He was about to bend, spit, rinse and go find her when he saw her in the mirror, wandering in the door behind him, her eyes on him, her body in a pair of loose drawstring shorts and a tight little tee, her arms behind her back, her face wearing an expression he couldn’t read.
He continued to brush as through the mirror he watched her slowly make her way across the bathroom to him then he lost sight of her when she fitted herself to his back.
Then he felt her lips move on his skin and he knew she was tracing his tat.
He put a hand to the edge of the vanity counter, bent his neck, spit, rinsed, shoved his toothbrush in the holder, looked at himself in the mirror and rumbled, “Lexie.”
Her hand appeared, coming around his side and his eyes dropped to see she was holding a white stick. She placed it on the counter by the sink.
There was a little window in the stick.
And there was a little, pink plus sign in the window.
His body went still.
He felt her lips move against the skin of his back as she whispered, “I’m pregnant, honey.”
Ty Walker closed his eyes because he couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t even see her and her light was shining so bright, it seared his retinas, beat through his skin, his tissue, warming him straight to the marrow of his bones.
When he felt her movement, his eyes opened and Ty watched as her other arm snaked around his waist, her fingers light on the skin of his abs when he felt her lips go away and her chin rest gentle on his back and she called, “Ty?”
“Boy, Julius Tatum. Girl, Ella Alexi,” Ty declared and felt his wife still at his back.
Then she asked, “Did you just name our future child?”
“Yep.”
“Uh, honey lumpkins, that’s the kinda thing that’s discussed.”
“You get the next one.”
Silence.
Then, “All right, baby, I can live with that.”
His gaze moved to his eyes in the mirror.
Then he smiled.
Then he moved and he moved in order to take a shower with his wife.
*
Lexie
Two weeks later…
I walked into the diner, already knowing what I was going to order.
And it was a miracle when my step didn’t stutter when I saw Detective Chace Keaton sitting at the booth at the back.
It was the first time I’d seen him since that day in my closet except once when he was on television, caught by the news reporters walking into Carnal Police Department.
The media circus had died down, the reporters moving on to feed on fresher meat.
But things in Carnal were still shifting and hopefully this was in order to settle and not to rock again.
There were four police officers who kept their jobs at CPD. Chace and Frank were two of those four. Three had been indicted as had a clerk and the secretary who worked for Fuller and the detective pool. The rest of the Carnal Police Force had been discharged. Detective Darren Newcomb was one who’d been discharged but he bought this rather than an indictment because he made a deal and was turning evidence.
Arnold Fuller had been stripped of his position due to multiple counts of corruption and mishandling the investigation of a local serial killer including delayed responses to dispatch his officers when two of his female citizens were reported missing as well as his pending indictments for corruption, conspiracy and providing false evidence during an out-of-state murder investigation.
Officers from other Stations around the county were covering as the City Council went through a massive hiring process.
The framing of Ty and subsequent harassment, the bungling of the serial killer case that had swept up Laurie, Tate and Jim-Billy as well as enquiries into the death of Misty Keaton were the focal point of the charges brought and reasons for discharge. This was also primarily what the media fed on. There was more, of course, and many Carnal citizens had no problems standing in front of a camera or with a reporter taking notes and letting them know what went down in Carnal.
It was all out there.
Except whoever financed, covered up and protected Fuller and his men’s activities.
In other words, nothing on any powerful men, including Trane Keaton, had leaked.
I didn’t know if this meant another shoe was going to drop or if they were just powerful and rich enough to make their problems go away. All I knew was that Ty was so famous, it was very doubtful anyone would touch him or me. The reporters might have gone away but the story hadn’t. Ty even had a listing on an on-line encyclopedia. Laurie called me, told me to fire up my computer and showed it to me. The pictures they included were hot. The fact it existed was not.
But… whatever.
I was married to the man I loved, his name was clear, he was free, I was carrying his baby and the restitution Nina negotiated meant we didn’t have to worry too much about their college educations and I could get my reading area in our bedroom (which I did plus a rug for under the bed).
So all was good in my world.
But there were loose ends in Carnal.
Rowdy Crabtree had not been found.