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"Home sounds good," I said, leaning into his side as he led me toward his truck. "Finn?" I called as we were on our way toward my townhouse.
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry I thought you were a serial killer."
"I'm the one who has a lot to be sorry about. But we can talk about that later."
"After you scrub my house?" I asked.
"I think I need to scrub you first," he said, shooting me a small smile.
I wasn't supposed to feel a flush over those words. Not after everything I'd been through. But there was no denying it either.
"I don't object to that," I said, reaching over to place a hand on his thigh. "Where's Yogurt?" I asked a moment later, as we drove up to my house.
"With your mom."
"My mom!" I shrieked, horrified that she might have to hear I was okay on the news.
"Quin will have already called her."
"Quin?"
"My boss," he clarified.
"The guy from the basement."
"Yeah. That was Quin. The other was Bellamy. And Rosie was the lawyer. They're good at this kind of thing. They will have called your mom. She will probably be on her way."
She was.
And by the time I was out of the shower, she was waiting for me with open arms. And a cup of coffee. Because moms always knew what you needed the most.
"I was told your man slammed that asshole's head into the wall so many times that the side of his head was caving in."
That was a visual.
"I got away first," I grumbled as she curled up with me and Yogurt on the couch while Finn cleaned the blood off. I figured it would take a while.
"Of course you did," she said, giving my knee a squeeze. "I never had any doubt. If there is one woman in this world who could escape a serial killer, it is my girl. But that is one hell of a man you have, huh?" she asked.
It was right then that I saw the man in question making his way down the stairs, hair still damp from the shower, with cuts and bruises on his hands. For me. Even after I'd tried to get him locked up for being a killer.
"Yes," I agreed, giving Finn a smile. "He's a hell of a man."
And he was all mine.
Crime Time with Poppy
"Hello, my beautiful, creepy people. This is Poppy—your friendly, local true crime peddler—and this is Crime Time with Poppy. And this is going to be my final update for a while.
"For those of you worried about me, I'm fine. I'm not going to elaborate on my case. That's not why I'm here.
"I'm here to give everyone closure on the Shelley Shannon case.
"Shelley's autopsy revealed she'd been bludgeoned with a bat. Luckily, if we can find any luck in a situation like this, the coroner concluded the first blow had been fatal. So Shelley didn't suffer. That is a comfort of sorts to her loved ones, and everyone who has been following this case, even if we had all hoped for a different conclusion.
"There have been a lot of developments in the previous few days. Investigators have hauled in a man by the name of Joseph Tyler Crosby, who happened to be a tenant of Shelley Shannon.
"Apparently, on the night before her disappearance, Shelley had gone to the property to confront Joseph Tyler Crosby for suspicious activity reported at the property. If you remember, Shelley's daughter recalled her mother coming home flustered that evening. At the time, she thought it was a date. Investigators have concluded she'd been out of sorts because of the confrontation she'd had with her tenant.
"Unfortunately for Shelley, Joseph Tyler Crosby was running a meth lab out of his rental home. He claims he believed she saw the equipment, and was going to go to the police.
"So this shithead—and I think we can all agree that is exactly what this man is, a shithead—decided he'd rather murder Shelley Shannon and hide her body than go to prison for his drug operation.
"It is a sad conclusion to a case that meant a lot to all of us, but at least justice is being served.
"Now that all my active cases are handled, I will be stepping away from the podcast and social media for a while. I don't know when, or if, I will be back. But until then, I am going to urge you all to go watch my girl Alex over on Alex is on the Case.
"I'll catch you all around."
Epilogue
Finn - 1 day
I'd never experienced the sensations of complete love and absolute frustration at the same time before.
That was what I'd felt, though, when I'd woken up to find Poppy not at my side like she'd been a few hours before.
She'd been through hell.
She needed to rest.
But what was this woman doing?
Updating her damn podcast.
It was shitty to say because Shelley's case deserved to be concluded, but Poppy's listeners didn't want to hear about that case; they wanted her first-hand account of what had happened instead. It was human nature.
