Retribution Read online

  “But how would she have known about the gun safe?”

  Tyler shrugged. “Blind luck? I’ve included them in more than one book. In my books, Augustine has one in his home, in the master bedroom closet. I suppose like anything else she did, she likely read up on me and guessed correctly. It’s in the police records from Alex’s killing that Nevvie ran to the gun safe at Peggy’s to get a shotgun. Maybe she assumed we had one, too. But it was unlocked, unfortunately.” He rubbed at his temples. “Blind, dumb luck.”

  “She swears she didn’t take the gun and doesn’t know how it ended up in her car.” Dunn referred to the notepad in his hand. “But she’s also swearing up and down she didn’t feed your wife Ketamine, yet there were bottles of it in her purse when we searched it after officers subdued her.

  “Initial results from the Gatorade bottle we recovered from her rental car tested positive for Ketamine. She’s also swearing she didn’t steal any Ketamine from her step-father, even though we found more bottles of it in her hotel room, in a box with a shipping label on it addressed to her step-father’s practice.”

  He looked up at Tyler. “Frankly, that’s the least disturbing thing we found in her hotel room. Your son was correct—she’s obsessed with you. Our working theory goes beyond the tell-all book, which she admits she was writing and was going to self-publish. We suspect she wanted to get Nevvie out of the way and try to worm her way into your personal life. Either to frame her for Cole Johnson’s murder, or kill her outright.”

  He showed them several cell phone pictures, of wall displays she’d made at the hotel. The largest was devoted to Tyler, and showed connections to friends, family, his habits—everything.

  The other two were about Tom and Nevvie. Nevvie’s was full of red marker and things scratched out on pictures. Tom’s looked like a work in progress.

  “Augustine,” Tom hoarsely said. “She made Augustine project boards. She was going to kill Nevvie, and then me. That’s how Augustine stalks his fucking prey.”

  Tyler tamped down on the blind rage coursing through him. “Don’t suppose you’d let me have five minutes alone in a room with her, would you? And turn off the video cameras?”

  Dunn actually smiled. “Sorry, sir. Can’t allow that, but I certainly sympathize with your anger.” He took the phone back. “I hope you can understand my earlier position. I’m sorry we wrongly suspected your wife of killing Cole, but when your family jumped in and all falsely confessed, especially your father, that didn’t help matters any.”

  Tyler knew hitting a cop wasn’t a good idea. “Well, had you done your job properly in the first place and not accused my wife, or my daughter, who was obviously innocent, we wouldn’t all have been trying to protect them now, would we? You have to make the narrative fit the facts. You cannot bend the facts to fit the narrative.”

  The cop’s face reddened. “Cole Johnson might not be dead if y’all had locked your damn gun safe.”

  “No, Cole Johnson wouldn’t have been shot by my gun. There is no guarantee he’d still be alive, now, is there? Christine or Crystal, or whatever the bloody hell her name is, obviously isn’t a sane person.”

  Dunn stared at him for a long moment. “You have a point, I suppose.”

  “Fuckin’ right he has a goddamned point, asshole,” Tom said.

  “And perhaps you should talk to your fellow cops in Athens,” Tyler added. “Maybe they should reopen the case of her supposed rapist. Perhaps when he claimed he didn’t remember what happened, it’s because she dosed him with Ketamine, had her way with him to get the DNA evidence she needed, and then sold her version of events. He claimed he was drugged, didn’t he?”

  He stared at them, horror creeping into his expression. “Oh, fuck.”

  “Yes, exactly. Perhaps an innocent man who was wrongly convicted of a crime hung himself in jail because he knew his life was ruined and he saw no possible way to remedy his situation.”

  “I remember that case in the news, how we were all laughing about him using the ‘I can’t remember’ excuse. Typical frat boy.” Dunn looked suitably horrified.

  “Yes, well, perhaps he wasn’t the liar.”

  The detective sat down, silent for a moment.

