Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Riggs nodded. “I remember.”
“So when I couldn’t sleep, and reading wasn’t making me sleepy, I got out of bed to look at the stars, start counting them, and I’d get sleepy and then go back to bed. That worked the first few nights. But last night, before I even looked at the stars, I saw the lights by the lake, so I went to get you.”
It made sense.
And it seemed Ledger understood why Riggs had been worried that same thing would happen if he stayed with them.
But Ledge seeing those lights meant they caught those fuckers, so it sucked his boy had to feel that for a few days, but it was all good in the end.
Therefore, he didn’t say another word.
“You look tired, Dad,” Ledger noted, studying him closely.
“I’m wiped,” Riggs muttered his admission, and Nadia’s hands stilled in beating the eggs, then got back to it, double time.
His lips twitched.
“You should take a nap,” Ledger advised.
“You sleep after I took off?” Riggs asked.
Ledge shook his head.
Riggs turned his attention to Nadia.
She shook her head too.
“We should all take naps,” Riggs decreed.
“No way!” Ledger cried. “I have a full day off school. I’m not gonna sleep it away.”
Riggs sighed.
“Ledger and I can find something to do,” Nadia said from where she was now, across the kitchen, dropping bread into the toaster. “You eat breakfast and hit the sack.”
He’d rather sleep with her, but Riggs nodded.
He was halfway through his eggs and toast when there was a knock on the door, right before it opened.
His mom came in.
“Polly?” Riggs guessed at who told her, this being why she wasn’t at work, but right there.
“I don’t divulge my sources,” his mother replied.
It was Polly.
She came in, set aside her purse, kissed his cheek and then gave his son a hug where he sat and kissed the top of his head.
“Coffee, Gail?” Nadia offered.
“Love a cup, darlin’,” his mom accepted.
Riggs ate.
When he was done, his mother noted, “You look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Thanks, I was goin’ for that,” Riggs joked.
“Go to bed,” his mother ordered, and swept Nadia in that with a swing of her gaze, smart enough not to tell a woman she looked the same way Riggs did, which Nadia did. Exhausted. His mom then looked down to Ledger. “We’re taking the boat out.”
“All right!” Ledger cried, throwing his hands up.
Riggs needed no more encouragement.
He shot his mom a grateful smile, got up, hooked Nadia around the waist, then hustled her to the stairs, and up two flights of them.
His bed was made, something Nadia did every day when she was with him.
He hit it with a knee, taking her along for the ride, then hit the pillows, pulling her seriously belatedly back into their spoon.
“You’re gonna have to tell me everything,” she warned.
He heard the motor on his boat fire up outside.
“I will,” he muttered, tucked her closer…
And then he was out.
That night, Riggs walked down the stairs after putting Ledger to bed. His boy had fallen asleep between them while they were watching TV, and he’d done this two hours before his bedtime.
Riggs had started to carry him up, but like a determined sleepwalker, Ledge had kinda woken and demanded to be put down. Still in hilarious sleepwalking mode, he’d gone through the motions of getting his pajamas on and making a pass at cleaning his teeth before he fell dead into bed.
Riggs pulled the covers up and tucked him in. Gia settled with a groan at the side of the bed, Riggs gave her a pat on her head, turned out the lights, and now he and Nadia could properly celebrate it was over.
But when he got downstairs, he saw the show they were watching was paused, she was stretched out on the couch, had her phone to her ear, and she was saying, “You were almost totally right, Maribeth. It was the assistant!”
After they woke from their naps, he’d filled her in.
Considering they were clearly going to celebrate later, Riggs changed trajectories to go get a beer.
He was uncapping it when his phone rang.
He pulled it out and looked at the screen.
He took the call, “Hey, Harry,” then sucked back some beer.
“FYI, brother. Got word. Considering recent developments, Seattle PD is reopening the file on Lincoln Whitaker’s supposed suicide.”
Standing in his kitchen, hearing that, Doc Riggs smiled a very slow smile.
FORTY-TWO
Aftershocks
Nadia
The cracking of the Mystery of the Hauntings by the Lake didn’t end with a whimper.
It exploded in a variety of bangs.
The people of Misted Pines were now dab hands at the media descending when a high-profile case sprung up in their illusory, quiet and charming (but still quaint) small town.
Though, Kimmy told me, even with me being who I was and a minor player in all of this, it didn’t garner near as much as the Ray Andrews and Crystal Killer cases. Maybe because Delphine Larue was a bigger name than mine (she’d been involved in the Ray Andrews nightmare). Maybe because people were experiencing Misted Pines fatigue. Maybe because, even if the outing of Roosevelt, Lincoln and Sarah Whitaker’s unconventional way of life could be salacious, in the end, the cases were old, the population was growing more and more cynical with decades of the constant barrage of a news cycle…