These Violent Roots

by Nicole Williams

  Signs had been posted for me to read for years, but I’d ignored their meaning.

  “Between you and me, do you really believe this is our Huntsman?” I asked Teddy, hanging back so we were out of earshot from my dad.

  Teddy’s hands slipped into the front pockets of his dark jeans as he stared at the ground. “I think that if it acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, and claims it’s a duck . . .”

  “It’s a duck. I know. But the tire iron? There’s nothing subtle about that. The Huntsman’s whole approach is to stage the murders as suicides. How does tuning a guy up before stringing him up even begin to suggest suicide?”

  His shoulders moved beneath his sport coat. “Maybe all of the national attention, being outed, and having some name slapped to him and chanted by a bunch of aimless idiots pushed him to a breaking point.”

  “Our killer goes from painstakingly meticulous to brazenly thoughtless in the span of one murder? Something isn’t adding up.”

  The prosecutor in me rattled, while the conflicted spouse scrutinized my response. If someone else wanted to take the fall for the Huntsman, that meant Noah remained anonymous; the true Huntsman left to tend to his flock, keeping the wolves at bay in whatever manner he deemed fitting.

  This was a good thing.

  Wasn’t it?

  “Yeah, maybe not, but let’s see how the whole thing shakes down.” Teddy waved me inside when we made it to the back door Noah and my dad had staggered through. “But how many criminals have you dealt with in your life who take the fall for a crimes they haven’t committed?”

  My eyes cut to Noah the moment I stepped inside the kitchen. He was helping my dad into a dining chair. “Hell, Teddy, I’m lucky if I can get one to confess to a crime they actually committed.”

  “Especially someone who’s guaranteed to spend the rest of his life rotting in some federal hellhole for committing nearly three dozen murders. Until someone can prove otherwise, the Huntsman’s been apprehended and my role on this task force has come to an end.”

  “It seems all of our roles have come to an abrupt end,” I replied as I rushed to retrieve my phone from the bowels of my purse. I had to wait a moment for it to power on.

  “Your roles. That’s funny.” Dad chuckled from his dining room chair. “While LAPD was putting the heat on this guy, my esteemed task force was twiddling their thumbs. I hired you all to narrow in on the target, not put a mark on the back of anyone between the ages of twelve and ninety.” The next chuckle came out more cough than laugh. “Task force, my ass. Might as well have hired a bunch of vegetables for the results we got.”

  Teddy lifted his eyes at the ceiling when I reentered the kitchen.

  Noah was pulling glasses from the cupboard above the sink. “Anyone want a drink?” When Dad’s finger lifted into the air, Noah blinked at him. “A drink of water.”

  His hand lowered.

  Noah filled two glasses and handed them to Teddy and me, returning for a third I guessed he was going to attempt to force upon my dad.

  Flipping on another panel of kitchen lights, I scrolled the latest news articles. My eyes widened as I discovered every one had something to do with the Huntsman’s discovery and capture.

  “Have they released a name yet?” I asked, skimming through the first article.

  “Not that I’ve heard, but I’ve got a couple of old contacts working on that.” Teddy checked his phone. “As soon as I know something, I’ll share it with you.”

  I nodded absently, moving on to the next article by one of the major news outlets. A couple of pictures were plastered between the few paragraphs of information, the title screaming in black, bold letters “A KILLER CAPTURE.”

  The photos weren’t top quality, but showed a man who looked to be in his early to mid thirties, large and capable looking, being pushed into a squad car in handcuffs by a parade of cops. Blood was spattered across his bare forearms and clothing, light jeans and a snug-fitting white tee, the very opposite of the true Huntsman’s hunting attire.

  My head pounded as I scanned through the next article, “HUNTING THE HUNTSMAN,” and the few after that. When I glanced at Noah, I found him leaning into the counter, holding his glass of water without drinking, staring at the tile floor with his brow drawn in contemplation.

