“You know what, exactly?” he finally said carefully.

Taylor snapped the radio off. “Oh, please. Quit playing games with me. I saw the note from the graphologist. Would you care to tell me why I have to find out you’ve been suspended from a total stranger? And why total strangers know something about you that I don’t?”

He breathed a huge internal sigh of relief. The suspension was something he could manage to explain. Charlotte, the boy—he just wasn’t ready.

“I’m not keeping it from you. I just didn’t want to burden you. You’ve got too much on your plate already. It will blow over. Garrett is already working to get me reinstated.”

“Pray tell what exactly did you do to get yourself suspended? You’re their golden boy.”

“Ha. If only. You’re not mad?”

“I’m just a little surprised you didn’t feel like you could trust me with this.”

That wasn’t a no. He glanced over at her. She was staring at him with that forthright look in her mismatched gray eyes, genuinely confused, and genuinely hurt. She’d sat on that annoyance for three hours; he felt terrible. He should have told her in the first place. He told her that.

“Taylor, I trust you with my life. You know that. This suspension, it’s a temporary thing. A power play. There’s a special agent named Tucker who has it in for me. It’s kind of a long story.”

She gestured to the open road in front of them. “I have nothing but time.”

It had been horrible having to relive the deaths of his team in front of an adversary at his hearing. To explain it to the woman he loved… He really wasn’t prepared, but he couldn’t put this off any longer. His life with Taylor was too important, and he’d been stupid to wait at all. She was a tough woman, she could easily handle the truth. Most of it.

So he told her. He explained the Harold Arlen case in detail. How Arlen had duped them all with a tunnel in his basement, how the man had joined forces with a fellow pedophile and created a game of hide-and seek with the bodies of little girls. How Charlotte Douglas had decided to plant evidence, told Baldwin her plan, and how he foolishly hadn’t told anyone the truth. How that omission got him dragged in front of the disciplinary hearing, six years after the fact.

Taylor listened attentively, not asking questions, just letting him unload. She didn’t comment when his voice thickened as he described the shooting. In the end, three good agents were dead, and so was Harold Arlen. His seventh young victim had survived. Small consolation to Baldwin, but some consolation nonetheless.

He’d never told her the whole story before. She knew bits and pieces, but he’d always held back the deepest part of the truth, that if he’d been paying more attention, no one would have had to die that awful day. And the role Charlotte played.

She was silent for a moment, then reached over and grasped his hand. She didn’t say anything, didn’t need to. He felt the forgiveness flowing through their touch, and felt wretched. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness. Not until all the truth was out. All the cards on the table.

After a few minutes, she spoke. “It wasn’t your fault. You know that. So what else is there, honey? I know you well enough to feel that you’re holding back from me. Just tell me. You can tell me anything, and I’ll always love you. Always.”

She knew him too well. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was time to come clean. He formed the words in his head, trying them on for size. I have a son. And Charlotte was his mother. He took a breath. Started to tell her. He truly did. But his phone began to ring, and the moment was lost.

“Hold that thought,” he said, then answered the phone with a curt, “Yes.”

“Dr. Baldwin? This is Buddy Morgan. I’m the chief of police down here in Forest City. I understand you’re on your way to see me.”

“Hi, Chief Morgan. It’s good to hear from you. We have cell service again, I think we’re actually getting close. We should be in by two o’clock.”

“Have you eaten?”

Baldwin laughed. “Honestly, no. We took off like bats out of hell pretty early this morning.”

“Meet me at Smith’s Drugs, then. My treat. We can eat and talk. I’ll fill you in on the Copelands. It’s a long story. I hope you’ve got some time.”

“We do. I made a reservation at the Holiday Inn there—we’ll be spending the night.”

“Good. I’ll see you shortly then.”

He hung up.

“Chief of police is treating us to lunch. At a drugstore, no less.”

“Small towns,” Taylor said.

“Taylor, I—”

“It’s okay. We have a six-hour drive back. You can tell me the rest on the way home.”

Neither one of their phones had been able to get a signal for the second half of the drive. The cellular service was terrible in the North Carolina mountains at the state border. Service restored, both of their phones were beeping with missed calls. They each busied themselves with their respective duties, and Baldwin couldn’t help but feel relieved. He’d earned a momentary reprieve, but the truth was coming out, whether he wanted it to or not.

Forgiveness was a tenuous thing. He hoped, for both their sakes, that Taylor had the ability to grant it.

Twenty-Two

The outer reaches of Forest City had succumbed to the homogenization of America. The highway bypass into town was littered with chain restaurants and hardware supercenters, the concrete strip malls colonized by the everystore mentality that permeated all other mid-to large-size towns off just about every highway. The ultimate in impersonal convenience.

Once they got into the heart of the city, things changed dramatically. For the better, in Taylor’s opinion. She was surprised to see a traditional Main Street replete with mom-and-pop shops, an old movie theater, the drugstore Buddy Morgan had mentioned, with what looked to be a full restaurant lunch counter, and a variety of specialty stores, including a promising-looking bookstore nestled next to the drugstore, Fireside Books and Gifts.

Baldwin drove slowly, and Taylor stared up the treelined median, a small smile playing on her lips.

“What are you looking at?” Baldwin asked.

“I’m waiting for George Bailey to come running down the street.”

Baldwin did a double take, then laughed. “God, Taylor, you’ve nailed it. This looks exactly like Bedford Falls.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Too bad that whole movie set was just a creation. The idyllic town square… I always thought it would be fun to live in a small town. Have a routine, eat at the diner every morning, walk everywhere, wave hello to the people who’ve known you your whole life.”

She shook her head.

“Oh, no, not me. I’d go mad with that level of accountability. Nashville is plenty small. Besides, everyone already knows my business.”

They got out of the car, and she looked up and down the street. “This is ridiculously charming. I can’t imagine Ewan Copeland here. It’s just too normal. Too sweet.”

Baldwin saw a man in uniform standing in the window of the drugstore, gesturing for them to come in.

“Look, the chief’s waiting for us. He’s waving from the window over there. Let’s go.”

They walked past the diagonally parked cars in the median and entered the drugstore. They were met with red vinyl, shiny chrome and the overwhelmingly delicious scent of frying burgers.

“You must be the folks from Nashville,” the chief said, shaking their hands in turn, then pointing them toward a booth in the window. He was trim, about five foot nine, with gray hair. His face was lined and weathered, someone who spent a lot of time out of doors. Taylor guessed he was in his mid-fifties.