“A good one,” I say.
He glances over, voice low. “The best one.”
And for the first time in a long time, I believe it.
We load the car. I lock the door behind us. Stella climbs into the backseat with a muffin Gabriel brought over earlier this morning. Noah opens the passenger door for me with a quiet smile that still manages to make me feel seen.
Settled in beside him, surrounded by warmth and breath and the hum of the engine, I take one last look at the house—the place where everything fell apart and everything came back together.
Then Noah reaches for my hand.
And we drive forward.
Epilogue
Noah
The holidays at my father’s house always smelled like cinnamon.
Even now—the weekend before Christmas—the scent hits me the second we step through the door. It’s in the wood, the walls, the memory of every pie my mother ever baked in this kitchen. It’s familiar in a way that squeezes something deep inside my chest.
But this year, when the warmth rises and the scent wraps around me, something else threads through it.
Alicia.
She’s standing beside me, unwinding her scarf, cheeks pink from the cold. Stella’s already darted past us toward the living room, chattering excitedly at Linda about auditions for the next play, about school, about everything twelve-year-olds love to report in breathless detail.
My father sits in his recliner, recovering but strong, the color back in his face.
He watches Alicia like he’s memorizing something important.
And I understand the impulse.
She glances over her shoulder at me—soft smile, blue eyes bright—and I feel it hit again, the same quiet certainty I felt the night she nearly slipped through my fingers.
I want to hold this exact moment still. The pink in her cheeks. Stella’s voice carrying from the living room. My father’s eyes tracking Alicia like she’s something worth memorizing.
This is the one I’ll come back to. Ten years from now. Twenty. Fifty.
* * *
We shed our coats, hang them on the hooks by the entry, and step into the kitchen where Linda has already placed mugs on the counter.
The congressional hearing came and went. No one threatened Alicia for her silence, but in the closed-door hearing she was asked questions that will undoubtedly lead investigations to open many doors. Still, the hearing is over. Whatever threats Elena Vasquez predicted never materialized.
The detectives investigating Danny and Jessica haven’t identified any additional credible threats. They confirmed that Danny paid the witness who claimed she’d seen Alicia drinking coffee with Matthew and saw her follow him. Jessica’s computer told the rest of the story—notes on USB drives, plans to plant searches and evidence, a blueprint for framing Alicia that grew sloppier the closer the investigation got. Based on what the police gathered, she didn’t know Alicia would find the body. She’d only wanted her present and wanted her to be seen near the business center—close enough a witness statement would warrant a closer look. Jessica got lucky when Alicia found the body, but her luck didn’t hold. The fortune cookie was her attempt to redirect toward the senator’s scandal. She’d pulled enough from the press to make it plausible, but certain details were never made public—which is why it didn’t land the way she intended. She used Alicia’s numerology because she’d been researching long enough to know it.
Danny refused to go back to Alicia’s house after nearly getting caught breaking into her car—too many cameras, too much risk, he insisted. On that fateful night, she went herself with a desperate, half-baked plan. That decision ended everything.
Richard wasn’t involved. He’s figured out, in hindsight, that she repeatedly brought up Alicia’s security. Goaded him into texting Alicia the morning Matthew died—stood there watching him do it. He remembered it once the detectives walked him back through the timeline. I don’t envy him that realization. He thought she admired Alicia. Wanted what Alicia had built. He never recognized it as something darker—not even when he bought her the same car Alicia drove.
The KOAN team will continue watching for threats, but we’re all home for the holiday—except for Gabriel. He took the DC posting without much explanation. He did the work. But there was something else running underneath it. I’ll call him after the holidays. He hasn’t asked for anything. That’s usually when it matters most.
Alicia is on holiday. Her office will close from Christmas Eve through New Year’s, as will much of DC.
Maya and Phoenix arrive tomorrow. We’ll stay here through the day before Christmas Eve, then we’ll return, and Stella will go to Richard’s on Christmas Eve, as it’s his turn to have her on Christmas morning.
“Tea?” Linda asks Alicia.