  A nasally snore shook me from my temporary stupor. Dad was falling asleep in the chair, about to fall out of it from the slant of his body. Noah and Teddy bounded toward him before he slammed face-first into the tile.

  “Put him on the couch. He can sleep it off there tonight,” I said, following them into the living room. “I’ll call my mom in the morning and inform her it’s time to pay up on those vows she took forty-five years ago.”

  Dad had stirred awake in the shuffle, and his momentary nap appeared to have only made him crosser. “I’m not staying here tonight. I’m going home.”

  “And what happens when you fall asleep in the car on the drive home?” I said, laying down a throw pillow and retrieving a blanket from the armchair. “Teddy won’t be able to carry you into bed on his own. So it’s our couch or your car.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child,” he slurred as Noah and Teddy lowered him onto the sofa.

  “That’s the most effective means of communication when you decide to pickle your liver in a vat of bourbon.” I held out the blanket and waited for Teddy to remove Dad’s shoes before I tossed it over him.

  “You’ve got a smart mouth for someone who didn’t bring one intelligent thing to the table during the course of our investigation.” Dad coughed as Teddy helped him lay back.

  I was about to reply with some variation of my standard sarcastic riposte to one of my dad’s digs when Noah appeared beside me, making no subtle effect of the way he was towering over him.

  “Stop talking, Silas,” Noah uttered slowly, succinctly, not blinking as he stared at my father.

  “Or what? You’re going to make me?” Dad laughed, though he was the only one.

  Instead of answering him with words, Noah’s confirmation came in the form of a pointed stare and cocked brow.

  For one of the few times in his life, Dad shut his mouth.

  Did he see the monster within? Could he sense it lying dormant, waiting for an opportunity to be set free?

  How had I missed it? How had I never so much as caught a glimpse of the darkness that hid inside the man I’d shared my life with for nearly two decades? I wasn’t sure if it was ignorance on my part or intelligence on his, but his secret was exposed. I had a decision to make and no idea how to begin.

  “Why don’t you go up and change?” I whispered to Noah. “I can handle him.”

  His light eyes secured on mine for a moment, and I saw it. The weight of a man burdened by ghosts of his past. The creature who’d been spawned from the ashes of regret and torment. Avenging and killing was the beat his heart pulsed to. The lifeblood in his veins. The centering theme of his life.

  His hand trailed across my lower back as he passed me to go upstairs. A tremble shuddered up my spine, though I was unsure of its origination. Fear or thrill? They were too similar in sensation to distinguish between.

  “I can stay. Keep an eye on him tonight,” Teddy said as he settled Dad’s dress shoes on the floor at the end of the couch.

  “No, you head back and get some rest,” I replied, turning off the lamp beside the couch. “In the morning, I’ll drive him home or call him a cab. Depending on how he wakes up.”

  Teddy laughed a note. “Too early to place bets?”

  “You’re a good man for putting up with him when he’s like this.” I smiled at him as we wandered to the front door. “Thanks for driving him. We’ve got enough to deal with tomorrow without hearing about the great Silas Payne wrapping his Lincoln around a street lamp.”

  He waved it off. “Despite this Huntsman search coming to an abrupt end, I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few days, so I’ll say good night instead of goodbye.”


  “To receive our tongue-lashings and have our intelligence questioned. Looking forward to it.” I sighed while unlocking the door. “If I were you, I’d catch the first plane back to Texas and pretend this was all some bad dream.”

  He hovered in the doorway. “Is that your plan?”

  “I wish.” I held my smile as I accepted that this night would reshape my family’s life forever. The path we’d been on had ended, a new one being carved for us.

  Teddy removed his hat from his head. “For what it’s worth, Grace . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’d be damn proud to call you a daughter if you were mine. Some people refuse to see the good in anything, you hear? So don’t give it too much thought.” His gray eyes landed on where Dad was passed out on the couch.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been giving it too much thought for nearly four decades.” I took in my dad in a new light. With different eyes. Why was I so desperate for the approval of a person who didn’t possess a single quality I admired? Everything inside me relaxed, one invisible knot at a time. “But not a day more.”

