Reilly laughed again, grabbed her Victoria’s Secret, and did her own, toned-down version of the DelVecchio shuffle in the bathroom.
It was amazing how much had changed . . . and how little. Bails’s body had been found in the rubble of the quarry three days later, and the cause of death had been ruled a suicide, as the gun he’d used had still been locked in the grip of his cold hand. Kroner had also woken up dead: Medical staff at the hospital had discovered that very night of the quarry collapse that he’d stopped breathing and they’d been unable to revive him, something which had not been a surprise, given the extent of his injuries.
As for Sissy Barten, her death had been unofficially hung around Bails’s neck: Her body had yielded no DNA to tie the two together, but forensic IT specialists had gotten into the man’s various computers and found a web, literally, of madness and scheming—all of which revolved around Veck and Veck’s dad. Turned out Bails had often spoken in his postings online of killing someone just as Sissy had been killed, using precisely those techniques and markings, as a way to honor Veck’s father.
Needless to say, Veck had been cleared of all suspicion—in fact, an audit of the security camera files from the evidence room showed that the system had conked out for a period of time one night between when the Kroner stuff had come in and when Bails had put forth his false accusation. The implication that Bails had somehow engineered the malfunction was obvious.
And that . . . was that.
In the aftermath of it all, Veck didn’t talk much about what had happened—or remark on the fact that his father had been executed on schedule, or seem to dwell on that moment in the cave when the wrong decision on his part could have ended both their lives. But there had been enough nights when she and he had lain together and he’d said a few words here and there. She was giving him time, and he was taking it, but she’d never gotten the feeling that he’d hidden, or would hide, anything from her.
God willing, they had the next fifty years to keep up the dialogue.
“Are we ready?” he called out from the bedroom.
“Yup! Coming!”
A quick brush of her hair, a spritz of that perfume Veck liked, and she rushed out of the bath—
In the center of her room, right by the bed they shared, he was down on one knee, with a little velvet box on his outstretched palm.
Talk about skidding to a halt.
Putting her hand to her beating heart, Reilly blinked like an idiot for a moment.
“Two guesses what I’m going to ask you,” he murmured, flipping the top open.
For a long moment, she just stood there in shock. Except then she got with the program, all but floating over to him.
Looking down, she saw a small, perfect diamond in a simple pronged setting.
“Just so you know,” Veck murmured, “I asked your father a week ago. He gave me his permission—and vowed to beat me to a bloody pulp and bury me in your mother’s rose garden if I ever do wrong by you.”
Reilly got down on her own knees with him, tears waving everything up. “It’s . . . really like him to say that.”
They both laughed.
“Yeah. So.” Veck cleared his throat. “Sophia Maria Reilly, will you be my wife? Please?”
She nodded, because she didn’t trust her voice—and forget about the rock; she threw her arms around him and held on hard. “I love you. . . .”
Veck crushed her to him, and then eased back. With hands that shook ever so slightly, he took the ring out of its velvet slot . . . and slid it on her finger. “Fits perfectly.”
She took some time to admire the winking, flashing brilliance. The stone was incredibly bright and lively, almost impossibly so.
“It’s not big,” Veck said, “but it’s flawless. That was important to me. I wanted to give you something . . . flawless.”
She pressed her lips to his. “You already have, though. And it’s nothing you could buy me in a jewelry store.”
Veck kissed her back for the longest time . . . forever it seemed, and that was just barely enough for her.
And then, with his mouth still against hers, he whispered, “Now do you mind if we get in your car and break the speed limit? Much as I love your mother’s garden, I’d prefer not to be Miracle-Gro, especially on a night like this.”
Laughing, Reilly got to her feet and helped her . . . holy crap,
“And neither one of us can cook.”
“See,” she said as they raced for the stairs side by side. “We were meant to be together.”
Halfway down, he tugged her to a stop, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her again. “Amen to that, my love.
One last kiss . . . and then just like that, they were out the door . . .
And off into their future.
