Manhunt (29 page)

“Heads up!” Christian said.

Michael opened his eyes just in time to see something shiny flying towards his head. He quickly ducked out of the way, and the object bounced off the wall before landing on the floor with a soft tinkle.

“What the hell?” He turned around to pick up the object, only then seeing that it was a key. Not just any key. The key to his beloved Mustang. Michael raised an eyebrow and looked at Christian in question.

“It’s yours, man. I was just holding on to it for you until you came to your senses. Nikki’s driven it a few times, but I didn’t figure you’d mind.”

“But... your car? The money?” Michael said, torn.

“I’m sure you’re good for it, Doc,” Christian teased him with a chuckle.

It occurred to Michael he had no idea if he was even allowed to practice medicine anymore. He’d been cleared of all charges, but that didn’t guarantee he still had a job at Philadelphia General, and he doubted anyone else would hire him, innocent or not.

A loud crash upstairs interrupted his thoughts. Before he could reach the stairs, Sophie hollered down.

“We’re fine! Everything’s fine!”

Michael turned back to Christian. “Dude, this should be the happiest day of our lives. What’s up with Nikki?”

Christian looked shocked. “Seriously? You don’t know?”

Michael shook his head, feeling thoroughly stupid for not seeing what Christian seemed to think was obvious. Michael reached for another cookie, this time eating more out of nervousness. Before he could snag it, though, Christian smacked his hand away.

“Them’s my cookies, Doc. Step away slowly,” Christian said in a half-joking, but no less deadly tone of voice.

Michael put his hands up in surrender and sat down at the table. Christian started delicately transferring the cookies into a Ziploc bag, and didn’t look up to make eye contact until he was zipping the bag closed.

“Michael, just a few hours ago, Nikki remembered what happened that night. Think about that, man. She just found out what you and I have had months to wrap our heads around. Nikki. Killed. Sebastian. I can’t imagine that she would take the news that she’s a murderer too well, do you?”

Michael punched the wall in anger. “Don’t call her that!” He stood up and started pacing, holding back the urge to punch his best friend square between the eyes.

“Calm down. I don’t see it that way, and you don’t see it that way, and, thank God, the D.A. didn’t see it that way. But how do you think Nikki sees it? She remembers it all now. Every traumatic moment. She remembers the fear, the pain, the feel of the trigger against her finger when she pulled it. The smell of burnt gunpowder and blood. That’s not something that’s going to be easy for her to deal with.”

Michael wasn’t sure if Christian’s insight was due to his close relationship with Nikki, or if it was from personal experience. Either way, Michael wasn’t about to ask.

Sophie came down first, waddling her way down the steps, with Nikki right behind her.

“Ready?” Michael asked, still not sure where they were going. He took the duffel bag off her shoulder to throw over his own.

“Yup,” she said, turning to hug Sophie and whisper something in her ear.

“Come ‘ere and give me a little sugar, sugar,” Christian crooned, tapping his finger to his cheek. Nikki obliged. She stepped into his open arms, and Michael saw her close her eyes and smile slightly when Christian wrapped his arms around her tightly.

Michael waited patiently until Nikki took a step back after a moment or two. Michael shuddered at the haunted look in her eyes while she and Christian had a silent conversation. Christian was right. Nikki saw herself as a murderer. And he had no idea what to do about it.

Christian nodded his head to Nikki in understanding, and bent down to kiss Nikki’s forehead. “We’ll talk tomorrow. Okay, sugar?”

Nikki nodded and wiped a tear from her eye.

Michael held his arms out to her and sighed in relief when she curled herself under his arm and flush against his side. He buried his nose in her hair and breathed her in. The comfort of the moment calmed him. They weren’t riding off into the sunset to their happily ever after, not yet anyway, but no matter what happened from here on out, they’d face it together.

Chapter 25

Nikki found herself on a chair she did not remember sitting on, her head in her hands as every last missing memory came rushing back to her.

Michael.

Her parents.

Christian.

Sebastian.

Oh, God. Sebastian. She now remembered with painful clarity how he had doted on her in childhood, chased after her all through high school. She remembered how he, like Michael, had been the victim of abuse in his home, and how she had given him a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on. It wasn’t the same for Sebastian as it was for Michael. Sebastian’s father was a successful businessman, a prominent member of the community. Sebastian had been taught early on not to buck the public persona he was expected to uphold: a false image of the perfect nuclear family. He didn’t have the luxury of the pity and sympathy Michael had received from everyone who knew him or his poor, weak mother and his sorry excuse for a father. Sebastian only had Nikki. Everyone else saw the local versions of the Kennedys when they looked at his family: upstanding citizens at church on Sunday mornings, Mom’s bridge nights on Tuesdays, and Dad’s golf on Saturday afternoons. Nikki knew better, so she ignored his pranks and his mean streak. She recognized it as lashing out, as seeking attention the only way he knew how. He was lost and lonely and confused, like the rest of them. She was the only one he confided in, and she had wanted to be his friend. She tried to integrate him into her small circle, but they didn’t want him, and he didn’t want them. He only wanted Nikki.

As they got older, Sebastian brazenly pursued her, full of false bravado. No matter how many times she tried to tell him she only saw him as a friend, he continued to push. She was the only one who understood him, he pleaded. The only one who knew his pain and could help him get through it. Sebastian railed against Michael, blaming Michael and their friends for keeping her from him. So many times Sebastian had gone too far and Nikki would try and remove herself from his life for good, only to feel sorry for him and try once again to help him.