  “Yet you were so goddamned focused on us it nearly got Nevvie fuckin’ killed,” Tom said. “Trashed our fuckin’ house. Thanks a lot. Serve and protect, my fuckin’ ass.”

  When Dunn next spoke, he sounded humbled. “I’m really sorry. You have my apologies. Once we finish processing all the evidence today, I’ll talk with my superiors about how I conducted myself. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to file a complaint about me, either. You’re right. I was so convinced it was your wife who did it, and you were trying to help her out of it and cover for her, that I couldn’t accept anything else. I thought it was your wife on the cameras.”

  “Then why did you try to focus on Zoey?”

  “Pressure. I thought if I tried to accuse your daughter that one of you would confess and turn on the other.”

  Tyler’s smile held no humor. “Well, we certainly did that now, didn’t we?”

  “Man, your dad. For a moment there, I really started to think he shot Cole, until he kept insisting it was only one shot, and then the whole business with the dummy gun.”

  “And until you looked more deeply at the facts.”

  “Well, yeah. But I can see where you get your storytelling skills. He was pretty convincing, at first.”

  “He loves us. He’s as protective of us as we are of him.”

  “He’s not really senile, is he?”

  “Fuck no,” Tom said. “More sense than you have. Adam told him what he’d found, and he told Bob. We still might not know what the hell happened to Nevvie if it hadn’t been for him taking over.”

  “Yeah, well…” Dunn shook his head. “I think it’s pretty safe to say we have our killer in custody, as well as your prowler. She had a hooded sweatshirt that could be the one in the pictures.” He stood. “Again, I’m sorry.”

  “Shove your sorries up your ass,” Tom said. “Our wife nearly died, asshole. They said if she hadn’t puked, she might have OD’d.”

  Dunn looked like he wanted to say something else, but he left without further comment.

  They returned to Nevvie’s room. Adam looked up at their return. Tyler walked over to him and hugged him hard, not wanting to let him go. Tom joined them, his arms around both of them.

  “You did good, buddy,” Tom hoarsely said. “You saved Mom’s life.”

  “I wasn’t good enough.”

  “You figured this shit out.”

  “Uncle Bob’s the one who thought of the Ketamine.”

  “But you figured out the other stuff that allowed him to do that.”

  “Is Mom going to be okay?”

  “She’ll have a hell of a hangover,” Tyler said, “but the doctor said as long as her vitals remain stable, she’ll likely be fine in a day or two.” He stared into Tom’s eyes, wishing he could fall into his arms right then and knowing he had to stay strong for their son. “We’ll all be fine.”

  * * * *

  Andrew returned to the hospital at ten that night and shooed Tom and Tyler home. The men were gross from working outside that morning, and Andrew told them their other children needed them. They would stop by Bob’s hotel to get Adam’s car, but Andrew had come prepared to sit up all night at Nevvie’s bedside, knowing her fear of being alone in hospital and knowing her men wouldn’t want to leave her alone.

  It was Adam who finally talked his fathers into leaving.

  Frankly, Andrew didn’t want anyone else around Nevvie if he could prevent it. Not until she was moderately back to herself again, because he didn’t know what she’d say.

  Then again, in her state, anything she said would be excused as an effect of the drug and perhaps even parroting things she heard others say around her.

  The nurse set up a recliner chair next to her bed for him, where he could reach Nevvie’s hand and she c
ould see him, and he settled in with his Kindle.

  A little before three that morning, he sensed something and turned to see her squinting at him.

  “Dad?” she hoarsely asked.

  “Sweetheart, there you are.” He sat up and lowered the bed rail so he could lean in. “How do you feel?”

  “What the hell happened to me? Was I in an accident?”

  He already knew she’d likely have no memory of the events. Such was the blessing and the curse of the drug. So he walked her through the morning, what he knew of it from Adam, then the rest of the day, until that point.

  “She…drugged me? Why?”

  “Because she is apparently very disturbed.”

  “Where’s the guys?”

