Maddie sat on a bench in the first-floor lobby, staring at the copper rose waterworks sculpture. Ava was being interviewed by no less than the chief of police, with her guardian at her side at the same time a medic was finishing cleaning Josh’s head wound. Meanwhile, on the other side of the sculpture, Chase was being interviewed by two other detectives.
Everything was being done in the open lobby because Ava wanted a line of sight on everyone, and the police chief had agreed.
Maddie had already been interviewed by the detectives who were questioning Chase, and was waiting for her round with the police chief. They would likely be here all night, and she honestly didn’t care so long as she could see Josh, battered but walking and breathing, Ava, wound-free on the outside, and Chase, standing tall and whole as he quietly shared his role in the takedown.
Maddie needed the line-of-sight thing as much as Ava.
Her brother and Clifford Nielsen the fourth had been taken into custody and would face both state and federal terrorism charges. The Hoffmans would be charged with her abduction. Ari was going back to jail and would face new terrorism charges that would be a slam dunk once the bomb fragments were recovered. Maddie had already told the police about the video she and Ava had gotten of Ari going under the bridge with his bulky coat on and emerging after an interval without it.
His willingness to testify against her brother and Nielsen for a reduced sentence might be mitigated by the fact that he was going back into a system where his only friends were white supremacists, and testifying against the local leaders of their movement might not make him popular.
Thankfully, they had the video, or charges against both men might not stick without Ari’s testimony.
Troy Kocher was also facing charges, but Maddie suspected he’d face the least punishment. He’d threatened Ava with the knife and had admitted on camera to the plan to burn down the mansion, but it would take some doing to determine if he’d played a role in the bridge bombing. A search warrant for Oliver Shields’s home and museum was in the works, and when the skeleton was recovered, they’d have both men on antiquities theft and trafficking in human remains, but it wasn’t the same as the terrorism charges everyone else faced.
At least for now, Troy was in custody and couldn’t return to the mansion to destroy his family’s papers, and Maddie still had copies in the cloud even if her laptop wasn’t recovered. She had yet to learn if one of Nielsen’s men had broken into her hotel room as claimed.
It was such a crazy plan, and yet she could see how it could have worked, especially in the current political climate in Oregon. The federal government was always looking for ways to renege on tribal treaty rights. There were plenty of people in power who would have seized on the DNA test and run with it.
She studied the posh lobby of the high-rise. The architecture was lovely—modern brushed steel and marble. It was light and airy, with massive windows that went all the way up to the high ceiling.
Nielsen owned this building and had real estate holdings across the state and mines all over the world. He had a mansion, a jet, and, she would imagine, a fleet of vehicles. Probably a mega yacht. And it wasn’t enough for him.
He’d coveted more land and wanted to exclude others. As if a white colony would be some sort of utopia.
It would have been a bastion of hate that would have collapsed in short order because white supremacist systems only worked when there were people to suppress.
What would happen to Nielsen Steel now?
Wounds cleaned, Josh rose from his seat and said something to the police chief and Ava, then crossed the lobby and dropped onto the bench by her side.
“Ava’s okay by herself?” Maddie asked.
“Yeah. The chief is being gentle, and Ava gave the okay.”
“How are you?”
“I don’t even know, really.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “Keith told me about how you made the decision to go after Ava. Thank you.”
“Of course.” Maddie stared at the tall, lanky girl with long dark hair and dark eyes so like Josh’s. “She’s important to you, but also, she’s important to me. She has been all along.” She raised their joined hands to her mouth and kissed the back of his hand. “I’m all in with you, and all in with Ava. No one can or should replace her mother, but if she’ll accept me in some sort of maternal or aunt role, I’m up for it, and I won’t back out, even if things between you and me don’t work out.”
He shifted, turning to face her, and lifted her chin so he could meet her gaze. “Us failing is not an option.”
She smiled. Trust an operative to couch a relationship in mission terms. “I feel the same way. But I wanted to say it, in case you’re having second thoughts now or will later. We have no way of knowing what things will be like between us when the world is normal again. I won’t abandon Ava, no matter what happens between us.”
“I am not having second thoughts, and I can’t wait for normal. I want it all. I want to wake up with you every morning and hold you in my arms every night. I want to have scary conversations about things like children and if you want to have them. I want you by my side for all of Ava’s milestones like graduation and college, and I’m frankly hoping you’ll be willing to teach her to drive, because I’m pretty sure I won’t have the patience for that.”
Maddie let out a sharp laugh. “No, you’ll be too kind and try to make her feel better when she’s almost killed you by pulling out in front of a speeding car.”
He chuckled at that. “Nailed it.”
“Do you want kids?” she asked, feeling a flutter in her belly that they were even entertaining this question. But today was the kind of day that made one seize the moment.
“I do, actually. Always have since Ava was a toddler. But if you don’t, it’s not a deal breaker. I want you.”
She leaned into him and whispered, “I’ve thought a lot about whether or not I want kids since my ectopic pregnancy, and if I can—there’s a chance it could happen again—then yes, I do. With the right partner.”
“I’d like to be that partner.”
She kissed him. “I’m pretty sure you are.”