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Finn asked.
    “I would feel better if she spent another night in the hospital,” James admitted. “She’s just so … hurt.”
    “She’ll get better,” Grady said. “We need to take this whole situation as a win. Things could have been a whole lot worse.”
    “I keep telling myself that,” James said. “I’m still a little … unsettled.”
    “Anyone in your position would be,” Finn said. “You need to take care of yourself. Once you get her home, she’s going to be your patient.”
    “I don’t know if that’s going to be better or worse,” James said. “Don’t get me wrong, I want her home. I need her home. Although, truthfully, the doctors being so close is somehow comforting. It makes me not have to deal with things.”
    Grady nodded sympathetically. “In a few weeks things will be normal again.”
    “Will they? We still don’t know why the car exploded.”
    “That’s why we’re here,” Finn said. “There were cameras in the parking lot. This is going to tell us what happened.”
    “Maybe,” James said. “It might just be another mystery.”
    “We’ll tackle that if it becomes a problem,” Finn said, moving his arm to direct his brother toward the back of the lobby. “Let’s take it one step at a time.”
    When the brothers got to the security office, James wasn’t surprised to find a familiar face waiting for them. Clint, one of the courthouse’s fulltime security officers, was sitting behind a computer.
    James had only seen Clint once since he’d found the man in a pool of his own blood on the lobby floor. Despite growing up in the same small town with Mandy, James hadn’t reconnected with her until her stepbrother, Troy, started threatening her life. She’d come to Hardy Brothers Security out of necessity, and love had kept her from ever leaving.
    Of course, James hadn’t figured out who was trying to hurt her until it was almost too late – and by then his heart was already claimed. Before he’d managed to find her, James had discovered Clint’s body on the floor of the lobby – a victim of Troy’s misguided attempts to get rich.
    Mandy had taken James to the hospital to visit Clint in the days after he’d killed Troy in a protective rage, and Clint’s recovery had been long and arduous. Seeing him now filled James with guilt. The man had tried to protect Mandy, but James had never viewed him with anything but suspicion.
    Now, here he was, helping again.
    “Hey, Clint.”
    “Mr. Hardy,” Clint said stiffly. “I’m glad to see you. How is Mandy?”
    Clint had been harboring a crush on his girlfriend for years. James reminded himself that the man was not a threat, and forced a smile onto his face. “She’s going to be okay.”
    “I hear she’s really banged up.”
    “She’s going to take some time to recover.”
    “I’m just glad you were there.”
    James stilled. “I didn’t save her. The paramedics saved her.”
    Clint pointed at the computer screen he’d been watching. “You called her away from the car,” he said. “If you hadn’t, she would have gotten inside and then she would have been blown into bits.”
    The frown on James’ face was pronounced. “What do you mean?”
    “Look.”
    James watched the video, his heart thudding harder every time Clint replayed it. “I can’t believe she survived.”
    “She was lucky,” Clint said. “There’s something else.” He rewound the video for a long stretch, the small figures entering the courthouse zipping to and fro. He stopped at a certain point and then started the video again. “Watch.”
    James furrowed his eyebrows, the footage filling him with confusion. He saw Mandy pull into the parking lot and exit the vehicle. She was clearly angry, something that filled James with remorse. If they’d driven together, if he hadn’t been so selfish, none of this would have ever happened.
    After Mandy disappeared from the frame, Clint forwarded a few minutes and then returned the footage to normal