Resilience

by Tymber Dalton

  Andrew gently fisted Colin’s hair and pulled him in close. “Who said it’d be my mouth that’s the one occupied, pet?”

  Colin grinned.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Holy cow! That sounds like something out of one of Mr. Paulson’s books!”

  “Trust me, that one’s probably going to end up in one of Tyler’s books, in some shape or form. I could not believe it. And had you known my sister-in-law, and what a jerk she was, you’d think I’d believe some of the bullshit people can pull. Nope, still shocked.”

  Nevvie had the house to herself Monday morning as she spoke to Crystal on the phone. Tyler, Tommy, and Adam had gone out for a few extra storm supplies Tommy wanted to have on hand. Willow, Zoey, and Mikey had gone to school, which hadn’t been cancelled for today but was for tomorrow. Hurricane Gladys was still churning toward them, but it wasn’t scheduled to make landfall until Wednesday, and the kids’ school wasn’t a designated shelter due to its location.

  “That’s crazy. I can’t believe she honestly thought she was going to order her father to leave. It’s a good thing you all were there when she showed up.”

  “Yeah, right? Just goes to prove how hollow her ‘concern’ really was. More interested in protecting her future meal ticket than actually giving a damn about her father’s feelings.” Nevvie shook her head and turned her back to the muted kitchen TV, where the satellite loop showed the hurricane’s progress. “Did you make it back to New York all right?”

  “I’m going to work from my parents’ house for a few days. Telecommute. I’m working on a couple of different campaigns for some of the others in our office, and with all the storm evacuations all up and down the coast, traffic’s a nightmare. Mr. Paterno told me to go ahead and work from here for now, as long as they can reach me by phone.”

  “Elliot’s a good egg.” Hell, Nevvie realized she’d been talking to Crystal for nearly an hour. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how long we’ve been on the phone. I’ll let you get back to work.”

  “No worries, Nevvie. Seriously. I enjoy our talks.”

  “Thanks. So do I.” She sighed. “I tend to let myself get cooped up here and forget to take me time. I need to get out and start shooting again. It’s been months since my dad and I had time to go.”

  “Any time you need an ear, I’m here for you.”

  “Thanks.” After Nevvie ended the call, she found herself walking down the hallway toward Tommy and Tyler’s offices. Tyler’s lay at the end, dark now because of the storm shutters securely rolled down over the windows.

  When she flipped on the overhead light, her eye was immediately drawn to the two urns on the shelf behind his desk. Tyler had put the photograph of the men he’d brought on the shelf, as well as their wedding bands and the necklace.

  Jean-Claude’s day collar.

  Nevvie knew she shouldn’t really be in here right now. Not for this reason, anyway. She walked over to stand in front of the shelf and study the picture.

  This Marcus was much younger than the man she’d met in Seattle. The other man had dark brown hair nearly the shade of Tommy’s, but straight and fine, like Tyler’s. His vivid blue eyes were more grey than Tyler’s, but still just as attractive. In some ways, she could see a strong resemblance in this man to a younger Tyler Paulson.

  Maybe one of the reasons Marcus was so taken with Tyler right away.

  Tommy was right, it wasn’t hurting any of them for Tyler to have the urns in here, but it could hurt Tyler if she protested. And she damn well knew Tyler would bend himself inside out, even to his own detriment, to make her happy, so she couldn’t ask him to get rid of them or hide them.

  If it helped him process, what was the harm in it?

  In a way, it was tragically sweet, that Tyler was the better man, and had certainly had the more fairy-tale ending to his life’s story than Marcus, and he’d brought the urns back to the States as asked.

  Always the kinder heart.

  Always.

  Sometimes she tried to reconcile in her mind the gentle father, the sexy lover, the deviously evil writer, the devoted husband, and the bad-ass protective partner. All of them Tyler.

  How many women could honestly say their husband had shot and killed someone to save them?

  Not very damn many.

