Chapter 17 - Marla Faced Nora Without Asking to Be ForgivenThe meeting was Nora’s idea.
Dana discouraged it once.
Not twice.
Nora had earned the right to decide.
Marla’s attorney arranged a controlled, supervised setting.
No media.
No performance.
Dana waited nearby but did not sit between them.
Nora entered first.
Marla stood when she saw her.
Then sat again.
Neither spoke.
Nora looked healthier.
Still thin.
But stronger.
Marla looked terrified.
Good.
Nora broke the silence.
“You look different without the belly.”
Marla almost laughed.
Then cried instead.
“I’m sorry.”
Nora held up one hand.
“I read the letter.”
Marla nodded.
“I’m not here for another apology.”
“Okay.”
“I want answers.”
“Okay.”
“Why me?”
Marla swallowed.
“Scout chose your car.”
“Before you knew my name.”
“Yes.”
“Then Silas learned about Dad’s file.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“At the yard.”
“How?”
“Travis recognized your name.”
Nora nodded.
She had suspected.
“Did you know before?”
“No.”
“Did you know they were following me?”
“No.”
Nora looked at her.
“Did you think I’d survive?”
Marla’s face collapsed.
“I didn’t think that far.”
Nora stared.
“That may be worse.”
“I know.”
Silence.
Then Nora asked:
“When I gave you the necklace, why did you keep it?”
Marla breathed shakily.
“Because you asked me to give it to Leah.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Boyd found it.”
“You could have lied.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Marla looked down.
“I was scared.”
Nora laughed bitterly.
“You were always scared.”
“Yes.”
“So was I.”
Marla started crying.
Nora did not comfort her.
“Why did you tell me about the alarm?”
Marla looked surprised.
“You remember?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you might get out.”
“Then Boyd caught me.”
“I know.”
“Did you get punished for helping?”
Marla hesitated.
“Yes.”
Nora studied her.
“Why keep working afterward?”
“Jamie.”
“Partly.”
Marla looked up.
Dana had apparently forced that word into Marla’s vocabulary.
“Partly.”
“What else?”
“I didn’t know who I was if I admitted what I’d done.”
Nora’s expression softened slightly.
Not forgiveness.
Recognition.
Marla continued:
“If I went to police after the first job, I was a woman who committed a robbery.”
“Yes.”
“After five, six, seven crimes…”
She shook her head.
“I thought I had become the kind of person police don’t rescue.”
Nora answered:
“They would have arrested you.”
“Yes.”
“And maybe found us sooner.”
Marla closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
That was the cost.
Nora did not let context erase it.
“I lost four months.”
“I know.”
“My sister thought I was dead.”
“I know.”
“My mother stopped eating.”
Marla cried harder.
“I know.”
“You don’t get those months back because Silas scared you.”
“I know.”
Nora leaned back.
“Good.”
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then Marla asked:
“Do you hate me?”
Dana almost stepped in.
Not necessary.
Nora considered.
“Sometimes.”
Marla nodded.
“Fair.”
“But I also think you were trapped.”
Marla’s eyes lifted.
“Both can be true.”
Dana felt something inside her settle.
That sentence had followed the entire case.
Victim and accomplice.
Fear and choice.
Love and leverage.
Help and harm.
Marla whispered:
“Can you forgive me?”
Nora looked directly at her.
“I don’t know.”
Marla started to speak.
Nora interrupted.
“And I’m not going to decide because you need an answer.”
Marla closed her mouth.
Good.
“My forgiveness is mine.”
“Yes.”
“Your consequences are yours.”
“Yes.”
“Jamie being alive doesn’t make what you did okay.”
“I know.”
“Nobody else gets to tell me you suffered too as if that balances anything.”
“I know.”
Nora stood.
Marla looked frightened.
“That’s it?”
“For today.”
Nora walked toward the door.
Then stopped.
She turned.
“One thing.”
Marla waited.
“The night Dana stopped for you…”
“Yes?”
“Were you going to let Boyd hurt her if she resisted?”
Marla’s face went pale.
Dana had never asked directly.
Marla took a long time.
Finally:
“I don’t know.”
Nora nodded.
“Think about that.”
Then left.
Outside, Dana walked beside her.
“You okay?”
“No.”
Dana smiled.
Nora glanced at her.
“What?”
“That’s my favorite honest answer.”
Nora laughed.
Then became serious.
“I don’t forgive her.”
“I heard.”
“But I don’t want her destroyed.”
Dana looked at her.
“Those aren’t opposites.”
“I know.”
They walked toward Leah’s car.
Nora stopped.
“Do you think people change?”
Dana thought of Travis.
Marla.
Tessa.
Even Silas, who probably wouldn’t.
“I think people can.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Dana smiled.
“Some do.”
“How do you tell?”
“Not by what they say when consequences arrive.”
Nora waited.
“By what they keep doing after nobody is impressed anymore.”
Nora nodded.
That answer seemed to satisfy her.
Inside the building, Marla remained seated.
Her lawyer later told Dana she cried for nearly an hour.
Then asked for paper.
She began writing down every place, person, phone number, and detail she remembered.
No new deal.
No promise.
Just information.
Maybe remorse.
Maybe self-preservation.
Probably both.
Dana did not need to decide.
She only needed to verify.
One note led to another victim who had never reported the robbery.
Another identified a former scout.
Another located stolen property.
Marla’s cooperation became more useful after Nora refused to absolve her.
Perhaps because Marla finally stopped treating truth like currency.
Then prosecutors found one last unsolved entry in Conrad’s red book.
A name.
Emily Rose Bennett.
Beside it:
Possibly T. Monroe.
Dana stared.
Tessa’s original identity might finally have a full name.
Emily Rose Bennett.
Missing from Phoenix seventeen years earlier at age sixteen.
Her family had searched for years.
Mother still alive.
Dana looked at Luis.
“If this is her…”
He nodded.
A missing child might be coming home at thirty-four.
May you like
Not because Conrad returned her identity.
Because the book he used to own people had finally been taken away from him.
