Chapter 44
Gabe had been on his back porch, watching the waves, half following the score of the Eagles game on the TV inside, when Cara called.
Sunday was supposed to be his day off. The one day he tried to unplug, decompress, remember there was more to life than police reports and crime scenes.
But his mind kept circling back to the case. To Jessica Forsythe, vanished into thin air. To the cliffs where Blaire had died. To Cara, and the way she'd looked at him that morning—exhausted, relieved, carrying something she couldn't put down.
When his phone rang and her name appeared on the screen, he was already on his feet.
The minute they hung up, he called Tyler, then ran for his SUV.
The drive from his place took seven minutes.
He made it in five, pushing the speed limit on the empty coastal road, his gut telling him something had shifted.
Cara's voice had been steady on the phone, but troubled.
The kind of calm that came from holding something together by sheer force of will.
He'd heard that tone before, in witnesses who'd seen too much, in victims still processing trauma.
He pulled into the small lot behind the bakery and killed the engine.
The afternoon sun was starting its descent, casting long shadows across the pavement.
A quiet Sunday in Haven Cove. Families finishing late lunches.
Tourists wandering the shops. Everyone oblivious to whatever had shaken Cara badly enough to call him like that.
Diane met him at the back door before he could knock. "She's inside," she said, and stepped aside without further comment. He'd always appreciated that about Diane.
Cara was standing at the kitchen window, both hands wrapped around a mug, watching the parking lot like she'd been watching it since she'd hung up. She turned when he came in.
Pale. Drawn. Her eyes holding something he couldn't quite read. Fear. Relief. Exhaustion. All of it swirling together.
"Hey." He kept his voice gentle. "I'm here."
"Thank you for coming so fast."
He glanced at the chair in the middle of the kitchen. The severed zip ties on the floor beside it. His jaw tightened, but he kept his expression neutral. "Tell me what happened."
She told him.
About the woman who'd been painting cliff views all over town.
About the canvas bag and the gun and the chair.
About six months of Jessica Forsythe embedded inside Blaire's operation, waiting, watching, gathering evidence that would never see a courtroom.
About the anonymous tip to Thorne. About the night on the cliffs — the lure, the overlook, Blaire gloating about destroying Cara's life right up until the moment she went over the edge.
"She said Blaire didn't even scream," Cara said quietly. "Just... gone."
Gabe listened without interrupting, his jaw tight. His mind was already connecting dots he should have connected days ago. The tourist with the curly dark hair and the canvas bag. He'd walked past her himself, outside the coffee shop, near the pier. Never looked twice.
Jessica Forsythe had played them all.
Part of him admired the audacity of it. The rest of him felt sick.
"And then she just left," he said. Not quite a question.
"She said she was disappearing." Cara's voice was hollow. "I believe her."
Tyler would move fast, but they both knew what a head start looked like on a case like this. Jessica had planned this for months. She wasn't going to make a mistake now.
"Tyler will update the search," he said. "But honestly? If she's as smart as she seems..."
"She's gone." Cara finished the sentence for him. "I know."
Silence settled between them. The afternoon light had shifted, shadows lengthening across the floor. Somewhere outside, a seagull cried.
Gabe studied Cara's face. The exhaustion. The relief. The pull of something she wasn't saying.
Because there was something. He could feel it. Some piece of this story she was holding back.
"Jessica probably had access to all of Blaire's files," he said slowly. "Everything she used to blackmail people. Dozens of victims."
The implications landed cold. Jessica Forsythe had just walked away from a murder. She'd spent months inside Blaire's operation, learning every secret, every vulnerability, every pressure point. If she wanted to pick up where Blaire left off—
"Is she going to be a problem?" he asked. "The files. The leverage Blaire had on people." He paused. "The leverage she had on you."
Cara shook her head. "She said she destroyed everything. All the backups she could find."
"You believe her?"
"I do." Cara's voice was steady. "She wasn't doing this for money, Gabe. She was doing it for her brother. For all the people Blaire destroyed." A tiny, weary shrug. "But that's just my read. I don't have any solid proof."
Gabe turned this over. It tracked with everything he knew about human nature. The grief. The obsession. The methodical patience. She wasn't a blackmailer — she was an executioner. And executioners didn't usually stick around to run the business.
But still. Something flickered behind Cara's eyes when he'd asked about the files.
"Did she—" He stopped himself.
Did she show you anything? Did you see what Blaire had on you?
The questions hovered in the air, unasked.
If Cara had seen those files — if Jessica had given her any glimpse of what Blaire had found — she'd have her reasons for not mentioning it. Protecting herself. Protecting him from having to make choices about what to do with the information.
He thought about fifteen years with the Bureau.
The cases that still haunted him. The times justice and law had pointed in opposite directions and he'd had to choose.
The guilty who walked on technicalities.
The innocents crushed by a system that couldn't see nuance.
The victims who suffered twice — once from the crime, and again from the investigation meant to help them.
He'd spent his whole career believing in the system.
Maybe it was time to believe in people instead.
"Never mind," Gabe said quietly. "Some things don't need to be part of the official record."
Cara held his gaze for a long moment. He watched the tension in her shoulders ease, just slightly. Watched something that might have been gratitude — or maybe just relief — move across her face.
"Thank you," she said softly.
He'd made his choice. Cara over complete truth. Justice over law. The woman in front of him over the badge in his pocket.
He'd have to live with that.
"I'll loop Tyler in on the confession," he said finally. "He'll want a formal statement, but I can hold him off until tomorrow. Give you time to rest."
"I appreciate that."
The space between them was charged with everything said and unsaid. All the secrets she was still keeping. All the questions he was choosing not to ask.
It should have felt wrong.
Instead, it felt like trust. A different kind. The kind that let someone keep their walls up because you believed they'd take them down eventually. When they were ready. On their own terms.
"Whatever else you're carrying," Gabe said quietly. "Whatever you can't tell me yet... I hope someday you can."
Cara's eyes glistened. "Someday."
Not a promise. But not a lie either.
He'd take it.
"Get some rest," he said. "And tomorrow... maybe we can have dinner. Just the two of us. No investigations. No confessions. Just food."
A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "I'd like that."
He left her standing in the fading light, her secrets still wrapped around her like armor. He had his own secrets now — the questions he'd chosen not to ask, the evidence he'd decided not to pursue.
They were in this together. Whatever "this" was.
The late afternoon sun hit his face as he stepped outside. Haven Cove spread out before him — the town he'd chosen, the life he'd built, the woman he was falling for despite every reason not to.
He climbed into his truck. If Forsythe was as smart as he guessed, the case would probably go cold. Blaire's victims would slowly, quietly reclaim their lives without ever knowing how close they'd come to exposure.
And Gabe would live with the choices he'd made.
For Cara. For justice. For whatever fragile, complicated thing was building between them.
He turned onto the coastal road, heading home.
Some endings weren't clean.
Maybe that was okay.