Epilogue
Flathead Lake
Six months later
The canoe didn't have a hole in it.
Mack had checked. Twice.
This canoe was new. Fiberglass, no rust, no dents, no mysterious puncture in the hull. He'd bought it three weeks ago from a shop in Kalispell and strapped it to the roof of the truck himself while CB stood in the driveway and offered commentary on his knot work.
"You tie knots like a man who's been out of the field too long," CB had said, arms crossed, the particular brand of deadpan that made it impossible to tell if he was joking.
"I tie knots like a man who's been doing it since you were in middle school."
"That's what I said. Too long."
Mack had liked him immediately, which was rare. He was picky about his team—Garrett knew it, accepted it, and had given Mack the latitude to build his unit at his own pace. So far, it was just the two of them.
CB had been Mack's first and only recruit.
They'd completed their first assignment together in April—a protection detail for a federal judge receiving death threats in Boise.
Clean, professional, no complications. They'd worked together like they'd been doing it for years, which was the highest compliment Mack could pay another operator.
He'd find more people eventually—the right people. But for now, two was enough.
The lake was glass, the water still cold, but the air warm enough that Alyssa had rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and tipped her face toward the sun with the expression of a woman who had been working too hard for too many weeks and was only now remembering that the world contained things like sunlight and silence.
She sat in the bow of the canoe, her sketchbook closed in her lap for once, her hair loose around her shoulders. The ring caught the light every time she moved her hand.
He still noticed it—every time. Six months of that ring back on her finger, and the sight of it still did something to his chest.
He paddled them out to the center of the lake and shipped the oar. The canoe drifted, slow and aimless, and the mountains reflected in the water around them like a painting.
"This is kidnapping," she said. Her eyes were closed. She didn't sound upset about it.
He was relieved she could use the word without it triggering bad memories. “This is an intervention."
"I have seventy-three RSVPs to confirm by Monday. The caterer needs a final headcount. Your mother called about the seating chart. And I still haven't decided on the centerpieces because apparently there's a national shortage of peonies and—"
"Lyssa."
"—the florist suggested ranunculus as a substitute, which are beautiful, but Jenna always said peonies were the only acceptable wedding flower, and I want to honor that, so—"
"Lyssa."
She opened one eye. "What?"
"The wedding is in three weeks. The RSVPs will get confirmed. The caterer will survive. And my mother has been rearranging seating charts since 1987. She doesn't need your help."
"She asked for my help."
"She asked for your opinion so she could ignore it and do what she was going to do anyway. That's how she operates."
Both eyes were open now. The corner of her mouth twitched. "Are you comparing your mother's approach to seating arrangements to your mission planning?"
"The similarities are striking."
She laughed. The sound carried across the water, bright and clean, and a bird startled from the shoreline and winged out over the lake.
He watched it go and thought about the man he'd been six months ago—standing in a road with blood on his face, watching her disappear around a curve, certain the world was ending.
The world hadn't ended. It had just rearranged itself. "Your dad called this morning," he said.
She sat up straighter. "About?"
"He wants to know if I want him to wear his dress uniform to the wedding."
She stared at him. "My father called you—voluntarily—to discuss wardrobe."
"He did."
"The man who spent two years pretending you didn't exist is now consulting you about clothing choices for our wedding."
"In fairness, it was a short conversation. He said, 'Uniform or suit.' I said, 'Your call, sir.' He said, 'Uniform, then.' And hung up."
"That's...actually a lot of words for my father."
“Six, if you include the greeting, which bordered on a grunt.”
She was laughing again, shaking her head, and the canoe rocked gently with the movement. Her sketchbook slid, and she caught it. He saw the edge of a drawing peeking from between the pages—not a face, but a dress. A bridesmaid's dress, sketched in soft charcoal, with Jenna written underneath.
She saw him spot it. Her smile shifted—still warm, but with tenderness. She’d moved through grief and come out the other side into a place that held both the loss and the love without needing to choose between them.
"The honorary bridesmaid dress," she said. "It'll be displayed at the ceremony, next to her photo." She paused. "Her mom helped me pick the color. Jenna would have wanted yellow, but Margaret talked me into sage green because, and I quote, 'Jenna's taste in colors was her only flaw.'"
Mack smiled. He'd never met Jenna, but he knew her through Alyssa's sketches and stories, and he thought Margaret Lopez was probably right.
"It's going to be a good wedding," Alyssa said. She said it as if she were reminding herself. Like the goodness of it still surprised her sometimes. A wedding. A home. A career. A life that belonged to them and not to the crisis that had brought them back together.
"It is," he agreed.
"Even if I never find peonies."
"Even then."
She leaned back in the bow, arms behind her head, face turned up to the sky. The canoe drifted. The lake held them.
The Board for Correction of Military Records had reviewed his case in March after Blake's confession and the supporting documentation from the FBI investigation.
The hearing had taken less than an hour.
His administrative separation had been vacated, his record corrected, and his service characterization upgraded to honorable.
He'd sat in a conference room in Arlington and listened to a three-star general say the words "administrative error" and "corrective action" and felt almost nothing.
That wasn't true. He'd felt something, just not what he'd expected.
He'd expected vindication. Triumph. The satisfaction of being proven right. Instead, what he'd felt was closer to relief. He could finally stop carrying that weight.
Garrett had offered him the team lead the same week. Not because of the cleared record—Garrett had never cared about the discharge, but the timing felt right. Mack was ready. He had something he hadn't had six months ago—a reason to come home at the end of every assignment.
Alyssa Bennet, lying in the bow of a canoe on Flathead Lake, worrying about peonies and seating charts and caterer headcounts.
She'd started the Billings position in February.
Two months in, she'd already cleared a backlog of cold case composites that had been sitting in the field office for eighteen months.
The agents loved her. Not just because she was good—she was exceptional, and everyone who worked with her knew it within a day—but because she listened.
She sat with witnesses patiently, without rushing, giving people the space to remember details they didn't know they'd stored.
Her composites had already contributed to two identifications.
She was building a reputation, case by case, sketch by sketch.
She was also learning software programs to create digital sketches.
He was so proud of her that sometimes he didn't have words for it, which was fine.
He'd never been good with words. He was better with actions.
With showing up. With sitting with her while she cried.
With buying a canoe that didn't leak, driving her to a lake, and making her put the phone down for one afternoon.
"Mack?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for kidnapping me."
"Anytime."
She smiled, eyes still closed, sun on her face.
And him? He was in a canoe that didn't leak, on a lake that reflected the mountains, with a wedding three weeks out, a team to build, and a clean record.
He had a woman who loved him and a future that looked nothing like anything he'd planned and exactly like everything he wanted.
He leaned back against the stern. Let the canoe drift. Let the sun do its work. Let the silence stretch between them like something solid and warm and theirs.
The lake rippled. The mountains watched. Alyssa shifted to tuck herself in next to him.
And finally, Mack Callan closed his eyes and stopped keeping watch.