“Not your fault. Not one bit of it,” Roman almost growled the words.
“Uncle Hump he-he told me they wanted you out of the way and I-I never said a thing, told you so you could...handle it, keep Mama safe…”
“And you stayed away punishing yourself all these years because of it?” Roman shook his head then put a playful slap against his son’s cheek. He was looking to his wife next.
“And why you played your charade all those years,” he challenged.
Imani swallowed. “Roman-”
“Did either of you ever stop to think that I’d already suspected my brother might try some bullshit like that? I love you two for trying to protect me,” he cupped Hill’s and Imani’s cheeks then.
“I knew the order had been given. I didn’t know if it’d come from the top-from Hump or mid-level from Gabe or Vale. I never suspected the fuckers would send Brogue-”
“He didn’t know, Roman, he was only a child.” Imani championed her nephew.
“And I should’ve told you what I knew,” Hill persisted.
Roman’s laughter filled the kitchen like a living thing. “Still our hard-headed one- just like you, huh Immi?”
Imani nodded, laughing quietly amidst her tears. “He is. We are.” She pressed her nose to Hill’s chest, inhaling his scent.
“Listen to me, Lim,” Roman addressed his son by the pet name both he and Imani had dubbed him with.
‘Lim’, a faint play on the second half of his name. Hill felt his heart lurch, recalling Persephone’s motivations for naming the girls as she had.
Roman was facing his son, both hands digging into Hill’s shoulders as he spoke. “Whatever you need to say to us about this, you go on and say it but no more after this, alright? We’ll consider it a closed case. No more apologies, no more blame and no more stories about the past. Fair?”
“Fair.” Hill’s nod was slow. “Only um...there’s a story about the past that’s gonna be a part of our future.”
The couple shared curious looks and turned back to find their son grinning.
“Lim?” Imani encouraged.
Hill took his mother’s hand and then
squeezed his father’s shoulder. “You guys are grandparents.” He
announced, taking great pleasure in watching Roman’s and Imani’s
curious looks change over to ones of slack-jawed amazement.
***
“So you’re saying you don’t think Casper M’Baye’s murder connects to this Shannon guy?” Dena Ramsey McPhereson hesitated over pouring water for her second cup of green tea.
Dena and her husband Carlos had driven down to California from Washington a few nights prior. Carlos had to talk to Caiphus in person, so Dena used the unexpected trip for face time with her cousin.
SyBilla blew at a wayward curl fallen across her forehead and she rested back against the white suede chair behind her desk. Bill had been working to build a profile of Jake Shannon. She’d accepted Lamont Pevsner’s charge to get into his father’s head in hopes of getting a lock on the man’s whereabouts.
“I think it connects,” Bill began, “but that it was meant for a warning and not because Casper posed any sort of direct threat to his organization.”
“A warning to Eva?” Dena guessed.
“Maybe,” Bill bit into the tip of a pen cap and considered. “Until now, we’ve been thinking all these people were part of the same group of degenerates, but what if they were all working for different ends? We already know Jasper Stone’s motives were different, maybe Eva’s were too.”
“I hope you’re not trying to say Evangela Leer is one of the good guys?” Dena sent her cousin a bland look.
“Not at all,” SyBilla reciprocated with a similar expression. “But we do know that she was very interested in all these research facilities-those places were connected to the island which we now know connected to Shannon. What if her interest in the facilities was about her trying to find Shannon?”
Silently, Dena considered Bill’s point while she prepped her tea. “Find him why?” She eventually asked.
Bill was shaking her head. “This is where I tap out, De. I’m not sure where to go from here. The facilities, the island...they had Eva’s attention, but I don’t think she found what she wanted there.”
“Shannon,” Dena curled up in an armchair, tea mug in hand.
“Maybe something Shannon had.” Bill added.
“Power?” Dena frowned. “The kind the Tesanos have usually comes from some pretty nasty places. Whatever they were into, it was enough to make Jasper pull up stakes and leave the place he created.”
“Could’ve been all about power,” Bill chewed the pen cap as she pondered. “We know she had the means to build her own little army. It’s doubtful Shannon would’ve taken any chances on her showing up. Shannon most likely sent Lee Cross and Rafe Taylor to watch her as well as work for her. Casper confirmed their crew knew the symbol on Cross’ and Taylor’s ID cards...Evangela probably knew they were Shannon’s people before she even hired them. Maybe she was getting too close to tracking him down. Murdering Casper was a warning for her to back off.”
“Do you think she’d discovered where he is?”
“Either that…” Bill
hesitated over Dena’s question. “Or she knows someone who does. If
she gets to Shannon before we do, we may never shut this thing
down.”
***
Dolores, Colorado~
She’d gone back to the house, surprised to find that it was still standing. Well...sort of standing.
Maeva smiled while making her way across the grounds of the New Hope Cemetery. She’d taken a chance that a return visit, combined with Persephone’s unique skills of clearing the mind, might do something to help her memory. Seeing the old place had done nothing but to remind her of how happy she was that it was no longer her home.
She could still remember all the hell that Cleon Raymond had taken her through. She hadn’t needed Persephone’s help recalling that. She remembered every part of it in vivid detail. Except for that night…
