Willa smiled. She had thought he was only going to Miami tomorrow, but hadn’t said anything when he’d offered to take Rad, claiming he was going there today.
“Sure,” Willa promised. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Oh…” Ace said, and Willa found herself holding her breath. “You wanted me to collect dresses for you, Grace, and Becky for the memorial?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Willa said, feeling disappointed but she pushed it away.What did you expect? Ace sees you as his best friend’s widow, that’s all.She admonished herself.And what am I thinking? Good grief, I’m a mother. I don’t have time for romantic entanglements.Feeling better, she straightened her shoulders. “My mother is coming down in five days’ time and will bring the dresses with her.”
“Okay,” Ace said, giving her a salute as he turned and walked out, saying goodbye to the kids as he went. “Let me know how the volleyball goes, guys.”
“Sure,” Andy and Tyler chorused after him.
“He is so cool,” Tyler said.
“Yeah, he’s the best,” Andy agreed. “We must ask him to take you for a ride in his plane one day. It’s a water plane, and it’s awesome.”
“I’d like that,” Tyler said, wide-eyed.
“Come on, let’s go grab some clothes for Tyler,” Willa said
As they walked toward the door, Margo called out, “Willa, let me know if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Margo.” Willa waved as they left.
Outside on the sidewalk, Tyler looked up at the lighthouse in the distance, his expression thoughtful as Andy and Beckyrushed toward Willa’s SUV. “It’s weird,” he said. “This morning everything was normal, and now my whole world feels upside down.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Willa said, thinking of that terrible day ten years ago when her own world had been shattered by a single phone call. “But you know what I’ve learned? Sometimes when everything falls apart, it’s because something better is trying to come together. It just takes time to see it.”
“Do you really believe that?” Tyler asked.
Willa looked back toward the coffee shop, and a picture of Ace popped into her mind. She thought about her mother’s accident leading to this extended visit, about Rad and Tyler’s arrival in Sandpiper Shores bringing new energy to their small community, about all the ways that loss and love had shaped her life over the past decade.
“Most days I do,” Willa said honestly.
They climbed into Willa’s SUV and headed to the lighthouse. As she drove, Willa found herself thinking about how her life had been turned upside down in a way that Tyler was feeling. It had happened twice. First, when her father died eighteen years ago, and then Shaun ten years ago. Then two weeks ago… Willa stopped herself as her heart squeezed and she recalled the terrible phone call from her Aunt Carmen. How her world had seemed to stop, and a cold had gripped her heart. Her first thought was to drop everything and hightail it to Miami. But Carmen assured her that her mother was going to be okay, and she’d be mad if Willa disrupted her entire life just to visit her in the hospital. Despite herself, Willa had smiled at that. Yes, that was how her mother thought. Always practical. Alwaysgrounded and always in control. She was Willa’s center, and she never wanted to think about a time without her mother or her aunt, either. Her aunt had always been in her life, and the two strongest people she knew had also lost the men they loved. Like them, Willa had had to find the strength to keep going.
She glanced into the mirror and saw the three teens in the back seat, although Becky was probably more of a pre-teen. They were locked in a conversation, and she loved the way the boys included Becky, even if she was doing a lot of sighing and eye-rolling with that look on her face that clearly said: How can boys be this dumb. Willa gave a soft snort as her eyes briefly landed on Tyler before looking back at the road. A strange calm and feeling of certainty settled in her stomach, and she instinctively knew that Tyler would be okay. His grandfather would get the best possible care at the hospital, which Willa knew well. Especially with Rad by his side. She frowned at the weird, strong bond she felt towards Rad and Tyler. Even to Rad’s father. A man Willa had never met. Her frown deepened as did her thoughts as she pulled into the driveway of the lighthouse and parked. As she climbed out and looked up at it, she got that deep feeling of connection to it that she’d had the first time she’d seen it or met Abe. It was like she’d known them for her entire life. Willa shook off the sensation and followed Tyler, Andy, and Becky inside.
5
HOLT
The warehouse operation had been textbook perfect until the shooting started. Holt had always known that bringing down the Volkov organization would be dangerous, but he’d spent forty-six years preparing for this moment, and he wasn’t about to let fear stop him now.
The first bullet had been a burning line across his temple, close enough to draw blood and send stars dancing across his vision. The second had punched through his vest like it was made of paper, the Kevlar slowing it down just enough to keep it from piercing his heart. Instead, it had lodged itself in his chest cavity, missing vital organs by mere millimeters. The third shot had caught him in the thigh, spinning him around and sending him crashing into the edge of a metal desk.
When his head connected with the corner of that desk, the world had exploded into white light and ringing silence. The traumatic brain injury would plague him for months afterward, but in that moment, all Holt felt was satisfaction. Marcus Volkov was dead, and with him, the last link to his father’s murder.
As the paramedics loaded him onto a stretcher, Holt’s vision faded in and out like a broken television signal. He caught glimpses of Agent Martinez barking orders into his radio, of crime scene techs already photographing the warehouse, of the covered body that had once been the most wanted man on three FBI most-wanted lists.
“Stay with me, Boss,” Martinez kept saying, his voice cutting through the fog that threatened to pull Holt under. “You did it. Volkov’s finished. Now you just need to hang on.”
The ambulance ride to the hospital was a blur of sirens and medical equipment. Holt drifted in and out of consciousness, aware of the paramedics working over him but unable to focus on their words. His thoughts kept circling back to that moment in the warehouse when Volkov had smiled and talked about his father like Richard Dillinger’s death meant nothing.
“Nothing personal,” the old man had said, as if forty-six years of grief and determination could be dismissed with a shrug.
But it had been personal. Every case Holt had worked, every criminal he’d profiled, every sleepless night spent hunting monsters had been personal. His father’s murder had shaped every choice he’d made since he was fifteen years old, and now, finally, the scales were balanced.
The operating room was a hive of controlled chaos. Surgeons examined his chest, leg, and head. Their voices sounded like they were coming from far away. A mask was put over his mouth and nose as Holt fought against the anesthesia for as long as he could, some primitive part of his brain insisting that he needed to stay awake, needed to make sure this wasn’t all some elaborate dream.
