Retribution

by Tymber Dalton

  Nevvie slapped the counter. “What the everlovin’ fuck is wrong with these men?”

  “I know, hon.” Bob sighed. “So there’s my status report. What’s new in your neck of the woods?”

  Tyler gave him a quick update on Colin’s situation.

  “Sonofabitch. Is it asshole season and no one remembered to tell us? I’ll drop Davis a line and see if he needs any research. Lucky for all of us, including me and Terry, that gay marriage became legal. Makes it harder for assholes to pull this shit now.”

  “Thanks, Bob. Put it on our tab, mate.”

  He laughed. “Just billable hours, Ty. I’ll see you this weekend. I’m coming back up Friday night.”

  Once the call ended, Andrew had caught Colin’s attention and tipped his head toward the front door, getting a slight nod from him.

  “Nevvie, darling, thank you for lunch, but we’re knackered and really need to head home.” They said their good-byes and refused an offer to drive them home. “Nonsense, it’s a short walk, and we could use the exercise.”

  Colin leaned in when they were a safe distance from the house. “Is it just me, or is there something odd about that Crystal woman?”

  Andrew breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad it’s not just me then. I’ll speak with Tyler about preserving our privacy, even from her, at a more opportune time.”

  “Thanks.” He reached for Andrew’s hand and held it as they walked. “I mean, I don’t want to sound ungrateful to them or anything, but I don’t know her. And…I don’t know. I get the feeling she’s fake or something, but Nevvie seems to like her.”

  Andrew squeezed his hand. “Exactly, love.”

  Chapter Nine

  Fortunately, Nevvie was alone when she stopped by Friday afternoon to see if Andrew needed anything from the grocery store the next afternoon. No Crystal in sight.

  Which was fine with him. The more time he spent around Crystal, the less he liked her. After further talks with Colin upon their return home yesterday, he was glad to know it wasn’t just him. She struck him as a phony, someone who cozied up to people in an attempt to befriend them and hide her true motives. But Nevvie and the others didn’t object to her, so he would stay quiet since it wasn’t his business.

  Colin had run home to sort through more belongings. He’d been meaning to go through his spare bedroom as well as toss a lot of things from the garage, and Monday was trash day. He wanted to put out as much as he could before then. He’d return later, before dinner. Andrew had wanted to help, except Karen would be bringing Chloe home from school that afternoon and needed to head out again for a work dinner, and Andrew needed to babysit for her and Bill, who’d be meeting Karen at the dinner.

  “How’s Zoey today, then?” he asked Nevvie.

  “She’s…adjusting, I guess. The counselor said yesterday afternoon that she seems to be handling everything well, but not to be surprised if there’s some sort of outburst or something. I don’t know.” She leaned against the counter. “If that stupid Detective Dunn would quit trying to pin Cole Johnson’s murder on one of us, that’d be fucking great.”

  Blast. “What? Still? I thought Bob said that was settled?”

  “The guy called Bob yesterday, shortly after we talked to Bob, and demanded unhampered access to our security system records. Bob went over Dunn’s head late yesterday afternoon and raised a stink, but Dunn hasn’t been pulled from the case yet. Problem is, they literally have no physical evidence, other than the ballistics, which they can’t compare to the slugs they dug out of Alex, since they’re missing. But they have no other suspects, either. Correction, viable suspects. Because I was the dumbass who screamed at the kid in a police station full of witnesses, I’m still the prime suspect, in Dunn’s mind. And who knows if that person who creeped our house is even related to the murder? It has to be more than coincidence.”

  Andrew felt queasy and knew he had to speak up. What if he passed in his sleep overnight and one of his family was charged later? “They haven’t moved on, then, from all of us?” he carefully asked.

  “I wish. I mean, officially, I guess, yeah. But I wouldn’t put it past that tricky bastard to try to charge one of us later. Just the fact that he still wants access to our security system records bothers me.”

  They were alone in the house. A house he’d lived and loved and lost in. He thought about Peggy, who he’d believed he’d spend the rest of his life with, and who had died in his arms.

