coffee and let me make my famous dish.”
A chorus of three voices said, “Scrambled eggs.”
“That’s right. I never said I was Martha Stewart.”
It felt so good to be in the kitchen doing this small domestic chore that Lily wondered why she’d ever thought she would fit in with a family who had a staff do everything.
“Do I smell gingerbread and the famous scrambled eggs?” Jack strode into the kitchen, his face wreathed in smiles, his leather jacket slung over his shoulder.
“Join us, son. Lily always makes enough eggs to feed a battalion.”
Was her habit of overdoing it because she remembered days when she and her mother would divide one egg between them? And was that childhood memory one of the reasons she’d agreed to marry Stephen?
Don’t go down that path.
“Hey, you.” Jack slid his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Can I borrow you for a bit after breakfast? Yancy wants to see us.”
“Do we need to go now?”
“It can wait.” He pulled out her chair and folded himself onto the one beside her. Then he proceeded to dig into the eggs and send Annabelle into wild cheering with the announcement that Cee Cee was being released from the hospital right after lunch.
While Lily was wondering whether she could find a furnished apartment that fast or whether they would need to move to a hotel, Susan solved the problem by insisting that everybody, including Cee Cee, would stay with them through the holidays.
“I can’t thank you enough, Susan.”
“That’s what family is for.”
Later, as she and Jack climbed into the car, Lily was thinking that while she’d searched for family in the wrong place, it had been right under her nose, waiting for her all along.
“What’s this all about, Jack?”
“They found a man’s body this morning, washed up on the beach at Horn Island.”
“Stephen?”
“They don’t know. That’s why we’re going to meet Yancy.”
“How could they not know? His face is all over the media.”
“Brace yourself, Lily. Sharks got to him.” That was not surprising. The Mississippi Sound was sometimes referred to as a sharks’ nursery. As Jack parked the car, he glanced at her face, and then the ring she’d forgotten to take off her finger. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Let’s go inside.”
As she and Jack followed Yancy, she wondered if she’d find the last of her nightmare waiting at the end of the long, cold hallway.
There was one body in the autopsy room, and what lay under the sheet was not for the faint of heart. Tatters of his clothes hung to the remains, the Polo logo miraculously intact on the black turtleneck pullovers he favored. The face was gone, as were both legs. But the arms and hands were intact. The tiny tattoo of a mushroom on the inside of his left wrist was there. The long, tapered fingers that had stroked her back then cut off the limbs of the girls who would become roses lay bloodless on the gurney.
“That’s Stephen.”
“Are you sure?” Yancy said.
“Positive.” Even with so little evidence, her heart told her so. Where it had once beat like the wings of a caged bird on the night of her engagement party, it now soared as if the door had been flung open and it had caught a glimpse of the blue and endless sky.
When they were back in Jack’s car, he said, “Tell me what you need, Lily.”
“A little time. Can you drive around a bit?”
“Sure.”
As the familiar scenery flashed by and the truth settled in, Lily found her composure. “This is horrible, but I’m thinking about what he did to all those girls, and I’m thinking this is a sensational kind of poetic justice.”
“That’s not horrible. It’s human.”
She pulled off the ring and dropped it into the zipper pocket of her purse. “I’m selling this and putting the money into a college fund for Cee Cee. It will be another kind of poetic justice.”
“It’s also the mark of a kind and generous soul.”
“Thank you, Jack.”
“How about we drop by your shop for a second cup of coffee? I’m partial to your break room.”
As he always had, Jack was leading her to a quiet place to help her prepare for the media circus that would follow. Because of the celebrity status of the Allistairs and the grisly nature of their crimes, the trial and the press coverage would be non-stop and sensational. Protecting Annabelle and Cee Cee would be paramount.
Further, she wanted to adopt Cee Cee, to take her out of her constantly changing foster situation