Chapter 25
I ain’t never flirted. I just talk. It’s not my fault that everything I say is smoother than the cream cheese on your bagel.
— Text from Gable to Atlas
ATLAS
I drove to Kilgore after I got off shift at two.
If I timed it right, Pepper and her brothers and their families would be out to eat, giving me enough time to run by the home that their father was in and introduce myself.
I hoped that he was still lucid when I got there.
When I arrived at the facility that was caring for Emmanuelle Solomon , I found that I was in luck.
“ And who are you?” the front desk attendant asked.
I offered her my hand, and she took it. “ My name is Atlas Carter . I’m hoping to ask Mr . Solomon a very important question while he’s lucid enough to give me an honest answer.”
“ Ahh ,” she said, as if she knew exactly who I was now that I’d mentioned my name. “ You’re Pepper’s .”
I flashed her a grin. “ Yeah , I’m Pepper’s .”
“ That boy of yours is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” she jerked her head at me. “ Follow me.”
I did, chatting lightly with her about her own grandkids and Forest .
When we got to the room, she patted my arm and said, “ You’ll be okay.”
It was as if she knew what I was there to do.
“ Good luck,” she confirmed my earlier thoughts as she bustled back down the hallway.
I turned to find the man I was searching for already looking at me.
“ Sir ,” I said as I offered the older man my hand. “ My name is Atlas Carter , I’m …”
“ The man who stole my baby’s heart.” He stood up.
He didn’t look sick.
He looked just like any other older man.
Like my own father did.
Something broke inside of me for Pepper .
How hard had it been having to deal with her mother’s passing, while simultaneously having to deal with a father who couldn’t remember the importance of that mother?
It sounded dreadful.
“ That’s me,” I said quietly. “ She told you about me?”
“ She told me everything about you,” he admitted. “ She told me about your friendship with Sage . Then she told me about how Sage had played you, like she plays everyone. She told me about how you were mean to her. She told me about how she knew you were the one when you told her your leg hurt…”
“ What ?” I asked.
I remembered that day I’d told her that my leg hurt.
Again , one of my compulsions.
I’d thought it sounded weird, and she’d told him that was when she knew I was the one?
“ Before she died,” Emmanuelle murmured, “she told her mother that she would miss her. Her mother told her that she’d see her again. That she’d always be watching over her. She told her that one day, she would know she was there, and okay, when she had some random stranger let her know. She said ‘they’ll say the phrase: my leg hurts.’”
I blinked. “ I didn’t…”
“ I know.” He flashed a grin that was so familiar it made me miss Pepper something fierce.
“ I’m not sure what to tell you about Sage and me,” I admitted. “ I fell for the act, hook, line and sinker.”
Emmanuelle took a seat, his eyes steady on me.
“ I’d like to say that I could help you when it came to Sage , but there’s something switched off in her brain. Has been since she was an early teen. I’m not sure what happened. No amount of doctors could find out why. And when we took her, she could just play so well at being normal that all of the doctors said she was fine. That maybe it was us.” He sighed. “ I hate to say it, but I can’t control my own daughter. Never could.”
“ Sage is going to be Sage ,” I said. “ Now that I know, I know what to look out for. I can help Pepper . But here’s the thing, I don’t want Pepper to have to suffer for the rest of her life because of Sage . It’s my hope that I can help figure out a way to keep her away. When she lied about the kidnapping, that meant that another woman was out there suffering, possibly alive, who could’ve been saved. But we stopped looking because Sage said it was her.”
Emmanuelle’s head dropped. “ She’s so selfish. Never thinks of anyone but herself.”
I leaned forward. “ I want to be blunt with you, Mr . Solomon .”
“ Emmanuelle ,” he offered. “ My son-in-law will call me Emmanuelle .”
I grinned. “ I haven’t gotten to that question yet.”
“ You don’t even have to ask it,” he said. “ You have my permission. Pepper has always known her own mind. She’s been fiercely independent. I have loved her since the moment she wrapped her little hand around my finger the day she was born. I would give that girl my whole heart if she needed it. The only thing she wants, she told me, is you. So you don’t need to ask. But when I’m not me…”
“ I’ll take care of her,” I promised. “ I’ll never stop. I love her with my whole heart, too.”
