“We all did,” she corrected gently. “Together.”
Later, when the music softened and the crowd thinned, Annie touched the locket at her throat, the silver worn smooth by time and by her fingers. It had been her something old, resting over her heart as she promised her life to Jack. Once it had held secrets and fear. Now it held memory.
Not of violence. Of courage.
The night deepened around the ranch, the mountains dark and steady beneath the stars. There would be more cases. More work. More days shaped by the foundation and by the truth they had chosen to carry forward.
But tonight was not about that.
Tonight was about standing in the aftermath of something finished and realizing that what remained was not loss, but space. Space to build. Space to love. Space to live.
And as Annie rested her head against Jack’s shoulder, listening to the quiet of a place that had once been filled with threat and was now filled only with music and light, she knew that Eleanor’s long vigil had ended not in silence, but in the beginning of something that would endure.
***
Jack stood on the ranch house porch, loosening his tie as he watched the last of the wedding guests disappear down the long gravel drive, their taillights blinking briefly before being swallowed by the dark. The music had faded; the laughter had drifted back into the house, and the wide pastures that had glowed with lantern light only an hour earlier were settling into quiet again. The reception had been everything he’d hoped for—warm, unguarded, filled with the kind of joy that didn’t demand attention but lingered, gentle and real.
He drew in a slow breath of night air scented with grass and honeysuckle and something deeper, earthier, that always reminded him he was home.
“Best day of my life,” he said when Annie stepped onto the porch beside him.
She had changed out of her wedding dress into jeans and one of his shirts, the sleeves rolled, her hair loose down her back. The sight of her like this—comfortable, familiar, his—hit him with a quiet force that was somehow stronger than the moment she’d walked down the aisle.
“Mine too,” she said, settling into the porch swing and tugging him down beside her. “Though six months ago, I never imagined I’d be married to a detective and helping run a foundation for victims’ rights.”
“Six months ago, I was convinced I was too damaged to ever do this,” Jack replied honestly, slipping an arm around her shoulders and drawing her close. “Funny how life refuses to stick to the stories we tell ourselves.”
They let the swing rock gently, the rhythmic creak of chains blending with the distant chirr of insects and the soft sigh of wind moving through the trees. Below them, Fairview lay scattered across the valley, a constellation of quiet lights that looked almost unreal from this distance. Earlier, those same pastures had been crowded with people who had nearly lost Annie, nearly lost the truth, nearly lost each other. Now there was only stillness.
Jack felt it settle into his bones, not empty but full.
His parents had insisted they spend the night at the ranch before leaving for their honeymoon, as though this place needed to close the circle before something new could begin. In the morning, they would fly to Scotland, a trip Uncle Eric had offered without hesitation and Annie had accepted with wonder, talking excitedly about ancestry records and old villages. Jack smiled at the thought. Of course, she’d turn a honeymoon into a research project.
“Jack,” Annie said quietly, shifting just enough to look up at him, “do you think we’ll keep doing this? Solving cases, helping families, working through the foundation?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he watched the slow blink of a distant porch light, thought about cold evidence rooms and restless nights, about the way Annie saw connections other people missed, about the way she never looked away from what mattered even when it terrified her.
“I think mysteries have a way of finding people who care,” he said finally. “And I think we’ve already proven we don’t know how to walk away when the truth is at stake.”
She nodded, thoughtful. “Eleanor’s case wasn’t the end.”
“No,” he agreed. “It was proof.”
The word seemed to resonate between them. Proof that they could survive danger without losing tenderness. Proof that the past didn’t have to own the future. Proof that love could grow in the middle of darkness and not just in its absence.
Jack rose and offered her his hand. “Come on, Mrs. Calloway. Let’s go inside and start our married life.”
She took it, smiling, but instead of letting him pull her toward the door, she tugged him back until they were both standing at the edge of the porch, facing the open sky. Annie took his hand, but instead of letting him lead her inside, she tugged him gently back toward the edge of the porch. The mountains rose in dark, quiet layers beneath a sky scattered with stars.
“Jack,” she said softly, “do you think it’s really over?”
He knew what she meant. Not the wedding. Not the foundation. The case.
He followed her gaze across the land, thinking of vaults and ledgers, of blood on kitchen tile, of a woman who had hidden the truth because she believed someone, someday, would finish what she started.
“I think the investigation will go on,” he said carefully. “There will be trials. Appeals. Paperwork that never seems toend. But Eleanor’s case? The truth of what was done to her, who did it, and why?” He shook his head. “That part is finished.”
Annie let out a slow breath she’d been holding for far too long. “So we can finally stop chasing it.”
