Page 101 of Wicked Games

He’s tired, babbling now, and I should have put off inviting Violet and Walker over so he could get some sleep instead. Though, he’ll want to know what Detective LaSalle told us and maybe having some answers will help him sleep better.

“Darren used to say that a story is never done, that the author only stops writing.”

He turns and holds my face between his hands. “Your writing is important to me, Avery. Your happiness is important to me and I hope you always believe that. Never stop writing your stories if it makes you happy.”

“I won’t,” I promise.

And I never do.

It’s a little odd, sitting in my living room and eating Chinese after all that’s happened. I can picture Theo running around, asking why there isn’t dessert, and Hattie would have fit right in, telling us Ashfield gossip over beef chow mein and fried rice. Bill can sense her absence, looking around like he expects her to pop out of the kitchen and ask if anyone wants more wine. We feel the hole she left behind and share a sad smile.

Seth and I are sitting on the floor, and I’m tucked between his legs with his arms around me. He hasn’t said much since Violet, Walker, and Bill arrived, and I know it will take him some time to find his balance. But I’ll help, and so will Violet, who’s starting to look more like the woman I saw online when I first searched for her. I’m not sure what she would have done if I would’ve told her to stay away from us, but I do know it would have put her in a bad way. It’s nothing I want to think about, and I focus on more pleasant things.

After we clean up and everyone leaves among kisses and “see you tomorrows,” Seth goes to bed. He’s asleep in seconds, breathing deeply. Surprisingly, I’m not tired and I grab my notebook, sit close to him in case he needs me, and write for a while. It turns into my last essay for Bloomscene, and I can tell that despite my sister’s death and my divorce, my tone is lighter. I’m looking forward to the future in a way I haven’t in a long time, with this man by my side who doesn’t care that my body’s broken and this family I found when we met.

I finish, tears in my eyes, and I set my notebook aside.

At peace, I lie awake and listen to my fiancé breathe, and believing I never would again, I’m ready to start a new day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Seth

Ilie with Avery on a lounger on the patio, the cove calm, barely a ripple on the water. Ducks swim on the surface, and the boats bump against the dock. I relive the night Vale tried to kill her, the nightmare jolting me awake, coming out of nowhere. I think about that night like she thinks about the two days we were apart waiting for the police to arrest Vale, hoping I wouldn’t kill myself. How she knew I was lying still mystifies me, no amount of explanation making it clear. She believed in me, knew what I was doing, and after Brooke’s betrayal, it humbles me she loved and trusted me enough.

Three years have come and gone since then, and so much has happened.

We married in a little church a few months after we met with LaSalle for the last time and he told us everything. Violet stood up with me and Bill stood with her. Her parents flew in from California and her father gave her away. They were happy she found someone after Darren left her, but Hattie’s absence was never far from all our thoughts.

We built a house on the outskirts of Ashfield with a large yard where the two dogs we rescued like to play. It’s smaller than the one I lived in with Brooke and Theo, but we have plenty of room. Avery writes full time in a pretty office that I had designed just for her, and the memoir she wrote detailing Theo’s death, Hattie’s murder, how we met, and all that came after, was published earlier this year. It’s a bestseller like I knew it would be, and I’m so proud she had the courage to put it all down on paper.

I visited Vale in prison, something that surprised everyone. I didn’t want to talk about Brooke or if he felt any shame or remorse my little boy was dead. Instead, I asked about the community center, what his plans had been for it, and if he and Brooke had built it with good intentions.

As you’d expect, he didn’t care about the center. It was only a piece in his four-billion dollar game. Avery and I took it over, and that year it opened on the first day of school to give kids somewhere to go if they couldn’t, or didn’t want, to go home.

Avery teaches a writing class there, and Violet gives her time too, teaching kids about credit and how to balance checkbooks and do their taxes. Bill helps them navigate the college classes they need if they want to go into the medical profession, which L&W Global will pay for, and Walker teaches them how to cook. On weekends we go on field trips—museums and baseball games. It’s something Brooke and I should have done, but Avery reminds me that even if we had, it wouldn’t have turned out like it did. Brooke wouldn’t have wanted anyone else involved, and the five of us volunteering there is what makes it special.

Though the DA’s office, with the information LaSalle found on Hattie’s laptop and our testimonies, was able to convict Vale and the two frat boys he dragged down with him, there were still loose ends. I found Cynthia Crandall and dried her out, gave her a place to live, and offered her a job. She didn’t want to go back to the office and chose to work full-time at the community center, and that suited me just fine.

The gun that killed Theo, Hattie, and Brooke that belonged to Titus Jenkins was just a dead end that threw LaSalle and Mueller off track. Vale knew how to get his hands on it through friends of friends, and that was as far as it went.

The DNR found the boat those assholes used when they tried to kill Avery, and a crime scene unit from a bigger town an hour away from Lakehaven Falls combed through it. They didn’t leave any fingerprints, but there was urine on the edge of the boat. That alone wouldn’t have been enough to convict him as the DNA had broken down and was barely identifiable, but it helped strengthen LaSalle’s case against them.

My duffel bag didn’t turn into anything either, though LaSalle didn’t think it would. They dumped it in a place they knew would confuse the police, and it worked. LaSalle never did find out where they kept Theo those two days we waited for the ransom demand, and Hattie said in her notes she didn’t spend time with him there. We believe her because that bastard would have known who she was at the exchange site and wouldn’t have killed Theo in panic. Avery and Bill still struggle with her involvement, but I take the blame for all of it. Brooke started the whole thing, and it’s my fault I wasn’t the husband she needed me to be.

I check in with Avery often, reminding her that she can always talk to me if she needs to, about anything, but she’s happy. She loves her writing and loves helping at the community center with Violet. They’ve become good friends, and I’m thankful every day.

She sits up and blinks sleepily at the sun, the rose necklace I bought her at the crafts fair glinting around her neck, and she still wears the matching ring on her left hand. I wanted to buy her a proper engagement and wedding ring set, but she wouldn’t let me. “Dinnertime soon,” she murmurs.

Brushing her hair away from her eyes, I say, “Yeah. In a minute.”

I bought the houses Avery and I rented in Lakehaven Falls and in the summers we drive back and forth, every couple of weeks. We’re in the little town right now—Avery, Bill, and I staying in the house I’d rented, and Violet and Walker in hers. We’re grilling over there later, and then Avery and I are walking into town, something we do often as it reminds us of the summer we met.

Violet steps out of their house and onto the patio, and our dogs, with Winnie, rush over the grass to her.

Things will never feel quite right, my son’s giggles only a haunting sound in my memories, but I still have a lot to be grateful for.

It’s all due to the woman in my arms, and I’ve learned not to take anything for granted. It can be stolen away in a second, a fact that was painful to be reminded of.

Violet waves and gestures us over, but I hug Avery a little closer, and before joining her and Walker, we sit for another moment alone in the sun.