4

Chapter 477 Scared Out of Her Mind

"

Tara didn't know how Scarlett managed to live in her hotel room for as long as she did. She was bored and she was beginning to miss her home even if the bedroom was a crime scene.

She had gone by Scarlett's store and they had decided on that parchment yellow that Scarlett had on one of the walls of her store. It was a soft, cool gold color that just as Scarlett said looked good with anything that it was put next to. Neither woman was a big fan of yellow but the color was more of a gold and that's what made the color work with so many colors.

She decided to paint room by room as she had time, but she would get the carpet replaced everywhere. She had taken pictures of the carpet she was considering and together they decided on a pale gray Berber with tiny flecks of all different colors that would look perfect with any color scheme she decided on.

This weekend she would paint the bedroom and on Monday, the new carpet for the house would be installed. The blood stained carpet was already torn out so she didn't have to see where Kohn spent the last minutes of his life.

Once the carpet was installed, she was going to move back into the house in her old high school bedroom until the improvements and the furniture changes could be made to the master bedroom.

She was about to drive over to Oakville to the home improvement outdoor mall when Hale called.

"Tara, are you busy right?" Hale asked.

"No," she said with some hesitation.

"Can you come down to the police station now?"

"I'll be there in a few minutes," Tara said.

Her hands shook as she gave her hair a quick comb. She added some blush because her face was deathly pale, more mascara to bring out her eyes and a swipe of coral pink lipstick to add a little more color to her face and she was ready.

To say Tara was terrified was an understatement. Could Scarlett have said something that had aroused the interest or suspicion of the sheriff's deputies investigating Kohn's death? She remembered that to the sheriff's deputies, Kohn was one of them. They would be more likely to come down on her for his death than if he'd been in another profession.

By the time she got to the station, she was certain that she was going to be arrested. There were a couple of sheriff deputies hanging around the station when she got there and was escorted to Hale's office.

Tara had never been very religious, but she began to pray silently to herself. She couldn't stand going to prison. It would destroy her as a person and she could kiss her medical career good-bye. She never thought that one day she could face the real possibility of spending her life in prison.

Hale closed the door and took his seat behind the desk.

"I wanted to let you know that the investigation into ATF agent Kohn's death is complete."

Tara's heart was beating hard and fast in her chest. She felt like she was going to pass out. She was almost as scared as she had been the night Kohn attacked her.

"OK," she said her voice barely above a whisper.

"It will be officially announced on Monday. You've been cleared. The investigation found that you acted in self-defense. Kohn had a history of assaulting women—a fact that the ATF should have been made aware of but it had been hidden by a couple of police departments that did him some favors."

Tara let her breath out in a whoosh. She hadn't realized she'd been holding it. Her heartbeat began to slow as relief swept over her body.

"I'm so relieved. I thought they might decide it was murder because he's law enforcement too."

Hale smiled faintly.

"Good cops want bad cops gone. Initially when they came into the investigation, they wanted to clear Kohn. After they did a little digging, they realized that Kohn was deeply troubled. The ATF was building a case to fire him. It was only a matter of time before that happened. They reached out to ex-girlfriends and discovered the same pattern of abuse you experienced only he was more obsessed with you than he had be with them."

"I tried to go to the police but they blew me off. It was a nightmare."

"I know it was hard on you when Charming PD turned over the investigation to the sheriff's department, but now there can be no doubt in anyone's mind that a fair impartial investigation was done."

"I hated you a little for bringing in the sheriff's department," Tara confessed. "Those sheriff's deputies scared the hell out of me. I knew that I shot him in self-defense, but I wasn't sure they believed me."

"They have to approach it like that. Your nightmare is over. I'll be doing a joint news conference on Monday with the sheriff's department. They will release the report at that time. No one can ever say that you got off for killing Kohn because you had friends in Charming PD."

Tara shut her eyes for a moment savoring what it felt like to have the burden off her shoulders. She was getting her life back.

"Thank you so much, Hale," Tara said.

"I didn't have anything to do with it. The facts spoke for themselves. Sometimes shooting someone is the only way to defend yourself. That's something that gun control advocates don't think about."

Tara got up to leave and gave Hale a hug.

"Thanks for telling me and not making me wait until Monday."

"The least I could do after handing the investigation off to the sheriff's department. You can tell Scarlett, but no one else including the hospital."

"As hard as it was on me, I'm glad you had the sheriff's investigate everything," Tara said giving him a big smile.

Tara got in her car, feeling optimistic about her future. She had just gotten away with murder and it felt pretty damned good.