Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2) (13 page)

To say that Nick was upset about Derek showing up is an understatement of gargantuan proportions. He raged, he cursed, and he paced all night long. I listened both to him and for the sound of the dark car in the drive.

By morning, his rage and fear had tempered into resolve and a punchy wryness. I rubbed the last bit of moisturizer into his droopy-eyed face as Taylor sat on the bathmat at our feet, running his dump truck back and forth over Nick’s toes. A horn honked outside. Nick and I both jumped.

“I’ll see who it is,” I said, glad the house was locked up tight. Surely Derek was a creature that didn’t come out in the daylight?

“Wait,” Nick said, his face grim. He grabbed my robe from the hook on the back of the door and slipped it on over his skivvies. When he cinched the belt, the lavender velour ended two inches below his boxers. Mrs. Doubtfire with a furrowed brow and really good legs.

“That will certainly scare off any bad guys,” I said.

Nick snatched Taylor into the air and the boy screamed with laughter.

“What if it’s—you know,” I said. I inclined my head toward Taylor.

“If it is, one of us will have to take him back to his room. For now, I’ll just keep him out of line of sight.”

I led the way through the bedroom and great room to the kitchen window and we looked out onto the driveway. Jacoby was leaning against the bumper of a dark SUV. Another man sat in the passenger seat. I felt my eyebrows lift. I looked at Nick.

“One of the good guys,” I said, wiping the back of my hand across my forehead.

I walked out to the driveway and raised my hand. “Good morning. What brings you out before the rest of St. Marcos is even awake?”

“Good morning. Ava say you having trouble,” Jacoby said. “I swing by to check on you.”

I had left Ava a message the night before about what happened. She had never called me back, but clearly she’d gotten my message.

“You could say that. Let me get Nick and we’ll tell you all about it.”

“I’m right here,” Nick said, coming outside with Taylor on one hip. He’d exchanged my bathrobe for khaki cargo shorts and a Texas A&M t-shirt. He and Jacoby exchanged good mornings. Taylor said good morning so much like Ruth that even I understood him. Nick and I laughed.

Jacoby said, “He make a proper island boy one day.”

“Who’s in the car?” I asked.

“My new partner. Morris. He shy.” Jacoby waved Morris out.

Morris unwound himself from the passenger seat and joined us in three strides of his stork-like legs. “Yes, sir,” he said to Jacoby. I’d seen him before.

Jacoby sighed. “Morris, we partners. Don’t call me sir.”

“No sir, I mean OK.”

“Katie and Nick, Morris. He learning the ropes. Morris, Katie and Nick.”

“Good morning,” I said to him. “Nice to meet you.” Nick echoed me.

“A pleasant good morning to you.” We shook hands. Morris’s were clammy. I’d been that scared of Jacoby once upon a time, too. Poor bastard. Morris shifted from one foot to another and crossed his arms. “I see you before,” he said to me. “At the theater.”

Yes, that was it. In the parking lot outside the theater, months ago, the first night Nick was on island. I smiled at him. He dipped his chin.

“Now, listen and learn,” Jacoby ordered him. To me, he said, “Go ahead.”

I gave Jacoby the rundown on my Derek encounter.

“Don’t sound like he have a gun,” Jacoby mused. “That good.”

Nick chimed in. “I plan to track down his parole officer and report seeing him here, as soon as Texas wakes up in a couple hours and right after I call a locksmith to come out here and change all the locks.”

Jacoby grunted. “Got a picture of him or a license plate number?”

Damn. I’d had the chance to take down his plate number, and I’d whiffed it. Nick said, “No picture, but I can try to print you something from the internet.”

“Just email the link.” Jacoby pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it to Nick. “I make the call to his parole officer. Mean more, one officer to another. And I keep an eye out for him on island, see if I can get a few of my friends to do the same.”

“Thank you, Jacoby,” I said.

“Yah mon. You a freshwater West Indian now,” he said, calling me by one of the slightly derogatory names the true West Indians gave to continental transplants. But his eyes gave his good humor away.

“I’m singing with Ava tonight at Crystal’s,” I said. “We’re auditioning for that producer who just moved here. Trevor Weingart. You should come.”

Ava’s name added an inch to Jacoby’s height. “I swing by,” he said. “But I don’t like he.”

Jacoby tended not to like anyone Ava did, so to speak, although I wasn’t sure about Trevor. We shook hands all around, then Jacoby and Morris drove away.

That night, the sun was setting as Nick, Taylor, and I drove along the winding north-shore road to meet Ava at Crystal Bay for dinner. Horses grazed in the guinea grass on our right. Pelicans dove in the surf on our left. We made a sharp right turn at a thick stand of coconut palms and Crystal Bay opened up before us. The sea was dark below the half ball of orange behind it. The balmy wind blew small whitecaps across the outer reef and pushed the smell of the sea into our open windows.

