Gabriel climbed from his car with a huge bouquet of celebratory flowers. Whiskey dressed up in a bow, trotting happily on her lead.
“For me?” Sommer danced down her front steps and ran out to meet him.
Gabriel scooped her into his arms and spun her, a grin lighting his face.
He set her on her toes and kissed her breatless.
“Wow, this is quite the hello,” she said as she accepted her flowers.
As they walked inside, Gabriel saw that two bouquets already filled Sommer’s table by the front door and paused.
“Those are for Abbie and Marna,” Sommer said, breezing by and heading for her kitchen. “They’re back at their apartments, and I thought I’d swing by to see them and check if they needed anything.”
“On the mend then,” Gabriel and Whiskey followed her to the back of the house.
“I’ll be wearing my N95 and a pair of gloves when I go. But the worst is over.” She laid the flowers on her counter. “Thank you. They’re lovely.” Sommer stood on her tippy toes, stretching for a vase.
Gabriel came up behind her and reached it down.
“You look happy,” she said as she filled the vase with water.
“Very.”
“Come tell me.” She pointed to a chair as she snipped the ends off the stems and arranged them. “Hello, Whiskey, with your pretty pink bow. Don’t you look festive?” Sommer opened the fridge, took out a piece of chicken, and handed it to her. When she turned to Gabriel, his face had turned serious.
“The three men that got pulled out of my kitchen Saturday struck a deal with the prosecutors.”
Sommer put the scissors down and turned stiffly toward him.
“Sommer, we had a missing special agent. Part of the deal was that our guy was to be dropped off on a dirt road with no cameras, alive and conscious.”
“Not alive and well?” Sommer frowned.
“Given the condition of the three men we had already found. That wasn’t an expectation.”
Sommer knotted her fingers together, resting them on the counter. “Do you have him back?”
“We do. They picked him up and took him to your hospital, as a matter of fact. He’s in rough shape, but my understanding is that there was nothing life-threatening.”
Sommer walked to the table, smoothed her skirt under her, sat, and reached for Gabriel’s hand. “I need you to tell me something first, before we launch into this new set of bad men. I’m worried that the man you testified against yesterday is going to go free and seek retribution against you.”
“The evidence was overwhelming. The jury had it for three hours this afternoon. He was found guilty on each charge.”
“What’s his sentence?” Sommer asked.
“We won’t know that until his sentencing hearing. The witnesses get a chance to make impact statements to the judge.”
“Will I have to do that?” Sommer asked.
“Because of Saturday? The deal was that we get our guy back, and they each plead guilty to their crimes.”
“You had it all on camera. That’s overwhelming evidence, too.”
“It is.”
“But when they plead guilty, according to Sloane’s true-crime shows, they still have to go through sentencing. The judge won’t want to hear about my experience?”
“Usually, yes,” Gabriel said carefully. “In this case, the sentence was part of the deal. They agreed to fifty years each. And that time would be suspended, but they had to get on a plane and leave the United States, and they’re barred from ever returning.”
