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She had only been here once. She’d been too hurt ... too angry to come back.
Her father had picked the cemetery and made all the arrangements. Finley had been in no condition to make those decisions. When she was released from the hospital, her father had brought her here, and then she’d started her physical rehab and never returned.
The agent Derrick had told her about, Langford, had provided Finley with Derrick’s personal information. Derrick Reed was his real name. He’d grown up in Mobile. He had no immediate family. His parents had died when he was a kid. A lot of what he’d told her was true. Somehow that made her happy. She liked that he’d shared his real self with her.
Knowing the truth—knowing that what they had shared was real—meant the world to her.
With a big bolstering breath, she climbed out of her car and headed for the cemetery gate.
Dempsey had been picked up and questioned. The goal was to find a way to hold him until the evidence could be sorted out. The fear was that if given the opportunity, he would disappear. His bank accounts had been frozen, his passport seized, but passports could be bought on the black market.
A few minutes ago Detective Ventura had called to say there was news in his investigation. Lena Marsh, a.k.a. Mina Arnette, had been arrested for another murder in Grand Cayman. Jessica Lauder had been with her and was now under investigation for fraud by one of the major banks there.
Sounded as if Winthrop had come through and ensured all the loose ends were tied up. Finley wasn’t surprised. Her respect for the woman grew a little more.
Finley planned to take some time now to decide what came next. For the past fourteen months she had been fighting an uphill battle to find the truth about Derrick. Now it was time to let herself really grieve his death. She had some healing to do for sure. She also had some catching up to do with her father. There were a lot of things she had put off for far too long.
But she wasn’t going to wait long before making other decisions. Career decisions. As much as she loved working with Jack, she did want to do something more ... something that would make a real difference. She wasn’t entirely sure what that would look like, but she was toying with Matt and Jack’s idea of running for the office of Davidson County district attorney. She wasn’t perfect and certainly not innocent, but she knew how to ferret out the truth beyond and among secrets and lies maybe better than anyone. Being squeaky clean wasn’t a requirement of the position. She just needed to do the job without bias and without the possibility of being bought.
Finley wasn’t for sale in any capacity.
She found Derrick’s grave. The headstone surprised her. She hadn’t seen it. She vaguely remembered her father mentioning that it had arrived. He’d ordered it. Black granite. Simple but elegant.
Perfect.
She sat down on the ground and plucked an overgrown sprig of grass away from the headstone.
“Sorry it took me so long to come back.” She’d always thought talking out loud to a dead person was dumb, but here she was. “I watched the video. Langford has all the evidence you collected. Dempsey is in deep shit.” She laughed every time she said the words. The idea made her immensely happy. “Just so you know, the others—the ones who camethatnight—got theirs. And the bastard who gave you up, former agent Wayne Bates, is under investigation. He retired right after you ... died. But he’s not going to get away with what he did. I’ll make sure.”
She pulled her knees up and propped her chin there. “Matt and Jack helped me paint the inside of the house. Jack is there today starting the exterior painting. The Judge thinks I’m crazy for staying, and maybe I am. But I couldn’t go until this was done. I needed to be close to you. Now I just want to stay. It’s wherewewere, and I don’t want to leave. Not yet anyway.”
Her neighbors, particularly Helen Roberts, had gone above and beyond. How could she leave such a great neighborhood?
Then she told him her potential career plan. She talked it out at length, mostly for her own benefit. By the time she was ready to go, she had cried some more and laughed plenty.
She dusted off her jeans and said her goodbyes. When she made it to the gate, the Judge’s car was waiting next to hers.
“Did you like the headstone?” she asked as Finley approached.
She nodded. “Dad did a good job.”
“I picked it out.”
Her father hadn’t mentioned her mother being involved. Probably hadn’t wanted to open a can of worms.
“It’s perfect. Thank you. Exactly what I would have selected.”
The Judge nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said, the two words coming out like rocks being pushed through a straw. “I misjudged Derrick, but when you have children of your own, you will understand how I felt.”
Wow. An apology from the Judge. Finley wanted to pretend indifference, but she couldn’t. The words touched her.
“Thank you,” she admitted and propped a smile into place.
“We’ve always had our differences, Finley. I hope for your father’s sake that we can work through those in the future.”
“I think we can figure out a way to do that.” This time her smile was real. “Jack says the reason we don’t get along is because we’re too much alike.”
The Judge made a distasteful face. “He may have a point.”
