Epilogue - Delilah
TWO YEARS LATER
The morning light filters through the workshop windows, casting long shadows across the wood shavings that cover the floor like golden snow. I run my hand along the grain of the dining table I've been restoring—a 1950s walnut piece that someone's grandmother left behind when she moved to assisted living. The wood remembers better times, family dinners, birthday celebrations, all the ordinary moments that make up a life worth living.
"Coffee's ready," Kent calls from the kitchen of our small house behind the workshop. His voice carries the easy contentment of someone who's finally stopped running from himself.
I set down my sandpaper and head inside, noting how naturally the name "Delilah Shepherd" sits on the mail stacked by the door. We've been the Shepherds for eighteen months now—long enough for the new identities to feel real, short enough that I still occasionally turn when someone calls me Lila.
Kent hands me a mug, and I catch sight of our reflection in the kitchen window. We look older, settled in ways that have nothing to do with age. There's a quiet strength in how we move around each other, the easy coordination of people who've learned to trust completely.
"Mrs. Henderson called about her hope chest," Kent says, settling beside me at the small table we built together last spring. "She wants to know if we can have it ready before her granddaughter's wedding."
"The marquetry work is almost finished," I reply, thinking of the intricate inlay pattern we've been painstakingly restoring. "Another week, maybe two if we want it perfect."
This is our life now. Restoring beautiful things that other people have damaged or discarded. There's poetry in it that Shaw would never have understood—the way broken objects can be made whole again, how careful attention and skilled hands can return something to its authentic beauty.
The local newspaper lies folded beside Kent's coffee cup, and I can see the headline about a corruption investigation that's finally reached some city officials three hundred miles away. Detective Rivas made the news six months ago when he uncovered a network of judges taking bribes to reduce sentences for violent offenders. The same network that Kent had identified years ago, the same predators he'd chosen not to hunt.
The system works sometimes, when people like Rivas refuse to give up. When it doesn't, there are people like us—though we've learned to be more selective about when and how we act.
"Any word from Nate?" I ask, though I already know the answer. Kent's foster brother checks in monthly with carefully coded messages that tell us which cases might require our particular kind of attention.
"A situation in Denver that might interest us," Kent says carefully. "But nothing urgent. Nothing that can't wait until we finish Mrs. Henderson's project."
We've learned patience. Shaw's greatest failure was her impatience—nine years of manipulation when she could have simply waited for us to find each other naturally. Love doesn't need to be manufactured or documented. It just needs to be recognized when it finally arrives.
The workshop phone rings, and I answer with our business greeting. "Shepherd Restorations, this is Delilah."
"Ms. Shepherd? This is Janet Walsh from the estate sale company. We have a piece I think you and your husband would be interested in—a Victorian writing desk that belonged to a local professor. The family says it has sentimental value, but there's some damage they'd like repaired before they decide whether to keep it or sell it."
"We'd be happy to take a look," I say, making notes about the appointment. "Would Thursday afternoon work?"
After I hang up, Kent raises an eyebrow. "Victorian writing desk from a professor?"
"Could be interesting," I agree, though we both know most of our work is exactly what it appears to be—furniture restoration for people who understand the value of preserving beautiful things.
But occasionally, we find ourselves working on pieces that belonged to people who used their positions of authority to cause harm. A judge's desk where bribes were counted. A principal's filing cabinet that held blackmail material. A therapist's bookshelf that concealed evidence of exploitation.
Those pieces require special attention. Sometimes they're restored and returned to families who never knew what their relative was capable of. Sometimes they're restored and anonymously donated to victims' advocacy groups. And sometimes, when the evidence we discover is compelling enough, those pieces help Detective Rivas and others like him build cases that the system can actually prosecute.
We've learned to work within existing structures when possible. It's more satisfying than Shaw ever understood—watching predators face consequences through legal channels,seeing justice served by people who took oaths to protect the innocent.
Of course, not every situation allows for legal resolution. Not every predator operates in ways that leave evidence for detectives like Rivas to find. Those cases require different solutions, and we've become very good at providing them.
But today is about Mrs. Henderson's hope chest, about restoring something beautiful for a young woman who's about to start her own family. Today is about the ordinary magic of taking something broken and making it whole again.
Kent's phone buzzes with a text message, and I can see Nate's name on the screen. The message is brief: "Shaw's research posthumously published. Academic community calling it groundbreaking but ethically questionable. You're famous in certain circles."
Kent shows me the message, and we both laugh. Shaw got her academic legacy after all—a controversial paper about dormant killers that's probably being debated in psychology departments across the country. The recording equipment in that kitchen documented everything, including her final moments and our immediate aftermath.
Let them debate. Let them theorize about environmental triggers and rehabilitation failures and the psychology of violence. Shaw's research captured the transformation she wanted to document, but she never understood what she was really observing.
She thought she was creating killers. What she actually documented was two people learning to love each other without reservation, accepting both the light and shadow in themselves and their partner. That's not pathology—that's the kind ofconnection most people spend their entire lives searching for without finding.
"Do you ever miss it?" Kent asks quietly, gesturing toward the newspaper with its stories of corruption and injustice. "The old life, the professional respect, the sense of contributing to official justice?"
"No," I answer without hesitation. "Dr. Lila North was a mask I wore because I thought it was what I was supposed to be. This is who I actually am."
