“We can put all the evidence away,” Jack said. “But I think you’ll need to talk to your mother. She knows what we learned yesterday. I called her last night to tell her we weren’t going through with it, but I’m not sure…” He cleared his throat. “You need to talk to her. I’d do it soon.”

Kelly felt a flicker of anxiety, a sharp emotion that was almost a relief as it slashed through her chilly numbness. “You think she’ll go ahead with our original plan? Publicize the evidence that makes it look like Caleb did the killing?”

“I think it’s possible. She’s a lot angrier than you ever were. And she’s a lot less reasonable.”

Kelly knew Jack was right, and the knowledge propelled her to her feet. “Shit. This thing is never over, is it? Where is she? Do you know?”

Jack stood up too. “She’s in hospice care,” he said. “She’s not been doing well.”

She was dying. It shouldn’t matter that much to Kelly, since her mother had abandoned her a long time ago and she’d done nothing to make up for it.

But it did matter. It made Kelly’s stomach twist with feeling. Like here was another sad story that was about to reach its end.

—

An hour later Kelly was walking into her mother’s room.

She was shocked by how frail her mother had grown in just a couple of weeks. She was dying of cancer. She’d had a prognosis of three months almost three months ago.

She didn’t have much time left.

She was awake, though, and fully alert when Kelly entered the room.

“Jack said he called to tell you what happened,” Kelly said without greeting or preamble. She and her mother were way beyond the niceties.

Her mother nodded. “He told me. It doesn’t make a difference.”

“It does make a difference. Caleb isn’t guilty of this after all. Our whole plan to seek justice can’t go anywhere now. I told Jack to call the whole thing off.”

“I know you did.” Her mother’s voice was thin and brittle. “But you’re not the only decision maker here.”

“I know that.” Kelly sighed and rubbed her face, feeling so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. It was like the last three months, the last seventeen years, had finally caught up with her, leaving her with no energy at all. “I don’t want to do anything, though.”

“That’s because you fell for him, like a silly girl, but I’m not so blinded by feelings or hormones or whatever it is. Caleb Marshall has never been anything but a cold, selfish bastard, and I can still make him pay for that.”

“He didn’t kill Dad. I heard the phone calls. It was Earnest. And he’s dead—beyond the scope of our vengeance now.”

“Someone has to pay for it.” That had been her mother’s refrain all along. It had turned her into this driven, obsessive, pitiless creature. She hadn’t always been like this. Grief and injustice had twisted her into it.

Kelly released another long breath. “Someone has paid for it. You and I have paid for it. For way too long now. I’d like to…I’d like for us to stop, and only we can make that happen.”

Her mother met her eyes across the distance. Kelly didn’t expect anything to change. Her mother had hardened herself so much to this battle she’d lived to fight that nothing was going to soften her. Not her daughter. Not her death. Not the truth.

But something did change in her mother’s eyes. Not softness or sympathy—but something that looked almost like understanding. “And you think it’s that easy. You just let go. Release. And we finally stop paying.”

“I don’t know. But I want to try. I’ve done everything I could to make this change, and there’s nothing left for me to do but let go. So that’s what I’m going to do. I really want…I really hope you’ll be able to let go too, if only so you can have some peace at the end here.”

“I want justice. All I ever wanted was justice.”

“I know. Me too. But what we have instead is the truth. It’s going to have to be good enough. If you expose Caleb as the killer, when we both know he’s not, then you’ve taken the truth away from us, so we’ll be left with nothing again.”

Her mother was silent for a really long time. “What are you going to do?”

Kelly gave a little shrug. “What I should have done a long time ago? I’m going to live my life and not keep reopening old wounds.”

“And Caleb?”

“That’s his choice to make.”

“Are you going to go back to him?”

“He’d never take me back, but my choices aren’t dictated by his. I know that now. It’s not a happy truth, but it’s the only one I have. I’m still going to live my life.”

Indecision and bitterness twisted on her mother’s face for a few moments, until it finally resolved into an exhaustion that was akin to what Kelly felt herself. “Okay, then.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay. So you live your life.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to die.”

And that was the answer, Kelly realized. Her mother was too far gone to embrace forgiveness or reconciliation. But in her own way she was letting go too.

It was the best she could hope for.

Chapter 11

Two weeks later Kelly waited in the lobby of the Vendella building and wondered if Caleb would agree to see her.

She figured there was about a fifty-fifty shot. He’d made it clear he didn’t want her in his life again, so it was possible he would simply reject her request for a few minutes with him. On the other hand, however, he was naturally curious, and he would want to know what she wanted, showing up at his office out of the blue like this.

He might let her up just to see what she was doing here.

As she stood, twisting her hands together nervously, she wondered what she was doing here herself.

For the last two weeks, she’d done what she’d told her mother she would do. She’d lived. She’d finished up her in-progress jobs, tried to round up a few new clients, had dinner with Reese and breakfast with Jack, and actually thought about getting a dog.

She’d also thought a lot about Caleb. So much so that she knew she wouldn’t be able to move on without making one more attempt to see him.

She was starting to feel a little better about her father, but the thought of Caleb was still like a twisting knife in her heart. She didn’t know what could come of this—not after all of the lies and manipulations and false pretenses from both of them—but there had been something real underlying all of that, and she wondered if it was something that could survive even the kind of breaking they’d been through.

There was only a slim chance of it. Caleb wasn’t the kind of man to forgive and forget. But she’d finally realized she wouldn’t be able to move on unless she tried.

So here she was. Waiting in the lobby of his building. Wondering what he would say.

“You can go up,” the receptionist said, after calling to see if she’d be allowed up to the executive suite.

Kelly swallowed hard, a wave of both fear and relief rushing over her. Then she stepped onto the elevator and pressed the button for his floor.

She watched as the digital numbers increased on the display above the doors, and she told herself that either way she’d be better off at the end of this conversation.

If Caleb rejected her, then he rejected her. He would have every right to do so. At least she would have tried.

She was filled with an unnatural kind of calm as she walked off the elevator, down the hall, and into his suite. His assistant eyed her coolly but said politely enough, “You can go on in.”

And that was it. Kelly walked through his office door.

Caleb was standing by the window, the way he’d been when she’d shown up in his office just a few Sundays ago to play a sexy little game and then sneak into the storage room.