Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“You did, too, Ambrose. We did everything we could. I think it was all we could do.”
He nodded, running his hands over her hair, bringing his lips to her temple.
“I have to find my lieutenant,” she said after a moment. “I have to get to work.”
“I know,” he said. He felt her tremble. “Hey, everything is going to be okay.” He didn’t know how or when, but he knew it would be, knew they’d both land on their feet, and believed that something good—somehow, someway—would result from this terrible day, where innocents had lost their lives and he’d watched the doctor he loved and revered sacrifice himself. But right now, he couldn’t even begin to articulate the complexities of that, and so he hoped she heard it in his voice and felt it in his embrace.
She looked up at him, her eyes so trusting, and he vowed right then and there that he would do everything in his power—for the rest of his life—to prove himself worthy of that expression.
She pulled him close again as though she needed the contact for another moment more, and he felt her heart beating against his, thud, thud, thud, a breath of calm descending even amid the noise and disbelief and heartache. My anchor. My soft place to land. My peacemaker.
After a moment, she let go, kissing him quickly on his lips before she turned away and headed toward the bevy of unmarked cars arriving at the scene. Ambrose turned, too, his gaze falling on the quiet city beyond, far away from the bedlam surrounding him, ignorant of the horror that had occurred so close to home. The moon shone against the dark sky, and stars blinked to life, and everything looked so peaceful out there. He remembered how he and Lennon had once talked about all the small pockets of darkness. Those existed; he knew that well. But even now—especially now—he would never forget that small pockets of light existed, too, and they were worth searching for.
EPILOGUE
Twenty-seven years later
The sheer curtains fluttered in the breeze from the open window at the end of the hall, the scents of rosemary and basil growing in the garden outside tickling Kaison DeMarce’s nose. He glanced back at the piano, the only piece of furniture left in the room. It was scheduled to be moved in the morning. He smiled as he turned toward the window again, swearing he could hear the notes of his mother’s favorite concerto echoing in the air.
Kaison turned and began a slow walk through the rooms of the empty Pacific Heights mansion, which had once belonged to Dr. Alexander Sweeton but had been left to Kaison’s father and Jermain Finchem, the pioneer of the Project Bluebird aftercare-treatment plan, in the wake of the doctor’s death.
Kaison had spent so much of his childhood here, after his parents and the rest of the team had turned the grand house into a respite for those who had recently come through treatment, and he wanted to walk its halls one last time. A sort of closure that made his heart squeeze with nostalgia, and also swell with pride.
He entered the room that he might have called his father’s office if his father had ever sat at a desk long enough to designate it as such. The mahogany desk was still there but would also be moved in the morning, along with the few boxes that held the items that his dad had kept in its drawers.
Kaison used his index finger to lift one of the flaps on a cardboard box sitting atop two others. Inside was a file folder that he recognized, and he pulled it out, setting it on the desk and opening it and then leafing through the newspaper articles and printouts inside. In the wake of Franco Girone’s arrest, his dad had gathered all the publicly available information and kept it here. Kaison had read all this long ago, but he had the inside scoop as well.
Six months after the horrific crime committed by Franco Girone at the church—the one Kaison had only been told about but swore he could picture—his mother had resigned from the SFPD. Kaison could only imagine how the stress of covering up the scope of Dr. Sweeton’s project had weighed heavily, especially since Franco Girone was all too willing to describe where he’d come up with his own evil plot.
All evidence, however, pointed to Franco’s statement being the ravings of a madman who’d attended one of Dr. Sweeton’s talks and hatched wild ideas based on his own sick fantasies.
Yes, Dr. Sweeton had dabbled in the use of hallucinogens in treatment of his patients suffering from PTSD, and perhaps, had he survived, the medical board would have reviewed his license. But the doctor was gone, and his patients had nothing but praise for him, and so that door had been shut. If Dr. Sweeton had been performing an experimental—not to mention illegal and unethical—treatment on vulnerable victims of abuse for almost two decades, certainly one of them would have come forward to verify such an implausible claim. But no one had, not a single soul.