Chapter 23 #3
“He’s still a threat to you, Seth,” Ronan said. “I saw the footage of him and his friend from a couple of days ago. Right before he went back to your old house.”
I stiffened at that. They knew I’d gone back to the Nichols house?
“Levi,” I heard Phoenix say and I was surprised to find him just a couple of feet behind me. I hadn’t even heard him move. “Tell us what you and T talked about at the store the other night…the night you got the bruises.”
I was so confused that I nodded and said, “T’s been trying to get me to help him.
First he wanted me to help him steal prescription drugs from the pharmacy of the store I work at.
A couple of days ago, he told me he wanted me to help him steal money from Betty.
She owns the store and a lot of other ones just like it.
He wanted me to go to her house and get her to let us inside.
She’s got a lot of money so he wanted to rob her. ”
My throat felt tight as I realized what I was saying. I shot Seth a glance and saw how pale he’d gone.
I dropped my eyes and said, “He had his brother, Gun, hurt my friend Hank in prison to blackmail me into helping him. He said…he said if I didn’t help him, Hank would be killed.”
“So he never talked to you about going after Seth?” Phoenix asked.
“What? No!” I said, completely stunned. Was that what they’d thought? “No! Why would you think that?” I asked as I turned to look at Seth and Ronan.
“You’ve returned to the house on Mercer Island four times,” Ronan said, his voice carrying an accusatory edge to it. “The house Seth grew up in. The house you and your brother and Jed broke into seven years ago.”
I felt like I was going to be sick. I shook my head in disbelief. “You thought I was going there to…to case the place or something? So I could try again?”
“Why else would you return?” the dark-haired man asked. Seth had called him Memphis. I had no fucking clue who he was or how he fit into any of this.
“Because I…”
I realized what I’d been about to blurt out and snapped my mouth shut.
“Because you what?” Ronan asked.
I felt Phoenix’s hand on my back. I wanted to shrug it off because I felt too raw inside to deal with it. To deal with any of this.
“Because I wanted to go back, okay?” I admitted as tears stung my eyes.
“I wanted to go back to that night and try to find something, anything, I could have done different. I wanted to pretend that you” – my eyes fell on Seth – “and your parents were asleep in your beds and that everything was fine and that fucking night had never happened.” I dashed at the tears that fell.
“I imagined you graduating from high school and your parents throwing you a party. I imagined you getting ready to leave for college and your mom…” My voice broke as Corinne Nichols’s screams rang in my ear.
My knees buckled. Phoenix caught me as I sank to the floor.
“I imagined your mom hugging you goodbye over and over again and crying and then watching you drive off.” I was dimly aware of Phoenix’s arm going around my shoulders, but it did nothing to ease the cold that was starting to seep through my veins.
“Why did you leave this morning without talking to me?” Phoenix asked.
“Because I knew you’d try to stop me.”
“Stop you from what?”
But I shook my head. “I just wanted one last day with Henry. I went to see Father O to tell him I wouldn’t be able to volunteer at the soup kitchen anymore, but he told me you got a call about Amani.” I lifted my eyes to his. “Is she okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “She’s fine. There was an issue with her feeding tube, but they got it sorted out by the time I got there.”
Thank God.
“Levi, why did you need one more day with Henry? Why can’t you volunteer here anymore?”
I shook my head again, but when Phoenix kissed my temple and whispered, “Please tell me,” I caved.
“Because I don’t want to live like this anymore.
I knew T wouldn’t stop and I didn’t want Betty to get hurt so I knew I had to go to the cops.
T…T and Gun hurt Hank. Because of me…to get to me.
I knew it was never going to stop so I was going to tell the cops about T and what he wanted to do to Betty and then I was going to tell them what happened that night.
I just needed time to say goodbye to Henry and call Children’s Services…
I wanted them to take him away from Dina so she and my father couldn’t do to him what he and Ricky did to me. ”
I felt Phoenix’s hand rubbing my back, but when he rubbed over my shoulder, I winced. His hand stilled. “Are you hurt?” he asked.
I shook him off and climbed to my feet.
I didn’t dare approach Seth, but I made sure to face him when I said, “You deserve justice for everything that happened that night. I don’t know where Jed is, but my brother, Ricky, is dead.
He’s the one who hurt your mom,” I managed to say.
“I wanted to give you the chance to confront me in a courtroom, but you can do it here too. I don’t care.
I’ll listen to anything you want to say to me and then you can decide my punishment.
