Page 129 of Riptide
"Yeah." The word caught in her throat. "He is."
Tom leaned back in his chair, processing. "So the official investigation goes cold. Jessica disappears. And we all just... move on?"
"That's the idea."
"What about the other victims?" Piper asked. "The people Blaire was blackmailing. Do they just never find out they're free?"
Cara had thought about this. Had wrestled with it during the long minutes between destroying the USB drive and calling Gabe.
"Jessica said she destroyed all the files. Every victim, every secret." She paused. "But we still have our own research. The names we found, the people we contacted when we were trying to build a case against Blaire."
Tom nodded slowly. "We could reach out. Quietly. Let them know the threat is most likely gone."
"Without telling them how it ended," Reagan added. "Just that Blaire's dead and her files are destroyed."
"Is that enough?" Piper's voice was uncertain. "Don't they deserve to know the whole truth?"
Wade shifted in his corner. "Sometimes the whole truth does more harm than good. They don't need details. They need peace."
"It feels like lying."
"It feels like mercy." Wade met Piper's eyes. "There's a difference."
Piper looked like she wanted to argue, but something in Wade's expression stopped her. She turned to her father instead.
"Dad? What do you think?"
Tom was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was careful.
"I think... this whole situation is complicated. What Jessica did was wrong. Murder is wrong, full stop." He held up a hand before Piper could interrupt. "But I also believe God sees the whole picture when we only see pieces. Blaire was a predator. She destroyed lives for profit. The system couldn't touch her—she was too smart, too careful, too protected by lawyers and loopholes."
"So Jessica did what the system couldn't," Piper said.
"Yes. And now she's going to spend the rest of her life running from what she did. Living with it." Tom shook his head slowly. "That's between her and God now. It's not our place tojudge her. That's above our pay grade. Our job is to figure out what we do next."
"The next right thing," Piper said quietly.
"Exactly." Tom reached out, squeezed his daughter's shoulder. "We can't undo what happened. We can't make it clean or simple. But we can help the people who are still hurting. We can offer mercy where we can. And we can trust that the Lord’s got the stuff we can't handle."
Piper was silent for a moment, chewing on this.
"It's still not simple," she finally said.
"Welcome to adulthood." Tom grinned. "It's terrible. The hours are long, the coffee's never strong enough, and nobody gives you a manual."
Piper snorted. "Great sales pitch, Dad."
"I do what I can."
Reagan pushed off the wall. "So. We reach out to the victims we can identify. Let them know the nightmare's over. And we keep our mouths shut about how it ended."
"And Jessica?" Wade asked. "We just let her go?"
Cara thought about the woman who'd stood in her bakery, gun in hand, tears streaming down her face as she talked about her brother. The terrible, patient planning that had led to a single push on a moonlit cliff.
"She's already gone," Cara said. "And honestly? I don't think she's a threat to anyone anymore. She got what she wanted. Blaire's dead, the files are destroyed, and she's free." She paused. "As free as someone can be after doing what she did."
"You almost sound like you feel sorry for her," Piper observed.