“ Back to what you can do about Sage …” he croaked.
I winced. “ Lying to police officers is a crime.”
He nodded.
“ I’ll be bringing these allegations to the internal board for review. They’ll do an investigation. They’ll find out everything they can, and hopefully they’ll find what they need, and we can have her tried on those charges,” I said.
“ You will put her in jail,” he surmised.
“ It’s my intention to find a way to do that, yes,” I confirmed.
He stood up and offered me his hand. “ Take care of Pepper . And , if it’s possible, wait until I’m lucid so I can give her away.”
I grinned and took his hand in mine. “ I’ll do that.”
I made it to the restaurant before they’d left, but only just.
I found them all in the parking lot in a huddle, talking right outside the restaurant.
I parked and got out, moving toward the group.
Forest was asleep on Pepper’s shoulder. Tarrant had his arm wrapped around a woman with bright red hair. Everest had his around a woman with long brown hair.
There were kids behind them playing in the restaurant’s flower bed.
There was also an older man with his arms crossed who was watching me walk up, narrowed eyes aimed directly at mine.
The group turned as one to see who the man was looking at, and Pepper’s face lit up in a breathtaking smile.
“ Atlas !” she gasped in excitement, though it was much quieter than she would’ve given me had Forest been awake.
I moved to her, ignoring the people surrounding her, and enfolded them both in my arms.
“ You okay?” I asked quietly, pulling back with a kiss to her head.
“ I’m okay,” she said. “ Better than okay.”
“ Awww ,” one of the wives cooed.
I squeezed Pepper’s arm and asked, “ You need a change?”
My head jerked toward Forest , and she shook her head. “ Actually , he’s keeping me pretty warm. Like a mini space heater… just like his father.”
I grinned. “ You’ll have to thank my dad for giving me that particular gene.” I turned to the men and offered my hand.
They all took it.
The woman attached to Tarrant’s arm introduced herself as Ida . The one on Everest’s was Wendy .
“ Coke Solomon ,” the older gentleman offered me his name.
I shook his hand and dropped it. “ I hate to say this, but I realize you’re related by your last name, but I can’t say she’s said a single word about you.”
Coke chuckled, obviously unoffended. “ Cousins , technically.”
“ Ahh ,” I said. “ Got it.”
His eyes moved from my face to Forest’s .
“ You know, I have a father-in-law,” he mused, returning his gaze back to me.
I tilted my head curiously. “ I would have assumed since you are married.”
His lips twitched. “ If you ever get the chance to talk to him, I think that you’d find you have a whole lot in common with him.”
“ Oh , yeah?” I asked.
My girl interrupted then, tired of the evasiveness.
“ Cora , Coke’s wife, is the first-born child of Gabe Maldonado . He lives here, too,” Pepper said. “ He’s a great guy. Wonderful father to his children. However , there was a time when he didn’t know he had a child either.”
I jolted. “ What ?”
“ And he found out he had a kid a whole lot like you did,” Coke finished.
My stomach twisted for this man.
There were some terrible people in this world.
“ They were at court, deciding who would get custody of Cora , when Gabe’s woman found out that Cora was left in the car. It was a nightmare.”
I closed my eyes, then reopened them to focus on the man. “ Is she okay now?”
“ She’s more than,” he assured me. “ Had a great childhood after they got rid of the cesspool that was her mother. She’s … perfect.”
I looked at my own perfect girl, and watched her kiss my son on the head, then place her cheek on top of his, as if she was happy that my son wouldn’t be going through that anymore, either.
As if she could feel me looking, she looked up and smiled.
“ Are you hungry? We can go back inside,” Pepper offered.
I patted my belly. “ I might or might not have hoarded a few pastries from this morning. I’m full.”
“ Jealous ,” Tarrant grumbled, tightening his hold on his wife. “ She could’ve brought us some.”
