Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [142]
“Hi, honey,” their mother said as Nick leaned down to kiss her cheek.
Christine studied the two of them, watching for signs. Did she dare ask? Would they only lie to protect her? Did they think she was too fragile?
“I want the truth, Nicky,” she blurted in a voice so shrill she hardly recognized it as her own. They both stared at her, startled, concerned. But she could see in Nick’s eyes that he knew exactly what she was talking about.
“Okay. If that’s the way you want it.” He headed back for the door, and she wanted to yell at him to stop, to stay, to talk to her.
“Nicky, please,” she said, not caring how pathetic she sounded.
He opened the door, and Timmy stood there like an apparition. Christine rubbed her eyes. Was she hallucinating again? Timmy hobbled toward her, and she could see the scratches and bruises, a cut on one cheek and a purple swollen lip. However, his face and hair were scrubbed clean, his clothes crisp and fresh. He even wore new tennis shoes. Had it all been a horrible, horrible nightmare?
“Hi, Mom,” he said as though it were any other morning. He crawled into the chair his grandmother held out for him, kneeling and making himself tall enough to look over the bed. She allowed the tears, had no choice, really. Was he real? She touched his shoulder, smoothed down his cowlick and caressed his cheek.
“Aw, Mom. Everybody’s watching,” he said, and she knew he was real.
CHAPTER 95
Nick escaped before it got mushy, before his own eyes got blurry. It was all still a little hard to believe. He turned the corner and almost ran into his father, who stepped back, as though worried the coffee he carried would spill.
“Careful there, son. You’re gonna miss quite a bit being in such a hurry.”
Nick checked his father’s eyes and immediately saw the sarcastic criticism. He was in too good of a mood to let his father spoil it. So he smiled and started to walk around him.
“It’s not Eddie, you know,” his father called after him.
“Yeah?” Nick stopped and turned. “Well, this time that’ll be up to a court of law to decide and not Antonio Morrelli.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Nick took a step closer until he was standing eye to eye with his father.
“Did you help plant evidence against Jeffreys?”
“Watch your mouth, boy. I never planted a thing.”
“Then how did you explain the discrepancies?”
“As far as I was concerned, there were no discrepancies. I did what was necessary to convict that son of a bitch.”
“You ignored evidence.”
“I knew Jeffreys killed that little Wilson boy. You didn’t see that boy. You didn’t see what he made that boy go through. Jeffreys deserved to die.”
“Don’t you dare make your horrors superior to mine,” Nick said, hands clenched into fists but quiet and steady at his sides. “I’ve seen enough this week to last me a lifetime. Maybe Jeffreys did deserve to die. But by pinning the other two murders on him, you let another murderer get away. You closed the investigation. You made a community feel safe again.”
“I did what I thought was necessary.”
“Don’t tell me. Tell that to Laura Alverez and Michelle Tanner. Tell them how you did what was necessary.”
Nick walked away, his knees feeling a bit spongy. There was little victory in telling Antonio Morrelli he had been wrong. Why had he expected there to be some feeling of celebration? But as his boot heels echoed down the quiet hall, he walked a bit taller.
He stopped by the nurses’ station and was startled by the unit secretary dressed in a black cape and witch’s hat. It took a minute before he noticed the orange and black crepe paper and pumpkin