“Or?” Carter asks.
“Or”—Wendy smiles at him—“we’ll leave.” She shrugs. “Don’t look so disappointed. What did you think I was gonna say? Hm? That I’d kill you?”
“To be perfectly honest, Miss Gale, the thought did cross my mind.”
“I don’t kill people. Haven’t for a very long time now. But if you don’t leave us alone, and go back to your little mistress and tell her word for word what I just said, we will be the ones following you around this earth, Mr. Couture. Not the other way around.”
He looks at me, tips an imaginary hat, then stands up. “Have a nice life, Nick and Wendy Tate. Stay out of Wyoming.”
Then he walks away. But as he’s leaving the courtyard, he bows off to the side as a man approaches him, once again tipping that imaginary hat.
James Fenici shoots Carter Couture a look that says, I still kill people.
And then Harper is there, coming up behind him.
I stand up, forgetting all about Carter, and Sasha, and that other life that makes less and less sense the longer we’re away from it.
“Who was that?” James asks.
“No one,” I say, then pull Harper into a fierce hug.
Regardless of what Sasha thinks, I have not seen my sister since I died ten years ago. I warned her though. I told her that something was gonna go down and she should not believe it.
I have watched her from afar. But not so close that James would notice.
And I have called her once. On our thirtieth birthday. Thirty was a milestone. She needed that call. Hell, I needed that call.
But It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.
It took a long time to get here. And we have gone through plenty of hell. But this new beginning would not be nearly as sweet if we hadn’t walked through all that lovely darkness.
I am grateful for everything and everyone in my life right now, but there is still one person missing.
One day, though.
One day we will meet again.
THE END