We pulled into the dirt lot below the restaurant, which had a perfect view of its namesake. Close enough to feel a part of it, high enough to make it a panorama. It was perfect for a lazy Sunday morning of lobster Benedict and surf, but it was Thursday night, and we were running late enough that Ava had beat us here. Nick dropped me at the steps and he and Taylor went to park the truck.

I climbed the stairs to the restaurant, which was an immense covered deck. The stage and bar were nearest the water, a pool table and the enclosed kitchen were on the far side against the hill, and in between was a large open area crowded with wooden tables.

Dark was overcoming dusk outside, and the lights were on in the restaurant. I saw Ava as soon as I reached the top of the steps, and headed to the stage to help her set up. She was pulling at her sequined neckline, coaxing the stretchy purple fabric down to better display her girls. As I got closer, I could hear her muttering under her breath, holding both sides of an animated conversation. I felt my brows rise. She looked up and saw me, and I lifted my hand in a wave. She pointed to the back of the room, where Jacoby raised his hand in greeting to me.

“You late,” she said.

“I sorry,” I said, Local-style.

She chuptzed. I chuptzed her back.

“That almost passable,” she said.

High praise. I pitched in, and together we finished readying the equipment. When we were done, Ava went to the bar and I looked around the rapidly-filling deck for Nick.

He had taken a seat with Jacoby, and Rashidi had joined them, too. Jacoby had Taylor on his knee facing Nick. Nick was opening his mouth when Taylor would pull his right ear and closing it when he pulled the left one. Taylor loved this game. He really was adorable. I knew I would miss him when he went back to Teresa. Still, I was ready to have Nick all to myself. I wasn’t afraid to admit it. In two days I would be a bride, and I wanted to be the princess, too.

“No Trevor yet,” Ava said in my ear. “He off island all summer and now he late.”

I reached down and behind me and caught her hand in mine. She spun me around and tried to adjust my neckline downward. “I don’t need a breeze,” I said, hauling my turquoise V-neck back up. The front and back plunge of the sleeveless fitted cotton dress made it skimpy enough already.

Ava and I stepped back onto the stage. I looked above the heads of the packed house rumbling with conversation, beyond the lights on the deck and into the dark, into the snaking vines and gnarled and twisted trees of the forest. I listened through the conversations and clinking dishes for the night sounds of the island—frogs, birds, crashing waves. I felt Nick’s gaze, and at the touch of his eyes on my skin, I swallowed. Magic.

We kicked off our set with “Rhiannon,” a song I love that always makes me wish I had a deeper voice so I could sing the Stevie Nicks part. As the applause died down, we picked up the tempo with Ava’s new favorite, “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It.” I didn’t like it so much myself, but it usually got the crowd going, which was what I thought was happening at first.

The bouncer was arguing with someone, and that someone wasn’t backing down. Ava and I kept singing but I stretched to get a better view. The owner, a burly Local who could have worked the door himself, left his post behind the bar and moved toward the melee. The heads of every patron swiveled to follow him. Ava and I looked at each other and shrugged but kept going. Moments later, the bouncer folded his arms.

The owner pulled a wad of cash out of his bar apron and approached the primo table in the center of the floor. He held it out to one of the men seated there and pointed to the bar. The guy pocketed the money and his whole party strolled over to the bar, laughing and slapping each other high fives.

Then Trevor stepped out of the shadows with his latest delivery from the woman-of-the-week club catwalking behind him in a vinyl outfit that screamed whips and chains. Actually, with hips as thin as hers, it wasn’t out of the question that she was a he. Slither and Trevor’s date’s apparent twin followed them to the vacated table and they all sat down.

I stopped singing. No one noticed, because they were gaping at a rock star so bona fide he’d graced the cover of the
Rolling Stone.
He wasn’t the reason I stopped, though. The final member of Trevor’s circus troupe was.

Bart.

Ava elbowed me. “Close you jaw. Time to sing.”

Luckily, she sang the first verse of “Underneath It All” alone, so I had time to regroup before the chorus. It didn’t matter much anyway. Slither was pretending not to play to the crowd, and they were following his every studied sip of his drink and examination of his phone.

But the chorus was as far as I got before Bart walked over to Nick, who was standing at a table towards the back with Taylor perched on his hip. I cringed, waiting for Nick to crash a chair over Bart’s head. He didn’t. But Jacoby stood up and leaned toward Bart, throwing a shadow over him. Bart took a step back, then turned and walked away quickly.

