The Singing River (21 page)

Epilogue

Roman

Six months later ...

“Bullshit.”

It was the first thing I thought when I saw Greg Hinkley smiling on the news, his handcuffed hands lifted in the air. He’d committed a crime of hate, and he was getting released. It was a bunch of bullshit.

“Just doesn’t seem right,” Haven whispered next to me.

Haven had been a pretty permanent fixture in the Brayden house even after River left for college in Florida to study whatever weather mumbo jumbo crap it was he thought was interesting.

Circumstantial evidence, the news said. Circumstantial, my ass. I’d seen the evidence. Touched it. Smelled it even. Somehow, Greg had gotten rid of it, had gotten someone to dispose of it before a search warrant could be procured. Somehow, even with police monitoring his house, Greg had gotten rid of it. Damn him!

I stood, throwing a decorative pillow from the couch onto the floor, my fist connecting with my palm. Marissa stood just inside the door, her eyes moving from me to the television, her gaze full of concern.

“Roman—”

“I’m fine,” I interrupted.

Stomping past her, I ran up the stairs, slamming the door to my room, the sound loud and echoing. My open bathroom door stared at me. There were pills hidden in that bathroom, pills I’d concealed a long time ago, pills I thought I’d overcome, but I wanted them now. I wanted the peace I knew they could give me.

There was a loose board just under the sink I’d managed to pull off over a year ago. I’d used a hammer to put a hole in the wall before hiding my stash in it. Replacing the baseboard kept the pills safe and obscured.

I jerked the board off, pulling out the Ziploc bag I kept there. For a while I stared at them, opening lids to empty the pills into the bag, my mind telling me how easy it would be to forget my troubles, how easy it would be to sleep.

“Damn you!” I shouted.

Throwing the bag, I kicked the pills against the tub before sliding to the floor, my head in my hands.

There was one thing I’d learned from losing Dad and finding his killer. I had an interest in the law, in justice. True, I wasn’t good at following the rules, and I had a long enough record to keep me out of the police academy. But it was there, that passionate fire burning within my chest.

Greg Hinkley was free, but he wouldn’t stay that way.

Standing, I picked up the pills, emptying the bag into the toilet before pressing the lever. They circled before being swallowed up, the numbness I wanted disappearing with them.

Haven was at the bottom of the stairs when I came back out of my room, and I pointed at her.

“That friend of yours, Poppy? You don’t happen to have her number, do you?”

Haven didn’t have a cell phone. She’d refused any help River had offered her, determined to make it through life on her own while she was living alone.

Haven stared at me, her eyes narrowing.

“What have you got in mind, Roman?”

I smiled, the expression cold, before winking at her.

“Who? Me?”

Justice would be served.

About the Author

R.K. Ryals is a scatterbrained mother of three whose passion is reading whatever she can get her hands on. She makes her home in Mississippi with her husband, three daughters, a shitzsu named Tinkerbell, and a coffeepot she
couldn’t
live without. Visit her at
http://rkryals.com
or on facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/RKRyals

Other works available:

The Redemption Series

Redemption

Ransom

Retribution

The Combined Edition

The Acropolis Series

The Acropolis

The Labyrinth

The Thorne Trilogy

Cursed

The Scribes of Medeisia

Mar k of the Mage

Tempest

Coming Soon …

Deliverance: The Acropolis Series Book III

Possessed: The Thorne Trilogy Book II

The Scribes of Medeisia Book III (Currently Untitled)

Coming in 2014 …

Revelation: The Redemption Series Book 4

Roman Brayden’s Story (Currently Untitled)