Ty knew they were going more to protect her than to use their considerable combined culinary skills. He appreciated that both men had taken responsibility for protecting his mother just as quickly as he would have.
Ty spent the morning in Deuce and Livi’s room, bouncing Amelia on his knee and breaking the news of Nikki Webb’s murder.
Deuce sat with his head in his hands, not even trying to be stoic anymore. Livi took the news a little better than Ty had expected, though. Her eyes were tearing over, but Ty had seen her sob over Milton’s demise as well. Livi was a tenderer heart than Ty was used to dealing with.
“This is awful,” Livi said. “I didn’t even know her that well. I don’t know how to get in touch with her family.”
Ty frowned, and the bouncing stopped for a second. “What do you mean?”
Amelia cooed to him, complaining about the halt in her ride. He began the bouncing again, smiling down at her.
“I mean I didn’t really know her well,” Livi said again. “I met her a few months ago when she took one of my classes. I have three really close friends, and . . . frankly I was dreading choosing one of them. I don’t have any sisters or cousins. So when I found out Nikki was a party planner, it just clicked. She became the maid of honor, she planned all the pre-wedding stuff, and I didn’t have to choose between my closer friends.”
Ty nodded, still a little confused. He was relieved, though, because he’d been absolutely terrified of making Livi cry.
Amelia latched onto his nose and giggled. Ty tried to pull his face away, but couldn’t get out of her grasp. Livi laughed shakily, still wiping at her eyes.
“Ty, what’s going on here?” Deuce asked. He sounded desperate. “Is this your shit following you around, or is this entirely new shit?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s new shit,” Ty answered, his voice nasal as Amelia held on to his nose. He almost wished he could say it was his fault, that this was about his past. But he wouldn’t lie to Deuce just to make him feel better. He was done with lies.
“But what did Nikki have to do with Mr. Milton?” Livi asked. “I understand that Mrs. Boyd was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but why kill Nikki?”
“That’s a good question. I intend to find out.”
Deuce and Livi both nodded, wearing almost identical frowns.
Amelia squeezed Ty’s nose, and he made a honking sound that set her giggling.
“Do you want to take her for a while, Ty?” Deuce asked.
Ty glanced at him, raising an eyebrow.
“I mean, when you’re not investigating the series of murders at my wedding,” Deuce said wryly. “You’ve barely seen her. I know she’s safe with you. And Maisie is running late, so we’re sort of in need of a babysitter anyway.”
“Maisie’s the girl who found Milton’s body,” Ty said with a frown. “Why is she late?”
“She wasn’t feeling well,” Livi answered. “She’s not handling all of this . . .”
Ty gave that another nod and a deeper frown. He sometimes forgot that normal people didn’t handle finding dead bodies well. He looked down at Amelia, who was reaching for the compass pendant around his neck. Her little tongue was stuck out of her mouth as she concentrated. Ty grinned. “Yeah, I’ll take her for a while.”
Deuce tossed him a tattered gray lamb. “Don’t leave home without it.”
Zane actually had a good morning, working down in the kitchen with Mara and Nick trying to get enough food prepared to feed anyone who still had an appetite. He was able to show off some of the things he’d learned to Mara, who seemed to be thrilled that “another one of her boys” had finally learned to feed himself.
He also learned a few things from Nick, who gave Zane the tip to fold his fingers in when he was cutting so he could feel the knife with his knuckles and didn’t have to look at what he was doing. He shrugged it off when Zane asked where he’d learned, saying it was nothing more than spatial recognition and the need to hurry when he’d been learning to cook. He seemed to be in an unusually evil mood, so Zane mostly left him alone.
After breakfast, Zane sat in a secluded alcove off the great hall and began flipping through the photos on Nick’s iPad, reading his notes, trying to follow the jumps in logic and make sense of the scribbles Nick obviously hadn’t felt the need to connect when he’d been taking them.
Zane could tell which interviews had been first and which had been last because, while the questions remained thorough, Nick’s notes became less legible and the scribbles devolved into pleas for someone to kill him.