Chapter Twelve
A fter a hot shower and a fabulous framily dinner (for those not in the know, that’s what we call dinner with each other) of rich and hearty spaghetti Bolognese, homemade garlic bread—crunchy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside—sausage and peppers, meatballs, and a Caesar salad, all I wanted to do was curl up on Nina’s couch with a blanket and nap in front of the fireplace.
The men had gathered to do a round of some aged whiskey, laughing and helping to lighten our bruised egos and overall depressed states.
Greg, Heath, Keegan, and Darnell sitting around the huge table, sharing jokes and talking about sports, always made me smile. It filled me up. We all fit. I don’t know how or why. I mean, we’re all so different, but somehow we worked. As a group, one on one, no matter the combination.
My husband, Keegan, came over to sit next to me, pulling me to his lap. He dropped a tender kiss on my forehead. “You okay, honey?”
I looked up at his gorgeously lean face, brushing a lock of his dark hair from his forehead. “He got away, Keegan. Took off like a thief in the night. If that doesn’t say guilt, what does?”
He frowned. “That’s not all that happened today, Beautiful.”
“Oh, you mean the lake?” I dismissed that with a flap of my hand. “That was no big deal. We’ll get another SUV and Tottington’s already in the process of replacing our credit cards.”
“You forgot the part where you and Wanda almost drowned. That is a big deal. This job is getting as dangerous as OOPS.”
“That’s fair. I hear your worry and I acknowledge. I promise to avoid people who want to take us out for no good reason.”
He chuckled. “I just want you to know I worry. I love you and Hollis more than anything, and if something happened to one of you, I’m not sure what I’d do.”
Oh, this man. I loved him so. “I love you, too, and I swear I’ll try to stay alert.”
“And no idea who rammed into you?”
“It had to be someone who didn’t know Nina’s a vampire. She doesn’t breathe. Being under the water wouldn’t hurt her. The way they rammed us into the lake makes me think they wanted us to drown, which might have happened if we hadn’t torn Wanda’s seat belt off her. But no…I don’t know who would want us dead. Are we getting too close to something that will help us figure out what happened the day Zinnia died? Because it sure doesn’t feel like we’re close to anything.”
He caressed my cheek with his calloused knuckles. “So, do you think Ron really had an affair with Zinnia and killed her? Or are you having doubts? Tell me what your gut says.”
“My gut is out of order.” I pressed my forehead to his. “I mean, I don’t know, honey. Each time he confesses to the murder, he sounds like someone spoon-fed him the words. He sounds…off. That’s the only way I can describe it.”
“So you’re having doubts,” he said, his voice like warm honey, melting over my frazzled nerves.
Sighing, I nodded. “I guess I am. It doesn’t make any sense. Especially in light of the fact that there isn’t a single soul who says he wasn’t happily married. One of the security guards said he was so nuts about Eve, sometimes he was speechless.”
Keegan pressed a kiss to my lips, warming me at my core. “I get that,” he said with a smile.
I grinned at him. “Me, too, but if they were so happy, why is he confessing to getting Zinnia pregnant? Happy men don’t have affairs.”
“That’s the million-dollar question, for sure. I know he was pretty besotted with Eve. The entire pack talked about it all the time when they first met. They said he was like a kid again.”
“To make matters worse, it took me two days to figure out that Rafe’s name starts with the letter R. Not one of us caught it either. So maybe the letter was from him and he got Zinnia pregnant? And if that’s true, why is Ron admitting to it?”
Keegan stroked my arm. “You’re new at this, babe, and emotionally connected whether you like it or not. You’re bound to make mistakes. But it ain’t over yet,” he reminded me with a wink.
I snuggled down in his lap, pressing my ear to his broad chest. “Any idea how Ron met Eve, anyway?”
“Charmaine says he met her at a pool party. Mr. Ellis loves to swim, and so does Eve,” Hollis said, as she plopped down on the couch, pushing me to the side and wedging her way between us like she’d once done when she was smaller.
We both dropped a kiss on the top of her head. I inhaled the scent of her shampoo, threading a finger around a purple strand of her silky hair. “How ya feelin’, kiddo?”
Her sigh was long and beleaguered. “I feel awful, Mom, and Charmaine’s a wreck. I don’t know how to make it better for her.”
She sounded so miserable, so depressed, my heart clenched painfully in my chest.
Keegan squeezed her tight. “Just be there for her, Cupcake. That’s all you can do for the moment. She’s got a hundred things going on at once and it’s all bad. Really bad. All you can do is listen and offer a shoulder.”
