Alibi

by Nicole Edwards

  It seemed so simple. Speaking it, at least. Travis wasn’t sure how easy it would be for Gage to hand over Kylie’s wedding bands knowing they would be melted down. That seemed like the most difficult part although he understood her reasoning.

  “We should have Jessie go through her stuff, too,” Gage suggested. “See if there’s anything she wants. Joe, too.”

  “Yep,” Travis agreed, nodding because he didn’t know what else to do.

  Then they were silent again, minutes ticking by.

  “She loved us,” Gage finally whispered.

  “With all that she was.”

  And they had loved her the same.

  Chapter Nineteen

  One week later

  Saturday, February 27, 2021

  Travis had spent the past week focused on his family and his business.

  He went to work every day, as did Gage. But rather than mope as he had been for weeks, Travis engaged with others, checking on things himself rather than leaving it to everyone else to figure out. He even managed to have lunch with Kaleb and Sawyer, the three of them talking about surviving the snow-pocalypse.

  With the winter storm behind them, school was back in session, the kids returning to their routine. He alternated taking them to daycare to give Gage a break, and he picked them up the same. He helped Kate with her homework, although he still didn’t understand why she had it. She was six. There were plenty of homework years ahead of her. No sense stressing out a first grader.

  And when they were settled in at night, Travis ensured it was time well spent. He didn’t stalk Brantley or Reese, and he didn’t comb through the internet looking for possible news updates. He left it to them to deal with, trusting that when the time came, they would let him know. Instead, he avoided his home office, opting to be where Gage and the kids were.

  But today was the day they’d set to check off one of the things on Kylie’s list. With the weather warming up nicely, and quickly, they decided it was the perfect time to plant a tree. Or rather multiple since, yes, Gage had liked the idea of helping the environment, too.

  “Where’re we goin’, Daddy-O?” Kade asked when Travis helped the kids buckle into their seats.

  Kade, Avery, and Haden were with him, while Gage had taken Kate and Maddox to run a couple of errands before they met up in a little while.

  “We’ve got somethin’ to take care of today,” Travis explained.

  “What somethin’?” Kade inquired, always with the questions.

  Travis looked at the boy and smiled. “You’re gonna plant a tree.”

  Kade’s eyes widened, a look of confusion and concern on his little face. “Why would I do that? Trees come from the grass.”

  Grinning, he tapped the brim of Kade’s baseball cap. “Actually, they don’t.”

  “What about me?” Avery called out. “I wanna plant a tree.”

  “You’re gonna help. We’ve got three to plant.”

  “Three?” Kade’s shock was dramatic. “That’s a buncha trees.”

  “It is, yes. But I figure you can handle it, right?”

  “What about me?” Avery repeated, a harumph in her voice this time. “I wanna plant a buncha tree.”

  Travis chuckled. This could go on forever, he knew.

  He adjusted Haden’s seat belt, touched his nose, and made the little boy giggle.

  “Where’re we gonna put the trees?” Kade asked.

  Travis shook his head. They had decided they would spread the trees around so that everyone had a reminder of Kylie.

  Gage had suggested they show the letter to Kylie’s parents, her sister, as well as Curtis and Lorrie to help them understand the significance of what they wanted to do. So they had carved out time in the evenings, which meant later than usual nights. As he’d expected, there weren’t any dry eyes when the letter was being read. Travis had shed plenty through the week, rereading it over and over. A couple of times he’d caught Gage doing the same, sitting in Travis’s office—the one place they could usually find privacy—his eyes glued to the paper.

  Most people probably wouldn’t see the letter as much, but for them it was a bit of closure. Though difficult to process, it was a part of Kylie they had when they thought they would get no more.

  “Are they all gonna be at Pop’s house?” Kade asked.

  “Nope. One at Pop’s, one at Grandpa Joe’s, and one here. We’ll do ours later.”

