Epilogue
Emma
Coleman was tying his running shoes when I came out the front door. The air off the bay was cold enough that my breath was visible. Maybe when the sun came over the treeline, it would warm up.
I put my father’s dog tags over my head and tucked them under my shirt.
Coleman pulled Jake’s from his pocket. I took them from him, put them over his head, and tucked them under his collar. He covered my hand with his and held it there.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Let’s go.”
On our way into DC, I thought about how much had changed since the morning I found a fake bomb in my kitchen.
Derek Mansfield had pled guilty, cooperated fully with the DOJ to bring down what was left of Morrison’s organization, and received five years for tampering with classified documents and accepting payments from a foreign intelligence service.
Without his cooperation, he’d have faced more than twenty.
After Brad, Marlene, and Sean had also pleaded guilty, I testified at their sentencing hearings.
Brad received a reduced sentence after I took the stand and talked about what his uncle’s death had done to his family and how the money he’d redirected had been reaching veterans through real organizations.
Marlene received probation. Her husband had needed a specialist to monitor his brain injury, and the VA had lost his referrals three times. The judge listened as I explained how he’d died from a hemorrhage that an appointment with a specialist might’ve caught.
Sean received court-mandated counseling instead of prison. I’d told the judge that a twenty-two-year-old whose father was killed by the system and whose mother was facing federal charges had made terrible decisions out of terror, not malice. He deserved a chance to turn his life around.
I walked out of the courtroom and handed Naomi my resignation the following morning.
I’d spent my career tracking money inside a building three blocks from the Capitol.
What I wanted now was to make sure it reached the people it was supposed to reach.
I had experience with Congress, I understood how federal agencies worked from the inside, and I was willing to knock on every office door until veterans got the care they’d been promised.
The VA offered me a job during my second interview.
Naomi was confirmed by a full vote of the Senate, and Darla was promoted to her chief of staff the same week. Nobody who’d worked with her was surprised.
Astrid was interviewing for my old position. She was smart, organized, and thorough. She’d do well. Privately, I thought Darla would have been better suited for the job, but that wasn’t my decision anymore.
In the three years since Coleman bought the house on Chesapeake Bay, he’d done little to make it a home. That changed when I moved my stuff in.
My furniture was mixed with his, and my books filled the custom shelves he’d built in the living room. Photos of my parents sat next to pictures of Coleman and me together, as well as some of Jake.
My mother had overseen every detail of the townhouse renovation.
She’d replaced the cabinets and counters, laid real tile, and had the hardwood redone on the entire first floor.
When I told her I wasn’t moving back in, she asked if I’d mind her buying it.
She’d fallen in love with her own work, and I couldn’t blame her.
We had dinner together once a week, sometimes at our place on the bay, sometimes at the townhouse that was now hers, and other times, we’d meet at a restaurant.
Three nights ago, we’d invited her to our place because we had something important to tell her.
Coleman had proposed in the same place where he’d told me about Jake. He’d been quiet all morning, which I’d chalked up to the fact that he’d finally beaten me on the trail and was trying not to gloat.
When we returned from another run, he led me to the dock, got down on one knee, pulled a ring from the pocket of his running shorts, and said, “Marry me, Emma.” I said yes before he finished the sentence.
When my mom arrived for dinner, Coleman poured her a glass of wine and we sat down to eat. I made it halfway through the salad before I couldn’t stand it anymore and rested my left hand on the table.
My mother set her fork down, took my hand, then looked between Coleman and me.
“It’s about damn time,” she said.
Coleman laughed. My mother got out of her chair and hugged him first, which told me everything I needed to know about how she felt about the man I was going to marry.
Then she hugged me and whispered, “Your father would be so proud of you, Emma Grace.”
She spent the rest of the evening asking about the venue, the guest list, and whether we’d considered a Christmas wedding.
Last night, we’d had dinner with Gunner and Zary. It was another thing that had become a ritual.
Lia and Ollie had started calling me Auntie Em after Zary let them watch The Wizard of Oz, although Ollie told me very seriously that I was much nicer than Dorothy’s aunt, and Lia added that I was prettier too. Gunner had laughed so hard he’d choked on his water.
Since Brenna was on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy, I spent many of my lunch breaks hanging out at their place. Occasionally, Coleman and I would pick up dinner and take it over to her and Atticus. More than once, Luke had also been there.
The last time, Brenna had pulled me aside and told me that K19 Sentinel Cyber was working on something connected to Redpoint, the company Luke and his former partner, Trevor, had founded. She didn’t have the details yet, but the way she said it told me she was worried about her brother.
“We’re here,” said Coleman, pulling into the lot near the Pentagon where the Marine Corps Marathon started.
We’d picked up our bibs at the expo the day before, so all we had to do was check our bags and find our corral. The starting area was packed with runners, and the streets along the route were filled with kids and parents who stood beside men and women in uniform and waved flags.
We ran the last mile on the Mall, with the Capitol dome at our backs and the Lincoln Memorial ahead.
The finish line, at the Iwo Jima Memorial, was two hundred yards away when Coleman ran up beside me and laced his fingers through mine.
We crossed the finish line holding hands.