“Don’t you like her?”
“She’s okay.” Phee shrugged and snapped her seat belt over her lap. “I just really like Annabelle.”
“Maybe she’ll come back,” Nikki said, but she was talking to herself, as Phee had already plugged in. It had been a long two months, she thought, since the night she’d squared off with Duke Wheelan, unmasking him as the Savannah Slasher, and Pierce had nearly been killed by someone he’d considered one of his best, if not his very best, friends, a man who now swore he hadn’t meant to kill Naomi, but they’d fought and he’d panicked.
Which only added to his lies.
Looking through bank records, the police had discovered that hehad paid Stoney a large sum of money to carve the rock found in Naomi’s hand at the crime scene. And there was the matter of a neighbor’s rooster going missing, probably one Jamison had killed and drained its blood, dousing the rock with it and not realizing that the type of blood would trip him up.
A brilliant lawyer.
A not-so-brilliant killer.
They had new evidence against him in the form of enhanced video images that showed him driving his wife’s car, but he’d been wearing a blond wig, in the hope that no one would figure out he’d been behind the wheel, while she was probably in the trunk of her own car. Then he’d taken her back to their place or somewhere nearby. He’d strangled her, hung her at the LaRoux place, then ditched the car in the river, leaving the windows down so it would sink, before he swam upstream, then jogged home.
At least that was the prevailing theory.
Jamison Kittle, once a shining star in the DA’s office and touted as following his father’s footsteps into a judgeship or further, now sat in prison after a monthlong stay in the hospital getting over his wounds. But Pierce was still beating himself up for not knowing how duplicitous the man could be.
Now, Jamison’s children were without a mother, and a father awaiting trial. Naomi’s sister and brother-in-law had taken in Lara, Michelle, and Shana, so the girls were living in Charleston now, away from the pain and heartache of the Savannah media circus that surrounded Jamison Kittle.
Pierce had vowed to be a part of their lives. If they let him. Lara, the oldest, blamed him for her father’s incarceration, and the younger two were confused. It would take time for their lives to get to some kind of normal, if that ever happened. Nikki had tried to form a bond with Roxie, Naomi’s sister, and had said she’d like to help out, especially with Shana, as she and Phee shared a love of horses and riding.
Time would tell.
Currently, Roxie and Naomi’s parents were overwhelmed, though Reverend Stark and the Birds of Paradise were helping out. It turned out that Westin was a true believer, but he’d trusted Duke Wheelan with the keys to the church’s SUV. Wheelan had made himself a spareset so that he could take the vehicle out whenever he wanted, though it was usually legitimate, and with the reverend’s approval.
But Nikki and Pierce were trying their best.
They’d talked it over time and time again.
Just the other night, while lying in bed and watching Jimmy Kimmel, Pierce had said, “You know, if things break right, we’d have a ton of kids. Most of whom aren’t ours, but who we feel responsible for.” He was right. Morrisette’s two and now, if they were allowed, the Kittle girls.
“And none of them want us,” she’d said, snuggling closer as the late-summer air had wafted through the bedroom on that hot evening.
“Maybe that’ll change.”
“When pigs fly,” she’d murmured.
Now, as she pulled into the drive, she wondered if she’d been wrong, if boars and sows had sprouted wings and were navigating the clouds.
Because Toby Yelkis was waiting for her, staring down at his phone, his electric bike leaned against the side of the garage, a single duffel bag patched with duct tape at his feet. Arlo was lying in the dirt of a flower bed nearby.
Toby had been texting, but he looked up when the noise of the garage door lifting caught his attention. His eyes met hers for the briefest of seconds as she drove inside.
“Take Chloe into the house, please,” she said to Phee before climbing out of the car.
“Why?” Phee whined before she spied Toby, shoulders hunched, obviously waiting.
Nikki said, “I’ll be in soon.”
Phee looked about to argue, but finally rolled her eyes. “Fine. Okay.” She put her boots and gear away while Nikki unstrapped her daughter, promised to be right in, and watched as Chloe happily followed Phee into the house.
“Hi,” Nikki said, walking outside.
“Hi.” He barely looked up. Embarrassed, maybe? Ashamed? Something.
“So, did you have a change of heart?” she asked when it seems he wasn’t up to starting the conversation. She motioned to the bag.