Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2) (25 page)

For five minutes I hopped and paced, trying to get a look to no avail. Then the
Juggerknot
started back toward its home slip, toward me. Could it go any slower?

Nate brought the
Juggerknot
around to back it up to the dock, and that’s when I saw them. Nick, holding Taylor, and Collin holding onto the handcuffed wrists of Derek. I glanced back out to the harbor. Someone on the deck of the ferry was throwing a line to someone in the cigarette boat. But my interest wasn’t out there anymore. I waved to Nick and Taylor, and Nick waved back.

It took everything I had not to jump for the boat. I looked behind me for Annalise, knowing she would be gone, but wishing she was still beside me. And, of course, she was gone. Maybe forever. But I couldn’t think about that right then.

The
Juggerknot
bounced off the bumpers on the far side of the slip and eased toward me. “You’ve got him!” I yelled. The sound of the engines drowned my voice.

Nick walked toward me and shouted, “Wrap the lines around the cleats.” He tossed me a line.

I caught it and wrapped it around the cleat nearest to me. It seemed to do the trick, enough that Nick leaned over and handed Taylor to me. I snatched him greedily and squeezed him tight while Nick redid my line and tied the others.

“I’ll get off in a minute. I have to help Nate with the rest of the lines.”

“OK,” I shouted to Nick. Then I looked into Taylor’s big, round eyes. Teardrops were clinging to his thick, dark lashes. I admired the little nose that looked nothing like the rest of his family yet. This child was beautiful. “Oh, Taylor, I am so glad to see you. You had a scary boat ride, but everything is going to be all right.”

For once, he didn’t struggle to get down, but laid his head into my shoulder. His soft curls tickled my neck, and my heart grew three sizes.

The
Juggerknot’s
engines stopped and I backed up to let Collin by with Derek. I didn’t trust Derek, even in handcuffs.

And it turned out that I was right not to, because when Derek stepped off the boat behind Collin, he barreled headfirst into him. Collin took a heavy step back, and one of the boards of the dock broke under his foot. His foot fell through, and his body followed, shades of Katie, backwards into the water.

Derek made a break toward the yard, but with his hands cuffed behind his back he wasn’t very fast. I was the only one near him, so I took off after him. There was no way I was letting that asshole get away. As soon as I hit the grass, I set Taylor down, told him to sit still, and sprinted after Derek.

I could tackle an unarmed, handcuffed man. All I needed to do was slow him down. I pulled within two feet of him and grabbed the back of his collar. I pulled back on it and launched myself onto him. He didn’t go down at once, and I rode his back awkwardly, like a really bad bull rider, or a monkey riding a dog’s back. But I refused to let go.

Three steps later, he went to his knees. I ignored the shouting behind me. Hand-to-hand combat was my strong suit, thanks to the martial arts training my dad always thought I’d use to escape some jock in high school. I’d never had to, but I thought Dad would like this even better.

I changed my grip to a headlock, keeping my face safely away from the back of Derek’s head. We lay entwined, intimate in a horrible way. He started to thrash, and I wrapped my legs around him so I could dig my heel into his crotch.

“Rot in hell, Derek,” I whispered in his ear.

“Let go of him, Katie, and stand back,” Nick said. It sounded like he was right next to me. I looked up to see him pointing Derek’s nine millimeter at the ground.

“Move, Katie. I can’t point it at him with you there.”

I covered Derek with my body instinctively. No way in hell was I moving.

“Yo, brother-in-law, the suspect is in custody. Put your weapon away before we have any civilian injuries,” a dripping wet Collin said as he came toward Nick.

Nick didn’t seem to hear him. He was staring at Derek.

Derek took advantage of the diversion and used his weight against me to duck, twist, and roll his body over mine, exposing his torso to Nick. “Go ahead, coward. Shoot me,” he yelled.

