Chapter 15
Little Tony was the one that drove, merely because he had been the first to get in the vehicle and the his was the closest for them. “What did you he say?” Nicky looked at him with wide eyes before he snapped out. “Your uncle. What did he say?”
“That there was a disturbance and someone called him.” Nicky let out the words in a rush, wishing that traffic was less and that they could move even faster than the passing of street lamps was telling her. “You don’t think…”
“That my sister’s rapist and the Glitter-whatever’s murderer is the same person?” Little Tony took a sharp turn and Nicky grabbed ahold of the handle to keep from being slung around the small sports car.
Nicky waited until the car sort of straightened out to take a breath. “I didn’t…”
“Kind of suspicious, huh?” Little Tony gritted out, pulling out behind a car and jerking back into traffic with a practiced ease. “I’m pulled in for questioning about a rape/murder and then my sister tells you about that?” At Nicky’s shocked look, Little Tony rolled his eyes. “Please, sis isn’t the only one with brains in the family, even if that’s what everyone thinks.”
“So you really don’t think…”
“I think that whoever it is came back to clean up.” Little Tony gritted out with annoyance and a blaring of his car horn. “And that whoever got more than they bargained for. I know my sister. I was surprised she didn’t kill him the first time.” Tony slammed on his breaks and this time he was the one following Nicky as she climbed up the stairs to the apartment that the three of them.
Nicky ran into Uncle Danny and couldn’t stop the tears from crying even if she could at the woman that the medics were checking over. “Nicky, you have to stay behind the tape.” Uncle Danny tells her, his partner going toward the bleeding woman that was holding an ice pack to her head.
“But that’s…” Nicky yelled out and Uncle Danny pulled her in for a hug. He whispered quiet reassurances and she saw how Little Tony was stopped by a uniformed officer before crossing the tape.
“I’m fine!” Tricia yelled out before letting out a groan at what Nicky guessed must have been from the sound of her own voice aggravating her head. “Seriously, you idiot. I’m okay. Mattie just surprised me with a knife, and a bowl. I’m okay. I’m okay…”
“Is she really?” Nicky asked Uncle Danny, grateful for a moment that Tricia must not have seen her.
Uncle Danny looked over at the young woman about the same age as his niece and nodded his head. “Seems like it.” Detective Baez must have done something because now she was standing next to Tricia with Little Tony hovering at his sister’s side. “Now, what do you know about all of this?”
Nicky opened her mouth once before snapping it shut. “I can’t… I need to talk to Tricia first. Is that alright?”
Uncle Danny looked between the two of them before letting out a breath. “You can’t lie to me, Nicky. Understand? They don’t know if the perp will make it or not.”
She looked between where Tricia was leaning against her brother and made a decision. She was Nicky Reagan-Boyle. She came from a home filled with police officers and lawyers, but that wasn’t what defined her. “Check the dental records.” Nicky locked eyes with Tricia and chose her words carefully. She couldn’t break a confidence, but she couldn’t break her own code. “And look into old records, you know? Hospitals.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” Uncle Danny asked her, and Nicky straightened up from where she had been subconsciously hiding in her Uncle’s hug.
“That’s Tricia’s story, Uncle Danny.” Nicky told him, taking a step back to that she can look up at her Uncle. “Not mine.” Pointedly she looks around him to where Tricia and Little Tony look like they’re answering the questions that Detective Baez was asking them. “Can I go to my girlfriend, now, Uncle Danny?”
He nods and she steps around him to beeline straight into giving Tricia a gentle hug. She gives Little Tony a relieved smile and he returns the look with a softening of the worry lines around his eyes. Nicky loves her family, both the one she was born into and the one that she was creating with the two Assante’s. It will be hard, but they’ll figure it out. No one ever said that love was easy.