  Not that he’d enjoyed doing it. He’d paid a personal cost for that as well, but she knew until her own dying breath she would forever remain devoted to the man. And Tommy, of course. Who’d also saved her from Alex years earlier, not once, but twice before. While Tyler had carried her from the apartment, Tommy had gone after Alex and beaten the crap out of him. Then when Alex had followed her and attacked her in their house, it’d been Tommy who’d knocked Alex out after Alex had attacked Tyler.

  She studied the picture and remembered Marcus’ smooth voice, thought about how, paired with the man in the picture, she could easily see why a younger Tyler would be eager and willing to follow him.

  Back then, Tyler had been a man full of self-doubts regardless of his professional success, many personal hurts left unhealed, and a whole cargo compartment full of emotional baggage.

  Marcus had been almost twenty years older than Tyler.

  “Why couldn’t you have just been honest with him that night?” she said. “Why’d you have to break his heart by fucking him and leaving him?”

  Except as she herself knew, sometimes people made what they thought was the best of several bad choices at any given time, and only looking back could they see there’d been other options.

  In this case, at least, she and Tommy had ended up with the better deal.

  * * * *

  Tuesday night, the wind howled as night fell and the storm slowly drew closer to the Savannah coastline. Tom sat on one end of the couch and Tyler occupied the other. Tom had asked the kids to stay downstairs for now, preferring a story between them and the roof, just in case. They were all prepared to camp out in the living room as the storm moved ashore.

  Between Tom and Tyler, a quiet Zoey wore earbuds and sat wrapped in a quilt from her bed despite the rest of them wearing shorts and T-shirts, while she stared at something on her phone. He’d noticed ever since their return from Brussels that she’d seemed glued to his side. Not that he was minding, because it was nice to have his little girl back for a while, instead of the sullen and sometimes snarky teenager she’d become.

  Willow, Mikey, and Adam sat on the floor on opposite sides of the coffee table and were engrossed in a cutthroat game of Monopoly. Willow was killing the boys and looked close to bankrupting them both.

  On the TV the current meteorologist was going over the latest stats about Hurricane Gladys, the non-stop satellite loop showing its approach to the coast. They were already deep into some of the leading rain bands, and weren’t even close to the worst of the weather that they’d feel when the eye would come ashore just south of Savannah in the early hours of the morning. The only good thing was the top wind speeds kept it at a Cat 2, meaning, hopefully, their storm-hardened house would survive with minimal damage.

  “Can you take a look at this scene for me, darling?” Tyler asked Nevvie. “Something isn’t quite right about it. I’m not happy with it, but I don’t know why.” He handed his laptop over to her, where she sat curled up in one of the easy chairs.

  Nevvie set her book aside. “Starting from where?”

  “Beginning of that chapter, I suppose, for context, but it’s the third scene in particular in that chapter which I need help with. It’s just not working for me.”

  Tom had started to refocus on the TV again when something about Nevvie’s expression drew him. She scowled, deep lines furrowing her brow, before her face went blank.

  Dead blank.

  Tom was about to ask her what was wrong when she stood, taking the laptop. “Kitchen, Ty. Now.”

  She stormed out of the room with his laptop.

  “What the hell, Ty?” Tom asked.

  “I-I don’t know.” Tyler sc
rambled to stand and follow her.

  Tom thought about going after them, except Zoey removed an ear bud and glanced over her shoulder at where they’d disappeared around the corner and into the kitchen.

  “What’s going on, Poppa?”

  “Nothing, honey. Mom’s got some notes for Dad on his book. Creative differences, heh.”

  Zoey’s focus returned to her phone, but she didn’t replace the earbud. He could tell from the way her eyes kept drifting to the side, toward the kitchen, that she was listening to them and not to whatever was playing on her phone.

  Tom heard Nevvie going off on Tyler despite her trying to use hushed tones. “You can’t write that, Ty.”

  “What?”

  “That rape scene!”

  “That’s not the part I was concerned about. I was—”

  She steamrolled him. “You need to either cut it entirely and fade to black before it starts, or you need to trim it way down. It’s too…horrific. Graphic.”

