The second I was done, and before the man could say anything back, DB slammed the door shut and burst out laughing.
“Now that was a verbal masterpiece, my man. I’ll see you back at the station when y’all come to give your statements.” Then, still chuckling, he opened the driver’s door and got in, turning to glare at the guy as he started screaming out threats at me.
“What part of your Miranda rights did you not understand? Anything you say will and can be used against you in a court of law. That’s what was read to you, and that’s what we’ll be doing. Now, my bodycam’s still on, so’s the dashcam. Raoul, your bodycam still on?”
“Sure is.”
“In that case, what you’ve just said was recorded by three separate devices. Now, sit back and enjoy the ride. Raoul, will you do the honors and point out the tourist attractions in town as we pass them. It’d be a shame for him to miss them.”
His door slammed shut, preventing me from hearing any replies coming from either of the men in there with him. Instead, I turned my back on them and made my way back to my girls, taking them from Canon the second I reached their huddle.
What I didn’t know was that a reporter was there already, taking photos and writing down what’d happened.
I also didn’t realize someone was following my girls’ journey in life and that this would bring me to his attention, too.
As we left the station to go home to Nemi, who was being watched by all four grandparents, her aunts, and her uncles from both families, I held Heidi’s hand close to my chest. I’d never once taken her for granted or not done everything I could to remember every moment, but I held her that bit tighter tonight.
And I didn’t even feel the need to sleep with one eye open when she abruptly spun in her seat to glare at me and hissed, “We’ll be talking about that sex club membership when we get home, Bond Klein.”
Nope. I closed her door and jogged around the truck to get behind the wheel, and climbed in with a smile on my face.
“My friend owns the club and gave me the membership for my birthday. I went twice to see what the big deal about it was after that BDSM series became a movie.” I’d be damned if I could even remember the name of it now. That’s how irrelevant the membership was to my life.
“I didn’t see anything there that was appealing to me, so I didn’t go again. That’s the be-all and end-all.” When she just stayed silent, I mused, “But there was a chick who worked like a tornado behind the bar. I wonder if she’s looking for a job.”
Still not saying a word, Heidi reached over and plucked my wallet off the center console, then flipped it open and went through the cards until she found what she was looking for.
Holding it up and squinting to see it through the dim lighting, she read out the name of the club and then tucked it in her pocket. “I’ll go and ask her and let you know what she says.”
I burst out laughing, impressed with her spunk and whit after what she’d been through, and continued doing it until we pulled up in front of our bright yellow door.
It wasn’t until I’d helped her down and was following behind her to it that it sank in. “Like hell, you’re going to a sex club. Give me that card back.”
Flicking a glance over her shoulder, she sang, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
After ‘the incident,’ we decided to take a family vacation and use it as our honeymoon at the same time.
As we walked off the flight in Kingston, I saw Nemi, wide awake and almost vibrating with excitement. We were staying in Port Royal while we were here, but we’d hired an SUV so we could explore and make the most of it. The fact we were staying where ‘the pirates had lived’ was all she could talk about when we’d told her to pack. I just hoped she wasn’t disappointed when it didn’t look anything like it did in the movies.
I should have known not to underestimate a three-year-old’s brain, and one that was capable of imagining anything. She loved all of it, especially Fort Charles and the Giddy House, which was sinking into the sand at an angle, and made you feel ‘giddy.’ Come to find out, all these years later, I still felt sick when I went in there, and it messed with my equilibrium.
She also wanted to see the church some people referred to as Captain Henry Morgan’s. As we walked through the small graveyard outside it, Nemi noticed the grave belonging to the bodies of two children who’d been brought up from the ruins of Port Royal, and stopped for a moment after Heidi read the writing on the headstone to her.