Free The Search by Nora Roberts Page B

them for nearly a year. Until he shot Greg and Kong, and Kong stopped him. Kong gave his life to stop him.”
    She took the knife back, slipped it into her pocket.
    “You seem like a fairly smart woman,” Simon commented after a few moments. “So you know that what you did saved other women. The bastard’s put away, right?”
    “Multiple and consecutive life terms. They made the deal after I testified, after he realized he’d be convicted for Greg, for me, and he’d face the death penalty.”
    “Why’d they deal?”
    “For confessions on Greg, on me, on the other twelve victims, for the whereabouts of his notebooks, his tapes, for closure for the families of the murdered women. For answers. And the certainty he’d never get out.”
    She nodded as if to a question in her head. “I always thought it was the right thing to do. It gave me, strangely enough, relief to hear him go through all of it, step by step, and to know he’d pay for it, for all of it, for a very, very long time. I wanted to put it behind me, close the door. My father died just nine weeks later. So suddenly, so unexpectedly, and the bottom dropped out again.”
    She rubbed her hands over her face. “Horrible times. I came out to stay with Syl for a few weeks, a couple months, I thought, but I realized I didn’t want to go back. I needed to start over, and I wanted to start over here. So I did, and most of the time that door stays closed.”
    “What opened it today?”
    “Davey came to tell me someone is using Perry’s pattern, including details that weren’t released to the public. There’ve been two so far. In California. It’s started again.”
    Questions circled in his head, but he didn’t ask them. She was done, he thought. Purged what she’d needed to purge for now.
    “Rough on you. Brings it all back, makes it now instead of then.”
    Again she closed her eyes, and her whole body seemed to relax. “Yes. Yes, exactly. God, maybe it’s stupid, but it really helps to have someone say that. To have someone get that. So thanks.”
    She laid a hand on his knee, a brief connection. “I have to go in, make some calls.”
    “Okay.” He handed her the glass. “Thanks for the drink.”
    “You earned it.”
    Simon walked over to pick up the puppy, who immediately started bathing his face as if they’d been parted for a decade.
    As he drove away, he glanced back to see Fiona going inside, closely followed by her dogs.

FIVE
    F iona thought about dinner, and had another glass of wine instead. Talking to Greg’s parents tore off the scar tissue and opened the wound again. She knew the healthy option was to fix a meal, maybe take a long walk with the dogs. Get out of the house, get out of herself.
    Instead she shooed the dogs outside and indulged in a long session of brooding so wide and deep her hackles rose at the interruption of another visitor.
    Couldn’t people just let her wallow?
    The chorus of happy barks translated to a friend. She wasn’t surprised to see James and his Koby exchanging greetings with her dogs.
    She leaned against the porch post, idly sipping her wine and watching him. In the floodlights she’d flipped on, his hair had a sheen. But then, something about James always did. His skin, an indescribable shade she thought of as caramel dipped in gold dust, was a testament to his widely mixed heritage. His eyes, a bright, shining green, often laughed out of a forest of lashes.
    He turned them on Fiona now, with a quick and easy smile as he shook a jumbo take-out bag.
    “I brought provisions.”
    She took another slow sip of wine. “Davey talked to you.”
    “Seeing as he’s married to my sister, he often does.”
    He walked to her, bringing the scent of food, then just wrapped his free arm around her to bring her close. Swayed.
    “I’m okay. I’ve just been holding the first meeting of my Pity Me Club.”
    “I want to join. I’ll be president.”
    “I’ve already elected myself president. But since you