“I don’t need the world to know, Ella. It’s enough that I know. Thank you.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then leaned back into her pillows. “Actually, I was thinking about what you said. I don’t think I want to go back to competing. But”—he gave her a sidelong glance—“I was pretty frustrated out there, not knowing how to help your brother. I was thinking maybe I could go back to school, get a higher degree in emergency medicine.”
“I thought you didn’t like school.”
“I could use a study partner.”
“I’m fantastic at flash cards,” she said.
His smile dimmed. “Did you really mean it when you said you didn’t want to be a senator anymore?”
She nodded. “I’m ready to step out of the limelight. Maybe go back to being a lawyer . . .”
A picture on the screen arrested her attention. She turned up the volume and listened to the description of a missing woman, approximately age thirty, dark hair, high cheekbones. They listed her death as blunt force trauma.
“That’s the woman we found last summer, in the park. Ian Shaw had her face forensically reconstructed,” Gage said. “She was featured on America’s Missing a few days ago. The news must have finally picked it up.”
Ella simply stared, everything inside her chilling. No, it couldn’t be. “Gage, I know her.” She couldn’t tear her gaze from the television as the reporter walked the area where her body had been located. She waited until the program flashed her picture again, just to confirm. “That’s my friend Sofia. She was one of my housemates at Middlebury. I took her skiing out here with me a few years ago—the year before I met you at Outlaw. She met a guy, I remember that. I think they kept in touch.”
“You know her? Are you sure?”
“I thought she’d moved back to Spain, but I haven’t heard from her in years. I can’t be sure, but, it looks like her.”
“We’ll get another look at the picture to confirm.”
“And I’ll try and get ahold of her parents. But if that is my friend, Gage . . . I know what I’m going to do.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sticking around Mercy Falls, and I’m going to bring whoever killed my friend to justice.”
He nodded. “Of course you are. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Epilogue
IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO END THIS WAY.
Ty sat in his truck, drumming his fingers on his steering wheel.
The Gray Pony Saloon was rocking tonight, the hint of a spring thaw in the air, and fans of Ben King’s first-ever new artist showcase jammed the parking lot. The thump of a bass drum, a steel guitar, the twang of a fiddle wound out into the crisp night. Ben was putting Mercy Falls on the map, with country star wannabes emerging from the woodwork for a shot at a contract with his newly formed Mountain Song Records studio.
Benjamin King had certainly found his way back home after his mistakes.
Ty could make out the silhouettes of Jess and Sierra in their usual booth near the door, with Pete and Gage nearby throwing darts.
From Ty’s vantage point, it seemed that Pete and Jess still had to have one very important conversation. But maybe that had something to do with Pete’s recent job offer to join the national Red Cross emergency rescue team.
The door to the saloon opened, and Ty watched as deputy Sam Brooks came out, his arm around his girlfriend, Willow Rose.
The sight of it only tightened the fist in Ty’s gut.
He wanted to get out of the truck, join his friends . . . but Ella would be in there, probably with Gage, and frankly, the sight of her only dragged up the memory.
He closed his eyes and returned, unbidden, back to the hospital the morning after Ella and Oliver’s rescue.
He’d walked into the hospital beside Gage, having followed him in his Silverado, ready to pick up Brette and bring her back to her condo, armed with the suggestion he stick around and make her some homemade chicken noodle soup. Because he meant it when he said he wasn’t going anywhere.
Brette hadn’t made the same promise, a realization he came to slowly as he entered her room.
He stood there, trying to wrap his brain around the sight of an orderly making up her bed. When he asked a nurse about her, the answer was, “I’m sorry, but she discharged herself, against medical advice.”
Against medical advice?
He’d even driven to her condo, armed with the key code from Ella, and found it empty. Brette’s bags gone.
He’d arrived at the airport moments after the last flight out of Kalispell departed.
Not even Ella had an answer, and calls to Brette’s cell phone went to voicemail.