He glared at Olivia. "I hadn't decided what to do."
"Oh, I think you had. I think you'd decided to kill Heather Nansen to safeguard your secret. You're just a really, really shitty assassin. Three times you tried to get into the house. You only managed it once, but you kept coming back, hoping to silence her before another attack of conscience sent her to the police. Heather buying the gun and shooting her husband? That was a completely unexpected outcome."
"You have no idea what you're talking--"
"Keith Johnson," Olivia said. "You are guilty of the murder of Kathy Johnson." She lifted the gun. "Now run."
The color drained from Johnson's face. He took a slow step back.
"No..."
A snarl rippled from the forest, and the alpha hound shot out. Johnson spun. Then Lloergan burst from the trees on his left side. She was herding him, not stopping him, but when Johnson saw her--a smaller cwn, a disfigured cwn--he let out a howl of rage and charged. Lloergan stopped short, confused. Johnson kept charging, the knife raised.
"No!" Olivia shouted and ran at them.
Gabriel tackled Johnson. They grappled, and again, that knife sliced far too close to his face. He let Johnson swing it wildly and then grabbed his arm, pinning it before wrenching the knife away.
Gabriel tossed the knife aside and picked up Johnson by the shirtfront, lifting him until he was on his tiptoes.
"Would you like mercy?" Gabriel asked.
Johnson blinked hard. Then, "Y-yes. Yes, please."
"Tell the truth." He held the man out to Olivia. "To her."
Johnson swallowed. When he said nothing, Gabriel whistled, and Lloergan's ears perked up. The alpha hound started forward, his head lowered. More cwns slid from the dark forest.
"It--it happened so fast," Johnson blurted. "The accident. With Kathy. And then...I don't know what came over me. I passed in and out of consciousness, and I was confused--"
Gabriel shook him. "The truth."
Another pause. The hounds inched closer.
"S-she wanted a divorce. We'd been fighting, and I was angry. Okay? The accident happened, and I just--I snapped. I didn't think. I wanted a way out, and I saw it, so I... I waited. I just waited. I didn't do anything to her."
"And then Heather Nansen contacted you..."
"They started this. They hit our car. It was their fault, and that bitch was going to tell the police. I knew she was. I'd suffered enough--all those nights worrying that someone would find out about Kathy. I didn't do anything to her, and now I might go to jail for it? That wasn't fair, not when it was their fault. But I never touched that bitch. I broke in the first time and got spooked. I tried a couple more times, but she kept hearing me, so I gave up. I didn't steal anything from her. I didn't text anyone or call the police about anything."
Gabriel looked at Olivia. "Is that enough?"
"I already had enough," she said.
He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. She might have had enough to be reasonably certain. Now that certainty was absolute, and he could see the relief on her face.
"Enough for mercy?" Johnson croaked.
Olivia stepped forward. "Your wife had a punctured lung. You watched her die. You listened to her die. At first, you weren't sure how badly she was injured, but eventually, she'd have begun wheezing. Slowly suffocating. Gasping for breath. And you watched and waited. I will give you the exactly the amount of mercy you gave her."
She took another step forward. "Run, Mr. Johnson. Run as fast as you can. And when you can't run anymore--when your lungs give out, and you lie there gasping for air, remember your wife."
Gabriel threw Johnson aside. The man stumbled to his feet. Then the alpha cwn leapt at him, snarling, and Johnson looked up to see the pack of red-eyed giant black hounds, ringing him, leaving only a gap into the forest.
He bolted for that gap, and the hounds pursued.
Twenty-seven
Olivia
So the Cwn Annwn were not infallible after all.
After Johnson died in the Hunt, Ioan and I convened with Ricky and Gabriel, and we figured out what had happened. First, I got the "discovery" story--how the Cwn Annwn found Johnson. One of the Huntsmen had an Audi, which he'd taken in for its annual servicing. There, he'd bumped into Johnson and gotten the twinge that put a target on Johnson's head.
Ioan had picked up the vehicle for the Huntsman, and he'd sought out Johnson in a casual conversation. When he looked into his eyes, he got a memory flash of the newspaper headline, along with a surge of guilt that confirmed he was a Cwn Annwn target. So Ioan concluded Nansen must have had fae blood and Johnson killed him. An incorrect deduction. Yes, Johnson had felt some responsibility for Nansen's death, thinking that his attempts to break in had caused Heather to shoot her husband. But the death that warranted Cwn Annwn justice was actually that of Kathy Johnson, who must have had fae blood.
A crossed wire, which caused Ioan to accuse Johnson of the wrong murder. But when it came to what counted, he'd been absolutely correct. Johnson was a killer who deserved Cwn Annwn justice.
As for Heather Nansen, Gabriel's independent investigation suggested there was a very good reason Johnson had denied stealing her phone, sending those texts and contacting the police. He hadn't. The simple explanation was, it seemed, correct--that no one had framed Heather for murder. She'd taken advantage of the break-in attempts to obtain a gun, and then she'd lured her husband home.
Gabriel wasn't going to drop her case. We now believed she was guilty, but proving it was up to the prosecution. And I was fine with that. This was not my case to judge.