  Who he’d promised to help protect their family, in the wake of Alex’s attack.

  He thought about Colin, a man he was desperately in love with, a second chance for happiness and passion in the twilight of their lives, and who he fully intended to make his husband.

  And he pictured the haunted look in their sweet Zoey’s brown eyes. Her life forever impacted by one selfish psychopath who used people without conscience to the harm he did.

  “What happens if they try to charge one of you for Cole’s murder?” he asked.

  “They can’t, not really.”

  “But what if they do?”

  Her gaze turned hard, cold. “There’s still the matter of the prowler they haven’t identified. I think they know that totally blows their theories about it maybe being one of us. But if they insist on charging one of us, we fucking fight tooth and nail and exhaust every last penny of our savings, if we have to. No matter how many years it takes to clear our names.”

  Andrew wasn’t sure what that was all about, the prowler, because the prowler wasn’t him.

  Although, he had a certainty who it might be, even if no one would believe him and he didn’t have an adequate explanation why he felt certain, except for intuition and instinct.

  Except…he couldn’t allow his family to do that to themselves. To risk years of heartache and potential financial ruin.

  “Perhaps that won’t be necessary,” he quietly said.

  Nevvie frowned. “What?”

  He sighed, knowing he couldn’t in good conscience let any of his family go to jail, even if it meant he might. “Follow me. Please?” He turned and walked down the hall to his bedroom.

  * * * *

  Nevvie didn’t understand what had come over Dad, why he suddenly seemed so…resigned, but she followed him.

  “Close the bedroom door, love. Please. And lock it.”

  Confused, she did.

  Andrew walked over to the closet and pulled clothes back to expose the gun safe. She knew that thing all too well, having ripped it open herself in her race to grab a shotgun from it the day Alex attacked them. Its combination would forever remain etched in her mind.

  He opened it and rummaged around inside for a moment. When he returned, in his hand he held a black semi-automatic handgun.

  A Glock.

  A nine millimeter Glock.

  The Glock.

  One Nevvie knew all too well, despite how briefly she’d seen it in person that day.

  Tight, cold fear tensed her stomach and filled her veins with dry ice.

  As she watched, he expertly popped the magazine, then ejected the round from the chamber, wiping the round with his shirttail before he replaced it in the magazine, also using his shirttail to remove his prints from that. That done, he released the slide lock and presented the weapon to Nevvie, empty and grip first, along with the magazine.

  She stared at him in shock as she took them with numb hands, the cold weight of them undeniable evidence of the implication he presented to her.

  “Now then, love,” he quietly said. “There you have it. What you do with it is up to you. I won’t allow any of you to go to prison for something I did.”

  It felt like her heart would explode, it pounded so hard in her chest, in her ears, and she actually felt a little faint. “Wh-wh…” She swallowed. “Where?” she finally managed. “Where’d you hide it? They searched your gun safe.”

  “It was here in the gun safe the entire time. False bottom in the main compartment. Peggy said it was for jewelry and other s
mall items. Impossible to locate unless you know it’s there and how to open it. It was an optional feature on these safes, an expensive one Adam added at her request when he purchased it. Very uncommon. Just large enough to hold something like that. The children never knew about it.”

  He smiled. “Peggy said when the children were still living at home, she and Adam concealed a small amount of pot there, to keep it away from them. Nothing serious, just an occasional puff or two a few times a year.”

  She stared at the gun in her hands, then back to him.

  He didn’t speak, waiting for her to break the silence.

  “You…you act like you know how to handle a gun.”

  “Gracious, of course I do. I was married to Peggy Kinsey for twelve years. I could fire any of the weapons in that gun safe, or yours, and I dare say others like them. After Alex attacked the three of you, Peggy made me learn how to shoot and promise not to say anything about it. Element of surprise, she claimed. She wanted to ensure that, at any time, she could put a weapon in my hand and I wouldn’t shoot myself in the head or shoot my foot off, or shoot any of our loved ones. That I could help defend this family, especially the children, if there was ever another intruder.”

