“I had a lot of help. So much help. There’s still a ways to go though, so it’s best to brace yourself for a long process. But I’m hopeful and I’m going to allow myself that hope. And now people can see Dad didn’t do it.”

She turned to her grandfather. Royal stood close enough that the heat of him blanketed her back as she faced one of her demons. “He’s innocent.”

James cocked his head. “It appears that way.”

“He’s innocent,” she repeated. Because it was important. If they ever were to get to a place where she could work things out with her grandparents, they needed to admit it.

Her grandfather understood and took a deep breath. “Yes. He’s innocent. I misjudged you and your father. Now that we’ve got all this proof, your grandmother will come around. Mindy too. We really had no idea you’d been threatened and harmed to that degree. If we’d have known…”

“You did know. You knew someone shot at me and you never called to check on me. Not once. You knew my apartment had been broken into. You knew my car had been vandalized. And you never called. Now that you know the truth and it’s been proven by another person, you want to just what? Pretend none of that happened? She slapped me. And she threatened me to never see my brother and sister again. It was bad enough you threw me out, thank goodness for the Mendozas. Because they finished raising me. They dealt with my grief and pain, and they sent me off to college and law school. They came to my graduations too. For a long time I pretended it didn’t matter. I pretended that I could make this better if I was just more of this or less of that. But it never worked, and it won’t because I can’t be anything but what I am. And I don’t even want to. So I accept your apology from earlier. But I don’t know how I’m going to be taking any new steps back toward you all.”

“That’s fair. She was wrong to have hurt you. Wrong to have threatened you. She and I had a very bitter disagreement once I found out. We love you. All three of you. We did what we thought was best but we messed up. People make mistakes.”

“I love you too. But I need some time and some space away from you and Abigail. I’m sorry your daughter died. You didn’t deserve that.” Caroline hugged him.

“Thank you for finding her killer,” he whispered before kissing her cheek and leaving with Shep.

Shep came back inside. He hugged Caroline tight. He was so lost, her baby brother.

She hugged him back. “It’s okay. He’s behind bars. At last. He’ll pay, Shep. He’ll pay for what he’s done to our family.”

“I can’t quite believe it. I want us all to meet. You, me and Mindy. She needs to think this through. Especially now. We need to stick together. All three of us for Mom and Dad. She needs her letters.”

“What if we misjudge, and she destroys them or tells Grandma about them? My heart breaks to imagine how she’ll feel later when she realizes she was wrong.”

“Don’t baby her. Everyone babies her. She needs to accept what is true. She’s a grown woman, and she has to choose her freaking future. Garrett, whose anger will turn on her some day? Or us? The truth? And we need to be a united front to make sure everything happens the way it should and Vernon Hicks is the one behind bars. This is a big job and you’ve done it alone long enough. The three of us can do the job together.”

“You’re an admirable young man, Quique.”

“Did he really call me that?”

“Everyone called you that. Mom did, Mindy and I did.”

“Where did Shep come from? That’s all I ever remember.”

“Grandma used to call you that. She felt Quique and Enrique were too hard to pronounce. She said she liked it because Shepard was her paternal grandmother’s name.”

“I’m going back to Mendoza. I’ve thought about it for a while.”

She looked at her brother. “You don’t need to decide right now. Baby steps and we’ll get through this just fine. It’s your name if you want it. If you don’t, that’s not a thing either. Understand?”

He hugged Caroline again. “I do. I love you. I have a final in my last period so I gotta get back to school. I’ll call you.”

She watched them drive away as she leaned in to Royal.

“I can’t quite believe it.”

Royal brought her back inside, closing the door and locking it.

“You’re afraid to believe it.”

“Yeah, that too.”

He turned off lights and the coffeemaker and drew her back to the bedroom. “No way, buster. I have to go to work. I can’t be taking f**k breaks.”

He laughed but after he stole a kiss, he sobered. “You’re not going in.”

“Am so.”

“Oooh, will you say that and stomp so your boobs jiggle? It’d be even better if you pouted a little.”

Her brows flew up, and Royal knew he was on the right track. Ever since he’d met her, she’d kept a tight rein on her feelings about the whole mess she’d pretty much dragged single-handedly over the finish line. In the end people helped her, yes, but it was her dogged perseverance that won out.

But he knew she pushed her emotions—vulnerability, doubts and fears, her survivor’s guilt, her grief and her anger—out of her mind. To examine them would have been to pull her foundations down when she needed to keep strong.

But she paid a price for it. A big one and he was over watching her bear everyone else’s weight and never thinking about dropping her burdens every once in a while.