Whether it’s prison or death, it doesn’t matter. I deserve it. All of it.”
Seth still had ahold of Ronan’s hand, but he didn’t say anything at first. When he went to open his mouth, Phoenix cut him off.
“Seth, I need to ask you a question before you say anything.”
Seth’s eyes shifted to Phoenix before he nodded.
“That night…do you remember anything that happened after you were stabbed?”
“Bits and pieces,” Seth said softly. “The man with the snake tattoo coming at me, someone screaming the word no, the paramedics telling me to hang on.”
“After you were stabbed, did you move at all?”
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “I don’t think so.”
“He didn’t,” Ronan said. “I saw the crime scene. The paramedics worked on him in the same spot he was stabbed…I could tell from the amount of blood on the floor. Most of it was limited to the spot where Seth and his father were attacked.”
I was certain I was going to be sick again as an image of Fred Nichols went through my head.
“Seth, if you didn’t move, who called 911?”
“What?” he asked as his brow furrowed in confusion.
“Who notified the paramedics?”
Seth turned to glance at his husband, but Ronan shook his head. “Your mother?” he asked.
“No, my parents didn’t keep a phone in the bedroom…not even their cell phones. My mom didn’t like how many calls my dad would get, even at night, so they left their phones downstairs when they went to bed.”
“Seth, while Jed was attacking you, Levi managed to call 911 from your house’s landline.
He wasn’t sure if the call got through or not because he had to hide it from Jed.
I had Daisy check the 911 records. The call did come from your house and not a neighbor who might have heard something.
And that voice you heard saying no was Levi’s.
He said it right before Ricky discovered him making that call… and then stabbed him.”
Seth’s eyes shifted to me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“Yes, it does,” Seth said.
“No! It doesn’t! I saw the way you looked at me when I put that tape on your mouth. You were begging me to help you! And I did nothing!”
“Damn it, Levi!” Phoenix shouted. “There was nothing you could do! Your gun wasn’t loaded, your brother and Jed were armed with guns and knives! You were a scared sixteen-year-old kid dealing with two psychopaths bent on murder!”
When Phoenix tried to grab me, I twisted free of his hold. “It doesn’t matter!”
“Levi.”
The sound of Seth’s voice had me quieting and I turned to face him.
“I remember that moment too…when you put the tape on my mouth. Yes, I was terrified, but I saw the same thing in your eyes. Not that you didn’t want to help me, but that you couldn’t help me.”
I hung my head and shook my head.
“I also remember you trying to stop Jed more than once.”
“It wasn’t enough,” I murmured.
“It was,” I heard Ronan say. “Seth’s still here. He survived that night because of you. If you hadn’t made that call…”
Disbelief tore through me at the way the man’s voice cracked. Seth reached out to link their fingers together. Their eyes connected, but even without words, I knew what they were saying.
This was wrong. It had to be.
“You deserve justice,” I whispered. “Your parents deserve it.”
“We got it, Levi,” Seth said softly as his damp eyes met mine.
He smiled slightly as he continued. “And if my parents were here right now, my mom would be hugging you and my dad would be patting you on the back and inviting you over for dinner. Because that’s what kind of people they were.
You saved my life, Levi. And you saved my daughter’s life.
If I didn’t think it would freak you out, I’d hug you myself. ”
I wanted to cry. Both because none of this made any sense to me and because deep down, I’d wanted him to forgive me. It wasn’t something I’d ever admitted to myself though, because I didn’t believe in wishing for the impossible.
“Levi?”
The sound of Father O’s voice got my attention and I saw him standing in the doorway leading to the soup kitchen.
His eyes scanned the room. Neither Phoenix nor Ronan had put their guns away.
I didn’t even know where to start with explaining to him what was happening.
I was about to try when my eyes fell on what he was holding in his hand.
I moved past Phoenix and hurried to him.
“Is that…is that Henry’s toy?” I asked as I took in the sight of Henry’s stuffed caterpillar. I finally noticed how pale Father O looked.
“I…I just got back from the hospice. This” – he held the toy up – “was taped to the soup kitchen door. There was…there was a note attached to it.”
He held up a small, folded piece of paper. I met his eyes and knew by the panicked look in them that he’d read it. I took it from him and forced myself to open it, though in my gut I knew what it was.
The game’s changed.
Call me or you’ll never see the brat again.
206-555-2100
“No,” I whispered to no one in particular. But this time when my knees gave out, Phoenix wasn’t there to catch me.