  “Home. Please don’t be cross at them—I made them go because the girls needed them and, frankly, they stank.” She gave him a faint smile. “I need to tell the nurse you’re awake.”

  She grabbed his hand, stronger than she sounded. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

  “I’m not leaving you, sweetheart. Just walking to the door.” He hesitated to use the call button, unsure if she’d also be sensitive to sound as well as light. He was able to wave to the nurses’ station and catch their attention.

  Nevvie’s nurse walked in, and when she flipped on the small light behind the bed, Nevvie cried out in pain.

  The nurse immediately turned it off again. “I’m so sorry! Okay, hold on, let me go get a flashlight.”

  Andrew stayed out of the way while the nurse took her vitals and asked her questions. They hung a fresh bag of IV fluids to keep her hydrated, and when they left them alone again, Andrew settled into the chair and held her hand.

  “Dad…I need to ask you something.”

  “Of course, love.”

  “I…” She stared at him for a long time. “Tyler’s gun.”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “You said they found it in the trunk of Crystal’s rental car?”

  “They did.”

  She licked her lips. “What’d she hit me with, again?”

  “Ketamine. The same drug Tyler has written about Augustine using in several books. Her step-father is an equine vet.” He stroked her forehead, brushing her hair back from her eyes, tucking it behind her ears. “It’s a popular date rape drug. It can have very strange side effects. Amnesia, hallucinations, nightmares—all sorts of nasty things.”

  “Amnesia and hallucinations?”

  He nodded.

  Her green eyes bored into his. “I stopped by your place yesterday, and we…talked. Didn’t we?”

  He slowly nodded. “We did. You were going to the store.”

  She stared at him, not blinking. “We…talked.”

  He nodded.

  He could see it in her eyes, the ready excuse, the easy out.

  He actually spotted the moment she thought it and rationalized it.

  As she slowly spoke, she never blinked, never looked away. “We didn’t go talk in your bedroom.”

  “No, love, we did not.”

  “And you…you didn’t show me something from the gun safe.”

  He smiled. “No, love, I did not.”

  A long silence, and then her hand shot out and grabbed his, hard, a drowning woman yanked from the icy depths just before going under for the third and final time.

  “I love you, Dad. I love you so fucking much.”

  He covered her hand with his and squeezed. “I love you, too, sweetheart.”

  “I want to go to court and watch her arraignment. And I need you there with me.”

  “Anything, sweetheart.”

  She nodded, her grip finally easing as she laid her head back, closed her eyes, and began to cry.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tommy stood behind Nevvie in their bathroom as she stared at her reflection late Monday morning. Tyler had already showered and headed downstairs to his office to work, leaving them alone.

  She was still feeling some weird side effects. Like she felt she was standing outside herself, not quite…there. Which she’d been told was a side effect of the drug and should completely disappear in a few days.

  She was lucky to be alive. The estimated dose Crystal had given her could have killed her had she not puked as much as she had.

  Zoey wouldn’t be going to school today. Nevvie had already talked to the dean on the phone early that morning and told him why, and gotten Zoey’s assignments e-mailed to her from her teachers. Steven would stay home with Zoey, and Nevvie had interceded with the dean on his behalf so Steven could get his assignments, too.

  Emotional safety in numbers.

  For now, Steven was the only one Zoey seemed comfortable confiding in, outside of the counselor, so Nevvie would do whatever she could to keep him around for Zoey.

  “Are you all right, baby girl?” Tommy asked.

  “No.” She started to reach for her mascara, then decided fuck it, she wasn’t wearing makeup today. She didn’t need raccoon eyes on top of everything else she’d deal with before she could collapse tonight.

  “We don’t have to go today. It’s just the arraignment.”

  “I need to go.” She knew she could never tell Tommy or Tyler why, what she knew.

  Finding out Crystal was researching to write a tell-all book about their family, as well as had drugged her and had psychotic plans to take her place with Tyler, and kill Tommy, greatly eased the guilt Nevvie felt about going along with Andrew framing Crystal for Cole’s murder.

