EPILOGUE
By the next afternoon, Robert Raven’s backyard had taken on the easy disorder of a family meal reaching its end. He was in his element now that Selena was around.
Paper plates sat in a loose stack on the patio table.
A bowl of coleslaw had gone watery at the bottom.
Tongs rested beside a foil tray with two burgers left cooling in the sun.
Smoke curled from the barbecue in thin gray threads while Robert stood beside it, one hand on the lid, pretending there was still important work to do.
Selena sat in a lawn chair with a glass of iced tea balanced on her knee.
Her head still hurt if she moved too quickly, and the dressing beneath her hair pulled whenever the breeze shifted it.
Blethan had told her to rest. Meg had told her the same thing over the phone that morning.
There had been no mention of Connor being at Morimer’s home.
But whether the FBI had surveillance of that or not, only time would tell.
Connor had stared at the bandage three times since arriving and managed not to comment, which counted as a minor miracle.
Arnold had commented twice.
The second time, Selena had threatened to put him on paperwork until retirement.
Now Arnold sat on the cooler, eating the last of the potato chips straight from the bag while Connor leaned against the porch railing.
The sheriff had traded uniform for jeans and a blue shirt.
Without the badge in plain view, he looked closer to the boy Robert kept pretending not to remember fondly.
Robert pointed at him with the barbecue tongs.
“I still don’t know what my daughter saw in you.”
Connor lifted his glass. “Charm.”
“Trouble,” Robert said. “That’s what it was.”
Arnold grinned. “I’d like details.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Connor said.
“I really would. Anything I could use in an argument against the Chief.”
“Now let me think,” Robert said with mischief in his eyes.
Selena looked at her father. “Dad, don’t encourage him.”
Robert ignored her with the confidence of a man standing in his own yard. “First time I found out Selena was dating him, I thought, not him. Not that little punk.”
Connor laughed. “I was never little.”
“You were through these eyes.” Robert turned to Arnold. “High school boy with too much hair, too much mouth, and a truck that sounded like it had been built from spare farm equipment.”
“It was a good truck,” Connor said.
“It was a public nuisance.”
Selena took a drink to hide her smile.
Robert kept going. “He used to pull up outside the house like the whole street needed to know he’d arrived. Engine coughing, music loud, one arm hanging out the window.”
“That part may be true,” Connor admitted.
“And there was the mayonnaise.”
Arnold sat forward. “The what?”
Selena groaned. “Please don’t.”
Robert’s eyes lit up. “Principal’s car. Covered from hood to trunk.”
Connor pointed at Selena. “No charges were ever filed.”
“Because no one could definitively prove it was you,” Selena said.
Arnold stared at him. “You covered a car in mayonnaise?”
“I was young.”
Robert snorted. “You were trouble.”
Connor accepted that with a tilt of his glass.
Robert’s expression softened. “But not so much now.”
The yard quieted for a moment around that.
Connor looked down at his drink. The past few days had left marks no change of clothes could hide.
Warren Holt. Victor Schmidt. Marlene running through the woods.
Renee Beaumont in handcuffs. Morimer’s estate and whatever private debt still hovered there, even if Connor kept saying unconvincingly that it would all work out.
Selena had not asked him again. To her, Morimer’s silence felt less like mercy than patience.
Today was not the day to figure out that mess.
Today belonged to sunlight, grilled meat, and her father smiling at people in his yard.
Arnold broke the pause by crumpling the empty chip bag. “Agent Raven, when will you be back next?”
Selena stared across the yard. The old maple near the fence threw moving shade across the grass.
As a child, she had tried to climb that tree and scraped both knees before getting two branches high.
Diane had laughed at her, then fetched bandages and told her not to cry so loudly or their mother would panic.
“I’m not sure,” Selena said. “But I hope it’s soon. I need to spend more time with my family.”
Connor looked over. “Getting tired of the big city?”
“No.” Selena set her glass on the table. “It’s just that Harlan’s starting to feel a bit like home again, if you discount the murders.”
