Epilogue
Linda Vista, San Diego, California
“The ramp is new,” Kit said as Sam pushed her wheelchair onto Alf Ashton’s front porch.
“I think they had it installed for you,” Sam said, dropping a kiss atop her head.
She twisted to stare up at him. “For me?”
“Alf can use crutches. You can’t, not with a wounded arm as well.”
“But…oh my God, Sam. That was so nice of them.”
She said it like she couldn’t believe anyone would treat her so well.
“People like you,” Sam said, amused.
She huffed. “Now I’m glad I brought cupcakes for dessert.”
They were having lunch with Alf Ashton and Kevin Marshall and their wives.
Alf said it was to celebrate Kit’s reinstatement and Sam knew that was partially true.
Apparently, however, Alf and Kevin had been bored out of their minds for the ten days they’d been on leave and their wives wanted to give them something to do.
The two detectives also had a surprise for Kit. A couple of surprises, actually.
Stacey Ashton met them at the door as she had once before. “Welcome!”
Kit held up the box of cupcakes. “My mother made them.”
Stacey took the box. “Now I finally get to sample the famous Betsy McKittrick baked goods. Follow me.”
Sam pushed the chair into the living room and grinned when Kit gasped. Connor Robinson was sitting on Alf’s couch, looking excited to see Kit, too. Connor struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on a cane, then walked to Kit’s chair and hugged her hard.
“You got shot again,” he muttered. “You promised me you wouldn’t do that.”
“Sorry.” She let him go and studied his face. “It wasn’t part of the plan. You look good, Connor.”
“So do you. And now I’ve got to sit down again. I promised CeCe that I wouldn’t overdo it.”
Sam pushed her closer to the others, who were waiting their turn.
“You just had to one-up us, didn’t you?” Marshall said dryly. “I got a bullet in the arm, Alf got one in the leg, and you had to go and get both.”
Alf harrumphed. “Show-off.”
“I missed you guys, too,” Kit said.
“How’s your father?” Leslie Marshall asked.
“Better. He’s at home, supposedly resting, but the house is filled with all the fosters coming to visit. Pop’s having a ball. Mom keeps looking at him with a haunted expression, though.”
“I can relate to that,” Stacey said.
“Same,” Leslie said.
“Same,” Sam echoed, sitting in an empty chair next to Kit. He hadn’t yet had a night without at least one nightmare about that hour in the warehouse.
“How’s Akiko?” Connor asked.
Kit sighed. “She’s okay. She’s grieving still. Paolo and the aunt she never got to meet.”
“Not her bio dad, though,” Connor said.
“No.” Kit shuddered. “Kenzo was a terrible person. They were all terrible people—Kenzo, Joe, and Bob. I hate that Ito lied to her all her life, but I have to be grateful that he kept her out of that den of vipers. I think Akiko is, too, but her relationship with Ito will never be the same. Ito will recover physically, but Akiko will have trouble trusting him again. On the bright side, she’s got two cousins she didn’t know about before.
The three of them have already had lunch three times. ”
DNA testing had confirmed that Mary was Ito’s biological daughter, so once the threat was over, the Sherman twins had made the trip to LA to greet Ito not as their sensei, but as their grandfather.
“Are your parents still in town, Sam?” Connor asked.
“They are. They were staying at McKittrick House to make sure the girls got to school while Betsy was in LA. Harlan’s back home now, so Mom and Dad are back in their condo. We’re going to their place for dinner tonight.”
“We’re ordering takeout,” Kit said with a laugh. “Sam’s mom is a worse cook than me.”
Sam had to smile. After she’d gotten over her nerves, Kit and his parents had gotten along beautifully. It was a huge relief to have everything going so well.
An even bigger relief was that he could watch over Kit from the comfort of his own condo. She couldn’t make it up the stairs at McKittrick House and neither could Harlan, who had taken the sofa.
For the past two nights, Sam had fallen asleep with Kit in his arms. So when he had those nightmares and woke up with a start, his heart pounding, he could tighten his hold on his detective and go back to sleep, knowing that she was safe.