  “Where’s Daddy?” Avery asked when Travis climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “He’s at Pop’s house already. With the tree.”

  Kade inhaled sharply, another dramatic effect of his. “What if he plants the tree without us?”

  “He won’t.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Travis laughed, briefly glancing back at them in the rearview mirror before turning his attention to the road.

  “I wanna plant a huge tree,” Kade said, demonstrating his idea of huge by spreading his arms wide.

  “We’ll have to see what Dad’s picked out,” he told them.

  “I hope it’s giganormous,” Avery said softly.

  “That’s not a word,” Kade told his sister.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  Travis managed to tune them out for the few minutes it took to get to his parents’.

  When he pulled down the dirt drive, the first thing he noticed was all the vehicles parked near the house. It was Saturday, so he knew this wasn’t a family dinner, yet he saw all the familiar ones: Kaleb’s Ford Expedition, Sawyer’s Chevy, Zane’s F250, Jessie’s Hyundai, Beau’s Escalade, Cheyenne’s Lexus. And a few more Travis would’ve been surprised to see on any given day.

  “Everybody’s here!” Kade exclaimed. “Yay!”

  If he had to guess, his son had already forgotten about planting the tree.

  Travis didn’t bother reminding him as he got them out of the SUV, herding them toward the house, where his old man was sitting on the front porch, Kate in the rocking chair beside him.

  “What’s all this?”

  “It’s a party,” his daughter said easily.

  “A party?”

  She nodded curtly. “A tree-plantin’ party.”

  “Is that right?” Travis looked at his father.

  Curtis’s gray eyebrows popped once. “I’m just here for the food.”

  Travis laughed, then passed Haden off to his dad and went into the house. Sure enough, his brothers were all there, significant others, too, plus all the kids. Amongst them, he noticed Brantley and Reese, Kaden, Keegan, and Bristol, Mack and Jeff, as well as Joe and Melissa.

  “Before you yell at us,” Zane said, his face sober, “we’re here for support. And because we wanted to be a part of it. We loved her, too. Thought it might be a nice celebration if we were all here for the tree plantin’.”

  Travis’s throat tightened as he nodded. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks for that.”

  “Plus, you know how we all love a good party.” Zane smacked him on the back, probably a little harder than need be, but that was his kid brother for you.

  Travis peered past Zane to his cousin Brantley, who was standing in the kitchen chatting with Kaden and Keegan. As though he felt eyes on him, Brantley looked up, met his gaze across the room. His first instinct was to pelt Brantley with questions, find out where they were in the investigation, why so much time had passed and nothing was being done. It would’ve been easy to unleash on the man. Too easy.

  But he wouldn’t. Not today of all days.

  Which was why Travis offered a nod of his chin in greeting, received one in return before he turned and sought his husband in the room full of people. He found Gage sitting on the couch, Maddox on the floor at his feet. When he saw Travis, his eyes widened.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said, his voice a bit dramatic. “I got the tree, brought it here, and—” He waved at the chaos as though that said it all.

  And maybe it did.

 
After all, this was what the Walkers did. They rallied for support, took care of one another. It was something Travis had relied on all his life, one of the things he knew his wife had loved about their life. They had this … so many people who cared.

  “We’ve got food,” Kaleb announced. “Question is, do you want to eat before or after?”

  Travis looked at Gage. “Up to you.”

  “We should ask the kids, see what they think.”

  “Good idea.” This was supposed to be a family thing.

  He pulled Avery away from playing with Ethan’s triplets, then found Kate still sitting in the rocking chair. After he told them to stay put, he searched for Kade. It took a minute to wrangle him from where he was playing with Mason and Matthew. When asked about the tree, their unanimous decision was to plant it now.

  “Where’re we puttin’ it?” Curtis asked Kade.

  The little boy shrugged his shoulders. “Where should we put it, Pop?”

  “I think I’ve got the perfect spot.”

