The thought of Spalding made Tyler drift back to their meeting in the warehouse. ‘How many?’ Spalding had asked him over and over. Tyler dwelt on this a long time but couldn’t think what it could be. There was one number Spalding would be interested in, but there was no way Spalding could know anything about it, no matter what spies he had anywhere. That was Tyler’s secret and Tyler's alone. The day would come when they met again and perhaps Spalding would explain to him then, when someone's life was not on the line.
For now though, it was time to go home and rest. He had a big story to start writing tomorrow morning.
Chapter 49
MEGAN STANVER WAS REUNITED with her mother two days after she entered the Dover Sheriff's Office. It was an emotional meeting and made all the more so by the harrowing absence of her father. Melanie, Megan’s mother was overjoyed at the sight of Megan despite her diminished weight and spindly limbs and arms and cried all the time for the first few hours.
Ellie was similarly reunited with her parents around the same time, and in her family it was a brother who was in jail for a crime committed at Spalding’s behest to keep Ellie alive who was missing.
Before leaving Megan asked if she could see Ellie and the two women were left alone in one of the meeting rooms, their relations hovering outside not willing to take their eyes off the family they'd only just found after so long.
“We have to stay in touch,” Megan said but even as she did she didn’t feel it fully in her heart. They had been through a lot together but they would also each always be a reminder of the ordeal and terror they had gone through.
“Of course,” Ellie said and she seemed entirely genuine and it made Megan feel a little ashamed of her own feelings. “We don’t ever have to talk about this though,” Ellie added, perhaps sensing Megan’s worry or sharing them.
“It would be nice to get to know the real you,” Megan said. They hugged and Megan looked out through the glass panel in the door to their waiting families. She knew this wasn’t going to be the end of all this, not just yet. There would be FBI and who knew else who wanted her side of things but once all that was done, that would finally be the end of it.
But would it? Could there ever really be an end to something like this for either of them, or anyone else whose life had been turned upside down by Dwight Spalding?
Only time would tell, she guessed, but for now she was free and that was worth more than most things in the world to Megan Stanver.
The End
21 October 2019-29th May 2020
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