Quinn nodded, and gave her hand a squeeze. Then he walked toward the grave and the young woman beside it. She’d obviously been there awhile. From what he knew of this yearly ritual, probably since before the sun rose, never mind the cold. It was warmer now, at least in the sunlight, and she’d shed the heavy coat that now lay beside her on the blanket she was sitting on.

She didn’t seem to notice him as he approached, and he was unsurprised to see the dampness on her cheeks. He knew as well as anyone that grief like this never went away, it only changed.

“Doesn’t seem possible it’s been five years, does it?” he said softly.

Amanda’s head snapped around, and when she saw him she leaped to her feet. “Quinn!”

She ran to him and enveloped him in a hug. He hugged her back. “I won’t ask how you are today, because I can guess.”

She looked up at him. “I know you can. But I’m okay the rest of the time, truly. It’s just today that’s so hard.”

He nodded. “I know. It always will be, to some extent. But your work’s going well.”

She had become what she called a victim advocate shortly after her father’s death. She had told Quinn about her choice that first year, when they had happened to meet here on this same day. “I felt so helpless, and I had so much help from Dad’s friends, and you, making decisions, thinking clearly for me when I couldn’t. I can’t imagine how anyone without that kind of support system survives something like this. So I want to be that system, for people who don’t have anyone else.”

That had been enough for him to contact Charlie and suggest the Foxworth Foundation help out.

“It is,” she answered now. “Thanks to Foxworth and Dad’s insurance. You may get to stop supporting us someday.”

“We’ll support you as long as necessary, and probably after that, too,” Quinn said. “Not sorry you turned down that lucrative job offer?”

Amanda smiled. “No. Working for the city council would have been close to my worst nightmare, although it was nice of Ms. Harris to offer.” She looked up at him intently. “What about you? You’re all right? No...lingering aftereffects?”

“I’m fine.” It was true; he felt nothing more than an occasional tightness from the bullet he’d taken in the moment before he’d grabbed her dying father’s sidearm and taken down the man who’d come out of the shadows and shot them both. Well, and some extreme pleasure when Hayley lingered over the scar above his hip before she journeyed farther south...