  Curtis carried Haden while Kate, Avery, and Kade trotted beside him down the steps and across the front yard. Travis grabbed Maddox while Gage helped Ethan and Beau by picking up Jack. The rest of the crew, adults and children, weren’t far behind them.

  “What about right there?” Curtis suggested, pointing to an empty spot a few yards to the left of the big oak tree.

  “Yay!” Kade squealed and took off running, more kids following him.

  “That way Mother and I can watch over it every day.”

  Travis felt his sinuses heat, eyes brimming. Because he didn’t trust his voice, he nodded his agreement.

  The next hour was spent with everyone taking turns digging a hole despite the fact they had the machinery to do it in far less time. No one was in a hurry though, helping the kids scoop up dirt, toss it aside, each adult also taking a turn.

  “How big is this tree?” Travis asked as he saw the hole continuing to get bigger and bigger.

  “I figured we wanted somethin’ strong enough to weather anything.”

  Just like Kylie, he thought to himself.

  Once Gage was satisfied the hole was big enough, he disappeared, returning a few minutes later driving Pop’s tractor, a trailer hitched to the back and a good-sized magnolia tree with an enormous root ball strapped down.

  It was when Travis’s brothers went to assist that Kate came over to hold Travis’s hand. He glanced down at his daughter, saw she had tears streaming down her pretty face. She was probably the only one of his kids who understood the real significance of this, and he hated that she did. He hated that they’d lost the most important person in their world.

  But he hoped this would give them something to hold on to, something to remind them of her each and every day.

  It took some time, but the tree was maneuvered into place, the root ball broken up some so that it would settle in like it should, then the kids were once again scooping dirt to fill the hole. Kate joined them then, a smile on her face.

  “You realize there’re three more,” Gage said from Travis’s side.

  He looked over at his husband. “Three? I thought there were two more.”

  “I bought one for Jess. Figured we’d help her plant it at her house.”

  Travis squeezed Gage’s hand. Leave it to him to think of others at a time like this.

  As he stared at the tree, Travis sent up a silent note to his wife: Kylie, baby, I’m definitely going to marry him. Just like you asked.

  It took the rest of the weekend for them to get the remaining three trees planted. With each one, there was a celebration and a toast, everyone coming together to celebrate the life of a woman who’d meant so much to them.

  On Sunday night, after the kids went to bed, Travis moved his things back into their bedroom. He’d been sleeping in there for a week, but he hadn’t quite felt committed to it. Now it felt like where he was supposed to be.

  He figured Kylie had something to do with that. Even gone, she was watching over him, ensuring he did what he was supposed to. It took a strong woman to wrangle a Walker, and he’d never known one stronger, with the exception of his own mother.

  He was blessed to have had the time he did with Kylie, and it was time he lived up to her expectations.

  But there was one more thing they had to take care of.

  Chapter Twenty

  Tuesday, March 2, 2021

  “We’ve got her!”

  Brantley stared at the phone sitting on his desk. Z’s words were still echoing in the room and all eyes were on Brantley.

  “As in you found her?” he clarified. “Or you picked her up?”

  Z exhaled, his voice calmer when he spoke again. “As in we know roughly where she is.”

  Roughly? Brantley didn’t like the sound of that. He wanted that woman found.

  Reese perched on the edge of the desk, glanced at Brantley, then down to the phone. “And that would be where, Z?”

  “After we received two tips tying her to the same location on South Padre Island, we sent a guy down to scope out the area. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to get eyes on her, and he held off on askin’ around because we didn’t want to spook her if she was there. So I set up a grid search. We were able to scan cameras in the area and we can confirm Juliet Prince was just south of there in Port Isabel, Texas, within the last seventy-two hours.”

  Brantley huffed, dropping back in his chair. “Seventy-two hours, Z? Seriously? There’s just as much of a chance she’s back here in Coyote Ridge by this point.”

  “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” he grumbled. “My suggestion is you hop on that private charter RT set up to get your happy asses on down there.”

