Page 95 of Dead Drift

“I know you’re in a better place. I know you’re whole and happy and at peace, but I still miss you, Mo grá.” He hadn’t said the Irish phrase for my love out loud since Jenna’s death, but in his final good-bye, he thought it only fitting. Her killer was behind bars, and it was time to move forward fully with Avery, though doing so would never minimize what he and his grá had shared. Jenna had been his love and his treasure. And now she could rest in peace.

Parker stood and turned, shocked to find Griff leaning against his car alongside the road.

“Didn’t want to disturb you,” Griffin said, pushing off the car and striding toward him with his own bouquet of flowers. So he was saying good-bye too.

Parker stopped a few feet from him, unsure what to say. It seemed wrong to belittle the moment with speech.

“Thank you for loving my sister so much,” Griffin said.

Parker swallowed, hard, then nodded, praying more tears didn’t fall—not in front of Griff. “I’ll leave you to your good-bye.”

“It’s only good-bye for now.”

Parker nodded. “Until heaven.”

Griffin smiled softly—the love only a sibling could have welling in his eyes. “Until heaven.” He stepped past Parker, then paused and turned. “See you and Avery at CCI?”

“We’ll be there.”

“About time you put a ring on her finger, isn’t it?”

Parker inhaled. Griffin understood his love for Jenna was his past, but Avery was his future. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“See you in a few.”

Parker nodded.

The gang sat down with their Chinese takeout boxes around the coffee table in Kate’s office. It’d been an incredibly busy week, but it still hadn’t been distraction enough to keep Kate’s thoughts off Luke.

Where was he?

Had he left her again?

Would it be another seven years?

Fear trickled inside.

She tried to shake it off by distracting her thoughts, thinking back over all that had happened in the last week. Declan and Tanner’s work in Atlanta. Griffin and Finley finding Jenna’s killer. Finding and recovering Stacey Marsden’s body, the first victim, so she could finally be laid to rest by her family.

Hood would be going away for the rest of his life. According to Griffin, in an attempt to avoid the death penalty, he’d already admitted to all eleven murders.

Griffin was thrilled about being able to give a sliver of peace to their families—the knowledge that their daughter’s killer was finally behind bars. It’d been a long time coming, but he had a new measure of peace, and so did Parker. She could read it on them both.

“Katie, eat something,” Parker said.

She grabbed an egg roll and took a bite, then, unable to help herself, looked to the doorway again, only to find it dark and empty. She sighed.

“It’ll take time,” Declan said, either sensing her angst or catching her hundredth glance at the door. “Luke had to travel far to catch Ebeid.”

“Have you heard from him?”

“Not since he landed in Auckland.”

“Which means Ebeid could have killed him.”

“Or he’s got Ebeid in custody and is bringing him home.”

“Then why not call?”