“I tell you, when our family sets out to blur the lines, we do a bloody good job of it!” which brought chuckles from around the table.
Yaz seemed to have something on her mind. Nicky noticed and asked her what was up.
“Nicky, mummy said you were badly hurt, that our fathe… Robert hurt you; did he do that?” she indicated the scar above and running the length of his right eyebrow.
Nicky grinned. “No, I got jumped by a tree, but one day my daughter’s going to think I got it when I fought a bear, so keep it to yourselves, OK?”
“It was my fault he got that!” said Ashley, her eyes on Nicky as all our eyes swivelled to her. “I left him in the forest at night, I got angry with him when he told me what your father had done to me, and I abandoned him, and he could have died!”
Nicky was by her side in a flash, holding her against him.
“It was a long time ago, baby, let it go, I did, it happened, it’s long over, leave it, please!”
It felt good to see Nicky, the one who’d always been left out, be so much in love, to have someone who loved him so much, and to finally be happy. He looked into Ashley’s eyes, and smiled at her.
“It’s all over baby, it’s gone, I promise you.” She looked up at him, her face set and resolute.
“Show them, Nicky, show them what he did; your family needs to see what happened to you, what he did to you. Please Nicky, just show them!”
“Ashley, please…” he began, but Shari cut him short.
“Show us what, Nicky? What happened, what did he do to you?”
Ashley looked at him and nodded, and he slowly nodded, and pulled off his jacket and the black “Mark One” polo shirt underneath and turned his back to us.
“Ooohh fuck!” exclaimed Rick, with shocked gasps the only sound from Shari and Yaz. I turned my head away, sickened by the sight before me; Nicky’s back was a mass of criss-crossing red welts, from his shoulders to the small of his back, some of them 6 inches long, so many there was virtually no unmarked skin visible between the welts, mute testimony to the savagery of the beating he’d taken.
“Dad… did that?” Rick whispered, “How?”
Ashley snorted.
“He used his belt buckle, like he always did, it was his favorite tool; my mom has some like that on her back as well, but nothing like that. When Nicky came to us, he looked like he’d been flayed alive, it took a year for his back to heal, and he won’t admit it, but I know it still hurts him; that bastard damaged so many nerve-endings it’ll never stop hurting. I guess this is what he meant by ‘a Father’s true legacy!'”
Shari had tears in her eyes as she picked up his shirt and handed it back to him, and hugged him as he pulled it down over his head. Nicky held her tightly, his hand against the back of her head as she buried her face in his neck, then Yaz and Ashley joined them in a group hug, Nicky suddenly in the middle of a triple sister-hug, three beautiful girls holding him as tightly as they could.
When the girls had let him go, and more or less got their emotions under control, Nicky called his step-father and explained what we’d shown him. They chatted for a few more minutes, then Nicky hung up and smiled at all of us.
“Dad’s calling his friend at the FBI, hopefully he’ll want to see this right away, and dad and mum will swing by later so we can have a proper family talk over lunch.” He seemed pensive, then cocked an eye at me.
“The only thing here that I find strange is that you guys come to Albany to look for me, and the first person you bump into is someone who knows me, and is engaged to my step-sister; as far as I’m concerned, that’s stretching coincidence just a little too far, but then, it’s not the first time…”
I looked at him questioningly, so he told us a story about when he’d come home to see Barbara’s grave, they’d left the cemetery and were on the motorway back to their hotel, Ashley had flicked on the radio, to hear the DJ play a record request from Barbara to Nick, the Beach Boys’ “Little Saint Nick”, Barbara’s nickname for Nicky growing up.
Rick and I exchanged glances, and Rick nodded, so I told them about why we’d helped Leon in that alleyway; because I’d heard Rick’s voice, as clear as day, shouting “help him!”, while Rick asserted he’d heard me tell him to help Leon, which is why he’d jumped in. Whoever had called out, though, the result had been that we’d befriended the one person who could lead us straight to our missing brother. Coincidence? Ashley didn’t think so.
