Epilogue
Dash walked me to my front door.
He’d been quiet on the drive back from Charleston, which had suited me fine because I had nothing to say either. But the longer I stayed silent, the angrier I became. Something wasn’t right with Dash. I couldn’t keep pretending like it was nothing, or that his secrecy wasn’t weighing heavy on me.
Red flags were meant to be heeded, and I’d ignored them so long I’d let myself think I was in love with the man. But you couldn’t have love without trust and honesty.
He waited while I got my key out and unlocked the front door, and then he turned to look at me.
“You want to have dinner tonight?”
“No,” I said, making myself meet his gaze. “It’s been a long week and I’m tired. I think I just need a quiet weekend to rest and catch up on everything I let lapse at the shop.”
He studied me for a moment, trying to read something in my face that I wasn’t offering up. I kept my expression neutral and waited.
“All right,” he said finally. “You did a good job on this case. I know it wasn’t easy. Call me if you need anything.”
“I will,” I said.
He nodded, and didn’t try to kiss me goodbye.
I closed the door behind me and locked it, leaning back against it as tears pricked my eyes. Chowder came trotting out from the living room in his pajamas, his soaps still playing on the big screen, and he looked between me and the closed door with his head tilted.
“Not today,” I told him. “It’s just you and me.”
He leaned his body against my leg in his version of a hug and then went back to his bed and his soaps.
I walked straight to the kitchen, opened the last drawer in the counter, and took out the manila envelope that Bea had given me after the Pickering case.
It was thick. Heavier than I remembered.
I’d been determined not to open it. To give Dash the chance to tell me about whatever was inside.
But he’d had the chance, and I wasn’t going to wait any longer.
I slid my finger under the seal and pulled it open, and then I dumped it all out on the island. Out came newspaper clippings, printed articles, and photographs. I spread them out and looked down at the top page.
It was an old newspaper article from more than ten years past. A photograph took up the top half of it—a man in handcuffs being led away by two uniformed officers toward a waiting police vehicle.
He was younger in the photo, and his hair was longer and he had a scruff of beard.
But the jawline and his eyes were the same.
It was very clearly Dash in those handcuffs.
I read the caption underneath the photograph.
Drug lord Drew Langley arrested on felony drug charges.
I sat very still for a long moment.
Dashiell Beckett wasn’t who he said he was. This was a lot more than a lie by omission.
And I had no idea what I was going to do with the information now that I had it. All I knew was that the blinders had come off, and things could never go back as they were.