The card said:
Sorry I missed you.
EH
EPILOGUE
Alex spent the bulk of her recovery at the Shimmy Shack.
Cooper and Deuce joined her there for a few days and helped her clean up the place, and as they worked, she decided she must have been possessed by demons when she had agreed to sell it. Spruced up, the place was a gem, and most of her memories here were good ones.
Thank God, the agreement had turned out to be bogus.
Cooper brought Danny out for a week, and they spent a lot of time laughing and making new memories. She could tell that Cooper was starting to get very comfortable being around her during the off hours, and she knew what he wanted from her. But she wasn’t ready to go there yet.
Wasn’t sure she ever would be.
One night, when she was alone and had fallen asleep on the front sofa, she was awakened by a noise coming from the back of the house. She reached for her pistol and carefully worked her way toward the den, noting that the patio door, which she had closed, was now ajar.
She stepped into the room and froze. There, on the floor, was the sleeping bag she had tossed over the rail when she had first returned to Key Largo. She had forgotten all about it.
Angry now, she stepped over the bag and slipped out onto the patio. Once she was sure no one was lurking there, she looked over the rail into the moonlit darkness but saw no sign of anyone. Heard only the gentle lapping of the water below.
Intending to toss the bag over the side again, she marched back into the house, snatched it up, and something fluttered out from inside it and landed on the floor.
Another photograph.
Alex’s skin prickled as she picked up the photo and stared at it. It was a shot from the same era as the wedding video, her mother standing near the steps of a mosque.
And it was clear by the bump in her belly that she was pregnant.
Pregnant.
Alex turned the photo over, saw another Google link, and her heart started to pound.
She ran to her bedroom and grabbed her tablet, then dropped to the bed and typed in the URL.
The file waiting for her was called FEP.mp4.
Her father’s initials.
Her heart really pounding now, she clicked the download button, entered the same passcode she had used for the wedding video, and waited as the file was retrieved.
After tapping the link, she watched as the screen filled with the face of her father, and she couldn’t quite believe it.
But it was him.
It was really him.
He was sitting in a dark room, only the light of a laptop screen illuminating him. He looked so much older than she remembered. Tired. Worn. But with eyes that had that same fire she had known as a child.
He said, “Hello, Alex. I know this has been a long time coming—too long — and I know what you must think of me and the way I left things with you and Danny. If I could have done it any other way, believe me, I would have.”
Alex couldn’t hold back. Tears were already streaming down her cheeks.
“But now that you’re involved with some of the very people who forced me to run — people I believe are responsible for Mitra’s death — I think it’s time I answered some of the questions I know you must have.”
He paused, his gaze focusing on nothing for a moment, as if lost in a very distant past.
Then he looked at her and said, “I think it’s time I told you the truth about what happened to your mother.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We’d like to thank Elyse Dinh for her copyediting expertise, and Pam Stack of Authors on the Air for sharing her detailed knowledge of the Florida Keys.
Thanks also go out to our families and friends for their continued support.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Brett Battles is the author of over sixteen novels and several short stories. His first novel, The Cleaner, was nominated for a Barry Award for Best Thriller, and a Shamus Award for Best Debut Novel. His second, The Deceived, won the Barry Award for Best Thriller.
He is one of the founding members of Killer Year, and a member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America. He lives and writes in Los Angeles.
More info available at: brettbattles.com
Robert Gregory Browne is an AMPAS Nicholl Fellowship-winning screenwriter and ITW Thriller Award-nominated novelist.
He has written several thrillers published in the US and around the world, including the Amazon bestsellers Trial Junkies, Trial Junkies 2: Negligence and Kiss her Goodbye. Kiss Her Goodbye was recently produced in Chicago as a pilot for a CBS Television series by Sony Pictures and Timberman/Beverly Productions.
Rob lives in California with his wife, dog, two cats, and his beloved moka pot.
More info available at: robertgregorybrowne.com