Epilogue
Three Months Later
Isit beside Professor Bennett at the front of a packed lecture hall, a microphone in my hand.
Torin is near the back, looking unfairly good in a black shirt and dark jeans.
Every now and then, I catch sight of him between the rows of faces, and each time, I feel a little less nervous.
We’ve been taking questions for almost twenty minutes, and hands are still going up across the room.
The moderator points to a woman a few rows back, and one of the student volunteers carries a microphone over to her.
“Do you think you would have uncovered the full story if your father hadn’t tried to stop you?”
“No.”
I don’t have to think about it.
“I would have published. I had enough by then. I’d found connections between East Ridge and several missing women and suspicious deaths, and I had evidence that reports had been altered and other evidence buried by the sheriff’s department.”
I shift the microphone in my hand.
“But there were things I couldn’t get to. Police records I knew existed but couldn’t access. Evidence that had supposedly been lost. Witness statements that contradicted the official reports. Cases that had been closed before anyone asked some very obvious questions.”
The woman nods. “So, what changed?”
“My father got arrested.”
A few people laugh.
“Once he was no longer in a position to control what happened inside his own department, investigators could start going back through those cases properly.”
I glance at Professor Bennett. He’s wearing the same battered jacket I remember from a hundred meetings in his office.
“They found records I’d never seen,” I continue. “They recovered evidence that should have been examined years ago. Cases were reopened. And some of the connections I’d suspected turned out to go much further than I knew.”
“So, in trying to stop you, your father made the investigation bigger?”
“Much bigger.”
The microphone moves to a man farther along the row.
“How many of the cases you originally identified have now been reopened?”
“Seven.”
That number still gets me.
“Three missing-person cases and four deaths that had originally been ruled accidental or inconclusive.”
“And have any of them been solved?”
“Two.”
The room quiets.
I don’t give names. Both families have already had enough strangers picking over the worst things that ever happened to them.
“In one case, investigators were able to establish that a woman whose death had been treated as an accident had been at East Ridge that night. There was evidence in the original file that should have led them there years ago.”
I take a sip of water.
“It didn’t.”
“And the other?”
“A woman who’d been missing for six years.”
Even after all the months I’ve spent working on this, that sentence is difficult.
“They found her remains.”
The room is silent.
“Information uncovered during the investigation led police to her remains. There’s now an active homicide investigation, so there’s very little I can say about that case.”
The microphone moves on.
The moderator chooses a student near the aisle.
“Was it difficult to write about your father after what happened?”
“Yes.”
There are a hundred complicated answers I could give her.
“But writing about him wasn’t the hardest part.”
“What was?”
“Writing about myself.”
I’d spent months asking other people to tell me about terrible things that had happened to them. Then I had information that belonged in the investigation, and I was the source.
“My father hadn’t just interfered with old cases. When his own daughter got too close to what he’d been doing, he used the same power against me.”
“What made you decide to include it?”
“Because leaving it out would have made the investigation less truthful. And because what he did to me showed exactly how far he was prepared to go to keep the rest of it hidden.”
The moderator looks at the clock.
“We have time for one last question.”
Hands go up across the room.
At the back, Torin playfully lifts a hand. The little mark on my shoulder buzzes. I try hard not to grin at him.
The moderator points to a woman near the front, and a volunteer takes her the microphone.
“What are you working on next?”
“A residential treatment center in Colorado. It closed eighteen months ago after operating for nearly twenty years. I’m looking at allegations from former patients about what happened there, and why complaints to regulators repeatedly went nowhere.”
“How far along are you?”
“Early. I’ve been interviewing people for the past few weeks, and there are still a lot of records I’m trying to get hold of.”
The moderator thanks everyone and brings the event to a close.
Applause fills the lecture hall. People begin getting to their feet, filling the aisles and reaching for bags and coats.
Torin stays where he is, waiting for me.
Professor Bennett turns to me.
“You handled that well, my dear.”
“I was terrified for the first five minutes.”
“It didn’t show.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I look out over the lecture hall. A couple of students have stopped near the front, waiting for me.
“I enjoyed it,” I admit.
He smiles. “I could tell.”
I turn back to him. “Thank you, Professor Bennett.”
“For taking me seriously. For teaching me how to do this. For telling me to keep digging when it would have been much easier not to.”
I smile. “And for the cabin. Obviously.”
“That one turned out to be more useful than I anticipated.”
I laugh and hug him. “Seriously. Thank you.”
“You did the work, Hannah.”
“I know. But you helped me get here.”
Bennett gives my arm a squeeze. “Go on. You have people waiting.”
I turn to the first student. One asks how I get frightened sources to trust me enough to talk. The next wants to know how I knew when I had enough evidence to publish. Another asks whether I ever considered abandoning the investigation.
By the time I’ve answered the last question, most of the lecture hall has emptied.
Torin is still waiting for me.
I make my way over to him.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You looked good up there,” he says.
“Good?”
“Very good.”
I smile. “I liked it.”
“I thought so.”
“I was going to tell you about Colorado tonight.”
His eyebrows lift. “You can tell me now.”
“You want to hear about regulatory failures at a residential treatment center right now?”
“I want to hear about whatever you’re excited about.”
