Timothy Sabian would have been glad to go to prison for killing his father if it meant protecting others from violence, but both the girl and her mom who were present there at the riverfront that day testified that he’d killed his dad in self-defense.

In his heart of hearts, he wasn’t certain that it was solely in self-defense, but he was at least sure that he’d done it in the service of justice, and maybe that was enough.

For Miranda.

For Mom.

For all the others.

Were the bugs still bothering him?

Yes.

Some problems are not so easily solved.

But he had answers now, and a certain peace about who he was: a novelist with a felicitously overactive imagination.

He wasn’t sure what his next book would be about, but he did know that he was going to finish Emily’s story, and he was going to give her a happy ending.

++++

Studying Blake’s computer files that were on the thumb drives I’d found on his body gave us what we needed regarding capturing the men in Phoenix who’d abducted Jake Reese’s son.

The drives also contained Marcus Rockwell’s findings on overcoming atmospheric turbulence to help establish the worldwide quantum encryption network.

It would be hyperbolic to say that whoever cracked that type of encryption first would rule the world, but it wasn’t exaggerating to say that they would be able to control the world’s secrets.

With that technology, Blake could’ve sent and received essentially unhackable communications with any terrorist group worldwide. He could have expanded his operations exponentially.

Now, the findings he’d gotten from Marcus could be put to much better use.

Calvin recovered, and it didn’t take long for him and Christie to become friends. We found out he’d battled cancer himself a decade ago, something I hadn’t even been aware of, and his encouragement meant a lot to her.

Thurman managed to wangle a lucrative severance package, which he accepted. Apart from hearing that he and his family were fine, I hadn’t been in touch with him.

Mannie dropped out of sight, but he sent me a Christmas card with the coded message that he had Hope once again. I heard rumors that he was working with the Bureau. Though I couldn’t be positive, I had confidence that he’d turned and was ready to give up the secrets that Blake had kept so dear while he was alive.

Senator Murray came clean about his gambling addiction, agreed to counseling, and it looked like his constituency was willing to forgive him, which I was glad to see. He was healing from the loss of his son—he told me that having resolution about what’d happened was the first step to moving on. And that was always a good thing.

And Marcus Rockwell?

He went on trial for four counts of second-degree murder.