My case had been Keith Johnson, and I had my answer there.
Gabriel and I spent the drive to Cainsville talking about Heather's case, which meant we didn't need to discuss our own issue. Not until we got home, and the door closed behind us.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Seanna," he said. "I thought I could handle it by myself."
"The point of being with someone, Gabriel, is that you don't have to handle things alone."
"I just wanted..."
"To fix it without upsetting me. I know. But what do you think would upset me more? Navigating this problem together from the first time Seanna pulled that crap? Or watching you struggle for months and not knowing what was going on?"
He nodded.
I continued, "You're right that this makes me wonder whether we made the right choices with Seanna. Choices I championed. But that only means that I take responsibility for resolving this with Rose."
He paused in the front hall. "I'll understand if you'd rather I just dropped you off and went back to Chicago."
I sighed and shook my head, and then waved him into the living room. "This is what we need to work on, Gabriel. Being upset with you doesn't mean I want to get away from you. Okay, maybe, if I'm pissed enough, I'll need time to myself. Temporarily. But I'm not..." I turned to face him. "I'm not going anywhere."
His nod claimed he understood, but the wary look in his eyes said he wasn't so sure. Or that my declaration wasn't enough. Wasn't clear enough. Did I mean I wasn't going anywhere today? In the near future?
I motioned for him to sit on the sofa. Then I took the other end, my purse still in my hand. He kept looking at it, as if that belied my assurance that I wasn't about to flee.
"When I was a teenager," I said, "sometimes guys gave rings to girls they'd been dating for a while. Not an engagement ring--they were too young for that. But a ring that said marriage was where they were heading, eventually. A promise ring."
"Would you like...?" he began cautiously.
I burst into a laugh. "Uh, no. That isn't a hint. Not exactly how I operate, if you haven't figured that out."
I reached into my purse and took out a rolled-up sheet of paper. When I handed it to him, he hesitated.
"I'm not serving you a summons," I said.
He took the paper and then saw the ring on it.
"Yeah, it's a ring," I said. "But just ignore that."
>
His brows arched.
I made a face. "I mean you don't have to wear it. I know you don't wear jewelry. It's symbolic."
He tugged the ring off and turned it over in his hand.
"Be happy it isn't one of those high school promise rings with a diamond chip," I said. "Or a big rock of cubic zirconia."
He held the ring up. It wasn't exactly the result of days of careful shopping--I'd been in a hurry--but I'd tried to choose with care, visiting several stores before I found a simple band with a pale blue sapphire.
"Yes, it matches your eyes," I said.
He smiled and slipped on the ring.
"It probably won't--"
"It fits." He looked at me. "Thank you."
"Well, like I said, that's not really the gift. The ring is symbolic. And even the gift isn't actually..." I exhaled. "Just open the paper."
He unscrolled it to find a picture.
"This is..." He tilted his head as he studied the photo. "It's the cabin I rented for us last winter. The one on the lake. Yes?"
"I offered to buy it."
He glanced up. "It's for sale?"
"Not exactly. I made the owner a good offer, and he accepted."
He frowned. "I hope you didn't pay more than necessary."
I laughed. "Not exactly the point here, Gabriel, but don't worry--my offer was decent but fair. I made sure of that. Particularly because I expect you to pay half."
His brows rose.
"Yep, like I said, it's not really a gift. But you have your condo, and I have my house here, so what we need is a place that's ours. A vacation home. Because, of course, we require a third residence."
His lips twitched in a smile. "We do."
"I can certainly pay the full--"
"No." He set the photo aside. "This is what I would prefer. Joint ownership."
"Good. We'll consider it an investment if that makes us feel less indulgent. But the point, between the ring and the joint property, is that I'm not going anywhere. I'd love to say that's a guarantee, but nothing is. We just solved two cases of spousal homicide, so clearly, even marriage isn't a promise of happily ever after. Which isn't to say that I'm against that, at some point, but if we did get married now, my concern is that we'd be doing it to lock this in, rather than because we're ready."
"I don't want that." He paused. "I mean jumping to marriage. Marriage itself is fine, but you're right--at this point, I would want it as a guarantee. Which it isn't." He lifted the paper. "This says the same thing. That we're committed to making it work long term."
"Yes." I looked at him. "Is that what you want?"
He held my gaze. "It is definitely what I want."
"Good," I said.
As I leaned over to kiss him, something crumpled in his pocket and the smell of baked goods wafted out.
"Is that...?" I began.
He cleared his throat. "It's the anniversary of the day we met, so I, uh, got you..."
When he trailed off, I pulled the bag from his pocket and laughed. "It's a scone."
"Yes. Which, when compared to your gifts, seems..." Another throat clearing. "I will do better next time."
I threw my arms around his neck. "The fact that you remember the day we met is all the anniversary gift I need. Especially when..." I lifted up his ear. "I totally forgot." I took a bite of the scone, tossed the bag aside. "But if you want to give me a better gift, I have a few ideas in mind. Ones you can deliver right now. If you feel compelled to make amends."
He chuckled. "I do," he said, and lowered me onto the sofa.
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