“NICK, NO!” I screamed. But I knew ordering him around wouldn’t work. Softer, but just as firmly, I spoke again from under a hundred and seventy pounds of asshole. “We won. Please put down the gun.”

Nick made no move to give up the gun. After several tense seconds he spat out, “I hate him, Katie. He doesn’t deserve to live.”

“No, but you do. And I deserve you.”

He altered his gaze to meet my eyes. He sighed. “Can I at least shoot him in the knee or something?”

I looked at Collin and let go of Derek, and my brother pulled him off of me. “No, not even one little kneecap,” I said. I crawled to my feet and brushed away grass and dirt as I made my way to my husband.

“It would make me feel so much better.”

“So would putting your arms around me,” I said. “The gun?”

He put the safety on and shoved it in the back of his waistband.

Nate walked up, beaming, with Taylor in his arms. “Good thing I radioed Kurt. I had a feeling he’d know who to call.”

Apparently so.

Nick said, “I’m glad he didn’t tell the ferry captain about Derek’s gun, or Ole Cap might not have been so eager to pull alongside him.”

It had taken all of us. Annalise’s face flashed through my mind and I turned back to Nick. “You were right,” I said.

“About what?”

“That by the time you picked me up, we’d have Derek out of our hair.”

He kissed the tip of my nose. “I wish you would have let me shoot him.”

I stood up on tiptoe and placed my smallish, pale freckled nose against his largish olive-skinned one.

“You, Nick Kovacs, are my hero because you didn’t shoot him.”

He harrumphed. “You, Katie Kovacs, are my hero, too.” And then he smiled.

Two weeks later, Nick and I got ready for court together in the tiny bathroom of our apartment. I massaged moisturizer into his face and snuck some down his neck. He kept his eyes closed and his face completely relaxed. I put my hands against both his cheeks for a few seconds, then said, “All done.”

“Thanks, baby.” He opened his eyes and the look in them was mischievous. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Well, I was going to wait until after the hearing today to give you something, because I didn’t want to jinx it, but I’ve decided I can’t hold out.”

“Stop!” I broke in. “You can’t risk it.”

“All that voodoo stuff has gone to your head.”

I had finally broken down and told Nick about my fear that Annalise killed Junior. For some crazy reason, it felt like confessing to the crime myself. The body still hadn’t shown up. I just hoped that wherever she’d put him, he would never be found.

“Put this in your purse, then,” Nick said, handing me an envelope, “and after we get our ruling, you can open it.”

I stuck the envelope in the side pocket of my brown suede bag. “Well, just so you know, I have a little something for you in there, too.”

“What?”

“I can’t tell you. It’ll jinx it.”

“Argh,” he said, and swatted my behind, which earned him a swat back.

Since we had already delivered Taylor to his Mothers’ Day Out teacher’s house for the day, we loaded ourselves into the Tahoe for the drive to the courthouse. We clasped hands during the walk from the car, but neither of us said a word.

When we were inside, Nick opened the courtroom door for me, and I entered for what I prayed was the last time. My husband followed me to the front row and I slid in next to my in-laws. I kissed Julie on the cheek and whispered hello to Kurt. Julie reached for my hand and gripped it tight as Mary turned around at the counsel table at the front of the courtroom. She waved and gave us a thumbs-up.

I wriggled in the wooden pew, which seemed even harder than usual. I hated being there. I hated courtrooms in general, except for maybe the one in St. Marcos where Bart and Trevor had been indicted on drug charges ten days before. Morris had come through for his partner Jacoby in a big way and busted Fortuna’s new kitchen manager in their walk-in cooler with his hands wrist-deep in Chilean sea bass and vacuum-sealed bags of cocaine. Rashidi said the restaurant was boarded up tight. The police had reopened the investigations into Tarah’s and Jacoby’s “accidental” deaths. I just hoped some of it could be tied back to Derek and Slither, since their names were listed as officers on the company’s official records alongside Bart’s and Trevor’s. It wouldn’t bring Jacoby back, but justice still mattered.