The crowd was applauding again. I didn’t dare look at Ava, because I was pretty sure she’d turn me to stone if I did. Bart had returned to Trevor’s table. He leaned in to Trevor and said something, then headed down the stairs to the parking lot.

“If you don’t mind, could you not screw up the rest of my life?” Ava said, pinching the back of my waist with considerable strength. “Sing, dammit.”

I grabbed the microphone and gave it everything I had in “Travelin’ Soldier,” which was a good thing since it was my lead. It must have been enough, because Ava didn’t pinch me again. After our set, Trevor introduced me to a very bored and distracted Slither—“Nice to meet you, charming show”—and congratulated us on a great performance. I barely registered the words. I nodded and smiled enough to satisfy Ava, but I got the heck away as fast as I could. Nick was already pulling the truck around to pick me up when I got outside.

“What happened with Bart?” I asked, climbing in next to Taylor’s car seat.

“He congratulated me on our engagement and said that nothing makes a better alliance than a common enemy.”

“What do you think he meant?”

Taylor thrashed in his seat. It was past his bedtime, and he was fighting off sleep with all he had.

“I don’t know. Before I could ask, Jacoby jumped in and asked Bart if Tarah’s spirit was letting him sleep at night. Bart looked a little spooked, so I told him to kindly get the fuck away from our table.”

“Tarah, his old restaurant manager?”

“I assumed so.” Nick smoothed the hair back from Taylor’s forehead as he drove. “Jacoby said he talked to Derek’s parole officer. He’s scheduled to check in with her on Saturday. She said she can’t do anything until he’s been arrested or she has proof he failed to meet the conditions of his parole.”

Which we didn’t have. “Ugh. I’m sorry.”

Nick reached over Taylor and we locked hands across his lap. “No, I’m sorry. I’m the one who dragged you into this mess with Derek.”

“No more than I dragged you into mine with Bart.”

“We’re quite a pair,” he said. “Hey, I know. Why don’t we get married this Saturday?”

“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

Nick and I spent most of the next day shuttling our wedding guests from the airport up to Annalise. By late afternoon, we’d all gathered on the patio for a rehearsal and Collin was misbehaving, in typical Collin fashion. He had just quick-stepped me down the aisle to the spot of grass behind the pool where we would hold the ceremony the next day.

Duke Ellis, a local attorney I’d partnered with the year before to defend Ava, would officiate. Kurt, Nick’s father and best man, waited with Rashidi and Nick on the groom’s side of the aisle, and Emily and Ava waited on mine. Nick’s assistant LuLu had her tattooed arms wrapped around Taylor as they waited for their chance to bring the rings, and Nick’s mom, Julie, stood to one side trying to keep everyone in their places just long enough that we could call this practice round a success.

Attorney Ellis said, “So then I’ll say, ‘Who gives this woman to be married to this man?’”

Collin answered, “And I’ll say our parents and I do, since it is rumored that the groom has knocked her up.”

I slugged Collin in his rather large bicep. He didn’t flinch.

“Ignore him. He’s always like this, through no fault of my parents,” I said, mostly to my new in-laws, whom I had known for less than a day. But Julie was laughing and Kurt was smiling, so I figured we were in the clear. We went through the motions of the rest of the ceremony quickly and cheerfully.

After Duke told Nick to kiss the bride—and my brother wished my almost-husband luck—Nick reached out and pulled me gently to him. My body moved to his like the end of a magnet to its north. He looked down into my eyes and held my gaze as he spoke to our guests.

“Some of you may have wondered why we moved so fast with all of this. But when you know you’ve found the one, why wait for forever to start?”

Oh, how I adored that man. I could count up all the things I loved about him—the way he made me laugh, his soft spot for kids and dogs, his great butt . . . I could go on and on. But you can’t sum for love by adding up good qualities and multiplying by a factor of merit. Love is a prime number. Nick was my one.

Later that evening after a gigantic cookout on the beach, we returned to the patio to hang out while the sun set. We’d rented plenty of tables and chairs and we lit the tiki torches and passed around cans of mosquito repellant. The no-see-ums always attack newcomers first.

LuLu had taken a shine to my brother, who in turn was shining on Emily, which he was prone to do and she was prone to ignore. The three of them sat together drinking painkillers, a pineapple-coconut-orange rum drink that Emily suffered for on her last visit to St. Marcos, which seemed like ages ago. I’d thought she would never touch them again.

LuLu turned to me. “Katie, Nick said you’re a singer, but Collin said you’re an attorney. I’m so confused.”

Ava came over and said, “She both, but I hear she better at lawyering.”

“Ouch,” I said. Everyone laughed.

