And Irv explained this to Ty and the police after he explained that a buddy of his who had the pastime of listening to police band radio called to let him know I was taken. He remembered that cabin, he knew Arnold Fuller, he figured he’d hold a nasty grudge and he knew, if Fuller did, he’d act on it.
Going to that cabin was a long shot but he took it and it turned out he was right.
He should have called the police.
He didn’t because he had a son to win and a score to settle.
It was a decision based solely on emotion which made it not wrong but also not right.
What it was, was understandable.
Like father, like son.
And in the end, he saved my life.
* * * * *
Three months after Fuller kidnapped me, my husband disappeared in the night and he didn’t come home until the early hours and when he did, he took a shower before coming to bed.
I didn’t ask.
He didn’t tell.
The next day at the salon, as it does, word spread that someone torched that hunting cabin in the night. Luckily, they doused all around with water so the flames didn’t spread and it was so old, it went up like a light and burned fast.
And then it was gone.
An ugly piece of history, up in smoke and generations to come would never know it existed at all.
It would be a long time later, at his pace, when Ty told me what he did and explained he wasn’t alone. Dewey, Tate, Deke, Wood, Pop, Shambles, Ned, Irv and Jim-Billy went with him.
So did Chace Keaton.
Yes, straight-arrow Chace Keaton.
Then again, Chace was a man in the business of righting wrongs, he’d put his ass out there to do it before so I guess it wasn’t surprising he’d do it again regardless of the methods he needed to use.
I thought the building might be gone but the ghosts probably remained.
I also thought those ghosts probably got a kick out of watching those men burn that shithole to the ground.
* * * * *
Ty talked to me, Tate talked to me, Chace talked to me, even Officer Frank popped by the house one afternoon to talk to me about shooting Arnold Fuller. They thought I’d freak considering the fact that I did at the hospital. Delayed reaction to Irv going down, me being kidnapped and me taking Arnie out.
I was fine.
Until one day, I wasn’t.
Driving home from the grocery store on my Monday off, I got the shakes.
And my hands on the steering wheel guided the Charger to Carnal Police Department. I walked on shaky legs inside and asked to talk to Detective Keaton.
He came right out.
He held me while I lost it in an interrogation room and when I say lost it, I mean I lost it. Then, when he calmed me, he got me Kleenex. Then he sent an officer out to get me a latte from La-La Land.
Then he sat with me while I drank it.
Then he followed me home to make sure I got there okay.
Then he went straight to the garage and told Ty what happened. He also explained to Ty that I didn’t go to him because I didn’t want him to see that, that last piece of me that Fuller took since Fuller took so much from Ty already.
From the time Chace left me to the time Ty got home, I was a nervous wreck. I thought he’d get pissed, thinking I’d gone behind his back, not liking that I shared that with another man. I was such a mess, I didn’t even phone him to attempt and detect his mood because, if he was going to lose it, I didn’t want it to come sooner rather than later.
But Ty didn’t get pissed.
He just came home from the gym as usual but did a thorough scan the minute he saw me. I knew he saw I was anxious and my anxiety had hit the red zone. But he just walked to me, wrapped his hand around the back of my head, gave me a kiss, touched my forehead with his and asked me to make him a shake. Then he went up to take a shower.
I made his shake and I did it grateful that he got it and didn’t get pissed.
He never spoke of it, neither did I.
But he watched me closely after that and he did it for weeks. He didn’t hide it but I didn’t mention it. Our daughter was growing inside of me, he was concerned and he kept his finger on the pulse.
So did Tate. So did Chace. So did Officer Frank. Jim-Billy. Deke. Wood. Pop. Krystal. Laurie, Maggie, Stella, Dominic… everybody.
But I got rid of it that day. I gave it to Chace and he took it from me.
He’d taken his own load from Fuller so I knew it was selfish.
But I also was grateful and would be eternally.
To let me show this, Chace allowed me to buy his lunch one of the days we shared it at the diner instead of what usually happened, him buying mine.
He allowed me to do this once.
It wasn’t much but at least it was something.
* * * * *
Three and a half weeks after my kidnapping, Rowdy Crabtree was detained in Arizona on the US side of the US/Mexican border trying to cross. He was arrested and transported back to Carnal.
He stood trail in Chantelle for Misty Keaton’s murder. He was not offered bond because he was a flight risk.
He was acquitted and instantly moved out-of-state. I didn’t know where.
I also didn’t care.
Misty Keaton’s murder was never solved.
Chace Keaton may not have liked his wife but he liked it less the way she died.
So her murder had not been solved but that didn’t mean Chace still wasn’t looking for her killer.
* * * * *
Shift, being Shift, therefore stupid but not knowing it, tried to cop a plea
Yes, he was a drug dealing pimp who ordered the hit on his best friend and personally executed a drive-by that killed one and wounded three and he tried to cop a plea.
The DA drove a hard bargain.
Shift’s currently enjoying his stay in a Texas penitentiary and would until he died. Life with no chance of parole.
It was up in the air whether it was a good bargain or not that the DA didn’t push the death penalty.
