Chapter 24 Everett
EVERETT
I’ve just finished the delicate operation of dropping off the twins with Miranda and Wiley in the penthouse suite.
Lyla Nell immediately took command of the situation, informing her grandmother in no uncertain terms that babies need quiet while demonstrating proper bottle-holding technique to a bewildered Wiley.
She’s two going on forty-five, that one—the only person in the room with any actual childcare authority, despite being the shortest and technically the least qualified by conventional standards.
Watching her organize the adults with military precision makes me wonder if we’re raising a future Supreme Court Justice and possibly a benevolent dictator.
“Don’t worry,” Miranda assures me as I head for the door, though her tone suggests she’s trying to convince herself as much as me. “We’ve got this under control.”
“I’m sure you do,” I tell her, watching Lyla Nell arrange stuffed animals around the sleeping twins like tiny watchdogs. “Though I’m not entirely sure which of you is in charge,” I tease, and yet it comes out as more of a fact.
“Oh, that’s been clear since she arrived.” Wiley chuckles nervously. “My supervisor is approximately three feet tall and takes no prisoners.”
Luckily for all three adults, the twins are out cold, milk-drunk, and oblivious to the world in that peculiar way only infants can achieve. If they maintain this state of blissful unconsciousness for more than twenty minutes, it will be nothing short of a miracle.
I take off and the elevator deposits me in the retail corridor of the Bellanova, a marble-floored boulevard of luxury storefronts designed to separate winners from their newly acquired wealth.
I pause at the high-end jewelry store, my attention caught by a display of diamond rings and necklaces that glitter under precision lighting like captured stars.
I never did give Lemon a push present for having the boys.
The tradition wasn’t on my radar until Keelie mentioned it last week, her tone suggesting I’d committed a significant husband infraction that ranked somewhere between forgetting an anniversary and accidentally calling her by an ex-girlfriend’s name.
Now, with a few minutes to spare before the competition concludes and possibly before someone else gets murdered, I find myself contemplating the gleaming options behind bulletproof glass as if I were making an important judicial decision.
That pear-shaped diamond pendant would sit perfectly in the hollow of Lemon’s neck. Or perhaps the platinum band studded with sapphires would do.
The price tags boast numbers that would make most rational people hesitate, but there’s something about Vegas that distorts financial reality. Plus, after watching Lemon give birth to twins—a feat that redefined my understanding of human endurance—no gift seems adequate compensation.
I’m about to enter the store when I hear the rapid percussion of footfalls echoing down the corridor. I look up in time to see Noah and Detective Morrison running toward the ballroom entrance, their faces set with the particular urgency I recognize from countless crime scenes back home.
Someone is either about to be arrested or is in imminent danger of becoming a victim—and I have a feeling that person is Lemon.
Noah’s expression tells me everything I need to know.
Lemon has figured something out, and knowing her, she’s confronting the killer with nothing but her wits and perhaps a rolling pin for protection.
And in a contest between a killer and my wife, I refuse to let the wrong one come out on top.