  “But that’s the point, isn’t it? I need people sympathetic to—”

  “Ty. Listen to me. I’m telling you, that has to be changed. Now.”

  They were getting louder, and Tommy noticed even Mikey, Adam, and Willow had caught wind of it from how they paused and glanced at each other.

  “Darling, that’s not the scene I need feedback on. It’s the scene following it where—”

  “Tyler, you have to change that scene. The way you’ve written the rape is too graphic and it’s borderline titillation.”

  “But that’s not the point. The point is it’s from the killer’s point of view, and—”

  Her tone turned dark, hard. “I am your wife, and sort of an expert in this area, if you will recall. You will change that fucking scene, or you can fucking sleep in your goddamned office from now on!”

  Shit. Tom watched Zoey. She’d reached up and pulled the other earbud out and was listening, her phone playing unwatched.

  “Honey,” Tom said, “it’s—”

  “Love, I understand why you’re so distressed, and I can see why it would be a trigger for you, but—”

  “A ‘trigger,’ Ty? Fucking really? Are you honestly being stupid on purpose right now or just ignoring me because you think since you’re a famous author that you’re a goddamned expert on rape when you fucking know what I went through in college and with Alex!”

  Her voice devolved into soft sobs, and Tyler’s voice, too low to understand, sounded consoling, apologetic, like she’d realized how loud she’d gotten and he was trying to soothe her. Tom had started to stand to go see what he could do when Zoey let out a choked sob, shed the quilt, dropped her phone, and bolted for the stairs. Her door slammed shut seconds later.

  Shit.

  Ty was on his own. Tom stood to follow his daughter upstairs.

  “Pop?” Willow asked.

  “Stay here. All of you.” He waved toward the kitchen. “And…try to ignore them.”

  As he climbed, he cursed his bad leg that he couldn’t take the stairs two at a time like he might have been able to in his younger years, but he hurried as fast as he could. He reached Zoey’s door and heard her muffled sobs on the other side.

  Instead of charging in, he knocked. “Honey? It’s Poppa.” He knew it had to be upsetting to learn that information in that way, and he’d have a talk with both Tyler and Nevvie about that later, but Zoey had to come first. “Can I come in?”

  She didn’t respond. When he tried the door, he found it unlocked and he slowly opened it. Zoey lay curled in a tight ball on her bed, her back to the doorway.

  For a split second he was standing in their hallway in the old Florida house and watching Nevvie as she cried in their guest bed, freshly beaten by Alex and rescued by them not long before. He had to physically shake his head to rid himself of the mental image before walking over to the bed and sitting next to Zoey.

  Totally unsure what to say, he reached out and touched her shoulder. She rolled toward him, burying her face in his lap as she sobbed and his heart broke for her.

  He stroked her brown hair, knew her brown eyes would be red and puffy if he could see them. All four of their children were, of course, “their” children. But Zoey was his daughter the same way Willow was Tyler’s, and while he didn’t play favorites he’d be lying if he said the emotional knife didn’t twist a little deeper inside his guts when something was wrong with her.

  She whispered something he couldn’t hear, and he leaned in closer. “What? Honey, I can’t understand you.”

  She sniffled. “Cole Johnson raped me that night at the party at Greg’s, while you and Daddy were gone.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Wednesday evening, Nevvie, Tyler, Tommy, and Zoey sat in an interview room in the sheriff’s station. Mikey and Willow awaited them in the lobby, with Adam, who’d driven them separately. Tommy didn’t know how long everything would take, and wanted to spare the other kids the inevitable trip to the hospital for them to perform a rape kit examination.

  Zoey’s wooden tone dragged splinters through Tommy’s heart and soul as he listened to her recount what had happened.

  Detective Nora Cash was a slim woman, maybe late thirties, her dark blonde hair caught back at the nape of her neck by a ponytail holder. She took notes and recorded the interview as she talked with Zoey.

  “No one saw what happened, though? After he led you down into the backyard?”

  Zoey shook her head. “I don’t think they did. If they did, no one said anything.”

