For years, the word had carried weight. Loss. Regret. The ghost of a future he had once believed in and then deliberately destroyed. Now, for the first time since Lily’s death, it felt uncomplicated again. Not a place haunted by what might have been. A place waiting.
He lifted his gaze to Annie once more and found her already watching him—not with worry or fear, but with quiet recognition, as if she saw exactly where his thoughts had gone and was standing there with him in them. “We’re going to have a lot of interviews,” Agent Chen said. “Court appearances. Evidence processing. And you, Detective, are going to have a very stern conversation with an orthopedic surgeon.”
Jack huffed quietly. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“And after that?” Annie asked.
Jack didn’t answer right away.
After that meant the silence after sirens. The days without threat. The life that had been postponed for four years by grief and guilt and fear.
After that meant choice.
He turned in his seat as much as his shoulder allowed. “After that, we stop letting dead people dictate what the living are allowed to have.”
Annie held his eyes.
“And what are we allowed to have?” she asked.
He didn’t reach for her. Not with agents in the car. Not with adrenaline still fading and everything raw. But his voice didn’t waver.
“A future,” he said, “one that isn’t built on fear.” She nodded once, the small motion heavy with meaning, and outside the window Fairview slid past in the late-afternoon light—ordinary, unaware, alive—while behind them a century-old lie was collapsing and ahead of them the truth was finally free, and for the first time in years Jack didn’t feel like he was bracing for impact; he felt like he was moving forward.
Chapter 19
Annie knocked softly on Uncle Eric’s hospital room door, her heart heavy with the weight of what she was about to reveal. The past few days had passed in a blur of federal interviews, sealed warrants, forensic teams, and media speculation as Sarah Mitchell’s criminal organization was systematically dismantled piece by piece.
Agents moved in and out of Fairview. Bank records were seized. Assets were frozen. Names that had once carried quiet local respect were suddenly spoken on the evening news, alongside words like racketeering, domestic terrorism, and generational conspiracy.
But through all of it, Uncle Eric had remained here—removed from the chaos by necessity, recovering from his injuries, shielded from the full truth by doctors’ orders andfederal caution. He knew Sarah Mitchell had been arrested. He knew the attack on Annie’s shop and the fire had been intentional. He even knew Eleanor Blackwood’s murder had finally been proven.
What he didn’t yet know was that everything he thought he understood about his family—and his own place in it—was about to change.
“Come in, sweetheart,” his voice called, stronger now than it had been since the attack.
Annie stepped inside and closed the door gently behind her. Uncle Eric was sitting up in bed, color returning to his cheeks, his glasses perched on his nose as he worked his way through a folded newspaper. The bandages around his head were smaller now, less ominous, and the monitors beside him beeped with steady reassurance instead of urgent warning. He smiled when he saw her, the same familiar, quiet smile that had anchored her since childhood.
Agent Chen followed Annie into the room, carrying a thick federal folder tucked beneath her arm.
“You look like you’re about to give me either very good news or very bad news,” Eric said, setting the paper aside. “And judging by the company you brought, I’m guessing it’s not simple.”
Annie crossed the room and took the familiar chair beside his bed. “It’s not simple,” she agreed. “But it’s important. And you deserve to hear it from us, not from a lawyer or a news report.”
Agent Chen inclined her head politely. “Mr. Whitaker, thank you for agreeing to meet with us. What we recovered from Eleanor Blackwood’s safe deposit box, along with what we uncovered during the investigation, directly involves you.”
Uncle Eric’s brow furrowed. “I assumed it might. Given what Joy used to say about her mother, I always figured the truthwould eventually circle back to the family.” He glanced at Annie. “Did you find proof? Proof of what really happened to Eleanor?”
“We did,” Annie said. “But we also found more than that.”
She reached into her bag and carefully removed a protective document sleeve. Inside it was Eleanor’s will, the paper preserved despite its age, her precise handwriting still sharp and deliberate across the page.
“Uncle Eric,” Annie continued, steadying her voice, “Eleanor did have a son. Thomas Blackwood Jr. He was born three days before she was murdered.”
Eric’s breath caught audibly. “A son,” he repeated. “Then he would have been the rightful heir. Richard Mitchell’s entire claim—”
“—was a lie,” Agent Chen finished. “And it was secured through murder.”
Annie swallowed. “Richard Mitchell didn’t just kill Eleanor. He killed her baby too. Thomas Jr. was five days old. The death certificate lists the cause as injuries sustained during violent assault.”
