Someone hit an alarm, and there was chaos in the room as people shouted, grabbed, scuffled, it was nearly impossible to drag Charlie off him, but two of the men finally did. Jack was standing there sweating profusely, his own shirt torn from his attempts to break up the two men. He said not a word to Luke but shouted in his detective’s face, who was choking and spitting on the floor. Luke was back in cuffs and being dragged away, spluttering too.

“What the fuck were you thinking? Are you out of your mind? You’re off the case. Now!”

“I’m bringing charges!” Luke shouted through the door as it closed, with no time to cast smoldering looks at his attorney, or menacing looks at Alexa or anyone else. It had been an incredibly dumb thing for Charlie to do, and would probably win him a year’s suspension for attacking a suspect, but he clearly needed the time off, and Jack was furious with himself for not taking him off the case before. He was quietly talking to Sam Lawrence and the other special FBI agent, who had actually been the ones to pull Charlie away from Luke. Jack explained again about his sister, and they nodded, and finally one of them laughed.

“Look, relax. I would have liked to do it myself. I just didn’t have the balls. I have three sisters, and this guy is a piece of shit.” But they also had a responsibility to protect him, and not kill him themselves. “I’m not going to file a report,” Sam said. “He had it coming. You guys can do what you want.” Jack knew he had to file one anyway. He told Charlie in his office half an hour later that he was suspending him for a year and sent him home. He had done a great job until then, but the stress had been too much for him. Quentin had killed his twin. Charlie had apologized profusely to Jack before he left, and said he would fly back to Iowa that night, but he and his family were planning to attend the trial.

Jack looked even more exhausted when he showed up in Alexa’s office after Charlie left.

“Shit. That’s all we needed. Thank God the FBI guys were nice about it. McCarthy is going to kill me when he hears it. I should have taken Charlie off the case as soon as we knew his sister was one of the victims. I don’t know what I was thinking. I must have shit for brains.”

“You’re human, like anyone else,” she reassured him, but it had been a tense moment, and a very stupid mistake on Charlie’s part. He had totally lost control. “This case is getting to all of us.” It had impacted everyone’s life, including hers.

They sat and ate Power Bars together for an hour, and to distract her, he asked about Savannah, and once again she admitted her concerns, and shared them with him.

“She went to see her grandmother there. She’s settling in, and it worries me a lot. I don’t want her falling in love with Charleston and deciding that’s where she wants to live.” It was a major concern for her, but the alternative, of bringing her back to New York, was worse, and out of the question until after the trial.

“I don’t have any, but it seems to me, kids do what they want, and usually just the opposite of what their parents want for them. I don’t think you’ll have much control over what she decides. But even if Charleston is pretty, it’s not New York. She’s used to a bigger world, and she’s going to college.” He had a point and what he said reassured her, and they went back to talking about the case. She was going down to Charleston herself that weekend. She could hardly wait to see Savannah, but was dreading all the bitter memories it would revive for her, some of them even bittersweet.

In the end, there was no major fallout from Charlie’s outburst in the interrogation room. Both the DA and the FBI were satisfied with Jack’s suggestion of a year’s suspension, and with the fact that Charlie was already gone and had left that day. There were extenuating circumstances, since his twin sister was one of the victims. And with him off the case, it wouldn’t happen again, but it had been a close call. No one knew what could have happened if the other men hadn’t been able to stop Charlie. It would certainly have solved the problem, but created others far worse for him. No one would have been sorry to see Luke Quentin dead, except Judy Dunning, whom Alexa now referred to as “the fool.”

By five o’clock on Friday afternoon, when she had to leave for the airport, Alexa was flying around her office stuffing files into a bag. She wanted to do some reading on the flights down and back. The rest of the time would be dedicated to Savannah and whatever she had planned. She barely made it to the airport on time, and talked to her mother from the cab. She looked and felt a mess, and totally unprepared to face her old world. She had told her mother about Charlie McAvoy earlier in the week. Emotions were running high on the Quentin case, and Muriel commented that it would do her good to get away. Alexa wasn’t as sure, except for seeing Savannah. She was terrified of the rest.

