Epilogue #2
“Hey, what?” Bart yelled as he shoved open the screen door and it banged against the house. “He’s not goin’ anywhere!”
“I think it’s up to him,” Pierce said, his voice firm but calm. What Nikki referred to as his “cop voice.”
“He’s a goddamned minor!” Bart’s face was flushed, his eyes glittering, his right hand fisted. “You tell them, boy; you tell them you’re not goin’ anywhere!”
“He can emancipate himself,” Pierce said. “If he needs an attorney—”
“Who the hell are you, puttin’ ideas into his head like that? I’m his fuckin’ father. His legal guardian!” Bart’s face was flushed, his nostrils flared, his fist still clenched. “He ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“Is it really my decision?” Toby asked.
“It could be, yes.” Pierce was nodding, but his eyes were on Bart. “And I told you we have a place for you. Attached to the house, but your own apartment.”
“Oh, no way!” Bart growled.
Nikki said, “We talked it over. You’re welcome to stay there, go to college once you graduate, or trade school, or get a job. Whatever you want.”
“Now wait a fuckin’ minute,” Bart cut in and jabbed a thumb at his chest. “I’m the one who makes those decisions.”
“Until he turns eighteen or takes you to court,” Pierce pointed out. “Either way, it’s only a matter of months.”
“I don’t know,” Toby said.
“Of course you don’t.” Bart glowered at his son. “You’re just a kid.”
Nikki held the boy’s gaze. “It’s up to you, Toby. No matter what your dad says. You’re almost an adult.”
The kid was actually teetering, but she didn’t want to push.
“Now wait a damn minute,” Bart said, trying to take control. “I’m his guardian, and the government says so.”
Nikki’s heart sank. This was about money, just as Pierce had predicted.
“That doesn’t need to change,” Pierce said. “Toby’s got a few more months of social security coming his way, and you’ll get it. We won’t interfere. It’s just that I know you aren’t always getting along, so this is a way to make things easier. For both of you.”
Bart’s face tightened. He wasn’t buying it. “His benefits stay with me. And you get …?”
“Someone in the apartment over the garage. If he wants to make some money, he can do yard work or walk the dogs.”
“You’re not going to charge him rent?” Bart asked, clearly astounded.
Nikki reiterated, “No rent.”
Bart clarified. “And he can come and go as he pleases?”
“They’ll be some house rules,” Nikki replied.
Pierce added, “He has to finish school. Go everyday, and we’ll get reports.”
“But I keep the money?” Bart wanted to nail that fact down.
“Right.” Pierce nodded.
“Dad?” Toby asked.
“It’s up to you,” his father said with a snort.
“They’re right, I guess. You’re almost an adult.
Do what you want!” And since he’d locked up what he wanted in the bargain, Nikki guessed, he went inside.
Nikki watched him through the window as he lit a cigarette, then, using the remote, turned up the volume on the TV.
“Okay, so there you have it. It’s up to you,” Pierce said. “Just let us know. Come on,” he said to Nikki, taking her hand and starting for the Jeep.
“Hey! Wait a minute.”
They stopped midway in the yard. “You’re not pressing charges? About the, well, you know, your car?”
“The vandalism?” she said. “No, not yet.” She raised her eyebrows. “But it better not happen again.”
He didn’t reply, but she saw his Adam’s apple bobble as he swallowed hard.
“And please, Toby, think about our offer. You’d be safe there, and it’s relatively private.” She offered him a bit of a smile. “And the price is right.”
Again, he didn’t answer, but at least she thought, or more truthfully, she hoped, that she and Pierce had gotten through.
Fingers crossed.
Two days later, she got her answer. She’d taken the girls to the horse barns, where Phee had announced that she was getting a new riding instructor.
“Miss Annabelle” was no longer giving lessons.
“It’s because she’s gonna have a baby,” Phee said, sounding disgusted as she tossed her gear into the back seat.
“Is she?”
“Yep. And she’s getting married to some old grandpa!”
“Archer.”
“She calls him Archie,” Phee said and slid into her seat.
“Of course she does.” Nikki knew that. “So who’s your new instructor?”
“Gia.” Phee sighed theatrically as she stuffed her earbuds into her ears.
“Don’t you like her?”
“She’s okay.” Phee shrugged and snapped her seat belt over her lap. “I just really like Annabelle.”
“Maybe she’ll come back,” Nikki said, but she was talking to herself, as Phee had already plugged in.