Keegan was such a good father and the most amazing, supportive husband. No matter what situation we were in the middle of, if it was an OOPS case or one for the detective agency, he supported me.
He never complained about the time I spent away from him. He reeled me in when I needed self-care and forced me to acknowledge my needs. He helped in more ways than one with Hollis. He helped me keep Bobbie-Sue going strong with his wise advice. Most of all, he loved us unconditionally, with a fierceness that stole my breath.
I heard the hitch in Hollis’s voice when she said, “I’m really trying, Dad, but she doesn’t say much.”
“Then sit with her in silence. I know that’s probably hard for you two Chatty Cathy’s, but knowing she’s not alone means something, Sweetheart.”
Her giggle was warm and light, making me smile. I missed this kind of interaction with her more than I could say.
We hadn’t told either of the girls what went down with Ron today, but we were on high alert where Charmaine was concerned. I didn’t know if Ron would try to contact her, but he was too unstable for us to let that happen.
Hollis lifted her head and pressed a kiss to her father’s cheek. “I love you, Dad, and you, too, Mom. It means a lot to me that you’re helping Mr. Ellis.”
I shot a surprised glance to Keegan over my daughter’s head. It had been a long time since I’d heard her initiate those words.
I hugged her hard. “I love you, too, Sweetie. We’ll figure this out somehow?—”
A scream so bloodcurdling, so terrified, rang out, cutting off further conversation.
“Charmaine!” Hollis yelled.
The three of us flew off the couch and ran out of Nina’s living room to race at breakneck speed up her long flight of stairs to the third floor.
Hollis pushed her way past Arch and Carl and ran straight for Charmaine.
Arch and Carl were just outside her room, where they’d been keeping watch over the girl. Arch’s eyes were wide, his blue tuft of hair mussed. “She’s had a night terror, I believe. I’ll go and fix her something warm to soothe her.”
I gave Arch a quick hug and thanked him. There was no one who took care of us better than Arch. No matter what we threw his way, he jumped in with both feet.
Carl, typically a pale green, looked positively white. I drew him into a hug. “It’s okay, buddy. She’s just had a nightmare. You okay?”
He nodded his dark head, his smile wan. “O…okay. You…you okay?” he asked in his stilted manner.
“I’m fine, pal. Now gimme a hug and go play with Charlie, Olivia and Sam. I love you. Thanks for helping out.”
He thumped me on the back with the hand held together by duct tape. “Al…always. Love you…too.”
He took his leave, and I headed in to find Charmaine in tears, her arms around Hollis while she rocked her. I was so proud of my sweet, compassionate little girl, who was growing up to be a wonderful young woman.
Charmaine was staying in one of the many guest rooms Nina had in her castle. We’d helped her decorate this one, and she’d specifically suggested it for Charmaine because it was calming. Done in oatmeal and cream tones with only a splash of glass green. The king-size bed with a sheer canopy sat in the center of a corner of the room, taking up a good portion of the floor space.
The soft carpeting felt warm under my feet, plush and luxurious, reminding me to appreciate not freezing to death in a lake.
Moonlight poured in from the arched windows, shining on Charmaine, her sweet heart-shaped face in utter turmoil.
When Charmaine saw me take a seat at the edge of the bed, she threw herself into my arms, her sobs raspy and tortured.
I gathered her to me and resumed rocking her, brushing her long blonde hair from her face, wet with tears. “What happened, honey? Can you tell me?”
“I… I had a bad dream. It was so bad, Mrs. Flaherty,” she moaned, pressing a fist to her eyes.
I held her close to my chest. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know… It was so horrible, I don’t know if I can say the words.”
Hollis gave her a nudge to her shoulder. “Maybe it’ll help if you talk about it, Char. You have to do something. You can’t hide from this forever, and you know I’m only saying that because I love you and I want you to find your way out of this.”
“I killed her,” Charmaine whispered.
I blinked. “What?”
Her sobs were muffled against my shoulder. “In my dream, I killed Zinnia, Mrs. Flaherty! I hit her over the head and killed her! It wasn’t my dad, it was me !”
“But honey, you were nowhere near the crime scene. Besides, how can that be true when your father admitted he did it?”
However, hold on one fine second. Wouldn’t that explain Ron’s monotone responses, his almost rote replies to anything and everything that had to do with Zinnia’s death?
Was he protecting Charmaine?