“What are you afraid of?” Muriel asked her from her chambers. She had just finished work for the day. It had been a good day for her. Her life wasn’t fraught with the drama of her daughter’s. She couldn’t have lived that way, or worked as hard, although she had in her youth. Those days were over now. She was busy, but her life was not going at breakneck speed. Alexa’s was. Muriel hated this case for her, and all the stress she had.

“I don’t know, Mom,” Alexa said honestly. “I guess I’m afraid she’ll stay, that Tom will be so nice suddenly, and Charleston will be so seductive, all that beauty and southern charm. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Why wouldn’t she? What if she never wants to come home, or live in New York again?”

“She may love what she sees there, and want to go back for a visit, but I’ll be very surprised if she wants to live that far from you, for now anyway. And her sights are set on college, not on moving to the South, or discovering her roots. She should know about it, and I think it’s good for her to see. I always thought that, it’ll take care of any curiosity or magical beliefs she might have had about it. But Savannah is heading for college, that’s all she cares about now. You were out of college and in love with a man older than you. That’s a life Savannah can’t even imagine and doesn’t want. Not for a long, long time. If you ask, I think she’ll tell you the same thing. She was curious about it, but no more than that. And being there for three months will put all those questions to rest.”

“I wish I felt as sure.” Alexa was only slightly comforted by her mother’s words, although she made sense.

“Are you sure you’re worrying about Savannah and not yourself?” Bingo! Alexa knew instantly her mother had hit a nerve, by how uncomfortable she felt. As she always did, she had gone right to the epicenter of the pain.

“Yeah, maybe I am,” Alexa said honestly, trying to figure out what part of it she feared most. It was hard to say. “I was so happy there, I loved Tom so much, and his boys. I trusted him completely, and I thought we’d be together forever. And now all of that is gone, and someone else is married to him and living in that same house. It’s a little hard to take.” And she had hated him for it for years. He had stolen all her dreams, and destroyed all her trust. She had never been able to rebuild it since, with anyone. He had burned her to the ground. “I would have preferred never to go there again.”

“Sometimes we have to face the things that hurt us most. Maybe you won’t heal till you do. You haven’t yet.” They both knew that was true. “You can’t move ahead until you bury the past, and all that agony and hurt is still alive for you. Maybe this will do you good.” Alexa thought of it as the cab pulled up in front of the terminal, and she told her mother she had to go. But she knew that she was right. Her pain was still alive. None of it, nor the disappointment and feeling of betrayal, had dulled in the past ten years. If anything, it had gotten worse. She had no man in her life and didn’t want one, because she couldn’t forgive or forget the one who had hurt her most. Nor had she forgiven Tom’s mother, or his wife, who had urged him to betray her in every possible way. It had been a cabal against her, because she wasn’t one of them, hard as it was to believe now. It sounded crazy, but was true. Luisa had won by geography and tradition, and like Ashley in Gone with the Wind, Tom had been weak. She couldn’t forgive him for it even now. And ten years of not forgiving him had poisoned her, like a radioactive substance she had ingested years ago, still coursing through her veins. It burned her insides with a searing pain. She hadn’t wanted Savannah anywhere near those people, but she had had no other choice.

Alexa ran through security, and barely made her plane. She didn’t want to miss it and disappoint Savannah. It left at six-thirty, and landed after eight. Her heart caught as she saw the airport. She had told Savannah she’d call when she arrived and meet her at the hotel. She didn’t want her to wait alone. She got her bag and hailed a cab, and gave him the name of her hotel.

The drive to the city was familiar and brief. Her heart ached when she saw the bridges, and the church spires she had loved. One of those churches was where they had christened Savannah. The city was full of memories for her, like a too ripe plum ready to explode. She had to force them from her mind. Before she got to the hotel she called Savannah, who was waiting for the call in her room. It was almost nine o’clock by then. She had been planning to drive over, but her father had said he would drop her off, since Alexa had arranged for a rented car through the hotel. He knew her mother probably wouldn’t want her driving downtown alone. Savannah let him know when she got the call, and she ran downstairs with her small bag. She had kissed Daisy goodbye that afternoon, since she was spending the night at a friend’s. Luisa was out playing bridge that night. Tom had opted to stay home. He and Luisa were on extremely tense terms, but sleeping in the same room. Barely, but they were.