I swallow and draw in a deep breath before tapping Savannah’s door as lightly and un-cop-like as I can.

There’s a moment of pure silence before the sound of stirring inside.

My heart’s racing. I’m more nervous than I’ve felt since my very first year on the force. I swallow again to compose myself. For a split second, I imagine Noah waiting right behind me in silent determination.

Then comes a click from the inside door handle. It swings open and a woman and child fill the doorway.

Grayson.

He’s sitting upright in her arms, his head rested against her chest, but my gaze settles on the two little eyes nestled above his round cheeks, so bright and vibrantly green.

The same color as Noah’s.

“Can I help you?” the woman asks. Her blond hair is thrown up in a tangled bun with lose strands tucked behind her ears.

Our gazes lock. She’s wearing enough makeup to help but not hide the bags under her eyes.

“Savannah?” I ask.

She nods cautiously, and for a second it’s as if the exhaustion leaves her face and I’m staring at a young beautiful woman. Her narrow face is strained with fatigue, but not far from the surface is undeniable beauty.

“My name is Sophia,” I say. “I’m here to talk about Noah.”

Savannah’s expression drops. “How nice of you,” she says, not bothering to hide her sarcasm. “You can tell your boss or whoever that I have nothing to say to the cops.” She begins to shut the door, but I throw my foot in the doorway.

“I’m not the cops,” I say. The door remains pressed against my foot before she slowly opens it again.

She eyes me up and down. “Then who are you?”

I begin scrambling for a response but stop myself. There’s no point. The truth is all I really have left, and there’s no reason to abandon it now. Not with Savannah.

“My name is Sophia Bell and I—”

“Why are you here?”

I bite my lip at the way she cuts me off. “I’m here because I’m a friend of Noah’s and I’m trying to stop him from going to prison.”

Savannah only stares back at me.

“Would you mind if I come inside?” I ask. “I think the two of us should talk.”

She hesitates, adjusting Grayson in her arms before taking a step back and gesturing me in.

Savannah doesn’t offer water or coffee, and I don’t expect her to. I follow her down a hall, into the living room, and when she sits down in a rugged armchair, I take a seat across from her on an old couch with maroon upholstery.

She sets Grayson on her knee. I’m about to speak when I notice the bump in her stomach.

Savannah’s pregnant.

Her eyes abruptly flick from Grayson to me.

“I’m sure you heard that Noah was arrested,” I say quickly, hoping she didn’t notice the way I was gaping.

Savannah nods.

“Do you think he did it?” I ask.

She shakes her head. I remain silent in hope that she’ll add more, but she doesn’t. Then, just as I’m about to continue, Savannah says, “I know he didn’t.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” I reply. Savannah only continues staring. She’s the type of person I’ve come across before, someone who says a million things with only their eyes.

“I think that Noah’s been framed. Actually, I know he’s been framed,” I correct.

“How?”

“Because I was with him. The victim was killed last Thursday night and I was with Noah when it happened. He had nothing to do with it.”

Savannah’s eyebrows draw together. Her lips flatten, and she eyes me with a new found suspicion. “You said you’re a friend of Noah’s?” she asks.

I nod.

“What kind of friend?” she asks with emphasis.

I try my best to sound poised despite the flush in my cheeks. “We’ve been seeing each other.”

Savannah cocks her head. “He’s never mentioned you to me.”

That stings. It shouldn’t, but it does.

“I’m not surprised,” I say flatly, and somehow admitting it helps to soften the blow. “Noah’s not the kind of guy to chat about most things. Especially those kinds of things.”

The skepticism in her eyes eases into a normal stare. It’s my opportunity.

“And honestly, that’s why I’m here,” I add. “If I’m going to help him out of this, then I need to know the things that he didn’t exactly chat about.” I want to continue but I make myself pause. I want to hear her talk. God only knows what more Noah hasn’t told me.

Grayson mumbles something from her lap.

“What? You want down?” Savannah coos. The toddler waves his arms. She lifts him up and holds both his hands as he steadies himself at her feet.

His face fills with a prideful eagerness as he attempts a shaky step, then another. I can’t help but smile. Despite the circumstances, I feel a tiny flutter of happiness. The first feeling in days.