  Teddy slid his hat back on once he stepped outside. “Good night then.”

  My attention drifted to the night sky. Not a single star was cutting through the cover of clouds, but I knew behind all the shadowy cover, glimmers of light still shone. “Good night.”

  I lingered for another moment before the cold air coaxed me back inside. After locking the door, I flicked off another lamp and padded toward the couch. The blanket was sliding off of him, so I adjusted it, drawing it over his shoulders.

  He stirred when I started to leave. “I should have known better than to expect something great of you.” His cough rattled deep in his chest, his glazed eyes locking on me. “Like solving this case or making state’s prosecutor before you turned forty.”

  The sting of his words didn’t reach its normal depth. “I’m not forty yet.”

  He tossed the blanket off, letting it crumple on the floor. “Hell, forty or four hundred, you’ll never make state’s prosecutor.” His half smile was mocking, edging on malicious. “All dreamer and no doer.” Another cough rumbled in his chest. “Such a disappointment.”

  I stopped moving, expecting a wave of dejection to shake me. None came.

  “Thank you. Thank you for reminding me what’s important in life.” I didn’t glance back as I continued toward the kitchen. I flipped off the last light in the room and left him to keep his own company. “And what’s not.”

  When I emerged into the kitchen, I froze when I saw Andee standing by the sink in her pajamas, the look on her face telling she’d heard the entire conversation.

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

  She picked at the frayed cuff of her oversized sweatshirt. “I’m not.” Her shoulders moved. “Compared to that, I hit the fucking jackpot with my parental units.”

  I blinked at her, a smile pulling at my mouth. “This ‘parental unit’ doesn’t know whether to ground you or hug you for that statement.”

  She stopped picking at her sweatshirt. “A hug would be nice.”

  Moving toward her, I opened my arms to scoop her up. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d admitted to wanting or needing a hug. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt the same.

  “Yes, it would,” I whispered into her hair after pulling her close.

  Andee’s arms wound around me, the strength in them surprising given their size. “I’m sorry you’ve got such a shitty dad.”

  An amused sound rattled in my chest. “I’m sorry you got stuck with a shitty mom as a result.”

  Her laugh echoed against me. “Not shitty, just maybe kinda detached.”

  “Keeping my distance was my way of not hurting you.” I leaned back enough to look her straight-on. “If I maintained a space between us, I couldn’t do too much damage. That was my theory, at least.”

  “Moms are weird.” She smiled when she saw the look on my face. “Just stop worrying about it so much. As a parent, it’s basically in the job description that you have to damage me to some degree. Just like it’s my duty to turn you prematurely gray.”

  I tapped at my roots where strands of gray were popping through, along with my natural brown. No more dye jobs meant facing the reality of getting older. “Glad we had this talk.”

  “Me too,” she replied. “Oh, and by the way? He’s wrong.”

  “Who’s wrong?”

  “Grandpa.” Andee’s head dropped to my chest again. “You’re not a disappointment.”

  I felt myself melt into her. The words I’d needed—craved—hearing from my father, I’d finally heard. From the lips of my child.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  A large set of arms encircled both of us from behind. Noah had exchanged his black outfit for an old T-shirt and pajama pants. Hair combed back the way he normally wore it, expression tamed, the feral blaze in his eyes gone. He was the same man I’d married, though the strength in his arms came with a new understanding. The hardened planes of his body had a different translation.

  He was the same. And yet different.

  Letting my head fall against him, I breathed, “You too.”

  Twenty-Six

  Instead of the events of last night feeling like a dream the next morning, they hit me with a white-hot blow of reality. There was no doubt who my husband was, only doubt for how I should proceed with this knowledge.

