“Where do you think Broch is now?” I asked.
“Probably staring out the window of a Greyhound bus on his way to Timbuktu. You know, I still can’t believe I shot a man. In all my years, I never—”
She stopped short, turned a shade darker than crimson. I understood why: grazing a man’s leg was small change compared to what Anna, Serena, and I had done. I decided to launch the conversation down a new path.
“I’m thinking that stew’s warm enough by now,” I said.
“I swear I’ve never smelled anything this good,” Serena said.
“Just wait till you taste it,” I told her.
Aunt Linds lifted the pot from the stove, set it back down on a trivet at the center of the table.
“You might want to let that cool a bit,” she said.
Meanwhile, I poured the wine.
“We should toast,” Anna said. “To our friendship.”
“To our freedom,” I said.
“To the rest of our lives,” Serena said.
We clinked and drank and filled our glasses back up to the brim.
“What promising lives they are,” Aunt Lindsey added. “Especially now that there’s no trial hanging over your heads.”
After Sean missed his first court date, police assumed he’d skipped bail. They questioned me daily, stationed an unmarked car outside Aunt Lindsey’s house, then gave up and turned the search over to Interpol. When it became public knowledge that Vincent Costello was missing, too, every paper in town assumed that Sean had killed him and either fled or been killed in turn. The police didn’t disagree, though Detective Haagen was awfully disappointed that she didn’t get to arrest anyone. I guess she had a right to be: she’d put in a ton of work and had nothing to show for it. Of course, for a homicide detective, the next opportunity is never far off.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you, Sarah,” Anna said. “Were you really a double agent, spying on my husband for Sean?”
The question caught me off guard. I wondered if she’d come up with it on her own or if Haagen had planted it. Either way, I was done lying.
“At first,” I said. “Sean called it important work, said I’d be saving lives by helping him bring down the Costellos. To be honest, that was never my real motivation: I thought collaborating with Sean might bring us closer together, save our marriage. But it became obvious pretty early on that he had no interest in arresting Anthony—he just wanted me to keep an eye on his business partner. Can you forgive me?”
“For what? We didn’t know each other from Adam back then. Besides, I used to pray that Anthony would get locked up. Would have left me with all of the perks and none of the headaches.”
“Amen to that,” I said.
“I just wish we weren’t all heading in different directions,” Anna continued. “I never thought of myself as a team player before you guys came along.”
She already had an eight-figure offer on Anthony’s estate. Her plan was to do a bit of traveling, then start over in New Orleans.
“I want to see how much trouble I can get into on my own, without a husband pushing me along,” she said.
Serena had big plans, too. With a financial assist from Anna, she’d be attending Emory’s law school in the fall. It wasn’t hard to picture her prosecuting the Vincent Costellos of Tecomán, making her hometown safer for future generations—maybe even for her own children.
“What about you, Sarah?” Aunt Lindsey asked. “Where are you headed?”
She’d caught me with a mouth full of triple threat. I shrugged, then swallowed hard.
“I really don’t know,” I said. “Wherever my work takes me, I guess.”
“Maybe you could cook for one of those cruise ships,” Serena offered. “See the world.”
“A sailor in every port,” Anna said.
“Isn’t it sailors who have a girl in every port?” Aunt Lindsey asked.
“That, too,” Anna said.
I laughed. I’d miss them. I really would. But we were three very different people when all was said and done. Unlike Anna, I’d had enough excitement for one lifetime; unlike Serena, I wanted nothing more to do with dangerous men. All I wanted was to shut my eyes at night feeling certain that when I opened them again in the morning I’d be facing a gentle and predictable world.
EpilogueMichelle Brown
The sound of the miniature Liberty Bell ringing above my head startled me even though I knew it was coming. Doris poked her head out through the kitchen’s double doors, yelled “Anywhere ya’d like,” then disappeared back inside.
I took a seat at the counter. It was the same time of day on the same day of the week as my first visit. The same elderly customer sat two stools over, wearing the same filthy John Deere cap.
“Peaceful in here,” I told him.
He kept his head buried in his paper, same as before.
I ran my eyes over the Great Wall. I’d never asked Doris how she came by all those license plates. Maybe her customers donated them. Maybe her late husband picked them up on the road.
Late husband.
We were both widows now.
“Coffee’s free with the waffles,” Doris said, setting a menu on the counter in front of me. “Only special we got today is pea soup.”
She looked a little more frazzled and a lot more tired than the last time I’d seen her—so tired and frazzled that she hadn’t recognized me yet. I wasn’t surprised: those bustling dinner shifts would have run a full staff ragged, which explained why the help-wanted ad was back up on the Great Wall.
“I’ll take the waffles,” I said. “I’m dying for a cup of coffee.”
Something clicked when she heard my voice. She stepped back, gave me a long, hard scan.
“Well, I’ll be,” she said. “Never thought I’d see you again. Not here, anyway. Maybe on the news, dressed in orange.”
I’d hoped for a warmer reception, but I knew damn well I had no right to one.
“I came to apologize,” I said.
“Apologize for what?”
I stole
