Follow Me Home (Detectives Kane and Alton)

Jenna held up a hand to halt Kane and waited for them to leave. “I hope life settles down in Black Rock Falls for a while. I sure need a break.”

Epilogue

When Alison Saunders’ body washed up on the edge of the river on the following Sunday, Jenna arranged for burial in unconsecrated ground. As Rowley had been so upset at the loss of his girlfriend, she had insisted Alison’s plot lay under the only tree in the small cemetery and well away from a line of killers stretching back over one hundred years.

Driving by the cemetery with Kane two weeks later, she spotted Lizzy Harper, Angelique Booval, and Pattie McCarthy bending over Alison’s grave then walking quickly out the gate. “What are they doing in there?”

“I haven’t perfected the art of reading minds yet, ma’am, but I would imagine they are visiting a grave.” Kane smiled at her. “Do you want me to stop and ask them?”

She ignored his dry sense of humor and nodded. “Yes, but I don’t want to speak to them. One of them was placing something on Alison’s grave. I want to see what it is.”

Jenna was aware Rowley had erected a gravestone and laid flowers on Alison’s grave, but seeing the three other victims of child abuse there spiked her curiosity. All had been suspects in the brutal murders before Alison’s confession and she had wondered if they knew each other.

“Jenna. I know what you’re thinking.” Kane touched her arm. “It’s not a conspiracy. Those women were not involved in the murders. We cleared them all. Alison acted alone.”

“I thought you couldn’t read minds.” She slid from the car and walked beside Kane to the gravesite. Her gaze drifted over the white marble stone, with Alison’s name carved in simple script. Jake Rowley’s flowers had wilted in the sun but on the dry earth, a small bunch of flowers sat in a pretty, pink vase.

Attached to it was a card with just two words: Thank you.