  After crawling into bed sometime around two, I must have slept through my alarm that went off at five, and the back-up one scheduled for five thirty. With Andee down the hall and my father under the same roof, I didn’t dare bring up the topic Noah and I had been in the middle of when we’d been interrupted. I wasn’t sure what to say anyway.

  When I’d finally closed my eyes to fall asleep, the last image I remembered was Noah beside me in bed, staring at the ceiling, expression unreadable, hands folded across his chest. I guessed he had as much to consider as I did with news of the “Huntsman” being captured.

  My phone hadn’t stopped pinging with messages since seven thirty, but I didn’t dare break my forward momentum by pausing to reply to them. I wouldn’t make it into the office until lunchtime if I did.

  Whisking through the living room to retrieve my purse, I glanced at the couch. The throw pillow was still lying on its side, the blanket in a crumbled heap on the floor, a couple of dents in the sofa cushions to lay claim to my father’s presence. He must have called himself a car sometime late last night or early this morning, once the booze burned off. I figured when I heard from him next, he would pretend last night had never happened.

  Finding my purse on the end table where I’d set it last night, I discovered an intricate paper flower balanced on it. White in color, the blossom held a familiar shape. Origami. Another skill I wasn’t aware of in my husband’s possession. This one came with far fewer ramifications than the skill he’d confessed to last night.

  Tucking the delicate paper flower into my purse, I rushed out of the house, eager to get to work and catch up on the latest information circling the arrest in California.

  The office was a rare quiet when I stepped off the elevator. The receptionist never looked away from her computer to say hello, eyes transfixed on whatever she had pulled up on her screen. Passing offices, I found them lit up, the desks vacant. Not even the usual crowd congregated around the coffee pot in the break room.

  About to round into my office, I caught sight of Connor buttressed against the doorway leading into the large conference room at the end of the hall. When he caught my attention, he waved me over, tapping his watch.

  “Where in the world have you been?” he said once I was in earshot. “It’s pandemonium around here and you mosey in a few minutes after nine?”

  “Pandemonium?” I echoed, discovering the reason Connor was stationed in the doorway—the conference room was packed with most of the office, their eyes unblinking and mouths sealed. I’d never known this many attorneys were capable of so much silence.
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br />   “They nailed the Huntsman sometime late last night, and the country’s been rolling to a boil ever since the news broke.” Connor’s attention diverted toward the large television at the front of the room where a news report was streaming across the screen.

  “What are you talking about?” My eyes narrowed on the television as I watched short clips taken from across the country, in big cities like New York and San Francisco, to smaller cities like Eugene and Montpellier. Protesting in the streets, rioting in some places, the reels gave the luster of war-torn countries on the other side of the world, not here in the US.

  “People want him released. The Huntsman.” Connor shook his head at the television when a scene portrayed a handful of people dressed in head-to-toe black and throwing Molotov cocktails at a courthouse in Orlando. “Herds of them are marching on city buildings and demanding all charges against him be dropped.”

  “He killed thirty-three people,” I said absently.

  Connor leaned in closer. “More people than not consider his actions more of a public service than a first-degree felony.”

  I gave him a pointed stare. “More people than not?”

  “I plead the fifth, Counselor.” He flashed his pearly whites at me. “Nice try.”

  While Connor went back to watching the news, I pried my phone from my purse and sorted through my messages, running triage on matter of importance. Dad, Noah, my boss, clients, task force members, Andee’s school . . . every factor in my life was in need of attention and I wasn’t sure I could adequately follow up on anything until I’d made a decision about what to do with the knowledge Noah had bestowed upon me.

  All the rest was white noise until I knew how to move forward, or past, this newfound knowledge.

  “God, the government’s going to declare martial law if this keeps up.” Connor whistled faintly.

  “Who’s the guy?” I asked, still scrolling through my missed messages.

  “The Huntsman?”

  I swallowed. “Yeah.”

  “I would have thought with your dad’s contacts and your role in his super crime fighting task force, you would have had insider info before it broke publicly.” Connor nudged me when I stayed quiet.