Arnold raised both hands. “That goes on the tourism brochure.”
Robert chuckled. “Visit Elmsview. Stay for the barbecue. Leave before the homicide.”
Connor shook his head. “You people are terrible.”
“You’re one of us,” Arnold said.
“That’s why I know.”
The laughter came easily enough, but Selena felt the edge beneath it.
A county could laugh the day after catching a killer because it needed to.
By morning, people would be retelling the story.
Renee Beaumont would become a name spoken at counters, church steps, bar stools, and kitchen tables.
Warren and Victor would be mourned in uneven ways.
Bradley Atkins would live, though not necessarily in the same marriage.
Cases ended.
Damage took longer. Selena had seen that in Connor. It would be a long time before he could get through what happened to his friends. But she knew he had good people around him. And that had to count for something.
Selena checked her watch. “I’d better head off. I have to catch this flight in Knoxville.”
Robert’s smile dimmed, though he tried to cover it by turning toward the barbecue. “Already?”
“It’s a long drive, Dad.”
“I know,” he said with a disappointed look.
Selena stood. “Thank you for today.”
“Don’t thank me for feeding my own daughter.”
“I’m thanking you anyway.” Selena pointed at Arnold and Connor. “Make sure these two help clean up.”
Robert came around the table and pulled her into a hug. For a moment, Selena let herself rest there, cheek against his shoulder, one hand pressed to his back. He smelled of charcoal smoke, soap, and the same aftershave he had worn when she was young.
“I’m glad you came around,” he said quietly.
“So am I.”
When he let go, his eyes moved toward the side gate.
“Too bad,” he said. “I thought Diane might have turned up.”
Selena picked up her jacket from the chair. “It doesn’t matter.”
Robert gave her the kind of look that said he knew a lie when it stood in his yard.
“She’ll come around, too,” he said.
“Maybe.”
“She’s stubborn.”
“So am I.”
“That’s the problem. Two women in the same family who could dig their heels through concrete.”
Selena smiled, but the ache behind it remained. “I’ll call her.”
“Good.”
Arnold stood and brushed crumbs from his shirt. “Safe flight, Agent Raven.”
“Thanks, Arnold.”
“You’ll let us know how the big Washington people take the report? Please describe me as dashing.”
“They’ll read it, ask why every page isn’t half the length, then take credit for anything useful.”
Connor said, “Sounds about right.”
Selena shook Arnold's hand, then let him surprise her with an awkward half-hug. He stepped back quickly, red-faced.
“Sorry. Small-town thing.”
“I remember.”
Connor pushed away from the railing. “I’ll walk you down.”
Her car sat at the end of the driveway beneath a patch of shade. They crossed the yard side by side, passing the flower beds Robert kept better than Selena remembered. Bees moved over purple blooms near the fence. Somewhere inside the house, a clock chimed once.
At the driveway, Connor stopped with his hands in his pockets.
“Thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“Keeping me on a leash.” His mouth twisted. “I think I went mad there for a moment.”
“You had a rough few days.”
“That’s generous.”
“It is. Don’t get used to it.”
Connor looked toward the street. “I could’ve wrecked the case.”
“You almost did. Let’s just hope nothing more comes of Morimer and the FBI. You need to keep your head down.”
A short laugh left him. “Glad you’re being so magnanimous.”
Selena leaned against her car. “I suppose I should thank you, too.”
That brought his attention back. “What do you mean?”
“I was certain it was Marlene. I had motive, opportunity, a lie, and a head wound to prove she was desperate. You always knew it wasn’t her.”
“I knew Marlene. That isn’t the same as solving anything.”
“No, but you saw through something I didn’t.”
“Because I was too close.”
“Maybe. Or because you knew to trust your instincts.”
Connor considered that. “That almost sounded like praise.”
“It was praise.”
“I should mark the date.”
They stood in the sun-warmed quiet, the old awkwardness between them shifting into something less sharp. Not gone. Nothing that deep vanished because a case ended. But the shape of it had changed.
