Page 107 of In the Shadows
"Sarah called this afternoon," she said quietly. "The defense filed another motion. They're claiming prosecutorial misconduct—something about how the FBI obtained Caleb's surveillance footage."
"That's a reach."
"Maybe. But it means more delays. More hearings. More time for Warren's lawyers to find something that sticks." She took a long drink of champagne. "I'm tired, Ronan. I've been tired for five years. And every time I think it's almost over, something else happens."
"It will end."
"Will it? Or will this just go on forever? Appeals and motions and procedural challenges until everyone forgets why we're even doing this."
He didn't have an answer for that. The legal system moved at its own pace, indifferent to the people caught in its machinery. He'd seen it before—cases that dragged on for years, justice delayed until it barely resembled justice at all.
"Hey." He set down his champagne and turned to face her fully. "Whatever happens with the trial, Warren Caldwell is finished. His reputation is destroyed. His business is gone. His allies have scattered. Even if some technicality gets him off?—"
"It won't be enough." Her voice was flat. "I need him convicted. I need a jury to say, out loud, that he murdered my father. I need it on the record. Otherwise, it's just—" She gestured vaguely. "Rumors. Accusations. Things that might have happened."
"I understand."
"Do you?"
"Yes." He held her gaze. "When my father died, there was no one to blame. No trial, no justice, just a heart attack in a parking lot. One minute he was there, the next he wasn't. And for years I was angry at—" He stopped. "I don't know. The universe. The randomness of it. The fact that there was no enemy to fight, no wrong to right. Just loss, with nothing on the other side of it."
Lila was watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read.
"You never talk about your father."
"There's not much to say. He worked. He read. He died." Ronan picked up his champagne again, more for something to do with his hands than because he wanted it. "But my point is—you have something I didn't. You have a target. You have a fight. And even if the fight takes longer than it should, even if it doesn't end the way you want, at least you're not raging against nothing."
"That's a bleak kind of comfort."
"I'm not good at comfort. I'm good at bleak."
She laughed, startled. "That's the most honest thing you've ever said."
"I have my moments."
At eleven-thirty, Grace gathered everyone on the back porch for a toast.
She stood on the top step, Sid beside her, a glass of champagne in her hand. The string lights caught the silver in her hair, and her face was flushed from the cold and the wine.
"I'm not going to make a speech," she said. "I know, I know—everyone's shocked. Grace, not making a speech?"
Laughter rippled through the crowd.
"But I just wanted to say—" She paused, looking out at the faces gathered in her yard. "This year was hard. For all of us. We found out things about our town that we didn't want to know. We lost people we thought we could trust. And we're still figuring out what comes next."
Ronan felt Lila's hand slip into his.
"But we're still here," Grace continued. "We're still showing up for each other. And that's what matters. Not the people who let us down—the people who didn't. The ones who stayed."
She raised her glass.
"To the ones who stayed."
"To the ones who stayed," the crowd echoed.
Ronan drank. The champagne was cold and sharp, and he was surprised to find that he meant it—the toast, the sentiment, all of it. He'd spent most of his life leaving. Moving on to the next mission, the next assignment, the next place that needed him for a while before he disappeared again.
He'd never been one of the ones who stayed.