  “H-how? How’d you get it? When did you get it?”

  “The Sunday night I stayed over when you drove Thomas to Atlanta and spent the night at the airport hotel. That much was completely true. One of the few parts of my story that was. I saw the safe standing wide open in your closet when I was putting the clean laundry away for you. The long guns all had trigger locks on them, but I realized this one weapon did not. I didn’t know why the safe stood wide open, but I thought perhaps you had a reason and didn’t wish to lock it.

  “Regardless, Peggy drilled firearm safety into me. So I pushed the gun safe door nearly shut, took the gun, and walked it back here that night, my intent being to lock it up for safekeeping until you returned.”

  He clasped his hands in front of him and sighed, his voice quiet. “And then between meeting Colin, and the hurricane, it completely slipped my mind. After what happened with Zoey, I deliberately withheld the information, and the gun, and returned the extra magazine and the zippered case to your gun safe when I was over one afternoon. You still hadn’t locked it.

  “Apparently, when I pushed it almost shut that night, no one checked to make sure it was actually closed and locked. I wiped it down with a towel to remove my fingerprints. I still had a partial box of Tyler’s old ammo here from years ago. I suppose I’m lucky it fired at all, which is something I didn’t consider until later. I pitched the spent shell casings, the rest of the ammo, and the box in several different public rubbish bins around town on my way home after leaving Colin’s the morning after.”

  She forced herself to say it. “You killed Cole Johnson?”

  His intense stare fixed her, froze her in place, Tyler’s blue eyes—Adam’s blue eyes. “You know as well as I do that bloody bastard would never face real justice. He was another Alex. He admitted to me that he had raped other girls in the past and had gotten away with it, and that he would do whatever he damned well pleased. That his father said the lawyer would get him off for Zoey’s rape and the others, or plead the charges down, because he was a minor when he committed most of the crimes. That it was his word against the victims. That they would get Zoey and others to recant, or he’d ruin their lives.” His jaw set in a grim line. “But I cannot live with myself if one of you go to jail for my deed.”

  She stared at the gun again, its weight, its cold, hard lines. It had saved her life—hers and Tommy’s both, and possibly Tyler’s, and Mom and Dad and their kids. Indirectly it’d saved the twins, because she’d been pregnant with them at the time. Had Alex killed her and Tommy, Nevvie knew he would have gone after the rest of her family. Including Andrew.

  She knew this.

  The Glock had doled out righteous justice once before.

  It seemed it had a habit of doing that.

  “You got lucky that the ballistics evidence was lost from Alex’s case.”

  “Yes, quite. I was ready to purchase a new barrel and firing pin for it from a dealer in Atlanta, though, and swap them out, if it came to that, and then admit I had it. Blame old age or claim a lack of gun knowledge for my faulty memory. Something, anything. That was a lucky break. I knew they’d never find the gun in my gun safe, though. Not once did they re-inspect the gun safe after that day Detective Dunn came over with Tyler. Even after I ‘confessed’.”

  In his sly smile she saw where her husband had inherited the gesture. “Not a very bloody good detective, I might add. More brawn than brain.” His smile faded. “He’d already completely bought my nonsense pretending not to know a revolver from a semi-automatic, which worked to my advantage when I ‘confessed’ on Saturday.”

  He nodded toward the gun. “So what will it be, love? If he’s not going to stop until he wrongly prosecutes one of you, I think I have to come forward with the truth. Don’t you?”

  She took a deep breath and held out the gun to him, grip first, and the magazine. “Put it back, Dad,” she whispered. “Please, put it back, and forget it’s there.”

  He didn’t reach for them. His blue gaze studied hers for a long moment. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “I can’t lose you. I will not lose you. Especially not over that bastard. Put it back. We need to figure out how to get rid of it.”

  He shook his head. “No. We can’t. If it’s discovered, that might immediately implicate family.”

  “What, you just…hold on to it?”