I smoothed her hair from her face, wiping at her tears. “That makes no sense, sweetie. You loved Zinnia. Why would you hurt her?”
Her sweet face became a mask of tortured pain. “I don’t know, but it was me! I saw it in my dream!”
“It was just a dream, Char,” Hollis reminded her. “You know what they say about dreams.”
Charmaine shook her head, her eyes dull and glassy. “What do they say?”
Hollis grinned, flashing her dimples. “You don’t remember what Mr. Genoa, our science teacher, said? Some science says dreams are random brain activity with no inherent meaning. It doesn’t mean they’re true.”
Charmaine leaned back away from me and frowned. “I do remember him saying that, but I think in this case he’s wrong. If I wasn’t there…why do I remember Zinnia’s red hair clip on the floor after I hit her in the head?”
Then she began to cry again, harder than ever.
I froze in place, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wanda and Nina had, as well.
She couldn’t have known about the hair clip if she hadn’t been there.
Taking her hands, I decided I needed to get her to try to explain what she remembered from that day. “Charmaine, do you remember anything from that day outside of the dream you had? Any other details before we came and got you at the council police?”
Her eyes went blank in much the way Ron’s did. “I don’t.”
This was becoming a running theme. No one remembered anything and everything was fine.
Fine. Fine. Fine.
I tipped her chin upward. “You don’t remember anything about that day before you went to the council with Eve?”
Her eyes went dark then, her lips formed a thin line. “I can’t stand Eve. I know that’s wrong to say, Mrs. Flaherty, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I don’t like her, no matter how nice she is to me. She’s always baking cookies and driving me to school stuff, or dropping me off at the movies…and I can’t stand it! I can’t think when she’s around.”
The horror of having a stepparent who made you cookies was unthinkable. But I got the gist of what she was relaying. She had a strained relationship with Eve.
“But the question was, do you remember anything before going to the council with her, Charmaine?” Wanda asked softly, coming to sit on the edge of the bed alongside me.
She rubbed her eyes and shook her head. “No. It was such an awful day. I loved Zinnia. She was like my big sister. I would never hurt her, so why would I have such a horrible dream?”
And how did she know Zinnia’s hair clip was red and on the floor by her body?
“I don’t know, honey, but we’re really trying to figure it out. So maybe you can help us with some answers to some questions we have?”
Her smile was watery, her eyes wide. “I’ll…I’ll try, Mrs. Flaherty.”
How to go about this without damaging her for life was the question. “Do you ever remember your father and Zinnia arguing at all?”
Now she smiled softly, almost in a fond way. “They used to argue over football all the time, but not like argue -argue, you know? Just joking around. But they were never serious, if that’s what you mean.”
That was what Eve said. “What about boyfriends? Did Zinnia have any? Did you ever see or hear her talk to anyone she might be interested in romantically?”
Charmaine thought about that for a minute, and then she shook her head, tucking her hair behind her ears. “You know, I don’t think so. I talked to her about guys I liked all the time, though.” Her eyes went sad again. “Maybe I should have been a better listener. I’m gonna miss Zinnia so much.”
“I know you are, honey. She was a lovely girl, and so are you. Now, what about your father. Ever see anything strange going on with him lately?”
“Nuh-uh. He was just…just my dad…and I think he’s in jail because of me!” she sobbed. “What will I do if he goes to prison? I don’t want to live with Eeeve!”
“It’s okay, Char. I told you. You can come live with us—right, Mom?”
Oh, boy. “Let’s not put the cart before the horse, honey. Let’s figure out what happened and take it from there, okay?”
Wanda rubbed soothing circles over her back with the palm of her hand. “I don’t believe you hurt Zinnia, Charmaine. I think you just had a bad dream.”
Arch came in then with some warm milk, laced with cinnamon and vanilla. Holding out the mug to her, he smiled gently and said, “For you, Mistress Charmaine. This will warm your belly and help you rest.”
She took it, curling her fingers around the handle of the mug. “Thank you, Arch.”
Arch pressed a hand to her cheek with a gentle smile. “Of course.” Then he wiggled his finger at me to follow him. I left Charmaine with Nina and Wanda to console her.
“What’s up, Arch?”
“There’s someone downstairs waiting to see you,” he whispered.
My stomach jumped. Ron? No. Would he come here? “ Who ?”
“Master Rafe, and he says he has something very important to tell you about Zinnia.”
Did he kill her, too? Was this a family affair?
Or should I lay bets on whether he was going to tell me everything was fine, fine, fine?