Epilogue

Everything changed.

Both Jack and Sara spent some time at the excellent Broward Health while they recovered. They were quiet patients as they thought about their futures and what they wanted to happen.

Jack had trouble getting over his anger. He had accepted what appeared to be a sealed bottle of water from Reid. It was laced with something that made Jack pass out. When he woke up, Sara was strapped to a gurney and Kate... He didn't like hearing what had been done to her.

Reid had been taken away in handcuffs. He was saying he was innocent.

By the time Jack and Sara were released from the hospital, they knew what they were going to do.

Jack didn't feel right inheriting Lachlan House by himself so he paid his half sister, Ivy, and his half brother, Troy, each a third share of the appraised value of the house.

Jack and Kate asked Sara to move in with them. It seemed right as they'd always lived together. She thanked them, but said no. She added that she'd love to rent the cottage from them. She said she had an idea for a time travel fantasy featuring a young librarian, and Sara wanted to write it.

Lea had no desire to go back to a state with brutal winters. She and Randal moved into the guesthouse.

They received word from Arthur and Everett that they liked the dry heat of Arizona and wanted to stay there. Kate happily sold the big Southwest Ranches house, and Lenny and Dora—who had become a couple—moved into the apartment over the garage at Lachlan House.

Gil, Greer, and Quinn spent a glorious summer in Scotland meeting all of Greer's relatives. Quinn wore a kilt the whole time they were there. When they returned to the US, Gil bought one of the places near Lachlan House. He and Greer had their wedding reception in the ballroom. By then, she was six months pregnant and they wanted to be near what had become their family.

Troy and Sheriff Flynn hit it off well. When Troy told his mother he wasn't returning to California, she protested. But Troy stayed firm. So Kate did the deal of selling Sara's house, fully furnished, to Barbara Adair. She kept Kate's apartment for when she visited her son—which was often.

Alish didn't live very long after Reid was arrested. To her last day, she said that nothing was his fault, that he'd inherited the evil that was inside him. She said that one man had been executed because of her and she couldn't bear for it to be repeated. She'd even given up her beloved granddaughter to protect him.

Before Alish died, she made arrangements with Sara.

Aran was removed from a grave that bore the name of the first Reid, and was laid to rest beside his parents in the mausoleum.

Alish was put in the Lachlan cemetery. Barbara used her connections to find the coffin of the actor named Taylor Caswell and move it to lie beside his wife.

Barbara refused Sara's suggestion of telling the story of who murdered the young actor. "Killed because of a script?" Barbara said. "I don't think so!" Troy told Sara she should write the screenplay and give Barbara a fabulous part. "It might work." Sara and Troy laughed together.

It was after Alish's death, when her barren house was being cleared, that the turtle rug was found deep inside a chest freezer in the garage. The contents, with its abundant DNA, would ensure that Reid wouldn't be freed for lack of evidence. No one said out loud that by keeping the contents of the rug, Alish had again condemned someone.

As for poor Rachel, the only thing Reid said was, "She laughed at me." It was all the confession they got out of him.

It was Kate who went alone to the hospice to visit Cal's wife, Donna.

The woman looked very bad, but her eyes glittered in what appeared to be amusement. "So she figured it out." Donna's tone was triumphant, as though she'd won a war she'd been fighting all her life.

Kate didn't sit down, just looked at the frail old woman in the bed. She had many wires and tubes attached to her.

A thousand thoughts came to Kate but she knew most of the answers. She just wanted to make sure. "The car?" she asked.

"One little kick." Donna gave a bit of a smile and her pulse rate went up.

"Walter?"

"He loved to hate anybody." Donna's smile grew wider.

Kate's mind twirled about with her thoughts of all the pain this woman had caused people. She started to leave, but turned back. "Was it worth it?" She glanced around the empty room. No flowers, no cards, no photos.

When Donna stopped smiling, Kate grinned broadly. "Sara, Jack, and Roy's other son, and I are a family. A very, very happy family."

Kate left the hospital with her shoulders back and her head high. She needed to stop at the florist. She had a wedding to plan. Her own wedding.

But that was another story.