Chapter 26
I needed a trip to the emergency ward.
The blades had cut the skin but had only glanced off the muscle, so five stitches would fix me right up. Grant arrived moments after the first responders. But before they took me away, he supervised the custody taking of Lydia Knight, made sure Stacie was all right—she was sitting at the counter, sobbing into her folded arms, but he let her be—then came over while the EMTs were bandaging me.
“We can get her statement later,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Yours too. When did you plan to bring me in on this?”
“Soon,” I said.
“Your independence is a challenge,” he said.
Wrong thing to say, Detective Daniels. Seriously wrong.
“I didn’t even know you went to the memorial today,” he said. “And I was there.”
“You must’ve come late. Lydia saw me.”
“I arrived after you slipped through an exit in the side chapel.”
That’s what the little room is called? How disappointing.
“You seem to have made a friend, though,” Grant went on. “Jason McCoy was furious at what you did, but Brenda shut him up. She said you were kind and very respectful.”
I was, I thought.
Grant looked around. He went to the office and gave it a once-over. There was really nothing left for us to say—about this and probably about anything else. I don’t even know if he sensed that. He came back, gave me a kind of formal good-bye, then left to see to Lydia Knight’s booking.
I guess maybe he did know.
When the paramedics were finished, I took a moment to go where Stacie was sitting. I took the stool beside her, easing my wounded arm onto the counter.
“Hi,” I said.
She looked up and struggled to find a little smile. “You know something? That was the first thing you said to me.”
“That’s why I said it. Because we’re going to start over from right here. You may not be my sister by blood—or half blood—but we can still be good friends. Close friends. Who our fathers are doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I know so. What we’ve just been through? What still lies ahead of us? We are bonded for life.”
Stacie slipped toward me, snaked her tear-dampened arms around my shoulders, and wept. I put my arms around her and did the same.
She might have gone about it as wrong as a human being could possibly do anything, but Lydia Knight had achieved her goal.