Because he had every idea what Jayden was capable of.
And he had no desire to lose the man to the darkness that waited him on the other side of it.
Sera filled a plate, the heaping platters of food ensuring no one would go hungry. It would have helped if she had an appetite, she admitted to herself as she took a napkin-rolled set of utensils. But appetite or not, she’d eat for the baby, and she’d eat in gratitude for all that had been prepared to comfort the Houston family.
Her skin still bore the imprint of Mama Houston’s warm hug, her soft, whispered words a mix of grief for her family’s loss and an innate well of care, asking after Sera’s pregnancy and how she was feeling.
It was amazing, to have someone who should have no thought or care for anyone else’s need in that moment still so firmly in control of their own ability to think of others.
You’re wildly lovable and perfect...
Your mother’s the unlovable one...
And because any parent who would walk away from their child has something deeply, irretrievably wrong with them...
Gavin’s impatient arguments from the other night had rolled through her mind more than once, forcing her to question herself and her long-held assumptions.
She’d accused him of judgment, but as she’d stilled and really listened to all he said, it had ignited a change inside of her. A new way of seeing her situation and her place in the world.
But something about speaking with Mama Houston had made it real. As if Gavin had built a bonfire, but Mama Houston had tossed the match.
She wove her way to the table where Gavin, Wyatt and Marlowe had settled, making additional room for Arlo and Kerrigan and a man she remembered from the day on the boat up at Hell Gate, along with his wife.
Sera went to reintroduce herself, but the man with the kind eyes beat her to it. “You’re Sera. I’m Mack, part of the forensics team.” He turned to the pretty Latina woman beside him. “This is my wife, Valencia.”
Although everyone carried the proper notes of somber reverence, it was good to sit with others. And over the next hour, she learned more about Jayden and Darius. How they met. Their funny quirks that somehow made it not only possible, but right that a cop and a businessman found each other. And then there were the silly stories that made each of them smile around the table.
It was Kerrigan who’d laughed the longest, even when a hard sob punctuated her dying laughter. Arlo pulled her close, his arm solid and reassuring around her shoulders.
All of it, Sera admitted as they began the process of saying their goodbyes and heading back for the street, mattered. And if it weren’t for the task force, she’d have missed all of it. Would have missed getting to know these people.
But maybe she and Gavin wouldn’t have been on that sidewalk. And Darius wouldn’t have been outside. And none of these horrible events would ever have come to pass.
“Sera?” Valencia’s smile was kind as she worked her purse strap up over the arm of her coat. They stood in the small lobby at the back of the church basement while everyone had gone to say their goodbyes to Jayden. “You look lost, sweetie. Are you okay?”
“I—” The pragmatism she fought to keep in check all day fell away, the harsh reality of having been so close to Darius’s death taking over. “We were there. Gavin and I. On the same sidewalk where Darius was shot.”
“Shhh.” Valencia moved in close, her arm a solid support as Sera fought for air. “Deep breaths now.”
During the course of their lunch, she’d come to learn Valencia was a nurse, and Sera did as she was told, desperately seeking some calm in the big, steady breaths.
Small hands rubbed circles over her back, and even through her coat Sera felt the firm strokes and tactile efforts to calm her down.
“If only we hadn’t been there. If only...” The words died on her lips, the endless string of what-ifs and if-onlys so endless they’d become maddening.
“You can’t take ownership of an evil act, Sera. You didn’t do this. Your presence didn’t do this.”
“I know. I—” Sera took one more of those deep breaths, willing herself to not only calm, but to also breathe in the truth of what Valencia was saying. “I know this. I prosecute crime for a living, and I know to the depths of my toes the person who perpetrated the act is the guilty one. I just can’t stop going over it in my mind. The senseless act. Being so close to it.”
“It’s a weight. I’m not suggesting it isn’t, but you must separate the sadness from guilt that isn’t yours to own.”
Sera nodded. “Thank you.”
It was all so new, so recent, and it was going to take time to get the proper perspective back. A day immersed in the loss of Darius was, by its nature, the opposite of getting perspective, and Sera knew that.
But in the coming days and months?
She had to work on this heavy weight that seemed determined to drag on her, twisting her emotions toward places she didn’t own. She deserved it, but more than that, her child deserved it. Their lives had been spared at the hands of someone who could have decided differently. Negating that grace and the work of a deadly moment was not only dismissing the future for both of them, but it meant Darius had died in vain, and she refused to allow that.
Her if-onlys be damned.
Gavin, Wyatt and Marlowe, Arlo and Kerrigan and Mack had returned, everyone with coats in hand. The time had come to leave the family to their grief, and they all understood it as they ascended the basement steps to the street. The sea of uniformed officers that had filled the blocks around the church had dispersed, traffic having returned to normal.
It was still a bit lighter than Sera usually saw, the midafternoon crowds still in offices and the kids still about twenty minutes from school dismissal.
Maybe it was that lack of traffic—one she rarely saw—that heightened her awareness of the moment. Or perhaps it was just that lingering sense of sadness over being so close to a murder victim that had her on high alert. But as each couple started off in their own direction for home, she saw Mack head for the corner where someone had gestured him over to talk.
Valencia waved him on as she dug her phone out of her coat pocket, lifting it to her ear.
Kerrigan and Arlo, then Wyatt and Marlowe had already stepped onto the crosswalk when Sera heard the squeal of tires and a distinctive image visible through an open window.
She turned away from Gavin and toward the woman on her phone as a heavy scream filled her throat, leaving her lips in an agonized shout.
“Valencia! Watch out! There’s a gun!”
Sera’s scream still echoed in his ears, along with the heavy, rat-a-tat-tat sound of rapid gunfire.
Gavin didn’t even think, he simply reacted, wrapping himself around her body and moving her deftly toward the ground, cushioning her every bit of the way.