I take his hand.
“Okay. But you might regret saying that.”
“I won’t.”
“You haven’t heard how excited I can get about badly maintained public records.”
“Hannah.” He squeezes my hand. “I told you I wanted to know everything about you.”
“I remember.”
“I meant it.”
We start toward the doors.
“I’ve heard you talk about your work plenty,” he says. “I’ve never seen you with a room full of people who want to hear about it.”
By the time we reach the truck, I’m starving.
“Please tell me we’re getting food before we drive home.”
“Gunnar booked us a table downtown. Alexandria and Orson are meeting us there.”
“They came all this way?”
“They wanted to celebrate with you.”
I spot Alexandria first, sitting in a curved booth near the back in a dark green dress that skims over her now very obvious bump. Gunnar is beside her, and Orson has somehow been persuaded into a collared shirt.
Alexandria gets up as we reach the table and wraps her arms around me.
“You were amazing.”
I hug her back. “You watched?”
“All of it. The university streamed it.”
Orson shrugs. “You were good.”
“Thank you.”
“You talk faster when you’re annoyed.”
Alexandria laughs.
“I wasn’t annoyed.”
“You were when that guy asked if you thought you were too personally involved to be objective.”
Okay. Maybe I was a little annoyed.
“He deserved it,” Orson says.
Gunnar lifts his glass. “He did.”
Torin sits beside me, his thigh warm against mine beneath the table.
A waiter appears with a bottle of champagne and five glasses.
I look around the table. “You really went all out.”
Alexandria gives me a look. “Hannah, your investigation got seven cases reopened, your article is being talked about everywhere, and you just spoke to a packed lecture hall. We’re having champagne.”
The waiter fills four glasses, then pours sparkling water for Alexandria.
Torin picks up his glass.
“To Hannah.”
The others reach for theirs.
“For asking questions people didn’t want answered. For refusing to look away when you found the answers. And for finishing what you started, even after everything they did to stop you.”
My throat tightens.
He raises his glass.
“I’m so proud of you, baby.”
For a moment, I can’t say anything.
Alexandria lifts her glass. “To Hannah.”
Gunnar and Orson join her, and I lift mine.
“To Hannah.”
I take a sip of champagne.
“That was quite a toast.”
“I meant every word.”
I lean over and kiss him.
It’s supposed to be quick, but his hand comes up to the back of my neck and keeps me there for another moment.
When I sit back, Orson is already rifling through the menu.
“Are we gonna eat now?”
Gunnar looks at him. “What did we say about manners?”
He frowns. “To be considerate of other people.”
“Right.”
Orson clears his throat. “Can I please order now?”
Gunnar sighs and I laugh.
The first plates arrive soon after, followed by several more until we have to start rearranging glasses to make room. Alexandria insists I try something she ordered, and by the time the main courses arrive, I’m feeling very relaxed.
We talk about the university and the people I met afterward. Alexandria tells me she’d forgotten how uncomfortable restaurant chairs become when you have a belly the size of hers. Orson eats an astonishing amount of food. Gunnar orders another bottle of wine.
At some point, Alexandria goes quiet in the middle of a sentence and puts her hand against her stomach.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. He’s been kicking all evening.”
“He?”
She smiles. “Apparently.”
I look at Gunnar. “You found out?”
“Just today!”
Alexandria takes my hand and puts it against the side of her belly.
For several seconds, there’s nothing.
Then I feel it—a small hard movement beneath the fabric of her dress. An absurd rush of delight goes through me.
“Wow.”
“He does that whenever I’m trying to sleep.”
Gunnar reaches over and lays his hand beside mine.
“He likes me.”
“He kicks you,” Alexandria says.
“Exactly.”
I laugh and sit back.
Torin is watching me. His mouth curves, and I know exactly what he’s thinking.
Heat creeps into my cheeks.
He wants to impregnate me.
The thought should probably be alarming.
It isn’t.
Across the table, Alexandria is telling Orson something about the baby shower, and Gunnar is trying to convince her that thirty people is not a small gathering.
I take a drink of champagne and try not to think about Torin putting a baby in me.
I fail.
By the time we leave the restaurant, it’s nearly eleven.
We say goodnight on the sidewalk, and I watch them head off before Torin and I walk back to his truck.
An hour later, the city is far behind us.
The road winds upward through the mountains, the headlights sweeping across rock and pine. I tuck my feet beneath me, still warm from champagne and good food and a day I’m not quite ready to let go of.
Torin glances across at me. “Happy?”
“Very.”
The lodge is quiet when we get home. I kick off my shoes by the door and turn to Torin.
He’s smiling.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
I narrow my eyes. “You spent half of dinner thinking about getting me pregnant.”
“Half?”
I laugh.
He comes closer and puts his hands around my waist. “You want that?” he asks.
“Yeah. I do.”
His smile disappears.
“Not yet,” I say.
“I know.”
“But one day soon.”
“Soon.”
I slip my arms around his neck. “I want a family with you, Torin.”
His arms tighten around me. “I want everything with you.”
I kiss him.
For a while, neither of us seems particularly interested in going anywhere.
Eventually, I take his hand.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“Bed.”
He grins and follows me.
THE END