Savannah lifts him into the air and resets him between her legs. She looks up at me.

“He’s a beautiful boy,” I say.

“Thank you,” she mutters softly.

“How old?”

“Thirteen months.”

I smile tenderly in response. Savannah returns her eyes to Grayson, guiding him in a wobbly circle.

“Can I ask you about his father?” I ask. Her eyes jump up to me. “I heard he passed about a year and a half ago. I’m so sorry.”

“Almost two years now.” Her gaze drops back down to Grayson. “We miss him every day.”

“I’m sure you must.” I pause. “Do you mind me asking what he did for work?”

“What kind of question is that?” Her change of tone catches me by surprise, but she continues before I have a chance to defend myself. “Why does this sound like an interrogation? What’s your deal, are you a cop or are you—”

“It’s not,” I blurt. “It’s not an interrogation. And right now, I’m a civilian. I’m on indefinite leave from the Marvel County PD, and if Noah goes to prison, chances are I won’t ever be a cop again.”

Savannah eyes me as she takes that in.

“I’m on your side,” I say. “I know Noah was set up and I’m here to make it right. I’m here to help.” The words sound hollow as they come out. They’re the same words I said to Noah less than an hour ago. Words that did nothing.

“Come here, come sit with Mommy.” Savannah lifts Grayson back onto her knee. She combs her fingers through his wispy blond hair. “I don’t exactly know what Kris did for work. You can judge me for saying that, but I don’t. Not his most recent job anyway. He was a high school football coach when we met. He loved it.”

I nod.

“But they fired him.” she says. “Showed up drunk to a game and they fired him in front of all the kids. It was the first game I couldn’t come to. I didn’t even see it happen.”

“I’m sorry.”

Savannah turns Grayson around on her knee. “Kris always had a problem with alcohol, but I never expected anything like that. And before you ask, no, he never hit me. Never once. He wasn’t like that. He just liked to enjoy life.”

I’m searching for words when she says, “He’d be in heaven around Grayson. He would’ve been an incredible father.”

“I believe that.” My voice is so soft that it hardly sounds like my own. “I can already see it in Noah.”

Savannah smiles genuinely. “Noah is going to make a great father someday.” Her smile vanishes. “Hopefully.”

“He will,” I assure her. “However it happens, he will.”

Savannah shakes her head as if discarding a bad dream. “The honest answer to your question is that I just don’t know. That night he was fired was awful. He took it really hard.”

“But it sounds like he was able to find another source of income, though?” I choose my words extra carefully.

Savannah shrugs. “I guess so. But I couldn’t tell you what it was. And I’m not hiding anything—I swear to God. I just don’t know. I asked him one time and he told me it’d be better if I ‘didn’t get involved.’” She quotes the words with her fingers. “I didn’t like it, but we needed the money.”

“Do you know if what he did involved anyone else?”

“No. I used to think it might be drugs, dealing or something, but I don’t anymore,” she says. “Kris wasn’t the drug dealing type. He went to treatment after the football incident and got himself sober. It was his choice. He completed the whole program and he was proud of it. He’s not the kind of guy that would turn around and start getting other guys hooked on shit.”

“I understand that.”

“Whatever it was though, it wasn’t great. I can tell you that. It was good money, but Kris wanted out. That’s what he told me. I had just gotten pregnant and he was set on getting married and moving away. He wanted a fresh place to start our own family.”

Again, I can only nod. It feels strange not jotting down notes, but I wouldn’t dare. Right now I’m not a cop, I’m Noah’s friend.

Noah’s ‘friend.’

I’m debating on how to introduce the banks when Savannah adds, “And not only that, but he was such good friends with Cliff Vernon that it would’ve been impossible.”

“Sheriff Vernon?” The question leaps out from my mouth before I can catch it.

“Yeah, the sheriff.” The tension in her face subsides. “Sorry, he’s been around here so much that he’s really more of a friend.”

I humor her with a fake chuckle and try to swallow the rest of my emotions. “Is he still a good friend of yours, then?” I ask.