“All rise,” the bailiff said.

We got to our feet as Judge Nichols entered in a swirl of black robes. She sat, and the bailiff motioned for us to follow suit. I allowed myself a glance at Derek. As scary as he’d been in the Port Aransas marina, he looked far more malevolent that day, even shackled to a chair with his eyes fixed on the floor. He radiated hate. He sure didn’t look like anybody’s loving father to me.

He had accepted a plea bargain deal with the state, thirty-five years for first-degree kidnapping. Aggravated, since he’d used a gun on me. He got off easy, but the sentence still looked convincing to me of what a giant loser he was and the horrible impact it would have on Taylor for Derek to remain in his life in any capacity. I just hoped the judge agreed.

Judge Nichols went through the formal preliminaries, then got down to business in a
Law-and-Order
-type voice that rang throughout the courtroom, the kind of voice that makes me want to salute and put my hand over my heart. “This court loathes terminating parental rights, except in the most extreme circumstances. Had only one factor in the child’s best interests supported termination, I would not have granted it. However, in this case, the respondent has made it difficult for the court
not
to find in favor of granting petitioner’s request for termination; correction, the respondent has made it
impossible.
”

The judge read off Derek’s crimes and failings toward Taylor. It was a long list. I wanted to jump to my feet and pump my fist over my head, but I restrained myself.

“It is the ruling of this court that the respondent’s parental rights be hereby and irrevocably terminated. Full custody is granted to the petitioner as requested by the deceased mother in her last will and testament, with named petitioner as guardian.”

Basically, it was a whole lot of mumbo jumbo confirming that Derek was the cretin we all knew he was, and that Nick, my Nick, was forevermore Taylor’s father. Making me, by virtue of the gold band on the third finger of my left hand, our vows, and our enthusiastic (and frequently repeated) consummation of the union, Taylor’s mother.

Judge Nichols rapped her gavel. “Bailiff, call the next case.”

I turned to Nick and he put his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes. It was official. We were three.

Mary whispered back at us, “You did it! Congratulations.”

Nick and I pulled our foreheads apart, but we stayed nose to nose, looking into each other’s eyes, holding the rest of the world out as long as we could. Kurt pushed his way down the row to hug Nick, and we allowed ourselves to be pulled away from each other. A little separation didn’t stop the magic. And then we were all hugging each other and talking in excited whispers as the bailiff glowered.

I felt a coldness on the back of my head and I swiveled toward Derek. He was staring at me, smiling with his lips, his eyes flat and narrowed. It looked like a threat. It felt like a threat. Could he still hurt us while he was in jail? Derek had proved he had friends before, and we were on his turf. Hell, his little brother had survived the shooting and was growing up fast. It was a sobering thought. But I wouldn’t let Derek see it. I forced myself to return his stare. I concentrated on sending him a silent message: Don’t mess with me and my family ever again, you asshole.

Brave words, but I didn’t speak them aloud, and the seed of worry planted itself deep inside me. Not just for Nick, Taylor, and me, but for Julie and Kurt, too. I had a lot to lose.

“What’s the matter, baby?” Nick asked. His mouth touched my hair and ear, reassuringly close, his warm breath and the movement of his lips calming me in a way that no mere words could.

We had slipped into the stream of people making their quiet way toward the door, so I couldn’t answer. The attorneys and parties for the next case were moving in the opposite direction. Nick stopped me before I could exit the courtroom.

He put a hand on each of my shoulders and I tried to mask my thoughts, fearful of ruining the moment for him. I wasn’t fast enough.

“Are you going to tell me what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head at me. “Really,” I insisted.

“Katie, don’t close up on me. What’s wrong?”

I was frustrated with myself. What was I afraid of? My pride was the only thing that had ever pushed Nick away. It was time to embrace a new, open Katie. It wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped it would be. I took a long breath, sucking in air like helium from a balloon.

