This woman who had lost her granddaughter years and years ago.
And now that they'd found her remains, she'd lost her again.
"You found her," the older woman gasped in a breath that sounded raw, "you brought her home."
Home.
Something people took for granted.
Every day.
But Aracely hadn't gone home.
She'd been hurt.
She'd been killed.
And she'd been lost out in the world for years.
"You brought her home."
Tears rolled down Noelle's cheeks as she hugged her back, the two holding onto each other like a lifeline.
* * *
DUVAL
He didn't know what to do.
How to react.
He could only stand there beside Noelle and watch as her emotions rolled over her, through her.
He knew that she struggled at times to understand what she believed everyone else did.
She thought that her profession and her art meant that she wasn't the same as other people.
He smiled a little as he saw the older woman patting her on the back.
He didn't see that she needed to be like 'other people.'
Noelle was amazing the way she was.
And, if there was one thing he'd learned over the years working in law enforcement. There really wasn't a 'normal.'
There was kind and good and nasty and evil and a whole lot in between.
Noelle was exactly who she should be.
And he loved her just like she was.
Crazy enough, she loved him back.
Aracely's grandmother pulled Noelle in closer and whispered something to her before stepping back and putting some space between them.
As she walked away, Noelle stepped closer to him, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"You, okay?"