“Kind of. He was around more for Kris than for me,” she says. “They came together right after Kris got out of treatment. Cliff got him into an AA program and helped him along, you know?” Savannah gives a reluctant laugh. “Hard to deal drugs when you’re best friends with the sheriff.”

When I don’t respond, she looks up at me and I’m hit with the sheer intensity of her stare.

“There’s no easy way to say this so I’m just going to tell you the truth,” I say, taking a breath. “Kris was making money off robbing banks.”

Her expression doesn’t even shift. She only stares back in silence, her thoughts racing in her eyes.

“Noah’s been doing the same thing,” I continue. “He’s been robbing banks and using that money to help pay for Grayson’s treatment.”

Savannah nods, holding Grayson’s head against her chest. The room fills with a heavy silence that I’m reluctant to break.

“This next part isn’t easy either, but I need to ask,” I finally say. “Can you tell me what you know about Kris’s death?”

The question takes Savannah by surprise. For a long moment she remains silent.

“What do you mean?” she asks after a beat.

“I want to know what you were told about how he died.”

Again, something flashes across her face. Her lips part, but she shuts them without speaking.

Savannah lifts Grayson from her knee and sits him on the floor between her feet. “I was told that his liver failed from severe alcohol poisoning. Now tell me what you’re hiding.”

I let go of a breath. “I can’t tell you anything with certainty, but one of the nurses suspected Kris might’ve been poisoned.”

Savannah’s face goes entirely empty as she abruptly leans back.

“How?”

“With arsenic,” I say solemnly. “It’s almost impossible to detect, but it’s extremely lethal. Ingesting too much will induce liver failure.”

Savannah snaps forward in her chair. Her eyebrows knot together as her face tightens in anger. “I knew it! He did not drink himself to death! He was—”

“Savannah, listen, who told you it was alcohol poisoning? Was it another nurse?”

“It was Cliff,” she blurts. “He was the only one helping me, all the doctors were so frantic. Nothing they gave him worked, he just kept throwing up. They couldn’t save him!”

“Cliff was at the hospital with you?”

“He was the one that brought Kris in!” she exclaims.

“Did you ever ask him to look into it? He’s the sheriff, Cliff could’ve investigated this.”

“No… I just… I was dealing with the funeral and all the arrangements and—” she stops herself. Her chin trembles and she shakes her head hastily back and forth. “After I saw his body lowered into the ground I knew it was over.” Her tears break loose. “I didn’t want it to be true. If I asked him to look into it, then I’d have to believe it and I couldn’t do that.” Savannah buries her face in her palms.

Grayson turns around at the sound of his mother crying. Crying over the death of a father that he’ll never know.

Savannah uncovers her face and lifts the young boy back into her lap. She plants a gentle kiss on his forehead, holding it for several long moments as tears trail out of her closed eyes.

I can only imagine how many times has Noah witnessed a scene like this.

Mother and child. A broken family in dire need.

It’s something the law will never have a real answer for. A situation that justice can’t ever fix. And who can blame Noah for trying to fix it on his own?

“Savannah?” I say, waiting for her to look at me before I continue. “Listen to me, it wasn’t your fault. We’re going to make this right.”

She nods, balling her sleeve in her fist to dry her eyes.

“And I’m not going to allow you to lose any more of your family,” I say. “Noah was never arrested for those robberies. He’s facing trial for a murder that he didn’t commit, and I will not let him go down for that. I promise you.”

When she looks at me again it feels like a weight has been dropped in my lap. “Thank you,” she whispers.

“You don’t need to thank me.” I stand up. This is the point where I usually shake someone’s hand, thank them for their time, give them my card, and ask them to give me a call if they remember anything else. But that all seems so trivial now.

For a second I stand there, wondering whether it’s appropriate to give Savannah the hug that I want to. But she stays seated.

Just as I’m about to force out an awkward goodbye she says, “Do you know anything else?”

I feel nerves twisting in my stomach. I debate it for a second, but I stiffen my lips and shake my head. Savannah nods and looks back at Grayson.

I regret not saying more, even as I leave. But I can’t. Not yet.

First, I have to prove it.