Page 188 of The Wild Card

I huff a laugh. It comes out wet. I don’t care.

“My mom is going to lose it,” she whispers.

“Your mom has had a nursery Pinterest board for two years. She’s been ready.”

“Woodland themed.”

“Very tasteful.”

She laughs, and I lean forward and kiss her—soft, slow, my hand resting on her belly where our daughter is growing. The heartbeat is still echoing through my brain, steady and strong.

I pull back just enough to look at Emmie. Really look at her. There’s gel on her stomach and mascara on her cheeks.

She’s everything.

“I love you,” I say. Not because the moment calls for it. Just because it’s true, and I spent too many years not saying things that were true, and I’m not doing that anymore.

She presses her forehead to mine. “I love you too, Agent Jensen.”

Outside this room, her mother is already redesigning the nursery in her head. Foster is going to be insufferable about this. Murphy is going to be furious about losing his spot on the bed.

I can’t wait for any of it.

Epilogue

Crew

The house feels different when Emmie’s gone. She’s like sunlight that fills a room—you notice when it’s gone.

I check my phone. 6:42 AM in Dallas. Which means it’s 7:42 in New York.

There’s already a text from her: I’m going to throw up. The studio is SO BIG. I look insane. Do I look insane?

Then a photo. She’s standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling window with the Manhattan skyline behind her, wearing the blue dress she tried on at least six times last Tuesday before I finally sat down on the bed and told her she looked gorgeous in all of them, which led to a whole thing, which led to her being twenty minutes late to dinner with Sadie.

She looks beautiful. She looks like she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.

I type back: You look perfect. Stop doubting yourself. Go be famous.

Three dots. Then: I love you. Hug my baby.

I set the phone face-down on the counter, pour my coffee, and stand there for a moment in the kitchen that feels too big without her in it.

Murphy is on a stool in the corner, judging me.

“Don’t,” I tell him.

He blinks once, slowly, and looks away.

At 6:45 I walk down the hall to the small bedroom with the yellow curtains Emmie picked out and the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling we put up on a Saturday afternoon last summer. I push the door open.

Clementine is already half-awake, which is how she always wakes up — gradual, suspicious, like she’s deciding whether consciousness is worth the trouble. She’s four. She’s got Emmie’s honey hair and my gray eyes and the absolute refusal to be rushed that she apparently developed on her own.

“Hey, bug.” I crouch down next to her bed. “Time to get up.”

She blinks at me. Considers this information.

“Daddy,” she says. Very seriously.