Ava still had on her wedding-rehearsal-beach-barbeque-appropriate red spandex tube dress with the keyhole neckline. She pulled a chair up beside me and sat. “I let you practice with me.” Lulu clapped with delight.

Emily said, “I’ve seen them, and they’re fabulous.”

Ava started snapping her fingers and singing a song from
Grease
.

I jumped right in. “Summer lovin,’ happened so fast.”

Nick jumped up from the next table and jogged into the house as everyone else joined in and it became a sing-along. We had nearly finished when he reappeared with a Fender bass hanging from his neck and an amplifier in one hand, cord dragging behind him. He bent down and plugged it in.

As we reached the last line, “those su-uh-mer ni-hights” the bass came in, electric and rumbly. Nick fingered the last long note for effect, then did a Pete Townsend jump at the end.

We cheered ourselves madly. Nick said, “With greatest appreciation to my father, who brought my bass from Texas.”

“Yup,” Kurt said, from his table by the pool. He dipped his head and Julie clapped Taylor’s hands together beside him.

It was the first time I’d heard Kurt speak. Nick had told me that his father was from Maine, as if that explained something. I’d never known a Mainer before, but I was willing to bet they didn’t talk much.

From there, Ava and I went into an ethereal rendition of the Indigo Girls song “The Wood.” I almost didn’t make it through, standing there in front of everyone I loved the best, between Nick and Ava in my most favorite place on earth . . . it was too much and not enough at the same time. Seeing Nick’s parents’ clasped hands and Taylor asleep in Julie’s lap made my loss so clear. But at the same time, how could one heart take any more joy?

At the end of the night, Nick limped off to make nighttime bed checks and lock the doors and I went to the kitchen for glasses of water. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and turned around to see Emily peering around the corner, her blonde hair in the lead. Its height and volume after a day of travel and a night of revelry truly amazed me.

“Yoo hoo,” she called, coming into the kitchen and putting her arms around me.

“Hi, Em,” I said, hugging her back.

“I’m so happy things worked out for you and Nick,” she said. “I was worried when you said you were getting back together with Bart. I know I kind of pushed you toward him in the beginning to help you get over Nick, but—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “I never said I was getting back together with Bart. I never even considered it.”

Nick appeared in the doorway behind Emily. His jaw was clenched, his eyes wounded. I shook my head no at him.

“But I got a text from you that said that,” Emily said, wrinkling her brow.

“I didn’t send anything like that.” I suddenly had a really sickening feeling.

Emily turned around and saw Nick. “Oh, you’re right,” she said. “I remember now.”

“Do you still have it?” I asked. “Like in a string? I want to see it.”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes were wide.

“Emily, you don’t have to pretend for Nick. If you got a text like that, I want to see it. He knows I wouldn’t send it. But weird things have happened around here, and this could be one of them.”

Emily looked back and forth between Nick and me, then wailed, “Oh, God, I feel terrible.”

“Don’t,” Nick said. He walked in and put his arm around me from behind and his chin on my shoulder. “I’ll leave you guys to figure this out. Emily looks traumatized.” He kissed the side of my head. “Hurry, though?”

“Of course,” I said, and he headed for our bedroom. “Now, Em, show me the text.”

We went downstairs to Emily’s room for her iPhone and she clicked the button to scroll back through the message string.

“Here,” she said. She held the phone out to me.

I read it aloud. “‘I wanted you to know I am getting back together with Bart.’”

She had responded, “Wow, that’s sudden. Are you OK?”

No reply.

The next text was from me, a day later. “Bart is nuts. What did I ever see in him?” And her reply, “I am so glad to hear you say that.” And me, “Team Nick, baby.”

“See?” she said.

“Yes. It’s very strange.”

I looked at the date on the odd text. May seventh. That was right after Nick’s first visit. I closed my eyes and took myself back. No doubt I’d sent the “Bart is nuts” text.

Then it started coming to me. White dress. The Boardwalk. Tomato juice. Wanting to tell Nick about what Bart had done, but not able to because I didn’t have my phone. I opened my eyes, and found Emily staring at me, and twirling a finger in the ends of her hair.

“I had a gig with Ava that night, and I didn’t have my phone with me because I couldn’t find it. A few hours later, when I got home, it was under my pillow.”

Emily wrinkled her nose. “What do you think happened?”

Bart had creeped in my space, he’d stolen my phone, he’d handled my pillow to put it back. Really, the whole idea of it freaked me out. And I got to find out about it the night before my wedding.

Well, fine. I wasn’t letting him—or anyone or anything else—spoil even one iota of my happiness.

I pointed to the text that said Bart is nuts. “That pretty much says it all.”