He stopped. "Yes?"
"Yes. To the key. To the place. To building something that doesn't have to be perfect." She closed her fingers around the brass, holding it tight. "Yes."
She pulled him closer to her on the porch swing. Her lips were soft against his. Her body felt warm against his body and his hands pulled her onto his lap. Their kiss deepened and her soft moans excited him as much as the fact she had agreed to move in with him. Her hands dove under his shirt and pulled it up, her fingers explored his chest, his belly, then they slid over his thickening cock and his heartbeat increased to a level that made breathing uncomfortable.
The night settled around them. The frogs sang. The stars wheeled slowly overhead, indifferent to the small human dramas playing out beneath them.
And on the porch of a cottage with a collapsing dock and a leaky roof, two people who had spent their lives waiting for the other shoe to drop finally let themselves believe it might not.
Chapter Seventeen
The federal building in Tampa smelled like floor wax and recycled air.
Lila sat in the waiting area outside Sarah Holloway's office, her hands flat on her thighs to keep them from shaking. The chairs were the same industrial gray as every government office she'd ever visited. The carpet was the same forgettable pattern. A water cooler hummed in the corner, and somewhere down the hall, a phone rang three times before going silent.
She'd told Ronan she didn't need him here. She'd told Delia she had a dentist appointment. She'd told herself this was something she had to do alone.
Now she wasn't sure any of that was true.
The door opened. Sarah Holloway stood in the frame, a manila folder in her hand.
"Ms. Bennett. Thank you for coming."
Lila followed her into the office. It was smaller than she'd expected, the desk cluttered with files, coffee cups, and a framed photo of two teenage boys in soccer uniforms. Sarah gestured to the chair across from her and sat down heavily, like someone who'd been on her feet too long.
"I'm going to be direct with you," Sarah said. "The medical examiner's report is conclusive. Your father was murdered."
The words landed in the quiet room. Lila heard them. Understood them. But her body didn't react the way she'd expected. No gasp. No tears. Just a strange, hollow ringing in her ears, like the aftermath of an explosion.
"Tell me."
Sarah opened the folder. "Daniel Bennett died of cardiac arrest induced by digoxin poisoning. It's a cardiac medication—in therapeutic doses, it treats heart conditions. The dose your father received, it caused one." She turned a page. "The original autopsy attributed his death to a congenital defect. That finding was falsified."
"By Matthew Kimps."
"Yes. Dr. Kimps has admitted to falsifying autopsy results in exchange for payments from Warren Caldwell's organization. Your father wasn't his only victim." Sarah slid a photograph across the desk. Three faces Lila didn't recognize. "Robert Hensley, 2019. Margaret Oakes, 2021. Thomas Pruitt, 2022. All ruled natural causes. All were asking questions about property transactions before they died."
Lila stared at the photograph. Three strangers who had done what her father did. Asked questions. Followed the evidence. Trusted that the truth mattered.
"How did they do it?" Her voice came out flat. Clinical. Like she was asking about a process, not a murder. "The digoxin. How did they get it into him?"
Sarah hesitated. "Are you sure you want those details?"
"I'm sure."
"His coffee. Based on Dr. Kimps's statement, someone added it to his coffee at a town council meeting three days before he died. The dose was calibrated to cause a delayed cardiac event. By the time the heart attack occurred, there was no obvious connection to the exposure."
His coffee. Her father drank coffee constantly. Black, two sugars, from the pot he kept in his office, the cups he picked up at Mae's, or the thermos he carried to meetings. She'd teased him about it. Told him he was going to give himself a heart attack with all that caffeine.
She'd been right. Just not the way she'd meant.
"Who?" The word scraped out of her throat. "Who put it in his coffee?"
"We don't have definitive proof of who administered the poison. Dr. Kimps claims he doesn't know—he was only responsible for the cover-up afterward. But the payment records tie directly to Warren Caldwell's accounts." Sarah closed the folder. "We're adding conspiracy to commit murder to the charges. He'll face life in prison if convicted."
"If."
"When. The evidence is overwhelming. And he's confessed." Sarah leaned forward. "Ms. Bennett, I know this is a lot to process. But I want you to understand something. Your father's death wasn't random. It wasn't an accident. It was a deliberate act by people who were afraid of what he knew. And because of the work you've done—the evidence you preserved, the connections you made—those people are going to pay for it."
