“Yes. Thank God. They actually did their job this time,” Paige says, and Nicola exhales.
“Are there things in that house you need? Do you want me to get anything you left behind there?” Paige asks.
“There is nothing in that house I want. I never want to step foot in there again,” Nicola says. Paige looks at her and nods, then they both watch the red lights illuminate the distant main road until they are out of sight.
After Nicola goes to bed upon Paige’s insistence, Paige rocks Avery softly in her bassinet in the living room. None of them have really slept in days, but Paige needs to finally tell Grant what’s happening, and just in case Lucas is on the news before morning, it should happen tonight. On the phone she has only really told him that Georgia, the neighbor he’s seen once or twice, was trafficked, and that Lucas has been holding her hostage, but now he’s been caught and arrested, that Georgia/Nicola and the baby are staying with her for the time being. Grant was stunned into silence on the other end. Then he just repeated, “Lucas Kinney?” a few confused times and said he’d have the bartender close the restaurant tonight and come over.
An hour later, Grant is sitting next to Paige on the sofa with the drink she’s poured him.
“It’s good you’re sitting,” she says. She doesn’t know how to lie to Grant. She can’t remember ever lying to him. He probably deserves the truth, but what good will it do? What does it matter to him whether it is Nicola or Lucas who is guilty? He’s healed as much as a father is able. She was the one obsessed with the truth, with justice...which is exactly what she feels like this is. Still, it feels strange to not tell him everything. She might be difficult and fanatical, but she is always blunt and straightforward.
But she and Cora and Nicola have made a vow that the truth would stay between them. With every other person who knows the truth comes a higher risk of it all falling apart, and she will not lose Avery. Not for anything.
“There’s a video that surfaced showing Lucas fleeing from the accident—from Caleb—that night,” she says and then studies Grant’s face. Red blotches appear on his cheeks, and the crease in his forehead tightens. He doesn’t ask how the video has shown up. He puts down his drink and perches at the edge of his seat. He runs his hand over his mouth.
“Was he drunk? Is that why he didn’t... Finn is the one with the DUIs. It made sense that—”
“No. It wasn’t an accident,” she says, resting her hand on his knee, and just then, Avery starts to make a low, whimpering sound. Paige sees she’s waking up and goes to pick her up. She stands and props her on one hip, swaying her back and forth rhythmically.
“Okay, Paige, but you always say that, so what are you saying, exactly?”
“Lucas found out that his wife was having an affair. With Caleb. He found out she was pregnant.”
“Wait. I’m sorry. What? You’re not just saying this because you have a hunch? This is for real?” he asks, fidgety and wide-eyed.
“Yeah. The proof is all there. The video, proof of abuse and him keeping her captive, the motive, everything...and Nicola told me,” she says, and he stares for a minute, unblinking, trying to come up with a response.
“Wait. Wait. Stop. What? You’re telling me...” His eyes light up. They look at each other a moment, and then he looks to Avery, who is nodding back off to sleep in Paige’s arms. She places her on Grant’s lap, and before she can say anything else, she sees his tears fall in fat droplets onto Avery’s pale forehead as he holds her into his chest. Then, he sits her on his knees and holds her under her armpits and stares at her. He studies her. His head just shakes slowly in utter disbelief, and she can tell he’s not sure if this is real.
“How can this be?” he whispers into the top of her warm little head, and he holds her without ruining it by saying anything else until she’s fast asleep.
After Avery is asleep again in her bassinet and Grant has regained his ability to speak, he and Paige move into the kitchen so they don’t wake her. There are too many questions to ask and so much information that Grant hasn’t been able to digest in small bits the way Paige has, so he doesn’t know where to begin.
“Where will they live?” is the first thing he asks, which is one of the first things she thought herself—the selfish and overarching instinct to wonder,Will I get to see my granddaughter?
“She wants to go home,” she says.
“There?” he asks, indicating across the street.
“Jesus. No. England. I mean, I can’t say that I blame her. But I’ll go with her if I have to.”
“But he’s, like... After everything you told me, my God, how could he ever get out? Isn’t she safe here?” he says, and the desperation in his voice is something she understands well because it’s how she’s felt for the last year.
“Hopefully. Right now, they only have the domestic abuse and trafficking evidence—” she starts to say, but he interrupts.
“Only?”he scoffs. “The man sounds like a complete psychopath—like something you see on aLaw and Orderepisode. That’s not enough?”
“What I mean is they don’t even know about the motive part. They have the video that shows Lucas’s car screeching away from the scene. Which is, I don’t know, damning, but when they find out about the reason—about Avery—I hope it’s enough.”
“You hope?” he asks. “How could a fraction of what you have told me not be enough?”
“I don’t know. I’ve heard of pot dealers getting life and the guy who puts a hit out on his wife getting five years. Plus he’s a—whatdyacallit?—pillar of the community,” she says, using air quotes. “Gag me. And, of course, he’s white and male, so there’s that. I mean, I just think she has reason to be freaked out that he wouldn’t die in prison and then he’d find her. But at least he’ll be held, and if he doesn’t plead out, there’ll be a trial, right?” she asks, having thought through every scenario a thousand times, even googling some of her questions to try and get a sense of how this could play out.
“Even if he pleads out on murder, he’ll still be gone a very long time. She has time.”
“Yeah,” Paige agrees.
“They should stay here,” he adds. “They’re staying with you, right?” he asks. And Paige tries to make her mouth smile. She doesn’t know how to feel. Of course she wants Avery there. But Grant doesn’t know what Nicola has done, how hard it is for Paige to look at her sometimes. She doesn’t want to feel that way. She wants to separate the truth from her pain, but that will take time.
