Annie sagged in his arms, losing consciousness again, but her chest was rising and falling without his help. She was breathing on her own, and a sound Jake had not made since he was a boy escaped his lips.
In the distance, he heard it, faint but growing—a song on the wind. The high and mournful wail of sirens.
Jake blew out a breath of relief, leaning forward until his forehead rested against hers.
“Thank God,” he breathed.
Chapter 43DANIEL
On the floor of his cell, Daniel slept light and often, dreams coming to him like strange ships passing by.
The egress window in the far corner was only a dim wedge of light at its brightest, and so far away that he was half certain his eyes were playing tricks on him and it was not there at all. There was no way of knowing how much time had passed, but when enough of it had gone by without Jake coming to haul Daniel from his cell and take him to await trial elsewhere, he could not ignore the faint stirrings of hope.
Lying on his back with his hands behind his head, unsure whether his eyes were open or closed, he allowed himself to wonder if Annie had actually done it—managed to chase down a killer as elusive as morning mist, and he drifted off again.
The jangling of keys woke him, and Daniel sat up in the dark.
There were footsteps on the stairs. Familiar footsteps, but not Annie’s.
He searched the blackness until Jake emerged, walking quickly across the basement with his head bowed low. There were keys in his hand, and they were in the lock before Daniel could scramble to his feet. The door swung open and Jake stood back, holding it wide for Daniel to pass through.
“I’m sorry,” Jake said before he had a chance to speak, to ask the first of a hundred questions exploding across his brain. “There’s a lot to say, but I owe you that much first. I was wrong. About all of it. I’ll tell you everything, but come on, let’s get you out of here.”
Daniel followed in silence, one part of him weak with relief, another part bursting with curiosity about who or what had proved his innocence—but most of him was tempted to throw his fist into Jake’s back as he strode across the basement.
Why not finish what they started up there at the boathouse? It was beyond ridiculous that Jake thought he could waltz in with a two-sentence apology and expect Daniel to forgive and forget everything that had passed between them.
He followed Jake up the stairs to the sanctuary. Though the room was dim with late-afternoon light, it was still bright beyond what Daniel’s eyes could bear after so much darkness. He blinked, vision clearing as he followed Jake around the altar and down the center aisle.
“I’m free?” he said, voice croaking. “Just like that?”
“You’re free.” Jake stopped where he was between the pews and turned to face Daniel in the light.
Daniel’s next question died in his throat.
There were tears in Jake’s eyes, tears on his cheeks, and it looked like he hadn’t slept in a month. Jake was broken, and Daniel realized instantly that this was bigger than the two of them. Much, much more was going on here.
“Who did it?” he asked quietly.
Jake’s head fell. His shoulders shook, and Daniel barely made out the words as Jake told him what had happened in the clearing.
He accepted the news rigidly. He thought he’d feel relief, or perhaps righteous indignation, or at the very least some sort of vague satisfaction when Jamie’s killer was caught. But as Jake choked out a single sob that echoed in the empty sanctuary, Daniel felt only exhaustion.
He wanted to see Annie. After the harrowing ordeal she’d gone through, he wanted to see her for himself, to watch her chest rise and fall and know that she was breathing and alive and okay.
And he wanted to go home.
Jake sank into a wooden pew and rested his forehead on the back of another, breathing deep as he gathered his composure. Daniel did not offer him any words of comfort. Anger still burned within him—live coals smoldering long after the fire had died—and he stood mutely in the aisle, staring down as Jake’s shoulders heaved and fell.
“Listen,” Jake said without lifting his head. “You have every right to be mad at me right now, I know that, but I’m still asking for your forgiveness, even though I don’t deserve it.”
Daniel looked away. The light behind the single stained-glass window at the front of the church was pink and worn, and he blinked at the fading mosaic of hands folded in prayer as he took a seat of his own in the pew across the aisle.
If Annie had taught him anything this summer, it was to let go. To move on from the past. To stop holding his life in a painfully tight fist and open his hand. After all, everything could be taken from him in an instant. His freedom. His home. His very life. What good was holding tight to it when, ultimately, he had no control anyway? He had vowed to loosen his grip, to let go of past wrongs, and now it seemed that fate had seen fit to give him a chance to make good on that promise. To let go of a bitter anger that would poison only him in the end.
He turned to look at Jake, and as though Jake sensed it, he lifted his head. There were new lines around his eyes, and a heaviness that hadn’t been there before as he waited for Daniel’s answer.
It was his choice. Burn with it, or let it go.
