Moses coos to our son as he walks him around the room, cradling him in his arms.
It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
Then again, I think that every single day when I wake up here, in our tropical paradise where no one knows my name as anything but Magnolia Gray. I have no past, and the future is as bright as the sky. Even Bernie would have approved. Her letter to me, asking my forgiveness for what she’d done when I was sixteen, and telling me she loved me and wished she’d had a chance to redo it all, rests in a place of honor in my bedside table.
Moses turns when he hears me, and the brilliant smile on his face melts my heart.
A woman has never been this loved before. I’m certain of it.
“Ah . . . see, bud? You got her up.”
“I don’t mind at all,” I say, coming toward them with my arms outstretched. “I don’t want to miss a minute.”
Moses hands Abraham to me, and I settle into the rocker to get my hungry boy fed.
My husband stands by the window, looking out at the beach, and says, “I’ve got a surprise for you. It’s coming today.”
I look up as Abraham latches on. “What kind of surprise this time?”
Moses just grins. “You’ll see.”
Three hours later, Abraham and I are settled on a lounger near the pool, an umbrella shading us from the bright Caribbean sun. Jules rolls a crate down the concrete walkway that stops at the beach that serves as our front yard.
Jules and Trey take turns rotating between our guest house and my place in the Quarter—which legally belongs to Jules now. Both men have been invaluable in helping the girls, especially after news of my “death” reached them. Taylor’s business is thriving, especially since all of the girls who were still turning tricks for Desiree have either moved on or joined her. The old house where Moses and I met is now a day spa, and I couldn’t be prouder.
I just wish I could tell her.
But after the elaborate operation Moses pulled off to fake both of our deaths, that’s just not possible.
According to Trey, with his camera feeds and phone hacks, when Cavender got news of our demise, he didn’t believe it. He demanded to see the wreckage of our car-bombed vehicle and what was left of the bodies, and was shocked when his investigation led back to a bank transfer to a known hit man hired by Laura Brandon, dated before her death. That’s when the whole case came together for Cavender and the FBI.
With the help of Trey’s digitally planted bread crumbs, law enforcement came to the exact conclusions we hoped. Reyes was linked to Laura Brandon and Desiree’s murders, and the cases are considered permanently closed. Well, except for the case of Reyes’s death in the street. Mount was never implicated, and I’m willing to bet he never will be. That’s just how Mount rolls. As for Ortiz’s death in my old condo building, from what Trey can tell, Cavender has left it alone in favor of counting the days until his retirement at the end of the year.
Only Mount and Keira know for certain that we’re still alive and kicking. Well, them and Rhodes. God only knows how he found us, but he’s been down twice to play chess. Moses welcomed him with open arms—after interrogating him about how he did it. Rhodes told him that every loose end has been tied up, and no one else could possibly find us now—which is a damn good thing, considering Mount and Keira will be meeting us on a neighboring island for a clandestine vacation soon.
It’s my fondest hope that our babies become even better friends than we are. They’ll see each other at least every few months, if Keira and I get our way. Which means it’s a foregone conclusion. Good thing our men have the skills and the cash to make that happen without exposing any of us to danger.
Then there’s Celeste. She still calls and leaves voice mails of readings every few weeks on my old number—which has never been shut off. I don’t know how she knows, but she does. And thanks to Trey, it looks like the messages are never checked so as not to raise suspicion.
“What’s in there?” I ask Jules.
“Boss’ll tell you. Or show you. I got a shit-ton more of these. They took up half our container.”
More curious than ever, I pick up a smiling Abraham and walk over to the crate. Jules slides the dolly out from under it and heads back up the path, presumably to get the next one.
“What in the world did your daddy get us now?”
“If you’ll give him five minutes, he’ll show you,” the man himself says as he steps out of the house onto the patio with a crowbar in hand.
“Oh Lord, it’s going to be a hell of a day if crowbars are required.”
The laughter that springs from his lips is a sound I hear all the time, and it makes life sweeter than I could have ever imagined.
A few minutes later, the crate’s sides fall open and Moses unwraps what looks like a black statue.
“What is . . .” I trail off when I see the crown carved at the top. My mouth drops open, and I look at Moses. “Oh my God. Please tell me that’s a chess piece.”
His grin stretches from ear to ear as he comes toward me. “You’re damn right it’s a chess piece. I had them made for us so they’d be big, but still light enough that we can move them easily on the sand.”
My excitement is off the charts. “We’re turning our beach into a chess board?”
“You okay with that?”
“As long as you’re okay losing almost every game to me.”
Moses’s arms wrap around me and Abraham, bringing us both close. He lowers his head to whisper in my ear.
“Mama, I win every day I wake up beside you. I call that the ultimate checkmate.”
THE END