“Anniston said Maria got away. Then he said, ‘fall.’ I thought he meant that she fell, but he meant these falls.” On her hunch, she’d done some digging.
The suicide that had made people so fearful of coming to this place? The rumors of the troubled girl who’d thrown herself to her death, the girl who’d given the place the name of Death Falls?
The girl had died seven months after Maria vanished. The only witness to her suicide had been Officer James Anniston. He’d been patrolling when he witnessed the “tragedy.”
No one had ever ID’d the girl because her body had never been recovered. No local reports of a missing person had gone out then, so the story had just been brushed aside.
Anniston had said it was too dangerous to search for her. He’d closed the case.
He hadn’t wanted anyone finding Maria.
A diver’s head broke the surface as he rose. He took off his mask. Glanced toward Cadence.
And nodded.
Finally, Maria would be coming home.
EPILOGUE
His shoulders were hunched as he leaned over the grave. A simple headstone, one just beneath the sweeping limbs of an oak tree.
Cadence stood back, watching Kyle, knowing he needed this time alone.
He’d finally grieved for his sister.
All of the missing women had been identified. He wasn’t the only one grieving.
Paradox, Alabama, would be remembered for years to come. The story was still on the news. The police captain who’d kept women prisoners in his darkness. A man who’d found his own end in that same dark hell.
Kyle stood. Squared his shoulders. He’d put daisies on Maria’s grave.
He’d told her that his sister had liked daisies.
Kyle turned from the grave. His gaze swept the cemetery until he found her.
She didn’t smile. Just waited.
He came to her. His steps becoming faster, stronger, the closer he got to her.
Then he was there, pulling her tightly against him, even as his hand dropped to her stomach.
They hadn’t actually waited until marriage to talk about kids. It seemed fate had other plans for them.
She was already pregnant. So much for being safe on the pill.
Seventeen weeks.
They’d gone to the doctor’s office just hours before and found out they were having a girl.
Kyle had looked at the fuzzy ultrasound and said he could see her perfectly.
She’d never seen him look so happy.
She’d never been so happy.
“Are you ready?” Cadence asked him. There was so much pain in his eyes. His parents had never gotten to see this day. Maria, at peace. But Kyle had. He’d given his sister the justice that she deserved.
His head lifted. He stared down at her. Gazed at her with the brilliant blue eyes that had first made her heart race.
Her tough agent.
Her sexy lover.
The man who’d walked out of the darkness and come into the light, with her.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Her hand was on his chest. Above the scar he’d always carry.
A reminder of what they’d survived. A reminder of the life they needed to cherish.
He smiled at her.
She knew life had finally begun.
Their life.
Together.