  “Back to my original plan, then. Once it’s safe, in a few months, I’ll get what I need for it. Colin and I will go to a local gun range, take lessons, buy a used one the same or a similar model that takes the same parts, say it’s for home protection. This model Glock is one of the most common out there. You can easily find them at gun shows and pawn shops.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “After all, there is still an unknown person out there stalking your property. That does concern me. And there’s still a missing gun somewhere out there, or so police think. Heaven knows where it is or who has it. Then it will seem quite reasonable, if it’s ever discovered that I bought parts that match it. They were for my gun.”

  She blinked at the thoroughness and future-thinking of his plans. “My god, Dad, you thought all this out?”

  “Not all at once.”

  “But…you had Tommy’s revolver. Why use the Glock?”

  “Because I didn’t have any ammo for it and didn’t wish to purchase any and have a record of it. I still had what was left of Tyler’s ammo in my gun safe.”

  “Oh.”

  After wiping the magazine and inserting it into the gun, he returned the gun to its hiding place, but only after wiping the outside of it with his shirttail to remove his and Nevvie’s prints. He closed and locked the safe and concealed it with hanging clothes.

  He stepped out of the closet and turned to her. “I won’t deny that I am my son’s father. I’ve read every last one of his books, multiple times. After Zoey’s attack, it didn’t take me much to appreciate Augustine’s worldview, as it were.”

  Nevvie slumped onto the bed, still in shock.

  “I didn’t intend to kill him, truly. I intended to scare him into a confession. I knew his parents were going to that hurricane fundraiser Friday night. After I heard Crystal talking about it, I researched and saw it on Facebook. I scheduled an overnight at Colin’s, since he lived so close to Cole.

  “Between the walk we took earlier, a full stomach from dinner, plying him with several drinks, and, lastly, a round of lively sex to finish him off, I was certain he was asleep and would stay that way for several hours. Then I snuck out the back door, skirting through the woods behind neighboring houses to avoid anyone who might have security cameras, and walked over to Cole’s house.”

  “Why’d you tell them you snuck out the window?”

  He shrugged, slyly smiling. “Dotty old man.
Setting the stage, as it were. Why would I invent something so outrageous when yes, the door would suffice?”

  “Ah.”

  “Anyway, obviously Cole didn’t know who I was when I rang the bell. I drew him outside with a claim of car trouble down at the road. Once he was in the yard, I showed him the gun and marched him through the woods a little ways. I wanted him scared, crying in fright. I was going to make him call Detective Cash and confess, and I’d take whatever legal action was thrown at me for holding him at gunpoint. Claim I was in pre-dementia or something.”

  He snorted. “Fucking smarmy little bastard. He told me to piss off. That I didn’t have the bollocks to shoot him. Then he bragged about his many victims, as if it were something to be proud of! Told me his father said that if a girl got herself into a situation where he could do that to her, then she deserved it. Called our Zoey a cocktease. Said that others had helped him hide things in the past because he was a jock and had a football scholarship. You have no idea how many girls he’s truly harmed. The ones who’ve come forward are merely the tip of the iceberg. He’s been doing this since junior high, and his father always got him out of trouble.”

  Well, that explained why his parents hadn’t cancelled going to the fundraiser. His father was as big an asshole as the son had been. It was status quo, to him. The other victims who’d come out in the wake of Cole’s death, and the stuff the schools and coaches had shoved under the rug for him, backed Andrew’s version.

  Andrew’s lips pressed into a thin, hard line for a moment. “He turned, charged me, and I shot him. I fired reflexively.”

  “Once is reflexively, Dad. Twice, maybe. Three is probably voluntary manslaughter. Six is premeditated homicide.”

  “I’m not saying I regretted shooting him. Yet I didn’t want to wing him and have him get off because I was a wanker. Yes, once I pulled the trigger, I kept pulling it until he fell. Peggy told me it was always better to shoot sooner, because someone could be on you before you fired if you didn’t. That hesitation kills.”