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“It did,” Donna said. “Come on in.”
Before she’d fallen asleep in the motel room ten days earlier, Alex had devised a plan to obtain Jacqueline’s fingerprints from the District of Columbia Bar Association and test them against the print found on her bedroom window the night her family was killed. After her night at the Shady Side Motel, the fingerprint confirmation was a formality but would provide full closure on an event that had defined her life. After searching so long for the truth, Alex needed to be sure.
Although police were still attempting to piece together a motive for why a prominent attorney had attempted to kill one of her investigators, no answers had yet been found and Alex wasn’t offering any clues. There were two reasons Alex had decided to keep the details about Jacqueline Jordan’s role in her family’s death to herself. The first was selfish: the last thing Alex wanted was to resurrect the story of her family’s murder and put it back in the headlines. Telling the authorities what she knew about Jacqueline Jordan would do exactly that. Alex had narrowly escaped the media scrutiny a decade ago. She was sure she would not survive the tabloids and true-crime nuts a second time. The other reason was selfless, and it had to do with her love for Garrett and Donna Lancaster. Revealing the sensational details that Jacqueline Jordan—the attorney who played a crucial role in getting the original charges against Alex dismissed, and who helped win Alexandra Quinlan’s defamation case against the state of Virginia—was, in fact, the one who had mowed down the Quinlan family was a story so powerful that it would undoubtedly sink Lancaster & Jordan, ruin Garrett’s career, and send him and Donna into exile. Alex had spent too many years there to deliver the same sentence to the people she loved most on the planet.
Instead, her closure would come privately. Donna still had contacts inside the McIntosh Police Department, and Alex had asked her to tap those resources and obtain the lone print from her bedroom window that was stored in evidence. Alex had asked Annette Packard for a final favor, and Annette worked with Donna to have the print analyzed against Jacqueline’s. It had taken a week, but now, as they all sat in the kitchen nook, Donna now pushed a single piece of paper across the table so that it was in front of Alex. She stared at Donna for a moment, building up courage until she finally looked down at the page.
Jacqueline Jordan’s print was a match to the one lifted from Alex’s bedroom window. Alex inhaled sharply, even though she was all but certain what she’d find. Still, finally arriving at the truth after so many years took her breath away. Tears welled in her eyes and Garrett was immediately next to her. He put his arm around her as Alex turned her head into his chest.
“I’m so sorry,” Garrett whispered.
Donna reached over and took Alex’s hand—completing the unlikely family they had become.
“We need to decide,” Donna said, “what we’re going to do with this information.”
“Nothing,” Alex said, lifting her head from Garrett’s chest. “We’re not going to do anything with it.”
“But, Alex—” Donna started.
“No,” Alex said, cutting her off. “This should be my decision. You need to allow me to make it. I can’t go through it all again. I can’t go through my family’s image on every grocery store tabloid. I can’t go through the press hovering outside my door. Plus, this time you’d both have it as bad as me.”
“We don’t care about what this would do to us or my firm,” Garrett said.
“But I do. And this is what I want. I want this to stay among the three of us. I don’t want anyone else to know.”
“What about Annette Packard and the FBI?” Garrett asked.
Alex shook her head. “Annette was doing me a favor. She worked with an ex-FBI profiler who is a friend of hers. She didn’t go through any formal channels, and she won’t say a word.”
Garrett and Donna looked at each other, and Alex saw the silent confirmation between them.
“You’re sure?” Donna asked.
“I’m sure.”
* * *
Garrett pulled her close one more time. “Any chance we can stop you from leaving?”
Alex placed her head against his chest again and closed her eyes.
“There’s no way I can stay.”
CHAPTER 70
McIntosh, Virginia Monday, June 12, 2023 10:04 a.m.
SHE PULLED UP TO HER OLD HOUSE ON MONTGOMERY LANE AND parked in the driveway. The in-ground sprinklers were running and the lawn was a gorgeous shade of green—freshly mowed the day before, with the edges trimmed and corners at sharp ninety-degree angles. The hedges were pruned and the azaleas sparkled with morning sunlight and dripped as they bathed in the sprinkler’s mist.
Alex climbed from her car and looked around the neighborhood. It was her first time back in McIntosh in some time. The house had been on a good run with no hiccups in the last two years that required her presence. A few minor things had come up but were easily handled by the maintenance crew Alex had hired to look after the property. The hot water heater had needed a new pilot light, a woodpecker had drilled a hole in the cedar siding, and a slab of concrete on the walkway to the front door had sunk and needed to be raised.
A wave of nostalgia crashed over her as she looked at her childhood home. The good memories from the first eighteen years of her life had, over time, outshined the darkness of a single night when the home had turned into something else. Despite the time it took to happen, her mind had managed to juggle things back into the proper order. She could once again look at the house and bask in all the joyous memories it held.
Alex wasn’t sure how the transformation had taken place. It was likely the result of some combination of therapy, time, and the closure she had finally found. However it came to be, she was happy to finally stand in front of her childhood home without fear. For years she had meticulously kept it maintained and cared for, but now she was ready to let it go. Not, however, before she took care of one last thing.
She keyed the front door and stepped into her past. She remembered back to the hot summer night when she snuck into the home just before leaving for Cambridge. It was the night she came to retrieve Raymond’s baseball card collection but found the bank statements instead that started her down a years-long journey. She remembered the dank odor the home held that night—the sticky summer air having penetrated the walls to fill the home with a bitter smell of vacancy and neglect. Today, on this bright, sunny morning, the home was immaculate and airy, carrying the scent of lemon wax from hardwood floors that shined with sunlight.
She walked through the first floor and took in the empty rooms. The freshly painted walls were bright and welcoming, the newly finished floors smooth and glossy. The kitchen was straight out of an HGTV series, with quartz countertops, a butler’s pantry, and a decorative hood over the oven. The contractor had done a great job, and the home would make some family very happy.
