“Where were you two hiding?”

“Livie has a panic room. There are monitors in there for all the cameras. We were watching when you came up the drive.” She sniffled. “On the monitor, I saw it was Cyrus in the car and we thought you’d betrayed us at first.”

“No, he just threatened me with a bomb.”

“Livie was going to ambush him, but I didn’t really want to see him, until . . . Well, when he was in handcuffs, he looked so much smaller than I remember. I opened the gate for Deputy Logan.”

“He never was what you thought he was. There was nothing good in Cyrus Beck.”

Chevy looked at her, seemingly unsure, the hard adult gaze Tess had seen at the shelter gone. She looked smaller and younger somehow. Tess hoped the girl would recover from this chapter of her life with minimal ill effects.

Tess turned to regard Harp, who was sitting on the couch. Oliver had gotten her some water. The LAPD guys wanted to ask her questions, but she looked at Tess.

“You know what happened, what that man did. He and his buddy Porter Cross killed Isaac Pink and his whole family.” Livie’s voice broke. “They were good people. He’s a monster.”

“Yes, I know. But you couldn’t bring the Pinks back by killing Beck. This way, we are denying him freedom like he denied Chevy and who knows how many other women. Talk to these men; tell them the truth.”

Livie nodded and gave the two investigators her full attention.

By the time Flores and Black had finished with Harp, Steve let Tess know that the bomb squad was en route.

He left to meet them in town, taking the cold case guys with him.

“We’ll get the warrant quashed,” Investigator Black told Tess as he was on his way out. “I never thought she had anything to do with that killing; now I know for sure. Thanks for your help on this, O’Rourke.”

“I’m just glad you can close the books on this case. My dad would be happy to see it resolved.”

“Your dad? You mean Daniel O’Rourke?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice to see that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Good work, Chief.”

With them gone, Tess was in a hurry to get Beck booked and to see to the conclusion of the bomb threat. But Harp had a question and Tess realized that so did she.

“What’s going to happen to me now?”

“You heard Black. They know you’re not a killer.” Tess sat on the coffee table across from Harp. “How on earth did you get to this place in life? How did you survive?”