Tears to Triumph

The scent of copper and expensive cologne always did make me sick, but tonight, it smelled like freedom. Beckett lay sprawled across the Persian rug, his chest a canvas of Quinn’s final, violent obsession, while she rested beside him in a staged embrace that was as fake as her suicide threats used to be. Three years ago, I crawled through mountain thorns on my hands and knees to bring him back from the brink of death; tonight, I just stood in the doorway and watched the coroners zip the bag. My head throbbed where he’d thrown the ashtray a week ago—his last parting gift before the divorce papers were dry—but for the first time since Quinn Ellis came home, the air was clear. The Hale family legacy was bleeding into the floorboards, and all I could think about was the smell of fresh sourdough waiting for me at the shop tomorrow. The ice queen had finally thawed, and it only took a double homicide to do it.