Chapter 9 - THE CAVALRY
The next few hours were a blur: paramedics checking us out, giving us oxygen for the tear gas, detectives taking more statements, the mayor and Reagan and Carter being led out in cuffs, their faces pale, the mayor screaming that he was being set up, that he’d sue everyone, that he’d be back. The undercover trooper, whose name was Torres, shook all our hands, telling us he’d been waiting for the right moment to take Hale down, that our evidence had been the final piece of the puzzle. “We’ve got enough to put him away for the rest of his life,” he said, smiling. “All of them. You guys did good. Real good.”
By the time the sun came up, it was all over. The news trucks were already in Silver Lake, cameras rolling, reporters talking about the “massive corruption scandal” that had taken down the mayor, his millionaire mistress, and her stepson, the wrongful conviction of Finnley Dennis, the miraculous return of Camden Dennis from the “dead.” The DA held a press conference that afternoon, standing in front of the courthouse, announcing that all charges against me were dropped, that my record was being expunged, that Reagan, Carter, and Mayor Hale were being charged with 47 felonies between them, including conspiracy to commit murder, embezzlement, framing an innocent person, and witness tampering. “Justice has been done today,” he said, as the cameras flashed. “The truth always finds a way to come out.”
I stood next to my dad in the back of the crowd, holding his hand, Jax and Maggie next to us, as the DA spoke, and for the first time in three years, I felt like I could breathe again. No more looking over my shoulder, no more wondering if someone was gonna hurt me or the people I loved, no more sleeping with one eye open. It was over. They were gone. We were free.
That night, we went back to the house—my house, now, per my dad’s will. The locks were changed, the black door was gone, replaced with the old wooden one my dad had built when I was a kid, the rose bushes he’d planted along the front walk already in the ground, Jax and Maggie having planted them that morning while we were at the courthouse. We walked inside, and I cried again: the family photos were back on the walls, my mom’s portrait hanging over the fireplace, my dad’s leather armchair in its old spot by the window, the smell of his cedar cologne and my favorite chocolate chip cookies—Maggie had baked them—filling the air. It was home again. The soul was back.
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We sat around the fireplace that night, eating cookies, drinking hot cocoa, talking about the future: my dad was gonna reopen Dennis Construction, let me run it with him, Jax was gonna be the new head of the Silver Lake Police Department, Maggie was gonna open her own PI firm in town, Dr. Hale was gonna get immunity for testifying against his brother, move out of state with his daughter to start over. “What about you, Finnley?” my dad asked, squeezing my shoulder. “What do you wanna do now?”
I looked around the room, at the people who’d fought for me, who’d risked everything for me, at the house I’d grown up in, the town that had let me down but was now giving me a second chance, and I smiled. “I wanna stay here,” I said. “I wanna help you rebuild the company. I wanna make sure nothing like this ever happens to anyone in this town again. I wanna show everyone that the truth really does win, even when it feels like all hope is gone.”
