Chapter 11 #3
It sounded lame. Even to him. But he hit send and hoped for a response from Toby Yelkis, Sylvie Morrisette’s seventeen-year-old son.
The kid had struggled in school, even before his mother had died, but since then, things had gotten worse.
If it hadn’t been for Pierce stepping in, the angry teenager would’ve ended up in juvenile detention—and, possibly, still could.
While Toby’s sister, Priscilla, was now studying at SCAD, the Savannah School of Art and Design, and shared her own apartment with roommates, Toby was still slogging his way through high school.
Toby still lived with his deadbeat dad, Bart, Sylvie’s much maligned loser of an ex.
But Pierce had to tread carefully, as Bart Yelkis didn’t like anyone getting too close to his kids.
Oh, he’d take the tuition money that Nikki had put aside for their education, but he made sure it was known that he didn’t want or need Pierce’s “interference” in his children’s lives.
Though Priscilla was making her own way, blossoming despite losing her mother, the same wasn’t true of her younger brother.
Pierce stared at the screen, hoping to see bubbles appear, indicating that Toby was responding.
No such luck. The screen remained unchanged.
“Great,” Pierce muttered under his breath, and he put the Jeep into gear before driving the few remaining blocks home.
As the wide garage door clunked downward behind him, he heard a cacophony of barking.
Both dogs. Once he stepped inside the house, they greeted him in tandem.
Mikado, head down, tail sweeping side to side, and Arlo, eager and wriggling; despite Pierce’s reservations, the new dog was fast burrowing into his heart.
“Yeah, yeah, I missed you both,” he lied, as he hadn’t thought of the dogs all day.
His wife?
Yes.
His daughter?
Of course. But the dogs? Not so much.
Now as he peeled off his jacket and dropped his keys onto the small table near the back door, he took the time to scratch each one behind the ears and nearly tripped on Jennings, who had scuttled into the hallway.
The tabby. Right. And now there was another feline who was soon to be an orphan. Mounting the stairs to Chloe’s bedroom, he hoped beyond hope that Nikki didn’t get wind of Mavis Greenlee’s Persian. The last thing they needed in their menagerie of a home was another abandoned animal.
He saw flickering gray light seeping from beneath the door to Lily and Ophelia’s room and the low rumble of the television’s audio.
Another bit of illumination slipped down the spiral stairs from Nikki’s study, but before he climbed up, he wanted to check on Chloe.
The door to her bedroom was slightly ajar, and he pushed it open far enough to ease through.
In the glow of the night-light, he made out her shape in the crib, saw her tiny lips move and a bit of moonlight catch in her tangled curls. His heart filled.
“Hey,” Nikki’s voice was soft, but he visibly jumped as he hadn’t heard her pad into the room. She joined him at Chloe’s bedside and linked her fingers through his. “You okay?”
“I am now,” he said.
She tugged on his hand, and together they walked along the short hallway to their room. Once there, she closed the door behind her. “I heard about Mavis Greenlee,” she said, big eyes searching his.
He wasn’t surprised.
“What happened?”
“Still working on it.” He took off his jacket and tossed it onto the side chair near the window.
“Pierce?”
“Looks like a homicide.”
She nodded. This wasn’t news. As ever, she was not far behind the police when it came to local violent crime.
“The husband?”
Shaking his head, he said, “We don’t know. But, no, I don’t think so. He was pretty shaken up.”
She was leaning against the closed door. “Any chance that her murder is connected to Billy Huber’s?”
“Why would you think that?” Did she already know about the wound in each victim’s neck? About the engraved stone found near the bodies?
“Timing.”
He wouldn’t lie. Nor would he compromise the investigation. “Unknown,” he evaded, loosening his tie.
“But maybe?”
“We’ll see.”
But, because of the engraved stone, he knew there was a connection, that the killer was one and the same.
“You think they’re connected,” she said, reading him. “Because of something … on-site?”
“Stop,” he told her.
“Ohh …” He watched her put two and two together and was annoyed yet proud of his irrepressible wife.
“Don’t say it,” he warned.
“Another rock … maybe?”
“If you start spouting your theories, everyone in the department will think I’m talking to you.”
“You’ll just have to convince them otherwise.”
“I’m not saying you’re right, but there are parts of the investigation we want to keep under wraps. You understand?”
“I won’t compromise you. I promise.”
But she couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. When he tried to argue some more, she put a finger to his lips and, with her free hand, grabbed hold of his tie, leading him on quiet tiptoes to the bed.
“Nikki …”
“Shhh.” She then pushed him playfully onto the mattress.
Well, okay. They could argue more later.
Then his cell phone pinged, announcing that a message had come in. He yanked the phone from his pocket, intending to check the message later, but as he set it on the nightstand he read the message glowing brightly on the screen. Two words. From Toby Yelkis.
Fuck off.