  A frame that didn’t happen, because Nevvie had never talked to him and never saw the gun.

  That was her story and she was sticking to it.

  The girl was a legit psychopath. She’d falsely accused a boy of rape and had directly caused his death, even if it was suicide.

  “I don’t understand why Dad insists on going,” Tom said.

  She turned to face him. “He wants to support me, and I asked him to.”

  Tommy rested his hands on her shoulders. “I wish you’d let Tyler come.”

  “No. I want him to stay here with Zoey. If I thought I could order you to stay here with him, I would.”

  “Not a chance in hell, baby girl. You should know me better than that by now.”

  The other reason she didn’t want Ty there, besides the media firestorm, was that no way would she give that psycho little bitch another look at her husband. Crystal would think Tyler would be there.

  Wrong, bitch.

  Nevvie stared up at Tom and thought about all they’d been through. She’d been ready to kill Alex herself that day, except she’d missed him when she’d fired the shotgun.

  Committing a little perjury when she knew the death penalty wasn’t on the table?

  In this case, her conscience felt clear, now that she knew the evil Crystal had been attempting to do to her family and the likely evil she’d already done to at least one innocent man.

  “Let’s say good-bye to them and get going,” Nevvie said. “I want to be there early and in place.”

  “Bob’s going to meet us there.”

  Zoey sat curled up on the couch in Tyler’s office with Steven, working on a math assignment. Tyler had put in earbuds and was angrily pounding away on his laptop.

  No doubt due in part to Nevvie putting her foot down about him staying home with the kids.

  When Nevvie stepped into the office, Tyler looked up and pulled out the right earbud. “Leaving?”

  She nodded.

  He sighed and removed the other earbud, standing and rounding the desk to give her a long, strong hug. “I cannot convince you to change your mind about me going, darling?”

  “You’d only be a distraction for the paparazzi,” she said. “You’re needed here in dad mode today. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  She walked over to Zoey and hugged her, giving Steven a kiss on the top of the head. “You’re a good egg, buddy. Thank you for being part of our family.”

  He blushed, so much like his grandfather th
at it took every ounce of self-control Nevvie had not to laugh. “It’s okay, ma’am. I want to be here.”

  Tommy brought his cane, even though he wasn’t really limping much today. Nevvie suspected he wanted it more as a potential defensive weapon than a walking aid. He wouldn’t be able to take a handgun into the courthouse.

  A cane, however…

  Andrew and Colin stepped out their front door as soon as Tom and Nevvie pulled into the yard. Nevvie tried to let one of the men have the front seat, but they insisted she sit next to Tom and they took the backseat.

  She caught and held Andrew’s gaze for a moment before he got in. All he did was arch an eyebrow over one of those killer blue eyes before climbing into the rear passenger door.

  This is karma, right? I’m not evil for keeping my mouth shut?

  Crystal had been trying to get rid of her. Had she been successful, Tom would have been her next victim.

  Maybe even the kids.

  Naw, this is totally justified.

  If that made her a horrible person, she’d own it.

  In the wake of all the victims who’d come forward after Cole’s death, his mother had asked the state attorney’s office not to go for the death penalty even before Crystal had been arrested and named the prime suspect. It still wasn’t entirely clear that Cole’s father might not be charged with obstruction, along with the coach and principal, for his role in helping cover up Cole’s crimes.

  So it wasn’t like Nevvie was sending Crystal to the needle. Crystal deserved to spend the rest of her life in prison for the things she’d already done, much less what she’d been attempting to do to Nevvie and her family.

  I survived one fucking psycho. I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life. Again.

  When they reached the courthouse, Tommy took one pass around the block to suss out the situation. There was some press there already, but they were still setting up and not even ready yet. Nevvie called the prosecutor, who directed them to park in the public parking garage and then meet a bailiff at a rear entrance. Inside the door awaited the prosecutor, and Bob, who greeted them with hugs.