“We drive up to Smithers tomorrow.”
“You’ll come down for the wedding?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Neither would Jilly.” Claire reached forward and gave Angie a hug. Angie tensed, a knee-jerk reaction to unanticipated physical closeness, but she forced herself to relax, and she hugged Claire back tightly.
Claire looked directly into Angie’s eyes and said, “Thank you. For everything.”
Angie swallowed. Her eyes pricked. She nodded, suddenly unable to speak. But Claire’s words made her world feel right. They gave meaning to what she did for a living now. Angie felt as though she was finally on her true track, becoming the person she was meant to be.
Echo might be Claire’s new chapter. This was hers.
THE WEDDING
SATURDAY, APRIL27
The heavy cathedral doors opened, exposing Angie in her bridal gown, her arm hooked into the crook of her father’s. Her dad beamed from ear to ear with pride, and she could feel him shaking slightly from nerves. Or was that her?
The strains of the processional began inside the ancient cathedral. Spring sunlight filtered down through stained-glass windows up high, painting a soft rainbow of color over the wedding guests in the old wooden pews. At the far end of the aisle—in front of the altar, next to Father Simon in his white robe—stood Maddocks in full police uniform.
The sight of her man dressed like that punched Angie hard in the stomach and clean stole her breath.
“Let’s do this,” her father whispered.
Angie stepped into the church with her dad. As they came forward, the music swelled, rising to the steeples and echoing off the old stone walls. The choice of music was Ginny’s, a haunting arrangement Ginn had wanted to sing solo in theidioglossiain which it had been written—an idiosyncratic language invented and spoken by only one person or by very few. A private language. Like the “twin-speak” Angie had once shared with her little sister, Mila.
“It’s beautiful, spiritual, lyrical, and romantic,” Ginny had said. “And it sounds like ancient Latin. It would be a tribute to Mila, your other half, Angie, so your twin can be with you in spirit, too.”
Angie did feel that Mila was here with her now. That little ghost girl in pink who’d haunted her from within the deeply buried memories of her childhood, until Angie had dug out the truth, found Mila’s bones, and laid her properly to rest along with their mother. In much the same way Jilly Monaghan and Claire Tollet had been able to do with Jasmine Gulati’s bones.
Beside Maddocks and Father Simon stood the best man, Kjel Holgersen. In Holgersen’s hand was a red lead. At the other end of the lead sat three-legged Jack-O, sporting a red-and-white polka-dot bow tie.
Angie’s legs turned to rubber at the sight of them all. It swelled her heart to near bursting and made her falter in step. She could enter a crime scene with an armed gunman, she could fight off an attacker with a knife, she could deliver a solid Muay Thai kick, but this? She didn’t know how to do this. She didn’t know if she could make it all the way down that aisle in one piece. She clutched more tightly to her father’s arm, and he said gently, “Come on, Ange. We can do this.”
We.
She drew in a deep breath and continued forward slowly, step by step, keeping pace with the music.
Ginny separated herself from the choir. She looked resplendent in a shimmering golden dress. She began to sing, her solo voice rising in crescendo, reaching to the rafters in that mysterious, haunting language. Like an angel communicating directly to the heavens in the name of all that was love. Angie felt tears prick her eyes. She saw tears glistening in the eyes of all the guests as she passed them.
It amazed her that so many had come. Her old colleagues from the MVPD took up several pews. They stood proud in a sea of neatly pressed black uniforms. With them was pathologist Barb O’Hagan, who’d even donned a frock. Beside Barb was city coroner Charlie Alphonse in his best suit and tie. On the other side of the aisle stood Jock Brixton with Daniel Mayang and a bunch of staff from Coastal Investigations. She was one of them now.
Step by slow step, Angie continued down the aisle toward the man she loved. The man who’d shown her how to be unafraid. How to trust. How to love herself. Watched by these people who now made up her tribe, people who’d helped shape the past year of her life as she’d journeyed into her tumultuous past and come out with a future.
Her therapist and old mentor, Dr. Alex Strauss, was there, too. And so was murder victim Gracie Drummond’s mother.
In the second pew from the front, being supported by Claire Tollet on one side and Gudrun Reimer on the other, was Claire’s great-grandmother, Justice Jilly Monaghan. Claire was going to be okay. Angie believed that wholly now. She’d be okay because she was helping others.
Miriam Pallorino was seated next to the front pew in her wheelchair, dressed in mother-of-the-bride lilac. She was beaming, seemingly happy to be back in her beloved and familiar Catholic church, reembracing the faith that had once been so deeply rooted in her psyche.
Maddocks smiled as Angie and her dad reached them. It was a deep and pure smile, and it lit his dark-blue eyes, filling them with love, appreciation, and pride. That look of pride meant everything to Angie.
Her father took her hand and placed it into the strong hand of her homicide detective. Her Sergeant James Maddocks.
The music died, and the church fell silent.
Father Simon solemnly joined them in holy matrimony. They exchanged their vows. Then Father Simon said, “You may now kiss the bride.”
As Maddocks kissed Angie on the lips, the old pipe organ started up with the strains of “Ave Maria.” Joseph Pallorino wheeled his wife over to the choir and handed her a mike. Miriam took it with a trembling hand and began to sing the hymn in a startlingly clear mezzo-soprano, the choir joining her, their voices rising to the steeples of the ancient building, rippling a chill over Angie’s skin.
