, absent, and settled again.
This.
This was the thing I hadn't known was possible. Waking up to her breathing. The quiet of the apartment before Rosie got up. The knowledge, without having to check, that the next room over had a four-year-old in it who would wait for us at the kitchen table.
We dropped Rosie at preschool a little after 9:00 a.m.
Back at the apartment Jamie made coffee and sat down at the table. She held her mug the way she did when she was working up to something.
"Is something wrong?"
She exhaled. Hesitated.
"Morrison called this morning." She paused. "He's coming by this afternoon with an update on the arson. But before he does, I need to tell you something."
I set my coffee down.
"A while back, he came by with two agents from SLED."
"The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division?"
"Yes." She took a breath. "They were looking at the arson from a few different angles. One of them was my work in New York. The other was the fire department."
"Okay?"
"They looked into it. They didn't find anything."
The knot in my chest I hadn't known I was holding loosened.
"That's good then."
Jamie exhaled and smiled.
"Why'd you look like you were delivering bad news?"
"I knew SLED had been looking. And I didn't tell you." She turned the mug in her hands. "I felt bad about it."
"Why? I figured they would've told you to keep it confidential."
She shrugged. "I guess I just felt bad hiding it from you. I didn't want to put you in the position of having to choose between me and the department."
I reached across the table and took her hand.
She was still watching me like she was waiting for something to land wrong. I smiled at her, and I watched the last of whatever she'd been holding leave her shoulders.
I turned her hand over in mine.
"You were trying to keep me out of a mess. I can't be mad at you for that."
"Yeah."
"Come here."
She got up and came around the table, and I pulled her down into my lap. She settled against me with her forehead at the side of my neck. I could feel her breathing. Slower now.
"I love you," she said into my collar.
"I love you too."
We sat like that for a minute.
The phone rang.
Jamie lifted her head. Looked at the screen on the counter.
"That's him."
Morrison arrived that afternoon with the two agents behind him.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Reeves. May we come in?"
I stepped aside and let them through.
We sat at the kitchen table. Morrison on one side, Brooks and Whitfield flanking him. Jamie and I on the other. Whitfield opened a notebook.
"Someone's in custody," Morrison said.
Jamie's hand found mine under the table.
"He turned himself in three days ago. Walked into the station and asked to speak to a detective."
Jamie went still. "He turned himself in?"
"He wanted a deal. No jail time in exchange for everything he knew." Morrison paused. "Which, as it turns out, was a lot. He gave us the pay. The drop. The instructions. The name of the person who paid him."
"Who?"
"We'll get there. I have to tell you first—it was an interesting story to hear. We'd been looking at the fire department as one of the angles on your arson. And it turned out the fire department was the reason he came in."
I looked up. "How so?"
Morrison's face did something that was almost a smile.
"A few weeks ago, he was in a car accident with his daughter. Four-year-old in a car seat. He was hurt too, but it was the little girl he couldn't stop thinking about. The fire department cut her out and brought her to him."
He shook his head.
"He figured out that if he kept taking the kind of work he'd been taking, eventually he was going to end up in a cell, and there'd be nobody to raise his daughter. So he stopped. Got clean. Kept his head down for a while."
Jamie hadn't moved.
"But he'd set your house on fire before all that.
He'd been told it would be empty. When he found out about your niece—when he realized how close he'd come—it sat on him.
He came in because he couldn't live with it.
And because he knew whoever paid him was going to come looking for him eventually, and he'd rather be the one who walked in first."
I couldn't speak for a second.
The call came back before I could help it. The residential street off Coleman. The utility pole. The man on the stretcher with his good arm around his daughter and his fingers closed around mine. She's all I have. Thank you. Thank you.
I didn't say anything.
"The person who paid him," Morrison said. "Bryce Montgomery."
Jamie's hand went still in mine.
I looked at her.
She wasn't surprised. Her face slowed like a part of her had been braced for something else slotted into place for this. She'd half-known. She'd half-known for a long time. I hadn't.
Morrison let the name sit for a second. Then he kept going.
"SLED has been building a case on Montgomery for years.
A pattern of complaints dating back to his time in law school, continuing through his work at the City Attorney's office.
Women he pursued, pressured, discredited when they tried to come forward.
He's been careful. His name is on very little. But we've had a file."
Whitfield turned a page.
"The arson gave us a thread we could pull. Paid arsonist, money trail, phone records. Once we had cause, we got warrants. Everything we'd been sitting on for years became admissible. He was arrested yesterday morning."
Jamie still hadn't spoken.
"He's going to plead," Morrison said. "Multiple charges, multiple victims. The alternative is worse. Part of any deal is full cooperation with victim claims. Including yours, Miss Donovan. The damages from the fire."
"I'd like to pursue that."
"We figured." Brooks tapped the table once. "Your attorney will be in touch. Montgomery's cooperation is part of the deal. He'll answer questions on the record."
Jamie nodded.
They stood. Morrison shook our hands at the door. Brooks said they'd be in touch.
The door closed.
Jamie didn't move from the kitchen. She had one hand on the back of the chair she'd been sitting in.
"He paid a man to set my house on fire with Rosie in it."
She closed her eyes.
I crossed to her and put my arms around her. She leaned into me. I felt her release the long breath she'd been holding for a while.
Her lawyer filed the civil suit two weeks after Morrison's visit.
Bryce's attorneys came back with a settlement offer before the ink was dry.
He was already pleading guilty to the criminal charges.
A civil trial on top of that was more exposure than his side wanted.
They offered to settle for an amount that was, by Jamie's lawyer's read, reasonable. More than reasonable.
Jamie wanted a meeting before she signed.
Her lawyer told her she didn't need one. The deal was good. The money would go into a trust for Rosie. They could finalize everything in writing. Jamie said she wanted to be in a room with him once. Her lawyer said okay.
A few weeks later, we drove downtown.
The conference room was on the eighth floor of an office building off Meeting Street. Gray carpet. Long table. Jamie's lawyer at one end with the settlement agreement in a folder. Two chairs on our side. Three on theirs—one for Bryce, two for his attorneys. A pitcher of water in the middle.
We sat. I put my hand on Jamie's back between her shoulder blades. She was breathing slowly.
The door opened.
Bryce was led into the room, between two officers.
Orange jumpsuit. His hands were cuffed in front of him.
He was thinner than he'd been the last time I saw him, and the polish was gone from his face, but his eyes were the same.
They swept the room the way they always had. They calculated. They found Jamie.
They held on to her.
"Jamie. It's good to see you."
The officers sat him down and stepped back against the wall. His lead attorney, a gray-haired man with a leather folio, opened his notes.
"Miss Donovan. Thank you for coming. My client is prepared to accept the terms as drafted. If you have any—"
"I have one question."
He paused. "For counsel?"
"For him."
The attorney's eyes flicked to Bryce. Bryce nodded once.
"Go ahead, Miss Donovan."
Jamie folded her hands on the table.
"Why?"
Bryce's attorney put a hand on his arm.
"Mr. Montgomery— "
Bryce waved him off. The attorney sat back.
"Jamie, you were already doing so well in New York. Why would you want to stay in Havensworth?" He didn't wait for an answer. "I'm running for Solicitor. You're a journalist who has history with me. You have to see the position that put me in."
"So you set my house on fire."
"I needed you to have a reason to go."
Bryce turned his head to me.
"Sam. I heard you turned down the college offer. That's a shame."
I didn't answer.
"That application took some work, you know." He almost smiled. "Paperwork like that doesn't put itself together."
The room went quiet.