Then the marshals guided him through, and he was gone.
Outside, the March sun was warm on her face.
Lila stood on the courthouse steps, breathing in air that smelled like exhaust and coffee and something that might have been spring. Delia hugged her and left for the hospital. Patricia squeezed her hand. Sid nodded once and walked toward the parking garage with Grace.
Sarah appeared, briefcase in hand.
"Life without parole. That's as good as it gets." She looked tired but satisfied. "The statement was good. Better than what you'd written."
"I decided to say what I actually felt."
"It showed." Sarah extended her hand. "It's been a privilege, Lila. Call me if you ever need anything."
"Thank you. For everything."
Sarah nodded and walked away, already checking her phone.
Ronan appeared at Lila's shoulder. They stood together in silence, watching the people flow in and out of the courthouse on their own business.
"He's going to die in prison," Lila said. "That's what I wanted. But my parents are still dead. I can't get any of it back."
"No."
"So what was it for?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"The truth," he said. "Making sure someone said it out loud."
She thought about her father's notes. His careful handwriting. His questions in the margins. About her mother, slipping away, never knowing. About five years of searching and doubting and refusing to let go.
"That's enough?"
"It has to be."
She nodded slowly. Took one last look at the courthouse—the glass and steel, the flags in the breeze, the ordinary Tuesday continuing around them.
Then she turned and walked down the steps, Ronan beside her, toward the car that would carry them back to Blossom Springs. Back to the cottage on Lake Road. Back to whatever came next.
She didn't look back.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The dock was finished.
Ronan stood at the end of it, bare feet on new cedar planks, and watched the sun come up over Middle Inlet. Three months of work. Sid's patient instruction. More trips to the hardware store than he could count. The second section listed slightly to the left, and he'd already identified two boards that would need to be replaced before summer.
It wasn't perfect. But it was his.
His phone buzzed on the dock railing. Caleb’s name on the screen.
Ronan almost let it ring. The morning was too good—the sun on the water, the new boards solid under his feet, the quiet satisfaction of a thing built with his own hands. He didn’t want to hear about whatever was happening in whatever town needed Shadow Ops this week.
He answered anyway. Old habits.
“You sitting down?” Caleb asked.
“I’m standing on a dock I built. What do you need?”