Then came the day when Michael turned his back on Nikki. Sebastian was there with open arms, and she willingly fell into them. She was using him. She knew it and so did he, and although he lovingly let her do it at first, his resentment grew with each passing day. She watched as she saw the light slowly fade from his eyes. Too selfish and perhaps too guilty to walk away, she blamed herself when his drinking got worse and his outbursts became increasingly severe. But as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t heal him, couldn’t love him the way he wanted her to, couldn’t stop him from becoming his father.

The final straw for her had been when she’d ended up in the emergency room. She had finally realized she could no longer allow her complacency to feed into his self-destruction. She would not be responsible for turning him into an abomination of his former self. She could handle the emotional abuse, relished it even, to some extent. She’d deserved it. But she would not, could not be a battered woman, and would not allow Sebastian to become an abuser. He was better than that, and he just needed to get away from her to see it. The restraining order was as much for his sake as it was for hers.

It didn’t work. Instead of breaking the ties that were wearing them both down and turning them into someone they were not, she had severed the last thread of Sebastian’s tenuous sanity. Everything they had both been feeling and trying unsuccessfully to hide from each other boiled over and consumed them. Sebastian’s love had morphed into the worst kind of hate, and in what she thought to be her last moments on Earth, Nikki had proven him right; she thought only of Michael. In the end, her guilt over her part in Sebastian’s downfall disappeared as she fought her for life, only to return full force as she stared at the wisp of gun smoke floating from the barrel of her father’s pistol.

She murdered him. Killed him in cold blood. The fact that he had every intention of doing the same to her, albeit in a slower and more torturous way, had little impact on Nikki as she sat in the plain, grey room of the courthouse.

Dorothy, the district attorney, and her assistant all shuffled into the room. She stared at them with blank eyes. She couldn’t understand the excitement she saw in Dorothy’s eyes, or the pity she saw in D.A. Singer’s. She turned to the assistant—she couldn’t remember his name—as he smiled softly at her.

“We’ve dropped the charges against Michael, Ms. Wright,” he began.

Michael? Her mind was so fogged with memories of the past, she’d almost forgotten why she was on the stand in the first place. Michael! Michael was free! Nikki smiled in spite of herself.

“That’s wonderful!” she replied, only to realize a second later that someone still needed to be held accountable. Seeing as that someone was undeniably her, she was only further confused by everyone’s cheerful dispositions.

“Ms. Wright?” D.A. Singer got her attention. “I am going to need to get a complete statement from you. I am calling it a statement and not a confession because I believe this is a rather open and shut case of self-defense. I have no intention of pressing charges.”

“Michael needs to be informed of what’s going on, and there are some loose ends that still need to be tied up, but it shouldn’t take long,” Dorothy told her.

“Michael has already spent enough time locked up because of me. Get him out of here as quickly as possible. Please, Dorothy.”

“I wouldn’t look at it that way, if I were you,” Ms. Singer interjected. “Although, if I had a gorgeous, sweet man like that willing to throw his life away for me, I’d do everything in my power to hold onto him, that’s for sure. That one is a keeper, no doubt about it.”

The two men in the room were clearly uncomfortable with the district attorney’s slip from professionalism which more closely resembled high school locker room girl talk than a formal questioning session. They both cleared their throats, mumbled something about being next door, and shuffled their feet out of there as quickly as possible.

Nikki, for one, appreciated the D.A.’s attempts to snap her out of her stupor and make her feel more comfortable. Nikki smiled at her appreciatively, took a deep breath, and began answering questions, giving her as much detail as she could muster about their relationship, from the time she and Sebastian were toddlers until the day he died. When all was said and done, the D.A. patted her on the hand, then left, only to return a short while later with a wide smile on her face.

“You’re free to go, Ms. Wright. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you up front to sign some paperwork. Mr. Brennan should be finishing up as well. I expect he’ll meet you up front.”

Nikki panicked. Would Michael even want her anymore, knowing what she had done? The D.A. seemed to think Michael knew all along, but how was that possible? He’d taken her from the hospital, cared for her, listened to her rant about him being a kidnapper and a murderer without ever once contradicting her. He’d filled a terrifying, amnesia-filled period of her life with as much joy and wish fulfillment as he could. He’d taken her to Disney World, and made slow, sweet love to her. He never once looked at her like a killer. Then he’d sacrificed everything and submitted himself to a lifetime in prison. Why? Why would he do that if he knew?

Whatever the answer, she could only hope Michael wouldn’t turn away from her now, disgusted. Her prayers were answered a moment later when Michael burst through the door. Her need for him overtook her and she crashed into him, her body sighing in thanks when he wrapped his arms around her, dipped her and kissed her deeply. He called her Sunshine. That had to mean something, right?

Nikki tried to put on a happy face as they exited the courthouse, and managed to do a fairly decent job of it until they got into the relative privacy of Aaron’s car. Then the magnitude of her actions and the possible ramifications those actions could have on her future caught up with her. She started shaking, trying to fight back the ensuing panic attack.

When she saw the concern in Michael’s eyes at her reaction, and heard the disappointment in Aaron’s voice at the mere possibility of them not joining everyone for dinner, Nikki had to put aside her feelings for once and put on a happy face. Lord knows they had already dealt with enough of her issues without adding this on top. So when they got to the restaurant, she put her best game face on and forged ahead.

Christian wasn’t falling for her facade, however. The first round of drinks hadn’t even been served before he was leaning over and whispering in her ear. “Have you ever tried to fake an orgasm, sugar?”