Selena held out her hand. “Congratulations on solving the case, Sheriff.”
Connor looked at her hand, then took it. His grip was warm, familiar in a way that hit harder than she expected.
“We solved it,” he said.
“Take the win, Connor.” She grinned. “Who knows how long it’ll be until the next one.”
Their hands remained joined a second too long.
Connor stepped forward slightly, not much, but enough for Selena to know what he was about to do. A hug, perhaps. Something careful. Something that would make leaving harder.
Selena drew her hand back. “I’d better go.”
Connor stopped at once and rubbed the back of his hair, nervously. “Yeah. Of course. Bye, Selena.”
“Bye, Connor.”
She opened the car door and slid behind the wheel. When the engine turned over, Connor stepped back onto the grass verge and lifted one hand.
Selena reversed down the drive.
Robert stood on the porch now. Arnold beside him. Connor is near the mailbox. Three figures in the mirror, all smaller with each yard she put between them and herself.
At the end of the road, she turned toward the highway.
Her phone rang before she reached the county line.
Meg Calloway’s name appeared on the display.
Selena answered on speaker. “Calloway.”
“Raven,” Meg said. “I read the preliminary.”
“That was fast.”
"A couple of slow days here for once. 'Excellent job,' I suppose, is in order?"
Selena smiled despite herself. “Try not to sound surprised.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m relieved. Rural partner agency, serial pattern, local history, political sensitivity if the earlier death gets reclassified. Plenty of room for disaster.”
“Thanks for listing the ways it could’ve gone wrong after it didn’t.”
“That’s what supervisors are for.”
The road opened ahead, flanked by fields turning gold under the afternoon sun. Selena loosened her grip on the wheel.
Meg said, “You know, there’s an opening down there for a more permanent position.”
Selena’s smile faded. “You trying to get rid of me?”
“No. You’d still be under my purview.”
“That sounded rehearsed.”
“It was.”
“Meg...”
“There’s a field position in Kentucky the Bureau needs filled.
Regional violent crime support, rural liaison work, coordination with county departments that don’t have the resources Washington likes to pretend everyone has.
It would cover Harlan and several surrounding counties. It’s yours if you want it.”
Selena laughed once. “By any chance did you know about this opening before you sent me down here?”
A brief pause followed.
“Maybe. I thought another trip might seal the deal.”
“That’s manipulative.”
“That’s management. I put people where they’re needed.”
The thought of no more Washington flashed through her mind. A life she had worked so hard to build.
"Boss, tell me," Selena started, "is my card marked by the higher-ups for good?"
“I… I don’t know, Selena. I hope not. But taking a move might help them forget about you long enough for their vindictiveness to settle down. Then you’d always be welcomed back by me.”
Selena passed the sign for Elmsview’s town limit. Beyond it, the road dipped through a line of trees before rising toward open country.
"I don't know," Selena said. "There's a lot of attachment here. Not all of it is good."
“Maybe you need that sort of anchor in your life.”
“An anchor can drown you.”
“It can also save you in a storm,” Meg’s tone softened by a degree. “Facing the past might be just what you need, Selena.”
A car approached from the opposite direction.
Selena noticed it before she knew why. Blue sedan. Familiar dent on the rear passenger door. Diane’s car.
For a second, the road narrowed around it.
As the sedan drew level, Selena lifted one hand from the wheel.
Diane looked straight ahead and drove past.
No wave. No turn of the head. No sign she had seen her sister at all.
Selena kept her hand raised a moment longer, then lowered it.
Meg said, “Selena?”
“I’m here.”
“You all right?”
The blue sedan disappeared in the rear-view mirror.
Selena looked back at the road ahead. Knoxville was waiting. Washington, D.C., after that. Reports, meetings, offices with too much glass, a life she had built because leaving Harlan County once felt like survival.
But Harlan remained behind her, not gone. Not finished. And it tugged at her heart.
“Send me the details then. I’ll take a look at the paperwork as soon as I get back,” Selena said, glints of Harlan County sunshine illuminating the road ahead.