Page 82 of Little Shattered Dreams

It seemed my window of opportunity to search his place was gone.

CHAPTER42

Part of me wanted to keep going all night, but given the late hour, my aching body had other ideas. After the day we’d just had, I was exhausted. I decided to stay in, get some rest, and start fresh in the morning.

After a long soak in the bathtub, I slipped into bed and called Giovanni to check in. When the call was over, Simone entered the room. Thinking we’d spend some time talking about the case before we went to sleep, she’d made herself a strong cup of tea. She was talking so fast I struggled to keep up.

She plopped down next to me and told me about the phone call she’d had with Casey Parker. More liketriedto have. Casey was disinterested in dredging up the past and refused to talk about what happened all those years ago. What’s more, he was happy to hear Quinn was dead.

In his words, justice had been served at long last.

After we discussed the short phone call, I suggested she sleep in her own bungalow tonight. She shot the idea down, which I expected.

I was starting to miss the time I’d had to myself at the start of the week. I didn’t consider myself cohabitating material, even though Giovanni and I were making it work. He always seemed to know what I needed, and we respected one another’s space, which made coexisting in the same house a lot easier. He wasn’t always around either. He often jetted off somewhere, doing something for the family business. It gave me time to recharge my battery.

Thinking of him now, and of Luka, I wanted nothing more than to return home to my man and my pooch. I needed this case to be over, but if I wanted to close it, I needed answers I still didn’t have. For now, it was tomorrow’s problem.

Sleep came fast, and I went the entire night without waking.

While Simone showered the next morning, I called Quinn’s friend Jane. She wasted no time shedding light on the woman Quinn was post-car accident, a woman forever changed, forever trying to get her life back. Jane reminisced on the good times and bad, the moments where Quinn showed the slightest glimmer of the fun-loving woman she was before Lucas Parker’s death.

When I mentioned the message left in lipstick in Quinn’s home, I was surprised to learn Jane knew about it. She'd begged Quinn to go to the police. Quinn refused. Involving the police meant she’d have to explain who she was and unpack a past she was still too embarrassed to admit—especially to authorities.

Quinn believed the message was nothing more than an idle threat written by someone who wanted her to know she’d been found. A scare tactic intended to rile her. She didn’t believe she was in real danger, or if she did, she wouldn’t admit it to anyone.

Jane disagreed with Quinn’s decision to do nothing but found a satisfying compromise. She’d keep quietifQuinn agreed to install security cameras at the front and back of her house and give Jane access to monitor the feed through her cell phone. If the intruder returned, they’d both know about it.

A second break-in never happened.

As to who was behind the threat, Quinn claimed she didn’t know. She hadn't kept any of the letters she’d received after the boy’s death, and she hadn’t turned them over to police either. She’d burned them, destroying any chance we had to connect them to her murderer.

Maybe Quinn had assumed that after so much time had passed, she’d been all but forgotten. But for one person, Quinn was still very much at the forefront of their mind.

CHAPTER43

The sharp sting of winter’s morning air felt different today somehow. It whistled through the trees, bending and twisting—restless, like it sensed today would be different.

Perhaps it would be.

Perhaps today the answers I’d been seeking would come.

Justice would be served.

It was nice to think of the day ending with me looking the killer in the eye, ushering in the day of reckoning.

I was outside on the back deck with my robe wrapped around me. As my thoughts wandered, I glanced over to the porch next to mine. Quinn’s porch. If she were still alive, maybe we would have been outside together at this very moment, swapping stories over our first cup of coffee of the day. The mere thought of it sent a chill through me, or maybe it was the frigidity of the air. I wasn’t sure.

It was half past six in the morning, and I’d already been awake for an hour. Ever since I was a child, I’d been an early riser. There was a sense of stillness and calm in the morning hours, something I didn’t get any other way.

I took a sip of coffee and noticed Grace shuffling toward me. She seemed a bit disoriented this morning, unlike her usual serene, collected self.

She bent over the wood railing and blew out a long sigh.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I didn’t sleep much last night, which is unusual for me.”

“It seems normal, given what’s going on right now.”

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