  He sat up again. “What time does it leave?”

  “He was bein’ generous and got you two hours.”

  Brantley reached to disconnect the call but stopped when Z said, “Take me off speaker, Brantley.”

  He glanced at Reese, then picked up the phone, tapped the screen to return the audio to the phone. “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “I know you’re gonna do whatever the hell you want to do, but I’d like to suggest you keep this information to yourself.”

  “Meanin’?”

  “Meanin’ don’t share it with your cousin. You and I both know it’s in everyone’s best interest, especially Travis’s, if he stays out of this.”

  “You’re right,” he growled softly. “I will do whatever the hell I wanna do. Got a flight to catch, Z. We’ll keep you in the loop.”

  Brantley tucked his phone in his pocket and glared at Reese, a silent warning for him to let it go. As much as Brantley wanted to keep this to himself, as much as he agreed with Z that it was in everyone’s best interest, he couldn’t do that. He had already made a promise to his cousin, and he had no intention of breaking it.

  “Does this mean we’re takin’ a trip?” Baz inquired.

  “We are.” He looked at each team member. “Any volunteers?”

  Charlie was the first to speak up. “If you absolutely need me, I’m there. But if you think you’ll have enough without me, I’d prefer to sit this one out.”

  Brantley knew Charlie was dealing with some issues with her mother, so he understood her need to remain here.

  “Same,” JJ noted.

  Brantley looked at Baz. “You game?”

  “I go where you tell me to, boss.”

  When he looked at Trey, his brother said, “Same.”

  “The four of us then,” he decided, turning his attention to JJ. “Tell me what we’re lookin’ at.”

  Instantly, a map appeared on the television screen.

  “Port Isabel is twenty-three miles northeast of Brownsville, close to the border. You’re talkin’ a total area of roughly fourteen square miles, half of which is water. Plus, you’ve got access to South Padre Island via the Queen Isabella Causeway. From the looks of it, there’s nowhere to hide but a few options for hightailin’ it outta there.”

  Exactly what Bran
tley was afraid of.

  But he had to think positive on this. They’d gotten further than they ever had. No sense in dooming them to fail at this point.

  “We’ll do what we can,” he told the team. “We’ll need vehicles and possibly a place to stay while we’re there. Check with RT, see if they’ve got somethin’ that doesn’t stand out in or around the area. We need to go in as silently as possible.”

  “You think she’s there?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  Reese didn’t bother asking Brantley where he was going when the man up and left the barn. He didn’t have to.

  If they truly were close to finding Juliet Prince—and he prayed to fuck they were—then Brantley was heading out to tell Travis.

  “You think he’ll let Travis come along for the ride?” Baz asked, coming to stand beside him.

  Still staring at the door Brantley had just exited, Reese shrugged. “I don’t think he wants to make that decision.” Changing the subject, he met Baz’s gaze. “You sure you’re cool to go? How’re things goin’ with Molly?”

  He saw the instant Baz’s expression fell, that mask falling in place.

  Reese had been doing his best to stay out of Baz’s business for the past few weeks, but he couldn’t help but worry. His one-night stand was now his future baby mama, and Baz had been spending a tremendous amount of time dealing with the woman. And while Reese understood personal issues sometimes took precedence, this was one that seemed to be bogging Baz down.

  “I asked about her next appointment,” Baz answered, his voice lacking any luster whatsoever. “Told her I’d like to go with her if I’m in town.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She didn’t answer me.”

  “As in she ignored you?”

  “More like she avoided the question. Changed the subject.”

  Ah, hell. That was fucked up.

  Reese didn’t say as much, but he found this woman’s responses suspicious. She’d bombarded Baz with the news that she was pregnant only a couple of days after they’d slept together, yet she was unwilling to provide absolute proof. Admittedly, Reese didn’t know anything about pregnancies, but he thought it took a little longer than two days for a woman to know for certain.