“I looked at Derek, and I had this flash of fear for what comes next. What if he doesn’t let go? What if he sends someone after us or after your parents? I know I should enjoy the moment and be excited that we won. I know we can worry about all of this later. But, that’s what I was thinking about.”

He didn’t look surprised. He looked something else. Mischievous again. “I understand. I think Derek is a very real threat. Collin and I have been talking about this a lot, actually.” His dark eyes started to do their twinkling thing. “So we came up with a plan.”

“Yours and Collin’s plans scare the hell out of me.” But the twinkling was infectious, and I could feel myself responding to it.

Like a game show host, he gestured toward my handbag and said, “The envelope, please.”

How had I forgotten about the envelope? I retrieved it from my purse and tried to hand it to him.

“No, you open it,” he said.

I carefully tore back the sticky flap. Inside it, Nick had block-printed SMILE and drawn a smiling stick-figure woman with long hair colored with red crayon. He would never be an artist, that was for sure. I stuck my fingers inside and felt a folded stack of papers. I shut my eyes and pulled it out.

Nick leaned in quickly and kissed one closed eyelid and then the other. I opened my eyes and looked up at him, at my husband, and I felt the rightness of things slipping into place without even knowing what I held in my hand.

Nick said, “I think we need to make it harder for Derek to do us any more damage. Something short of a formal witness protection program, more like the world’s best home security system.”

I allowed myself to peek down then and saw them, his gift: one-way tickets to St. Marcos. Home to Annalise. I sucked in my breath, and I felt the soundless hum from two thousand miles away that told me Nick’s gift was well received indeed, back up in the rainforest.

“What do you say to letting the jumbie keep the bad guys away?” he asked.

“I think that’s one of the best ideas you’ve ever had.” I threw my arms around him. “I love you, Nick.”

“I love you, too.”

I leaned my head back. “Are you ready for your surprise now?”

“Hit me,” he said.

I reached into my purse, my hand sliding against its silky lining, and retrieved the gold pocket watch we had found inside the crumbled wall of Annalise after the hurricane. “I had it fixed for you.”

“Wow,” he said. “Wow.” He reached out for it, and I put it in his hand. He traced the engraving on the front and read it aloud. “
My Treasures.
I love it, Katie.”

“Oh, but that’s not all. Open the watch.”

He flicked the clasp he’d had to pry open before, and it released perfectly. He parted the casing to reveal the functioning watch face on the right, and on the left, something more.

“What’s that?” Nick asked.

“Haven’t you ever seen a sonogram before?”

“Sonogram? You mean like a baby?”

I pointed at the picture once, then twice. “You could say that. Times two.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Two. Plus Taylor. Three.” He pulled me back in to him and said, “Thank you, Katie.” He rocked me back and forth. “I hope you’re OK, that you’re as happy about this as me. It’s been a lot, I know, and we haven’t had any time just to be us.”

I stopped him, shaking my head back and forth, my nose rubbing against his shoulder. “I don’t need that as long as I’m your sun and moon.” And as soon as I said it, I knew that it was true, and that being an empress beat the hell out of being a silly little princess seven days a week and twice on Sunday. “And as long as I know you’ll have a sausage biscuit in my hand within the next five minutes.”

Nick went for the accent and manner of an English manservant, which came off more like a cowboy with a really bad head cold. “Anything else you require, madame?”

We readjusted in sync like a ballroom dance team. Nick shifted one of his arms around my shoulders, and I kept one of mine around his waist.

I pulled myself up to the top of my height, feeling positively regal. Require? No. “That will be all, Kovacs.” I had everything I needed, and, better yet, I wanted everything I had.

The End

Now that you have finished
Leaving Annalise
, won’t you please consider writing an honest review and leaving it on the online sales channel of your preference and/or Goodreads? Reviews are the best way readers discover great new books. I would truly appreciate it.  ~ Pamela