* * * * *
And thus endeth the shadows.
Now it’s all sunshine.
* * * * *
And two hours after Angel and Rosalia arrived, I sat at my dining room table which was stuffed full of the people I loved, my hands slightly out to the sides, my wrists resting on the edge of the table, my right fingers curled around Angel’s, my left fingers curled around Irv’s as I listened with bowed head to Ella saying our Thanksgiving prayer.
Then she was done but before I released the hands I held, I squeezed them tight at the same time they squeezed mine the same exact way.
Then I looked up and down the table and saw my husband’s eyes on me and in them I read it all, everything, all he needed to say, all I loved to hear.
Five Thanksgivings he’d lost to a nightmare.
Five Thanksgivings I’d given him different versions of this.
Looking in his eyes I could see, finally, I was catching up.
* * * * *
Ty
“You sure?”
“Sam, I’m not sittin’ a game,” Ty said into his phone, his body moving through his house, familiar movements, the same every night, these movements to shut it down, lock his girls in, make sure they were safe.
“I’ll cover your buy-in,” Samuel Sterling said in his ear.
Ty turned out the lights under the cabinets of Lexie’s kitchen and asked, “Someone you wanna teach a lesson?”
“Three someones,” Sam answered.
“How bad do they need this lesson?” Ty asked, moving out of the kitchen into the sunken family room to turn off the lamp that was sitting on a side table there.
Lex had a shitload of furniture in that area. Two full couches, four armchairs, two big footstools, four side tables and a coffee table.
When she filled that space, he thought she’d temporarily gone insane.
He’d been wrong.
Betwe
en her and her girls sucking back wine while cackling over what he suspected was not the books they were supposed to be reading (he thought this, primarily, because Krystal was a member of Lexie’s book club and Krystal was not a woman to belong to a book club but she was a woman to cackle over wine) and him having the men over for beer and games, that furniture saw a lot of use.
“Some might not think they need this lesson badly,” Sam replied then said quietly, “A brother would disagree.”
Ty straightened from the lamp and looked out at the lights of Carnal.
He didn’t reply.
Sam kept talking.
“It’s in Hawaii. I’ll send the jet for you, Lexie and the girls. I’ve got a house here, you can stay there. They get a vacation, you do too except you take time out to sit the game and take their money, give me back my buy-in, put the rest in Lella and Vivie’s college fund.” He paused, “Though, it probably wouldn’t hurt to use some to buy Lexie more diamonds.”
Suddenly, his eyes didn’t see Carnal. His mind had a vision of his wife cooking, eating and being with their family that day in her clingy wraparound dress, high-heeled boots and the diamonds he gave her last Christmas in her ears and at her neck.
Ty gave Lexie diamonds for her birthday, Christmas and their anniversary, every year. He worked overtime to do it. And he never fucked around. She didn’t get earrings or a necklace or a bracelet. She got a set. Sometimes a couple of pieces, sometimes three.
For their fifth wedding anniversary that year, though, Bessie and Roland came up from Miami to watch the girls for a long weekend while Ty took his wife back to Vegas where they stayed in the same hotel but in a better room and he topped her wedding rings with a wide band set all around with diamonds. It cost a fucking whack and the stack of rings nearly covered her finger to her knuckle.
She took them off to clean them every day and she took them off to give her massages.
Other than that, they were never off. Not when she was showering, cooking, bathing the girls.
Never.
“When is this?” he asked Sam, eyes on Carnal.
“Two weeks.”
Two weeks. They hadn’t had a real vacation since April when they went to Ella’s for week over Easter.
He bent his neck and looked at his feet, muttering, “I’ll talk to Lex.”
He heard Sam’s chuckle then, “All right then, see you in two weeks.”
Then he had nothing but dead air.
He flipped his phone shut and shoved it in his back pocket knowing Sam was right. Hawaii, a private jet, money in the bank and diamonds, his woman would not be hard to convince especially since this was his first game since the one he sat two days after he met her.
He’d stuck to his vow.
Until now.
He moved through the house, seeing the shadowed pieces on the walls.
Lex was a regular at the frame shop in Chantelle, such a regular, they sent Christmas cards. Glitter pen art done by Lell framed like it was executed by a master. Unusual multi-frames holding family snapshots. Two small shadowboxes displaying their daughter’s tiny hospital bracelets, two others that held the first lock of their hair cut by Dominic, Lell’s tied in a little, pale yellow ribbon, Vivie’s with a pale pink one. Down the main hall, a double line of black-framed, cream-matted, black-ink, tiny but slowly getting bigger handprints, five of Lell’s, one Lexie did two days after Lella came home from the hospital and one for each birthday; three of Vivie’s little hand.
There’d be another row there soon or she might branch out to the opposite wall and he liked that, he liked a décor based in comfort and family but he loved the home his wife made for them.
He checked the outer doors one last time to make sure they were locked, engaged the alarm then he went to the stairs.
But he stopped dead at the foot when he saw the shadowed figure sitting halfway up.
Ella.