Their arrangement wasn’t permanent, of course. She’d soon be able to take the stairs at McKittrick House again. But for now, he was grateful.
“Well, we have a surprise for you,” Ashton announced. “Office gossip.”
“More than gossip,” Marshall said. “Documented as true.”
Kit straightened in the chair. “Tell me.”
“West got fired!” the two men sang together.
Kit fist-pumped the air. “Yes!” She reached over and high-fived Connor. “Did they walk him out and everything?”
“He’s lucky that they’re not pressing charges,” Connor said. “He was selling information to Tamsin Fucking Kavanaugh. Navarro’s going to tell you this afternoon when you meet with him, so you have to pretend to be surprised.”
Kit practiced her surprised face.
Connor winced. “That was…not good, Kit. In fact, that was terrible. Just tell Navarro that Baz told you.”
Kit laughed. “You want me to throw poor Baz under the bus?”
“Yes,” Sam said.
Kit laughed again and Sam’s heart swelled in his chest. He wanted to hear her laugh every day forever.
“We invited Baz to come today,” Stacey said, “but he said his wife was coming home from her cruise. He’s picking her up at the port in LA.”
“I have a feeling he’s going to have some explaining to do,” Kit said ruefully, “but he was never in much danger.”
“He was with you when you got shot at the second time,” Sam pointed out.
“But not the first or the third,” Kit said.
Sam shook his head. “Too soon. Way too soon.”
She smiled at him. “Sorry. Did you ask Lennox if she wanted to join us?”
Sam was surprised. “Really? I thought you didn’t trust her after she wouldn’t let you go with her and the LAPD guys that night.”
“Well, I was mad in the moment, but it worked out in the end. Except for them nearly getting killed, of course. Burroughs and Lennox escaped the wreck with a few broken bones, but they’ll be okay. Desoto is going to make it, but he’ll probably have to retire early.”
There was quiet around the room for a long moment.
“But it did work out in the end,” Connor said soberly. “If you’d gone with them, you wouldn’t have found Akiko in time.”
“I know. I think about that a lot. But we did find her, Sam and I. And she’s healthy. Sad for now, but she’s on the right side of the grass, so I’m just going to be grateful. Anyway, Lennox is a good cop. We should invite her next time.”
The other detectives nodded, and Sam could see that they understood that when Kit said there would be a “next time” for socializing it was a big deal. He liked these guys. They were good for Kit.
“Well, lunch is ready,” Stacey said. “Let’s eat and toast Kit and Sam solving this case.”
Alf reached for his wife’s hand. “And for bringing down a mafia operation. We can’t forget about that.”
Because they had brought down a mafia operation.
Or at least they’d started the ball rolling.
Brewer had gotten a warrant for all the Takahashi warehouses and had hit the jackpot.
The warehouse where Kit, Sam, and Akiko had nearly lost their lives had been filled with hotel supplies—paper towels and toilet paper.
But mixed among those boxes were guns. Crates and crates of guns.
Ammo, too. The key players in the corporation were dead, but there was a whole slew of people who were alive and in big trouble with the ATF.
Second-in-command all the way down to the runners.
Sam waited until the others had moved to the dining room before leaning in to kiss Kit’s smiling mouth. It was mostly sweet but a little rough, and Kit hummed into it as she gripped the back of his neck and pulled him closer.
Mine. You’re mine.
But he’d hold the words a little longer. He pulled back, then brushed his lips over hers once more. “That was nice, asking them to include Lennox.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?” he whispered back.
“Not giving up on me.”
“Not gonna happen.” Tenderly, he brushed her hair off her face. She was wearing it down today. He loved seeing her relaxed.
He loved seeing her intense, too.
He just loved seeing her.
He just…loved her.
“Let’s eat,” he blurted out before he could say the words that wanted to escape. “We need to have lunch.”
She met his eyes, hers warm and honest. “And dinner. And breakfast, too.”
For how long, he wanted to ask, but he didn’t. It was enough that she was making plans for them. Even if it was just food. Making plans of any kind was a big step for Kit.
“Kit!” Connor called. “Hurry up. We’re waiting for you.”