  “And where were your brother and sister at this point, or do you know for sure?”

  “In the living room, I think. After I finished talking to Steven Jardine downstairs, I think he went back to talk to them.”

  Detective Cash made more notes.

  Tom had wanted to wait for Bob to reach Savannah Thursday morning to do this, to have his guidance, but Nevvie had nearly come unfuckingglued at the suggestion they were going to wait beyond when they could safely get on the roads once the winds let up to go file a report about what happened.

  Despite his own sick stomach, he knew logistically, between the hurricane and the fact that over a week had elapsed since the attack, a few hours wouldn’t have made any difference and might have made things easier on Zoey. The only good thing was that after getting back from the party, Zoey had shoved the dress and her underwear into her hamper and hadn’t done her laundry yet. Before they’d left home, Tyler, upon learning that, had donned a pair of nitrile gloves and fished through her hamper to find the articles of clothing. He’d put them into a large zipper-top baggy and they’d brought them as evidence.

  Hopefully the little bastard had left enough DNA to prove there’d been contact.

  But that still might not be enough to convince a jury it’d been nonconsensual contact.

  Anger—more accurately rage—bubbled inside him, both at Cole Johnson and at Marcus.

  If that fucker hadn’t dragged us to Brussels we would have been here for her. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened.

  Nevvie held Zoey’s hand, hovered over her as the detective talked to her, but she had, fortunately, managed to stay quiet and not interrupt. Tyler was seated on Nevvie’s far side, a hand on her shoulder to hopefully keep her calm. Tommy sat on Zoey’s other side, his arm draped around her shoulders and her leaning against him, trembling as she recounted the attack.

  This was the second time Zoey had told the detective her story. The first time had been the detective simply listening as Zoey recounted what happened. Now, the detective was walking her through the events in detail.

  “Do you know approximately what time this happened?”

  “I think we got home by eleven thirty. After it happened, I cleaned up in the bathroom downstairs and found Mikey and Willow and told them I wanted to leave. So between ten thirty and eleven, around there.”

  “That’s okay, it doesn’t have to be exact.” Detective Cash took more notes. “Mrs. Kinsey, I—”

  “Kinsey-Pa
ulson.” Icicles dripped from Nevvie’s words hanging in the air, and Tommy knew she was maybe a few breaths from her own booking photo, if the wrong person said the wrong thing.

  The detective glanced at Tommy for a long moment, then back to Nevvie. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kinsey-Paulson, I’m going to need to talk to your other children. Would you or your husbands prefer to accompany them?”

  Tom breathed out a silent sigh of relief that she’d used the plural on husbands.

  And he settled the issue. “Ty, you go.”

  He looked like he wanted to argue, but logistically, no way was Tom budging from Zoey’s side, and it’d be an act of sheer stupidity to send Nevvie out on her own. Right now, she was barely hanging on to her sanity, her old triggers and emotional pain dredged from the depths and dragged into the light anew.

  When it was the three of them alone, Zoey slumped against Tom. “I want to go home, Poppa.”

  He held her. “I know, baby. We need to do this first.” They were all exhausted. None of them had slept the night before, especially once Zoey had told them what happened to her at the party. It’d taken Tom and Tyler both to convince Adam and Mikey not to go out into the storm and drag Cole Johnson out of his house and beat the shit out of him.

  Besides, if anyone was going to kick that little fucker’s ass, he wanted the first shot.

  * * * *

  Four hours later, Tom, Nevvie, and Zoey were finally heading home from the hospital. Detective Cash, and the doctor who’d talked to them at the hospital, had given Tom and Nevvie information about the victim’s advocate office as well as the local rape and sexual abuse support and counseling center. It was something they would start working on the next day, if those offices had even reopened yet following the hurricane.

  Nevvie and Tom had sent Tyler on home earlier with Adam, Mikey, and Willow, afraid if they didn’t that the three siblings on their own might try to take justice into their hands.

  Nevvie sat in the backseat with Zoey, holding her, neither speaking.