“Bobby, Rick, I think someone wanted you to meet Nicky, I think they wanted it real bad, because here you are, and here he is. Maybe this ‘Guardian Angel’ business has something to it after all, or perhaps it’s just that so much has been set in motion, it was time for all of you to meet-up again; sometimes fate does take a hand, maybe this is one of those times!”
We talked in this vein for a while, gradually moving on to our lives and what we were doing now. I was intrigued to hear that Nicky was the boss at his lace of work, the “Mark One” logo was the emblem of the company he worked for; in fact, he, Ashley and Judy were co-owners of Mark One Auto Engineering, with a new auto shop opening soon, a specialist shop where they were going to build replica and road-race vehicles and high-performance engines. Leon and Judy were getting the shop as a wedding present, when they married after she graduated from medical school, but it was still a secret, so all Leon knew was that he was going to be lead mechanic at the new shop.
Shari and Yaz gave him a little of their background working in the property business with their mother, and told him about the house we’d bought to redevelop, which was how we’d found the letter that had brought us here. We’d chatted for what only seemed like a few minutes when Ashley’s phone rang. She answered it and spoke briefly.
“OK guys, that was mom; they’ll meet us in the restaurant in 10 minutes.”
I looked at my watch and was amazed to see we’d been talking for over three hours, and now it was gone 12:30, lunchtime. The girls all refreshed their makeup, although they really didn’t need any; we Davis men had incredibly good taste when it came to our women, because apparently we’d all picked bronze-haired goddesses.
We’d just taken our seats in the restaurant when David and Julia joined us. Now that I had leisure to see, I was struck by how much Nicky resembled his mother; sure, he looked like dad, so did Rick and I, but Nicky’s hair and eyes, the way he held his head, and especially his profile, all pure Julia.
David was smiling and friendly, once again impressing me with how calm and urbane he was; Nicky had done amazingly well to snag him for a step-dad, he gave off the “good-guy” vibe in big loud waves, and Rick and the girls were obviously feeling it as well. Julia looked amused that all of us were responding so well to David; obviously she’d heard stuff about us from Nicky, all true, and was having trouble reconciling that image with the new us, but she didn’t look like she was holding any grudges.
After a few pleasantries, and some banter as we ordered lunch, David asked if he could read the affidavit document. He read through it while we waited for our starters, then read through it again, his face becoming set and drawn, his lips thinning to two bloodless lines, and his jaw muscles trembling and rippling as he clenched and unclenched his teeth.
Eventually he put it down and looked at all of us, his eyes hard and angry, and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. Julia stroked his cheek, her eyes concerned.
“David, what’s wrong, darling, what is it?” she asked, and David leaned back in his seat, visibly trying to relax his arms and shoulders.
“I’ve never in my life… read this, Julia, it’s the vilest, most disgusting… dear God, how can anybody sink so low… the FBI will definitely need to see this; God, it’s like wading through a cess-pit!”
Julia raised an eyebrow as she took the document from him, her expression becoming set and drawn as she read through it, to finally drop it with a deep sigh, her bottom lip trembling as she unconsciously wiped her hands on her jeans.
“He really did all this?” she whispered, and Shari nodded.
“We were there, we saw what he did to mummy, we watched as he beat and abused her, stole everything from her, and she couldn’t do anything; he threatened Yaz and me, he even tried to rape Yaz, but she managed to get away. Everything in there is true; I took an oath when I swore it was a true account, I stand by it now, so does Yasmin!”
Julia reached across and cupped her face, her eyes filled with outrage, but also sympathy and compassion. She gently brushed a strand of hair out of Shari’s face and smiled gently.
“He’s in jail now, and he will be for the rest of his life; that’s punishment enough, and maybe even justice. What more can we do?”
Shari’s face set in harsh lines, her anger just below the surface.
“That’s not enough! Caging him up isn’t justice; perhaps now, with this, we can put a rope around his filthy neck! Brian Davis has too much to answer for, he deserves to die for what he did, maybe now we have a way to make him pay for mummy, and for Barbara! No hell is too much for him, he deserves to burn!”