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“What day is it?”
“Monday.”
“I feel like I got shot. And... I can’t really remember much.” He’d passed out after Bexley handed him the gun, and when he’d woken, he was being airlifted to the hospital. He knew there’d been surgery and sedation for pain. In his few moments of consciousness, a hand had held his, squeezing.
Bexley.
She loved him. He loved her. They were gonna have to do something about that.
“After the hurricane passed—seven hours of it—Bexley called the sheriff’s office from a burner phone she found in Lysander’s desk drawer, and they airlifted all y’all to the hospital, where you were rushed into surgery. Bullet was trapped in your aorta, but the surgeon removed it. Said it was unbelievable you made it as long as you did and no irreparable damage had been done. Iris Benington’s fast work helped. Once the storm cleared, we flew in. Arrived yesterday.”
“Ahnah?”
Asa ran his tongue along his top teeth. “Bexley held her at gunpoint when you passed out.”
That couldn’t have been easy for her.
“Then Ahnah went straight to the sheriff’s office for questioning. She said she reconnected with Lysander at the bar. Like she told you. She didn’t tell Bexley because of the Family and because she’d make her cut ties like Bexley had cut ties with you. She continued with her story that he kept her elsewhere and hadn’t tattooed her—no idea why or what he was planning.”
“You believe that?”
“No. After getting nowhere, I sent in Violet.”
Ty smirked. “Nice. She jeeper-creeper it?”
Asa lifted his eyebrows and gave him a what-do-you-think expression. “Until she had her blubbering and spilling it all.”
“I love that scary woman.”
Asa nodded. “Turns out the way they reconnected is true. But for a solid year he did to her what he did to Josiah, preying on the void in her life, her hurt and regrets about her parents and leaving them. He convinced her they could run their own Family together and seek revenge on everyone who tore them apart and ruined their lives.”
Ty closed his eyes, thinking of that sweet little girl who loved flowers and drawing.
Asa continued. “Lysander knew Garrick was tattooing art in Wilmington and inking the stereograms on women. She didn’t know how he knew, but let’s face it—the guy had ways. Lysander confronted Garrick. He didn’t deny it but told Lysander how much fun it was to paint on fresh skin and to leave his permanent mark. Ahnah said when she was a child, he had often made her undress from the waist down to paint on her back. Said other girls were forced to as well. Lysander also knew this.”
Ty hadn’t. But then, he’d suspected Ahnah hadn’t admitted every way Garrick had tortured her. They’d had the profile right about Lysander, but it also fit Garrick.
“Ahnah befriended Lily and Amy-Rose, and later it was her idea to get the tats, knowing Garrick would be the artist and leave the emblem. But she said she pretended to be sick and backed out but encouraged them to go anyway. They did.”
Garrick would have seen her and recognized her. She couldn’t go. She’d lied to them about where she’d received her tattoo. “Lysander knew that we’d find them and that it would send us straight to Garrick. Did Ahnah also know Dahlia?”
“Yes, but she never mentioned her to Bexley, because knowing too many of the victims would be suspect.”
“Ahnah joined the other girls for the dark fantasies at Patrick Swain’s for a setup. Point the finger at Patrick, keep you chasing wind and strong-arm Patrick to sell his property to Lysander, which worked. We still haven’t found Jenny Davis’s body and probably never will. That’s all Dare County Sheriff’s job. Skipper and Patrick haven’t been charged with anything.”
Without a body, they probably never would be.
“Ahnah also copped to taking the mementos and photos from Bexley’s closet to give Lysander more personal information. She also confessed to knocking out Owen and pulling that fire alarm at the pizza place. They’d worn disguises. Our blond guy with the beard—Lysander.”
Ty assumed as much.
“She then went to the garden and saw everything transpire. Knew she was in trouble and hid when Owen and Bexley arrived in the hall leading to the solarium, then ran upstairs and hid herself in the other room. Used Lysander’s ties to loosely tie herself up and covered herself with a blanket to appear she’d been locked up naked like the others.”
“But the blanket fell when she reached out, and she made the mistake of mentioning Cami.” Ty paused. “She killed Garrick, didn’t she?”
Asa nodded. “Revenge for what he did to her.”
That explained the hesitation marks on his throat. If Lysander had killed him, the slice would have been deep and quick.
