Chapter 15 Noah #2
Everett inhales slowly through his nose. I can see a hint of homicidal intentions flickering in his eyes.
“Mrs. Pickens,” he says, working very hard at civility. “Good kids make bad decisions all the time. That’s how they end up with records. Or injuries. Or worse.” His voice drops. “We’re not trying to ruin their lives. We’re trying to keep them from ruining their own.”
Daryl steps closer, his beer can dangling from his fingers like a prop. “What you’re trying to do is scare my boy. And it’s not going to work. You don’t have proof that anyone here did anything to your house. Or his.” He jerks his chin at me. “Or your cupcake girlfriend’s.”
A streak of white-hot anger shoots through me.
Everett’s hand flexes at his side. “Watch it.”
Daryl laughs. “Oh, did I hit a nerve? Look at you two. Co-parenting your feelings.”
I take a slow breath. “We’re done being polite,” I say.
“You’re right. We can’t prove, yet, that anyone in this house threw that rock or those eggs.
But we can prove harassment. We can pull phone records, social media, and text threads.
We can talk to teachers, to other parents, to store owners who sell eggs to groups of teenage boys at ten at night. ”
Everett nods. “We can put extra patrols on this street. We can get a warrant for more cameras that may have captured the event. We can make this a very uncomfortable place to be if the vandalism continues.”
Daryl’s eyes flash. “Are you threatening my family?”
“I’m telling you,” Everett says, “that this ends tonight. Either you talk to your son and his friends and get them under control or we start treating this like what it is—criminal activity.”
“Maybe you should just walk on out of here,” Daryl says, stepping closer, invading Everett’s space. “You don’t need to have a sit-down with my kids. Nobody tells me what to do with my family.”
Tammy flinches. “Daryl—”
“No,” he snaps. “I’m not going to sit here and let these two act like Tyler is some kind of thug. He’s a good kid.”
“A good kid wouldn’t think terrorizing a woman with three small children is a fun hobby,” Everett bites out.
“Or write things on her driveway,” I add. “Or throw eggs at houses.”
“Again.” Daryl spreads his arms. “Proof. You got it, use it. Otherwise, get off my property.”
The air in the room tightens. The boys watch, rapt, like this is the best show they’ve seen in weeks.
Tammy exhales, shoulders sagging. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly.
“But Daryl is right. You don’t have proof.
And I can’t make the boys confess to something they say they didn’t do.
” Her eyes meet mine, weary and sincere.
“I really am sorry about the rock. But Tyler swears it was one of his friends. He says he tried to stop it.”
Behind her, a chorus of snickers rises from the other room. Tyler’s mouth twitches.
My patience stretches so thin I can almost hear it collapsing.
Everett’s jaw is locked so tight I’m surprised his molars don’t shatter.
Instead, he straightens his shoulders. “You’re making a mistake,” he says. “All of you.”
“Maybe.” Daryl shrugs. “But it’s our mistake. Now get the hell out of my house.”
Tammy closes her eyes for a heartbeat, then steps aside. She doesn’t dare look at us.
We step back onto the porch. The cold air slaps my face, and behind us, the door shuts with a heavy thunk.
For a second, we just stand there.
“Well,” Everett says finally. “That went great.”
“On a scale of one to ten,” I say, “I’d give it a we didn’t end up on the six o’clock news, so… five?”
He huffs out something that might be a laugh and might be a growl. “We’re not done.”
“No,” I agree. “We’re not.”
We head back to the squad car. The street is quiet, the only light coming from porch lamps and the faint glow of televisions behind curtains. My own house is a few blocks over, sitting there glowing warmly in my imagination like the promised land.
I slide behind the wheel and start the engine as we pull away from the curb in silence.
After a minute, Everett blows out a breath. “I’m hiring someone,” he says.
“A hitman?” I’m only partially teasing. “Because I know a guy who knows a guy.”
“Funny.” He stares out the window. “To clean the eggs off the houses. Yours, mine, the entire town if it needs it. I don’t want Lemon to even think about getting on a ladder, scrubbing that garbage off while she’s juggling babies and ghosts.”
“Agreed.” I grimace. “I barely got the stuff off my car. I had to go through the car wash six times. I’m pretty sure they flagged my license plate as obsessive.”
“You are obsessive,” he says.
“You’re one to talk.”
Another beat of silence, the good kind this time.
“This is ridiculous,” Everett says, shaking his head. “Two grown men. Careers. Degrees. Firearms training. And somehow the big villain of the week is a fifteen-year-old with a social media addiction and access to the egg aisle.”
“You forgot the cast-iron skillet killer,” I remind him.
“Right.” He rubs at his jaw. “Someone murdered Vivienne Pemberton-Clarke in cold blood, and instead of focusing solely on that, we’re running neighborhood watch on a pack of feral youth.”
I shrug. “It’s the one thing we agree on.”
He looks at me. “The killer?”
“The fact that teenagers are the worst,” I say. “This is apparently our common ground. Murderers and minors.”
A reluctant smile pulls at his mouth. “I’ll admit,” he says, “there’s a certain camaraderie in mutual disdain of young criminals.”
“See?” I say. “We’re basically bonding.”
“Don’t push it.”
We turn onto our street, and the sight of Lottie’s house makes something in my chest ease. Lights glow in the front windows, warm and golden. The porch light spills over the steps. Her minivan is in the driveway, Everett’s car sitting right next to it. Domestic chaos, neatly contained.
“All is right with the world,” I say before I can stop myself.
Everett follows my gaze. His features soften in a way he’d deny under oath. “For now,” he says.
We slow as we pass her place. Through the living room window, I catch a glimpse of movement, Lottie crossing the room with one of the twins on her hip, the other in a bouncer on the floor, Lyla Nell darting past with something bright in her hands, most likely contraband glitter.
The world shrinks, for a moment, into that rectangle of light. That woman. Those kids. That life.
And then it expands again, back into all the dark and dangerous corners I know too well.
“This town isn’t as safe as it should be,” Everett says quietly.
“No,” I agree. “Not for Lottie. Not for the kids. Not with a killer on the loose and a pack of hoodlums who think a house full of babies is a good time.”
I pull into my driveway and park. We sit there for a second, engine idling, both of us staring straight ahead.
“We’re going to catch whoever killed Vivienne,” I say. “And we’re going to deal with those boys.”
Everett nods once. “We are.”
“Because if there’s one thing you and I are good at,” I add, “it’s making sure people who think they can hurt our family learn they’ve made a serious mistake.”
He lets out a low, humorless chuckle. “And that they’ve ticked off the wrong two men.”
I kill the engine.
Across the street, Lottie laughs. It’s faint, muffled by walls and distance, but I would swear on a stack of Bibles I hear it anyway.
That’s the sound I want this town to be built on.
Not broken glass. Not eggs cracking against siding. Not the thud of a skillet against someone’s skull.
We climb out of the car and head our separate ways—a judge and a detective who’ve spent years in an uneasy alliance, doing what we’ve always done when it matters. Protecting our family.
And making sure anyone who threatens it regrets it.