Page 113 of With a Vengeance
That’s satisfaction enough for Anna. She doesn’t need Kenneth Wentworth to look her in the eyes. Besides, there’ll be plenty of time for that in the future. She’s certain she’ll be seeing him in court.
Dante sidles up next to her as his father is driven away. Watching the car recede down the street, he says, “I didn’t know he was on the train, Annie. I swear to God. If I did, I would have told you.”
“I believe you.”
“And I didn’t know about Tommy, either. Not until my father told me as they were arresting him.”
Anna believes that, too. It’s obvious to her that Dante Wentworth isn’t the heartless cad she thought him to be. The heartless one in his family is the man now in FBI custody.
“I wish things were different,” he says. “We would have been good together.”
Dante’s word choice tells Anna he now understands what she realized when talking to his father. There was a good reason for keeping them apart all those years ago. One that remains today. She and Dante can only be friends, and Anna welcomes the idea. She literally has no friends—and Dante will soon need one. He has a hard few years ahead of him.
“You and your mother need to brace yourselves for the hate that’s about to come your way,” Anna says. “Things will be said about you. Horrible things you don’t deserve. All you can do is hold on to what you know to be true. And if it ever feels like it’s too much to bear, write to me. I promise to write back.”
“Can I also write to you about my brother?” Dante asks, the quiver in his voice reminding Anna that Tommy’s memory no longer belongs just to her. Dante has just as much claim to it as she does.
“Of course.”
Dante nods, grateful. “Good. Because I have a lot of questions.”
“I already know the answer to one of them,” Anna says. “You would have loved him.”
Satisfied, Dante bows before offering one last crooked grin. “I look forward to our correspondence, Annie.”
Once he’s gone, Anna closes her eyes and exhales. There’s a shakiness to the air rushing from her lungs. Grief. At last bubbling up. She’s about to let it pour out of her when she spies ReggieDavis being led away. Instead of handcuffs, he’s been relegated to a wheelchair pushed by one of his fellow agents. Although his nose has been bandaged, the skin around it remains puffy and bruised. At Reggie’s request, they come to a stop in front of Anna.
“Give us a minute, will ya?” he tells the agent, who gets the hint and backs out of earshot.
Anna inhales, uncertain if she wants to be alone with a murderer. Especially one who almost convinced her to kill as well. She’d been a millisecond away from shooting Kenneth Wentworth in the heart. The only thing that stopped her was a faint flicker of mercy.
“I want you to know that I confessed,” Reggie says. “I told them exactly what happened. That Judd Dodge murdered Edith Gerhardt and that I killed Herb Pulaski—and then strangled Judd to death.”
Anna releases the breath she’d been holding in. “You don’t need to do that.”
“And no one needs to know what Seamus did,” Reggie says.
“I’ll still know.”
“Try to forget. And try to forgive him. Hopefully me taking the fall for it will help with that. Seeing how I’m about to be locked up for God knows how long, it’s the least I can do.”
Anna looks away, feeling a lump in her throat that she forces back down. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
Reggie shrugs it off. “You seriously wanted them all to live, didn’t you?”
“Very much so.”
“Why? And don’t say it’s because you’re better than they are. That would have been true even if you’d killed them all.”
“I don’t know why,” Anna says with a sigh.
She really doesn’t. Because she also wanted them dead. And just like Seamus, she wanted to be the one to do it. Now that it’sall over, she can admit this to herself. The reason she couldn’t on the train is that she might have acted on those feelings—and she would have lost her own humanity in the process.
“Good-bye, Anna Matheson,” Reggie says as he starts to be wheeled away again. Looking past her, he adds, “My boss is coming. I suspect he’ll want a word with you.”
Anna turns to see a gruff bulldog of a man in a black suit and matching fedora walking her way. “Miss Matheson?” he says, holding out his hand. “Ed Vesper. Head of the Philadelphia bureau. I just wanted to congratulate you. You got them.”
“Not all of them,” Anna replies.