He felt her eyes in the dark and gave her his.
She was silent.
He was too.
Then she whispered, “Love you, Ty.”
It was the first time she’d said it even after years of her acting it and Jesus, God, it felt fucking good.
“Same,” he rumbled, his voice rough.
He saw the shadow of her head nod then she got up and he watched her walk up the stairs and turn right.
He sucked in breath. Then he followed her.
As he did every night, he looked in on Lella and Vivie who shared a room at Lexie’s demand. She wanted them to grow up close, like Bessie and Honey did. She wanted them to have girlie nighttime chats. She wanted them to have togetherness.
She got what she wanted. Ty didn’t argue. There was no reason, her motives were sound.
Both his girls were out. Not a surprise. They’d had a full day.
Then, quietly, because Ella, Bess and Roland and Honey and Zander were staying with them, he went to his wife.
He barely got the doors closed before she looked at him from her place sitting cross-legged on the bed and said, “The answer is yes.”
He stopped and stared at her.
Then he guessed, “Sam called you before he called me.”
She threw her arms in the air and, in a muted shout, cried, “Hawaii!”
Jesus. His wife was a goof.
He walked to the end of the bed, trying and failing not to let the scar marring her left, dark, arched eyebrow penetrate. He could ignore it in the day. It was the night when the rest of the world faded and it was him and Lex in their room, their bed, when he couldn’t. It was a constant reminder of that day where he lived for agonizing hours with the possibility that he could lose her, he would never have Lell or Vivie, when he couldn’t ignore it.
It wasn’t identical to his, slightly off to the outer edge whereas Ty’s was in the middle. He didn’t mind matching Team Walker t-shirts (something, now, both his daughters had, his wife and his daughters wore them often, he wore his solely at the gym).
He did mind semi-matching scars.
This had got so deep under his skin, he’d eventually talked about it with Tate, considering Laurie bore her own scar after being stuck by a serial killer and Tate had to see that shit every day. Tate had words of wisdom, they helped but not enough.
So, in the end, he had to suck it up and remind himself she was in their room, their bed, their daughters down the hall and now his, hope to God, son in her belly. She’d endured a nightmare and killed a man so she could end up breathing and save him from the lonely, lost life Tuku had led.
And he absolutely could live with that.
But he wished like fuck one of the many times he swept his thumb along that scar, when he was done, he’d make a miracle and it would go away.
So far this had not happened but he didn’t stop trying.
He made it to the end of the bed and put his hands to his hips. She pushed forward and crawled on all fours to him. His cock started getting hard watching her and kept doing it when she made it to him, got up on her knees and slid her hands up his chest as she pressed close to him.
“Nic already gave me the time off,” she told him.
“I’m thinkin’ you chattin’ with Sam behind my back is somethin’ I should be pissed about.”
Her head tipped to the side and her lips twitched. “Why?”
“Uh… Lex, you and Sam are playin’ me,” he informed her.
“Right, so you can beat the pants off stodgy old farts that Sam heard saying the n-word,” she returned. “It’s worth it.”
And there it was. It was gone. Any wound he left after tearing her apart five years ago hadn’t just healed over. It was gone. He knew it because she didn’t blink before playing him. No uncertainty. She knew he’d do nothing, not one thing, to harm what they had.
But fuck, assholes said that shit all the time.
“When did I become a crusader for black justice?” he asked.
“You’re not. Sam is. It’s just that, this time, Mr. Humongo is his wing-m
an.”
He stared down at his woman and shook his head because, serious as fuck, she was a goof.
She pressed closer and coaxed in a soft voice, “Come on, honey. Sam says his house is right on the ocean. The girls’ll love the beach.”
The beach.
Hawaii had beaches.
“I’ll do it,” he stated and watched his wife smile. Then he asked, “Can you tell me why you keep puttin’ clothes on before you go to bed?”
“It’s November. It’s cold.”
Not in the house it wasn’t. He had three girls to look after. He never jacked down the heat. He wanted them to be comfortable at all times so he saw to that, including paying a whack on heating their huge, fucking house. Something else he spent a whack on to keep them comfortable.
“Lex, fuck you before we go to sleep,” Ty pointed out. “You puttin’ on pajamas is a ridiculous obstacle.”
She pressed closer and her hands slid down and around his back to hold him tight.
“I like the ways you take them off,” she whispered.
“That’s good, mama, but it’s me who’s gotta take them off.”
She pulled back and asked, “Is it that much of a pain in the ass?”
Ty moved and he did this quickly and efficiently and in less than thirty seconds his wife was on her ass and naked in their bed.
Then he answered, “No.”
She grinned. Then she found her knees again. Then she lunged.
Fuck, his woman was a wildcat.
He let her pull him to the bed not about to complain mostly because, seeing his wife naked in their bed, his cock was no longer getting hard.
It was there.
* * * * *
“Good day,” she whispered into his chest.
Ty didn’t reply but she was wrong. It wasn’t good. It was fantastic.
“Love the way Irv is with the girls, especially Lell,” she went on.
Lady Luck Page 55