“ I didn’t know I was coming before I gave them all to him,” Pepper pointed out.
“ Great excuse,” Tarrant teased. “ So who is going to be housing you tonight?”
“ I’ll stay at Everest’s ,” she answered. “ There’s more room in the spare bedroom for Forest .”
It warmed my heart that she was thinking of my boy.
“ Do you have room for me, too?” I asked. “ I can take up a couch.”
“ It’s a king-sized bed,” Everest laughed. “ My sister is bougie and feels like she needs a big bed.” He narrowed his eyes. “ I’ll warn you that the walls are thin, though.”
Pepper’s cheeks pinked. “ They are.”
I focused on her, seeing her cheeks go even pinker by the second. “ Heard ’em a time or two, eh?”
Pepper did a full body shiver, causing me to laugh.
“ Hey ,” Everest shrugged. “ We tried to make it happen when she wasn’t around, but when you have a wife as sexy as I do…”
“ Everest !” Wendy snapped, slapping him on the chest.
He chuckled and pulled away, rubbing his chest where she’d slapped him. “ Sorry , sorry.”
“ The walls really are thin,” she said, embarrassed.
“ It’s okay,” Pepper teased. “ Y’all can borrow the noise canceling headphones I had to purchase for those times.”
Tarrant choked. “ All right. On that note, it’s been a great day. I can only think of one thing that’ll make this better.”
He picked Ida up and started walking off.
“ Tarrant , put me down!” Ida cried.
Tarrant ignored her and walked her all the way to a beat-up white truck in the corner of the lot.
The rest of them dispersed, and I walked Pepper and Forest to her Jeep before hustling back to my own. She waited for me to join her at the exit, then led the way to her brother’s home.
The house was cute. A single-story farmhouse-esque white number that was in the middle of town.
Wendy and Everest were just going up the stairs to their place when I saw the person on their front porch.
I parked haphazardly in the yard, half in the drive and half in the yard— I’d feel bad about denting their grass later—and rushed around the truck.
“ Stop ,” I ordered.
All of them froze.
Even the woman on the porch in the shadows.
Everest and Wendy came back down the stairs just as Sage appeared from the shadows.
“ Well , well, well,” Sage said sweetly. “ Just one big, happy family. First the baby. Now the in-laws. You’re busy, aren’t you, officer?”
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“ What are you doing here, Sage ?” I asked carefully.
She flipped her hair, a smile on her face—one that didn’t meet her eyes—and gestured to herself. “ My family lives here.”
“ Your family doesn’t want you anywhere near them,” Everest snapped. “ Your family wants you to disappear into a black hole and never come back again.”
Harsh .
But Sage had done a lot to their family.
I couldn’t feel bad about his words to my one-time friend anymore.
If we were ever friends.
“ Harsh , brother.” Sage fluttered her eyes at him. “ I need my family. I’m a broken woman, don’t you know?”
“ Broken woman?” Wendy put in. “ That’s quite hilarious.”
“ I am!” she snapped. “ And why the fuck are you even talking to me? I thought that we were friends.”
“ We were ‘friends’ that weren’t really friends,” Wendy said. “ You know why I don’t like you. But if you need reminding, I don’t like how you treat your family. I don’t like how you get pleasure out of hurting your family. I don’t like that you play this weird game with people, making them think you’re this helpless doll that needs saving. If they only knew you were a psychopath, they might not fall for your crap.”
“ Still not cursing, I see. Same ol’ Wendy .” She came merrily down the steps of Wendy and Everest’s house.
She walked right up to Everest , patted him on the chest, and said, “ You know, I needed you in the hospital and you never came.”
“ You were in the hospital because you are a psycho who likes pain,” Everest said. “ And you played this poor guy, making him feel sorry for you, so he’d stay. I do have a question, though. That day that Mom had her heart attack, and you were ‘attacked,’ what actually happened?”
Since she wasn’t paying attention to me, I pulled my phone out, hit record, and tucked it into the front of my pants.
I moved closer so that whatever she said would hopefully be picked up well by the camera’s microphone.