She looked away, the moment broken, and Sam wanted to hit Connor on the head with his own cane. But he didn’t, pushing Kit into the dining room instead.
For now, lunch. The rest would come.
Linda Vista, San Diego, California
Wednesday, February 8, 12:30 p.m.
Kit took Sam’s hand under the Ashtons’ dining room table. She was happy. They’d had good food with good friends and Detective West had been shown the door.
Akiko was alive and so was Harlan.
Anson was recovered except for a cough and was in the process of rebuilding his house. The fire damage wasn’t that severe, thanks to the sprinklers he’d installed. Most of the damage was from the smoke.
Her family was okay.
Sam was okay.
Sam was better than okay, actually. Sam was wonderful, and everything with him was going so well. He’d held her tenderly for the last few nights. A little too tenderly. She kind of hoped he’d try something, but she knew he was waiting for her to give the go-ahead.
She’d been thinking about doing so. A lot. Waking up in Sam’s arms had been the best start to her days. She didn’t want to think about the time in the future when she wouldn’t need to stay with him. She didn’t want to leave and that was…scary. But that was a problem for next week or the week after.
For now, in this moment, she was happy.
Lunch was finished, her mother’s cupcakes had been devoured, and a comfortable silence had fallen around the table.
And then Marshall cleared his throat. Kit’s gaze flew to his and she was instantly tense. Marshall looked like he wanted to say something. No, like he needed to say something, but it was making him uncomfortable.
Ashton had also become grim, and the two partners stared at each other, having some kind of a silent conversation.
Kit glanced at Sam first, then Connor. Both looked as clueless as she felt. “Kevin? Alf?”
Marshall seemed to brace himself. “We have one more piece of news. We still have remote access to the computers at the office. So, while you were up in LA working Akiko’s case, we were watching security footage.”
“What kind of footage?” Kit asked, but she thought she knew. Her stomach did a slow greasy slide, and she had to breathe through a sense of panic.
“Footage from the bus station locker room,” Marshall said.
He was talking about her sister’s murder case that had gone cold for seventeen years. A name in the notebook of a killer who’d blackmailed other killers was the closest they’d come to a lead in all that time. The name of someone who’d thrown his unnamed fifteen-year-old victim in a dumpster.
Just like Wren had been.
Except the name of the killer was John Smith, which hadn’t been helpful at all.
Kit tried to breathe, but no air was filling her lungs. “What did you find?”
Ashton took up their story. “The blackmailer’s list provides the name of the blackmailee and the date, place, and time where they were to drop off their payments. The places included the bus station, the train station, sometimes lockers at the gym.”
“I know all this,” Kit gritted out. “Please, guys. What did you find?”
“We were able to match the name on the dead man’s list to a time for a money drop-off at the bus station,” Ashton said. “We found him on the security tape and traced him back to the vehicle he arrived in. But there’s a problem.”
Sam squeezed her hand hard. “Breathe, Kit. I’m right here.”
She inhaled raggedly, clutching Sam’s hand like a lifeline. “What is the problem?”
“The person who dropped off the blackmail payment was a child, barely tall enough to reach the locker. They left the bus station and got into the back seat of a black minivan. The license plate had been reported stolen. But we have a clear picture of the child’s face.
If we can find the child, we may be able to find the adult driving the van. ”
“Which could lead us to the man who threw a fifteen-year-old girl into a dumpster,” Kit whispered. She looked up at Sam, her eyes burning. “Do you think…?”
Sam wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple. “We won’t know until we investigate. But we will investigate. You have my word.”
“Ours, too,” Ashton said. “We’re with you, Kit.”
“We’ve got your back,” Marshall said.
“All of us,” Connor added grimly.
Her heart was pounding so hard that her head spun. Finally. After seventeen years, she was going to catch the bastard who’d killed her sister. She’d get justice for Wren.
She met the gaze of each of her colleagues, ending with Sam. His green eyes were steadfast, determined. Filled with that emotion she was still too afraid to name.
“When do we start?” she asked.
“Today,” Sam said. “We start today.”