Win drove. A few minutes into the ride, Mickey called for an update. Ema and Spoon were with him.

“It’s over,” Myron said to his nephew.

“You found Rhys?”

“He’s dead.”

Myron could hear Mickey tell Ema. Then he could hear Ema cry.

Win parked the car in the garage behind the Dakota. When they entered the apartment, Terese threw her arms around both of them. They stayed like that until Win’s phone buzzed. Win excused himself and said good night. Myron looked deep into Terese’s eyes.

“I can’t wait to marry you,” he said.

He took a long hot shower. Terese joined him. They didn’t speak. Not yet. Not tonight. They made love. It was fierce and raw and perfect and maybe even healing. Myron didn’t so much fall asleep in his fiancée’s arms as pass out. He didn’t dream. He just stayed in her arms for a long time. An hour. Maybe two.

And then the small chill started running up his spine.

“What is it?” Terese said. “What’s the matter?”

“The gun,” Myron said.

“What gun?”

“Patrick had a gun,” Myron said. “What happened to it?”

Epilogue

THREE MONTHS LATER

You are perhaps hoping for a twist and a happy ending.

You are thinking that perhaps a mistake was made, that the body did not belong to Rhys Baldwin, that somehow Brooke and Chick got their child back.

But sometimes there is no twist. And many times, there is no happy ending.

This is, however, a happy day.

Two weeks ago, I threw Myron perhaps the most legendary bachelor party of all time. How legendary? Let us say that we hit four continents. Myron, of course, was a very good boy. It is how he always is. I, you’ll be happy to note, was bad enough for the both of us. So too were Esperanza and Big Cyndi.

What, you say, women at a bachelor party?

Times change, my friend.

Today I am dressed in tails as Myron’s best man. It is odd. Myron has always dreamed of this day, of marrying the love of his life and settling down and starting a family. The gods have, alas, had other plans for him. I, for one, have never encouraged such thinking. I don’t really get the whole “love” thing.

Or I didn’t.

Myron is more than my best friend. The youngsters call what we have a “bromance,” and perhaps that is apropos. I love Myron. I want—no, I need—him happy. I have missed him over the past year, though I was often closer than he knew. The night he saw Hamilton? I was three rows behind him. When he found his brother, Brad, in that horrible place, I was not that far away.

Just in case.

I love him. And I want him to be happy.

There have been other loves in his life, most significantly a woman named Jessica. But Terese is different. You notice it when you are with them. They are one thing apart from another. They are something entirely different, entirely spectacular when they are together. Simply put, if everything is a chemical reaction—and I believe it is—these two compounds combine to make an ecstatic whole.