N9ne: The Tale of Kevin Clearwater (King, #9)(71)

When I get to Dre’s, Preppy and the kids aren’t there, but two other women are. Ray, King’s wife, and a dark-haired girl she introduces as Frankie, a friend and wife of one of the Lawless MC bikers they call Smoke.

The three of us are sitting around the small breakfast nook table. “So, you just ran out?” Ray asks, after I’m finished spilling my guts and filling them in on what happened. She refills my mojito from a pitcher in the center of the table.

I nod my thanks and take a big gulp. I’m upset, but I’m not incapacitated. I can still recognize a delicious drink when I taste one, and this one is damn near perfection. “Yeah, I ran. I mean, what would you do if the man you’re falling for admitted to killing your boyfriend and, worse, kept it a secret?”

“I dunno, depends,” Frankie says, leaning on her hand. “How cute was the boyfriend?”

Dre rolls her eyes while Frankie goes back to doing something on her laptop at the table.

I drop my head into my hands. “It’s not even just Nine or just Jared or what happened. It’s me, too. I’m so confused. I grew up in one world, and here I am, living this life like that one never existed. Am I the rich girl from the other side of the causeway who wears business suits and works eighty hours a week, or am I this other me who goes to zombie festivals and has sex on a beach and is constantly in some sort of danger?” I rub my face with my hands. “I keep asking myself. Who am I?”

Frankie looks up again, “Can we go back to the sex on the beach part?”

“You know, I wrestled with that very same question for a long time.” Ray offers, but not in a way that says she pities me, but in a way that says she understands.

“You did?” I’m surprised. Ray seems like she’s got it all together.

“In more ways than one. When I first came here, or wandered here, I was homeless, with no memory of who I was. This place was scary, and King was the scariest thing about it. When I regained my memory and found out that I came from a world a lot like yours—”

“Her dad was a fancy senator,” Frankie adds.

Ray continues, “I went back, but it wasn’t where I belonged anymore. It’s okay to change. To grow. That’s what people do. We understand what our men do, and we don’t try to change them. We love them for who they are, but we’re not just women, sitting around catering to our men. Frankie spends most of her time on the dark web, rescuing victims of sex trafficking. As you know already, Dre is a very successful renovator of old houses, and I am a mother and one of the best tattoo artists in this town.”

“The best,” Frankie adds.

“Don’t tell King that,” Ray laughs.

“But what did you do? How did you figure all these things out?” I ask eagerly, leaning forward and ready to hear the secret to life. “I just want to skip to that part.”

“It’s not that easy, but here, let’s try something.” Ray closes her eyes and lets her hands fall to her side. I do the same. “Now, relax your shoulders, and close your eyes.”

I raise an eyebrow in silent question.

She catches me. “Come on, I promise it’s not anything weird. Now, close your eyes.”

I do as she says. “Take a deep breath, and hold it. I’m going to give you one word, and I want to picture what that word means to you as you breathe out.”

I nod. “Okay.” I take a deep breath and hold it.

“Home,” Ray says. “I want you to picture home.”

I breathe out, and the image of home is as clear as the summer sky after a heavy rain. It’s not a place I picture. It’s a person.

“Now, what did you see?” Ray asks, softly.

When I open my eyes, a tear escapes and slides down my cheek. “Nine. Nine is home.”

Dre reaches out and squeezes my hand. “I think you have your answer.”

“I do, but that doesn’t change what he did or why,” I explain. “If anything, it only makes it worse. Because the rest of it…” I blink back more tears. “I don’t think I can go to that home, to him, now that I know what I know.” I sniffle. “Right now, I wish I didn’t know. Ignorance is, in fact, bliss.”

“Wait!” Frankie shouts suddenly, making me jump. “Did that fancy house of yours have surveillance?”

“Yes,” I answer, wiping a tear from my cheek. “Why?” I’m wondering what exactly she’s getting at. Ray and Dre appear to be wondering the same.

“Was it up and running the day Nine killed Jared?” Frankie asks, excitedly.

“It was running, but there was something wrong with it. I already tried to watch the video right after I came home to find Jared’s empty closet. I wanted to look for clues to where he might have gone or why he might have gone but the video was just static.”

Frankie claps her hands together like a kid who just blew out the candles on their birthday cake. “That means Nine scrubbed the video. Smart man and one of the best hackers I know, but it doesn’t mean the video is lost, just…moved.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

Ray pours me another mojito, and I combat my sobriety by chugging the entire thing while Frankie furiously types away on her laptop.

“Nothing is ever truly deleted or scrubbed,” she explains. “And since Nine and I do some hacking together, I have access to all his shit. Well, I know how to break into his shit, I should say. And since I know the way he works…ah, yep. Found it!” she cries out victoriously, fist bumping herself.