My movement didn’t garner her attention, though.
I kept moving toward Pepper , nearly at her side, when Sage finally began.
“ Oh , why not?” she said. “ I mean, I guess you might as well know.”
We all waited, and she gave a great, theatrical pause before starting. “ I was with my newest boyfriend, Teddy . Teddy and I were going back and forth on whose job it was to pay for some… expenses that might or might not have been accrued by me.”
“ Oh , tell us about these charges.” Wendy snorted.
“ Well ,” she smiled then. “ I found out that he was thinking about buying a new car, and he wouldn’t let me buy the old one from him. So I might or might not have destroyed his credit.”
“ Let me guess,” Pepper snorted. “ You took out credit cards in his name? How’d you find his social security number?”
It sounded like she was experienced in such matters.
My hand fisted at my side.
“ Oh , it was a couple of online loans.” She waved her hand through the air as if it was no big deal that she’d committed identity theft.
As if she’d done it all the fucking time.
And maybe she had.
I didn’t have a good feeling that she hadn’t done it to the people she should’ve cared about the most.
“ Let me guess,” Everest drawled. “ You took out enough loans to buy the car he wanted?”
“ How’d you guess?” She batted her eyelashes at him.
“ Because you did the same thing to Tarrant in high school.” Everest didn’t sound amused.
“ Eh ,” she waved her hand away. “ That was such a long time ago.”
It may have been a long time ago, but I could see the anger on Everest and Pepper’s faces, and they didn’t look like they’d forgotten. It didn’t matter how much time had passed.
“ Back to the story,” Wendy ordered.
Sage humored Wendy .
“ Anyway , so he found out, and I started pushing him, taunting him. And he got a bit… upset.” She laughed then, as if getting hurt by a man was hilarious to her. “ When I fought back, he started acting a bit… unhinged. I forced him to hit me at first, but it took me shooting his dog to get him to do it.”
All of us gasped.
“ You shot his dog?” Pepper cried.
I saw my son jerk at the sound of Pepper’s voice raising, and I caught her hand and pulled her back.
“ It was an old dog.” Sage once again brushed her actions away.
I felt sick.
This was the person I’d been defending for the better part of a year.
“ And so he beat the shit out of you, as he should,” Wendy guessed.
“ Yeah ,” she shrugged. “ I was leaving after he punched me in the face one too many times—getting hit in the face hurts too much—when I heard a bulletin go over my phone about a serial killer in my area. I went online and started looking into it, because you know I find that kind of stuff interesting, and heard that they were looking for a victim. It seemed like the perfect opportunity.” She looked at me. “ It was my luck that you came down the road I was already walking on.”
Sick .
I felt utterly sick.
Even worse, another victim was dead because she’d lied about who she was.
“ What about the victim who was an actual victim?” Everest asked softly. “ Do you not care that by saying you were the victim, the actual victim likely died out there, scared and alone?”
She shrugged and headed to her car. “ I have to get back to Dallas . I have a friend that’s a little out of sorts now that she had her son stolen from her.”
I waited until she was gone before I pulled out my phone, stopped the recording, and sent it to my family’s group chat.
“ I have a camera.” Everest sounded excited.
“ No you don’t,” Wendy grumbled as she walked up to the ‘camera.’
Except the camera was completely destroyed. It’d been hit with the rock that was now lying on their porch floor.
“ Fuck !” Everest hissed.
“ Don’t worry,” I said as I wiggled my phone at them all. “ I got it all. But even if I hadn’t, we’re all very reliable witnesses. We can all testify.”
“ Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Wendy gasped.
“ That she’s going to spend a really long time in jail?” I asked.
“ Yes ,” Pepper breathed.
I squeezed her hand. “ Then yes. I have her on identity theft, wasting police resources, and so many other things with that one video. She’s not getting out of this one.”
The three of them whooped in excitement.
My boy woke up with an angry wail.
And we went to bed an hour later, all three of us in the bed, and tried to ignore how fucking thin the walls were.
The next morning, the arrest of the fake serial killer victim was the front page of Dallas Morning News .