He took my life.
And then she was gone, swept up in a midnight breeze, her soul rising upward into the night.
And Sol had been left to find out who this beast was, a mortal man infused by the devil.
Chapter 29
The last person Nikki expected to show up on her doorstep was her brother, but there he was, big as life, holding his baseball cap in his hands on the front porch. “Kyle?” she said, surprised. “What’re you doing here?”
“Glad to see you, too,” he said, as both dogs, barking, came to the door to check out who had rung the bell.
“Well, yeah, of course, I’m glad but … Wow. This is a surprise.” To the dogs she added, “You two! Hush!”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure. Sure. Of course!” She stepped out of the way, just as Chloe, who had been playing in the family room, toddled into the entryway. She took one look at Kyle, scowled, and stepped back to hide behind Nikki and peek around her legs.
“This is—?” Kyle asked, and crouched down to be at eye level with the girl.
“Chloe. My daughter. Chloe, this is your Uncle Kyle.” She yelled up the stairs as she picked up the suddenly shy Chloe, “Lily! Kyle’s here!”
“What?” Her sister flew out of her room to pause at the landing and look down. “Seriously?” She was down the stairs in an instant. “What’s going on?” she demanded, barefoot, but in jeans and ablouse, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, her face devoid of makeup. “Oh, shit! Is it Mom?”
“No, no,” he assured her. “She’s fine. I was … I’m just dropping by.” He actually blushed a little.
Lily skewered her brother with an “I don’t believe you for an instant” glare. “Oookay,” she said, then yelled up the stairs. “Phee?” When nothing happened, she said, “I’ll be just a sec” and raced up the steps once more.
“You want something to drink?” Nikki asked over her shoulder as she led him into the kitchen, all the while wondering what his visit was all about.
“You got Dr Pepper?”
“Yeah, but are you sure you want to start this early,” she teased, leading him and the dogs toward the back of the house. “It’s before noon.” It was a joke they’d shared as children, always hearing their father remarking that any time after noon was time for a drink, usually whiskey.
As she opened the refrigerator door, she caught his grin. She snapped a can from the six-pack, then tossed it to him. “Careful. Don’t let it get all over the kitchen.”
As a kid, he’d loved to shake up a can and have it geyser out in a thick spray.
“Gotcha.” He opened the can over the sink, while Jennings, hiding under one of the barstools, scooted out of the way. In that second, Lily returned with a groggy Ophelia in tow. Phee, still in pajamas, her hair a tangled mess, couldn’t scratch up a smile, as if her face was set in a permanent scowl.
Lily made quick introductions as they settled into the family room, but Phee wasn’t about to make any kind of small talk or overture to her newfound uncle. She jammed earbuds into her ears and lay on the couch, clearly blocking out the family as if she found whatever it was on her phone absolutely intriguing. Chloe was no more friendly. She studied Kyle suspiciously while cuddled up against Nikki in an oversize chair.
“Mom wants us all to reconnect,” Kyle said. “You know, before she … Before she passes.”
“Is she—is she sick? I haven’t heard that, and I usually take her to all of her appointments,” Lily said, worry lines appearing on her forehead.For all of her talking about how their mother was a pain, Lily was still close to Charlene.
“No, I don’t think so.” From the leather chair where Pierce usually sat, he shook his head. “She’s feisty enough to outlive us all, but several of her friends have passed, and she’s seen how some families never do get it together, so she asked me to reach out. To, you know, start mending fences.” Leaning back against the worn leather, he added, “So here I am.”
“Well, I, for one, think it’s a good idea,” Lily pronounced. “Let’s start mending.”
“You know, I think Mavis Greenlee really sent her over the edge,” Kyle said. “Maybe because she was murdered, but as much as she resented Mavis for the whole Dad thing …” He raised his eyebrows as if to question if both of his sisters knew of Mavis’s affair with their father.
“Yeah,” Nikki said, while Lily, lips turned downward, nodded.
“She thought it was a damned shame how that family had fallen apart. Mavis, with all of those husbands and no children of her own, and then Archer taking up with a new girlfriend so much younger and all. She just doesn’t want our family to, you know, be disjointed, I guess.” He held up a hand as if to stave off the arguments he saw brewing in his sisters’ eyes. “Before you say anything, I know it’s been my fault. I own it, all right? But it goes both ways, and Mom saw how Mavis treated her parents, and she doesn’t want that to happen to us.”
“You mean, to her,” Lily corrected as she stood by the back door, staring out at the yard, where a bird was splashing in the birdbath. “Mother doesn’t want us to ignore her or stuff her into some awful spot without good care. I already heard all about that when I visited her, how shameful it was the way Mavis treated Norton and especially Blanche.”
“She’s not wrong. I saw it for myself. So did you,” Nikki said to Kyle.