It had been a long two months, she thought, since the night she’d squared off with Duke Wheelan, unmasking him as the Savannah Slasher, and Pierce had nearly been killed by someone he’d considered one of his best, if not his very best, friends, a man who now swore he hadn’t meant to kill Naomi, but they’d fought and he’d panicked.
Which only added to his lies.
Looking through bank records, the police had discovered that he had paid Stoney a large sum of money to carve the rock found in Naomi’s hand at the crime scene.
And there was the matter of a neighbor’s rooster going missing, probably one Jamison had killed and drained its blood, dousing the rock with it and not realizing that the type of blood would trip him up.
A brilliant lawyer.
A not-so-brilliant killer.
They had new evidence against him in the form of enhanced video images that showed him driving his wife’s car, but he’d been wearing a blond wig, in the hope that no one would figure out he’d been behind the wheel, while she was probably in the trunk of her own car.
Then he’d taken her back to their place or somewhere nearby.
He’d strangled her, hung her at the LaRoux place, then ditched the car in the river, leaving the windows down so it would sink, before he swam upstream, then jogged home.
At least that was the prevailing theory.
Jamison Kittle, once a shining star in the DA’s office and touted as following his father’s footsteps into a judgeship or further, now sat in prison after a monthlong stay in the hospital getting over his wounds.
But Pierce was still beating himself up for not knowing how duplicitous the man could be.
Now, Jamison’s children were without a mother, and a father awaiting trial. Naomi’s sister and brother-in-law had taken in Lara, Michelle, and Shana, so the girls were living in Charleston now, away from the pain and heartache of the Savannah media circus that surrounded Jamison Kittle.
Pierce had vowed to be a part of their lives.
If they let him. Lara, the oldest, blamed him for her father’s incarceration, and the younger two were confused.
It would take time for their lives to get to some kind of normal, if that ever happened.
Nikki had tried to form a bond with Roxie, Naomi’s sister, and had said she’d like to help out, especially with Shana, as she and Phee shared a love of horses and riding.
Time would tell.
Currently, Roxie and Naomi’s parents were overwhelmed, though Reverend Stark and the Birds of Paradise were helping out.
It turned out that Westin was a true believer, but he’d trusted Duke Wheelan with the keys to the church’s SUV.
Wheelan had made himself a spare set so that he could take the vehicle out whenever he wanted, though it was usually legitimate, and with the reverend’s approval.
But Nikki and Pierce were trying their best.
They’d talked it over time and time again.
Just the other night, while lying in bed and watching Jimmy Kimmel, Pierce had said, “You know, if things break right, we’d have a ton of kids. Most of whom aren’t ours, but who we feel responsible for.” He was right. Morrisette’s two and now, if they were allowed, the Kittle girls.
“And none of them want us,” she’d said, snuggling closer as the late-summer air had wafted through the bedroom on that hot evening.
“Maybe that’ll change.”
“When pigs fly,” she’d murmured.
Now, as she pulled into the drive, she wondered if she’d been wrong, if boars and sows had sprouted wings and were navigating the clouds.
Because Toby Yelkis was waiting for her, staring down at his phone, his electric bike leaned against the side of the garage, a single duffel bag patched with duct tape at his feet. Arlo was lying in the dirt of a flower bed nearby.
Toby had been texting, but he looked up when the noise of the garage door lifting caught his attention. His eyes met hers for the briefest of seconds as she drove inside.
“Take Chloe into the house, please,” she said to Phee before climbing out of the car.
“Why?” Phee whined before she spied Toby, shoulders hunched, obviously waiting.
Nikki said, “I’ll be in soon.”
Phee looked about to argue, but finally rolled her eyes. “Fine. Okay.” She put her boots and gear away while Nikki unstrapped her daughter, promised to be right in, and watched as Chloe happily followed Phee into the house.
“Hi,” Nikki said, walking outside.
“Hi.” He barely looked up. Embarrassed, maybe? Ashamed? Something.
“So, did you have a change of heart?” she asked when it seems he wasn’t up to starting the conversation. She motioned to the bag.
He flipped his hair out of his eyes. “Dunno.”
But he was lying. “You want to see the apartment?”
“Yeah.” He lifted a shoulder, as if he didn’t care. Yet here he was. Waiting. “Okay.”
“Let me grab the keys.” She went into the house, quickly explained to Lily what she was doing, then found Toby in the garage, admiring the Caddy. “This yours?” he asked, touching the shining hood.
“Pierce’s.”
“Sweet ride,” he said under his breath, a boy who appreciated an antique Caddy but could scratch the hell out of her Subaru.
As if he read her thoughts, he dropped his hand and blushed.