Page 33 of Dead Sure
“Everly said you were in trouble. I rushed out here as fast as I could. You obviously didn’t need me with the way you had both of them on the floor.”
“I’ve never needed you more in my life than I did just now. They were going to kill me, Ronan, then Everly so that you’d spend the rest of your life in pain mourning our losses.”
Ronan shook his head. “There’s no way those assholes would have gotten anywhere near our daughter. I guarantee you that.Fitz was armed. I wasn’t. We left the house in such a rush that I didn’t think to grab anything.”
Ten wrapped his arms around Ronan. “It’s over. We’re going to go home in a little while and before we know it, everything will be back to normal.” Ten had no idea if that was the case or not. With the trauma of the night and his head slamming into the wall, his gift wasn’t giving him any information, but he was going to do everything in his power to make it so.
Ten’s family was counting on him and he wouldn’t let them down.
EPILOGUE
Ronan
One week later…
Ronan watched while Everly tended her newly planted seeds. She spoke to each pot telling it to grow strong as she watered them. The would-be plants sat in front of the sliding glass door which got morning sunshine.
The day before, she and Ronan had sat at the kitchen table and planted seeds in little peat cups. Tennyson wrote the name of each seed type on a popsicle stick. The care and management of the little plants was in Everly’s hands after that. She was looking forward to Memorial Day Weekend when it would finally be safe to transfer the sensitive herbs and vegetables into the soil of their garden.
“Is Dad gonna leave his job at West Side Magick?” Everly asked, when she finished watering.
Ronan knew this conversation was coming, but he hadn’t known when Everly would choose to start it. Now seemed as good a time as any with Tennyson out shopping with Ezra. “No honey, your Dad’s not going anywhere.”
“But he was so scared when he was in jail.” Everly filled the electric tea kettle and turned it on before grabbing mugs for herself and Ronan. “I’ve never felt that kind of fear before, Daddy. It was almost paralyzing. I don’t know how Dad was able to stand up against it.”
“You’ve grown up a lot faster than I would have liked, thanks to your gift. We’ve had to talk about a lot of situations that regular elementary school kids never encounter until they’re mucholder. It’s this kind of question that reminds me that you’re seven, not seventeen.”
Everly grinned at Ronan.
“The kind of fear your Dad was feeling wasn’t for himself. It was for you and Ezra. He was afraid of what would happen to the two of you if he wasn’t able to come home. Later that fear was for your safety. He might not have known the brick was going to come through our window, but he was aware something like that could happen.
Thankfully their homeowners insurance had taken care of the cost of a new window. Ronan vacuumed the house every day just in case they’d missed any stray shards of glass. But for the dent in the coffee table, it was impossible to tell a brick had been thrown through the window.
“That’s interesting,” Everly said. “Even though he was really scared, he also wasn’t afraid to stand up to what that woman tried to do to us.”
“Your Dad wasn’t just fighting against the criminal charges that woman instigated against him, but also for all the psychics in Salem. If Autumn Miller had been able to convince the court of Dad’s guilt and the need for him to pay for his crime, it would have been really bad. All of the psychic shops would go out of business if clients were allowed to send psychics to jail when readings didn’t come true.”
“I would still read for people anyway,” Everly said.
“You would?” Ronan wasn’t surprised one bit.
“I have this gift for a reason and I’m gonna use it to help as many people as possible, even if I risk getting in trouble myself.”
“You’re so brave and so smart, honey.” Ronan got up from the table when the electric kettle shut off and poured the hot water into mugs. “There are always going to be people who try to hurt others, but it’s people like you who will always be there to help.”
“I’m just like you, Daddy. You help people all the time. I don’t want to be a police officer and carry a gun. I want to help people heal from the kind of pain Dad went through. Even though that situation with Autumn Miller is over, he’s still feeling scared and dramatized.”
Ronan flashed a quick smile. “Do you mean traumatized?”
Everly nodded. “How do we make that feeling go away?”
“It’s going to take some time before your Dad feels safe again. The police officer from Danvers really hurt him.” It was a damn good thing Dutch Vance was in jail, because he’d wanted to beat on the man, the way he’d done to Tennyson.
“Until all of this happened to Dad, I didn’t know there were policemen who were bad guys.” Everly wore a sad look.
Ronan’s heart broke. One more piece of Everly’s innocence was gone. “Some people go into law enforcement for the wrong reasons. They want the excuse to use their power to hurt instead of help people. Dutch Vance was a good cop when he worked for Cisco. He’d wanted to start a cold case team in Salem for years before it happened. He thought he was going to be a member of the unit and when Cisco hired me, Jude and Fitz instead, Dutch was angry and wanted revenge against us.”
“He got revenge by hurting Dad and having him put in jail,” Everly said softly. “Wasn’t that enough? Why did he have to throw the brick or try to hurt Dad in the hospital?”
