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Grace and I were heading to the Union Square police station to give the chief our statements when I decided to give Gabby a call and catch her up on what had just happened.
“Gabby, we have news,” I said as I put my phone on speaker. I was really getting to love that setting. “But first, have you had any luck getting your memory back?”
“No, it’s still mostly just one big blank,” she said. “I’ve been getting vague shadows of a few of my memories back since I woke up, but I’m afraid that I’m never going to know what really happened in my shop.” She sounded so lost that I felt my heart ache for her.
“I can’t even imagine how terrible that must be for you, but at least there’s something to be happy about. We cracked the case. It was Tyra,” I said.
“What? No. Really? Why?”
“Apparently she was angry about your profit margins, at least that’s what she told us, but I have a feeling that it had more to do with Manny preferring you over her than it was about the money.”
“Really? So maybe Manny wasn’t lying when he said that he loved me after all,” Gabby said, the wonder thick in her voice.
“I don’t know about that, but Tyra admitted hitting you with an iron from your donation box and then setting ReNEWed on fire to cover up what she’d done. If it matters, she thought that you were already dead when she did it.”
“Well, it matters to me,” Gabby said, and then she got quiet.
“Gabby, are you okay?” I asked her when there was too much silence for too long on the other end for my taste. “Gabby?”
“It’s back!” she said suddenly. “I remember everything now! Suzanne, you did it.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, “but even if I did, I didn’t do anything by myself. Grace was with me every step of the way.”
“Of course I know that. The doctors told me that it could come back in bits and pieces over time, something might trigger my recall unexpectedly, or those particular memories could just be gone forever. I remember Tyra coming back to my shop after our fight. She followed me to the back, and I got tired of her constant whining about how I’d cheated her. I turned my back on her just long enough to pick up the phone to call Chief Grant, and that was the last thing I remember.”
“That must have been when she hit you. At least you’re safe now.”
“What happened to her?” Gabby asked tentatively. “Is she dead?”
“No, she’s on her way to the police station even as we speak,” I reported. “You don’t have to worry about her coming after you anymore. In fact, you can send Bo on home now if you’d like.”
“I’ve got a feeling that I’m stuck with Bo, at least for as long as Penny’s still on duty,” she said with a hint of laughter in her voice. “He finally got the nerve to ask her out again, and she said yes. His only stipulation was that they couldn’t go out until we figured out who tried to kill me.”
“And we just did that, didn’t we?” I asked her, grinning even though she couldn’t see my face.
“You did. You and Grace,” Gabby said solemnly. “Thank you. Both of you.”
“You’re more than welcome,” Grace chimed in for the first time.
“You’re there, too, Grace? Thanks to you both, then. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without the two of you.”
I thought about what had happened over the past few days and how Grace and I had put our lives in jeopardy once again. It was entirely possible that something would have triggered Gabby’s memory without any help from us, so it was conceivable that we hadn’t needed to do anything.
But would she have recovered those lost moments in time to save her own life?
And then I thought about Manny.
There were a great many things I didn’t like about the man, but he’d stepped up when he hadn’t had to, and that counted for something, at least in my book. If Grace and I hadn’t followed him as he’d chased Tyra down, he would probably be dead now, so our efforts had not been in vain. While it was true that he’d had Tyra pinned to the ground when we’d found them, there was no doubt in my mind that she would have found some way to pull that gun on him and kill him before he could force her out of those woods. Then it would have just been a matter of Tyra waiting patiently and finishing the job she’d started when everyone else let their guards down, and worse yet, she would probably have gotten away with two murders in the process, and none of us would have been the wiser. If we hadn’t kept pressuring her in the first place, Tyra probably wouldn’t have acted so rashly with Manny, so it was entirely possible that the attempted murder and arson would have gone unpunished, with Gabby’s murder following soon after to make sure that one last loose thread was severed forever.
“You’re most welcome,” Grace said. “When are they going to let you out of there?”
“They want to keep me one more night for observation, but we’ll have to see about that,” Gabby said with great confidence. I didn’t doubt her ability to talk herself into an early discharge, and clearly she didn’t question it herself.
“Have you had any more time to think about what comes next, Gabby?” I asked her.
She paused for a few moments, and then she said, “Like I said before, I’m going to step back and take a little time to figure things out. My insurance will cover the shop and everything in it. I was always careful about being fully covered, so I don’t have to worry about money for the rest of my life, as long as I’m careful with it. Honestly, I’m not really sure what I’m going to do, but that’s the beauty of it, Suzanne. I don’t have to know this very second.”
After we got back into town, Grace asked me to drop her off at the police station. She wanted to check in with Stephen, and I couldn’t blame her. I’d spoken briefly with Jake at the Union Square police station, and we’d agreed to catch up at home again.
As I waited there for him, I tried to decide how I was going to approach what I had to say to him. I didn’t want him to think that I was pushing him away, but I had to tell him that he belonged in law enforcement and that he couldn’t turn his back on it a minute more.
If that meant that we’d have to make sacrifices, then so be it.
I knew that I was lucky to have him in my life, luckier than even I realized at times, but I couldn’t keep him at home anymore.
He had to find his purpose in life again, and I was determined to do whatever I could to make sure that he found it.