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“Not now. Not . . . maybe not ever.” Ashley blinked and swiped away the tears that began streaming from her eyes. “He didn’t . . . he didn’t deserve this.”
“So you heard.”
“It’s on the news. Just a few minutes ago. There weren’t a lot of details, but from the sound of it . . . from the sound of it, he may have committed suicide.” Her voice cracked and she put a hand over her mouth. “I just can’t believe it. I mean, I never thought.” Sniffing loudly, she pulled herself together. “I’m sorry. You’re here why? To talk about him again? I told you everything I know.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What?” she whispered. “But—”
“Your story doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s—”
“What really happened that night?” Nikki asked. “What happened to those girls?”
“I told you—”
The front door opened suddenly and Zeke, stark naked, his hair wet, grinned wildly. “Mommy!” He raced outside and flung his arms around Ashley’s bare legs.
“What’re you?” she cried as a man, presumably her husband, holding an orange towel in the shape of a crab, complete with claws and eyes, appeared. “Sorry,” he said, looking from Ashley to Nikki. “One escaped.”
Zeke squealed in delight as his father tried to scoop him up, but wriggled away. “No, Daddy,” he cried, and took off, scampering through the yard, where twilight was descending.
“Gotcha!” Ryan wrapped the towel expertly around Zeke’s slippery body and hau
led the boy, laughing and flailing, back to the house. Pausing at the porch, he said, “Ryan Jefferson,” and stuck out his hand from beneath his giggling son.
“Nikki Gillette.” She shook his hand.
“Huh.” He looked puzzled, his eyebrows drawing down to the tops of his glasses. “The name’s familiar.”
“Nikki’s a reporter,” Ashley said. “She was here before. About Owen.”
“Oh. That. A tough one.” His expression turned sober. “Well, nice to meet you. I’ll leave you to it.” He paused in the doorway when Kelsey bounced down the stairs. Her hair, too, was wet, but she was dressed, wearing a lacy lavender nightgown that looked like it belonged to a Disney princess. “Come on, Kels,” Ryan said. “Mommy will be in soon.”
Kelsey glanced up at Nikki and scowled but didn’t say anything, and Ryan closed the door. Ashley swallowed hard. Her lower lip quivered and she blinked against a new spate of tears.
“They’re cute,” Nikki said.
“Yeah. Yeah, they are. When they’re not being horrible, they’re wonderful.” Tears filled her eyes again and she said under her breath, “I’m so lucky.”
Nikki said, “So tell me what happened to the Duval sisters.”
“I don’t know,” Ashley admitted. “I mean, I look at my kids and I think what Margaret and Harvey must’ve gone through with the loss of their daughters. I don’t think I would survive. And now . . . and now Owen.” Tears began to flow again and she looked up to the sky where an egret was soaring over the tops of the palm trees.
Nikki waited, her stomach knotting. She sensed a change in the atmosphere, an altering within Ashley the mother, as opposed to Ashley the teenager who liked to hang out with an outcast boy. Ashley was about to tell her something, but . . . she was still holding back.
“Tell me about Owen,” Nikki said softly, and Ashley let out a sob. She put her fist to her mouth and her knees crumpled and she slid down the door. She reached into a pocket of her sundress and dragged out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
After lighting up, she sighed, breathing out a cloud of smoke. “It’s what I said,” Ashley said. “Just about. I did meet Owen that night. We did hang out at my house. My parents were gone. But we weren’t together the whole time. I-I shouldn’t have lied, but Owen begged me to.”
Nikki could barely believe her ears and sat on the step next to her. “So you were with him? For how long?”
“I don’t know, but at least a couple hours.”
“And the rest of the time?” Nikki asked, her mind racing. What had he done? Where had he gone? What did it have to do with his sisters? The answer was plain as day:
Everything.
