Chapter 9 - Safe Haven on Puget Sound
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Three days later, I unlocked the door to my apartment in Seattle.
The afternoon air was damp and smelled of sea salt and pine, a sharp contrast to the cold, oppressive grandeur of Denver. Lila walked in slowly behind me, holding my hand tightly, her small canvas backpack slung over her shoulders.
She stopped at the edge of the living room, staring at the furniture with deep suspicion.
"You can come in, kiddo," I said gently, setting down our luggage. "It's just my place."
She pointed to the plush, dark blue velvet armchair near the window overlooking Puget Sound. "Is that a bad chair?"
My heart broke all over again.
I walked over to the chair, threw myself into it, and patted the soft cushion beside me. "This chair was made for reading comic books and eating popcorn. It doesn't have any rules."
Lila hesitated for a moment, then took three cautious steps forward. She climbed onto the cushion, testing its softness with her hands before sinking into the fabric. A tiny, long-overdue sigh escaped her lips.
For the first two weeks, our life in Seattle was defined by slow, delicate steps. Lila jumped every time a door closed too loudly, and she refused to go to sleep unless the hallway light was left completely on. But gradually, the quiet rhythm of the coast began to work its magic.
I took a leave of absence from the news network to focus entirely on her recovery. We spent afternoons sitting on the docks watching the ferries cross the foggy water, eating fish and chips out of paper baskets.
For the first time in her life, Lila began to laugh out loud.
Then, on a rainy Tuesday morning in late January, the telephone on my kitchen counter rang.
May you like
I picked it up. "Hello?"
"Evan," Detective Marcus Reed's voice came through the line, tight and urgent. "We have a problem. Grant just posted a two-million-dollar cash bond. He's out."
