My neighbor dumped a bucket of paint over my car at 2 a.m.

The trial took fourteen months.

I testified twice — once about the vehicle purchase, once about the threatening text.

Both times I sat in the same chair, gave the same careful answers, and looked straight ahead.

Linda sat at the defense table in a gray blazer and did not look at me.

Gary Pelton testified for the prosecution under his revised agreement.

He was smaller than I had imagined — thin, pale, with the practiced stillness of someone who had rehearsed every word.

His attorney had coached him well.

But Ruth Marsh sat in the second row every single day, and every time Gary spoke, she watched him with the same calm, steady expression she had used on the phone recording.

It was the most devastating thing in the room.

The jury deliberated for two days.

Linda Carver was convicted of murd3r in the second degree, evidence tampering, and obstruction of justice.

She was sentenced to twenty-two years.

Gary Pelton, under his cooperation agreement, received twelve years on the reduced charges.

The judge made clear, on the record, that the agreement had been made before the recovery of Daniel's remains, and that she considered it the least satisfying outcome of her week.

I was in the hallway when the verdicts were read out.

Reyes found me afterward.

"It's done," she said.

"Yes."

She held out her hand.

I shook it.

"You kept the paperwork," she said.

"My daughter always told me to."

She almost smiled.

"Smart daughter."

Ruth was outside on the courthouse steps.

She had her son's photograph — the one from her kitchen windowsill, Daniel squinting into the sun — held against her chest with both hands.

Her sister was beside her.

A few reporters were at the bottom of the steps, but they kept a respectful distance.

I walked over.

She saw me coming and opened her arms.

We stood on the courthouse steps and held on to each other for a long moment.

She smelled like the same coffee from her kitchen.

Her grip was stronger than I expected.

When she pulled back, her eyes were wet but her face was steady.

"He would have liked you," she said.

"Daniel.

He was the kind of person who kept receipts too."

I laughed.

It surprised me — the sound of it, genuine and sudden, on the steps of a courthouse.

"I'm going to plant something," Ruth said.

"In the garden.

For him.

I've been thinking about what."

"What have you decided?"

"A white rose bush." She looked down at the photograph.

"He bought me one once for my birthday.

I k*lled it within a month.

He teased me about it for years." She paused.

"I'm going to keep this one alive."

I walked back to my car alone.

The drive home was quiet.

The radio stayed off.

I pulled into my driveway — the full driveway, both sides, the space beside the garage that had started all of this — and sat for a moment with the engine off.

The space was empty.

It had been empty since the flatbed took the SUV.

I had been thinking about what to do with it.

I had decided.

I went inside and made one phone call.

To a contractor I had used before, reliable and straightforward.

I told him I wanted the concrete broken up and replaced with a garden bed.

Something that would come back every year.

Something that didn't need much looking after.

He said he could start on Thursday.

I said Thursday was fine.

I made coffee for one, sat at the kitchen table, and looked out at the empty driveway.