Daddy's Stepstalker (Daddy's Little Deviants)

Epilogue

Shaw

Iblinkedinthe darkness, my heart pounding in my chest, as the mental fog from sleep slowly cleared. For how long had I been asleep? What the hell had woken me up?

I reached a hand out to the other side of the bed to touch Ari, but came up empty. The bed wasn’t too cold, so he couldn’t have been gone for long.

Damn, was he sleepwalking again?

I reached across to the bedside lamp and turned it on. A pale yellow glow illuminated the room enough for me to find my glasses on the night table. I jammed them on and pulled back the bedsheets. My house slippers were right at the side of the bed where I’d left them. I stifled a yawn and first checked the bathroom by knocking.

“Ari, are you in there?”

Silence.

I cracked the door open and peeked inside in case he was having one of his episodes. Although far less frequent since I ensured he took his meds religiously, there were tough days. Not tough enough for him to slip back into old habits and kill anyone, though, which was the important thing.

Sometimes he had a stroke of creative genius and got up to work in the middle of the night. In two years, he had become one of the most lauded fashion designers of evening gowns.

I descended the stairs and checked his office, which was right next to mine. The door was ajar, but in darkness. I clicked on the light and found our cat, Marigold, asleep on the desk.

Worry gnawed at my gut.

I turned off the light in his office and checked mine just to be sure, but there was no sign of him either.

The last place I could think of to look was the kitchen. On my way, I noticed a draft from the opposite end of the hall. I changed direction and continued down the hall to the open back sliding doors which led out to the patio and huge backyard of the property we’d bought together in California. The job I’d applied for in Florida hadn’t panned out, but I received a better opportunity working at a community college in San Francisco, where for the past two and a half years I acted as dean.

“Ari?” I stepped out onto the patio, frowning at the rhythmic sound of something hitting the ground over and over.

What the hell was he doing?

I hurried down the steps, which gave me a better view of him to the right, patting freshly dug up earth with a shovel. If after nearly three years of being good that boy had buried somebody on our property, I’d spank his ass so hard he wouldn’t be able to sit for a week!

This was our fresh start, with no reminders of our past.

But the hole he’d dug wasn’t human sized.

Whoosh.

I’d resigned myself to loving this boy through anything, but it sure helped that he was at peace with the world.

“Hey, Daddy.” He turned to face me with a huge smile. For after midnight, his eyes were bright and full of energy.

That explained it. He was going through one of his high moments. I worried about how much he cleaned and puttered around the house during these episodes, but his psychiatrist assured me as long as he was being productive, he was fine.

“What are you doing?” I asked him gently.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “There was just too much to do. I finished those designs Couture Beau wanted and then I started spring cleaning.”

“And?” I gestured at the shovel.

He giggled. “Don’t worry. I swear it’s not a body. Did you think it was?”

I groaned. “You’re a good boy. You know hiding bodies on our property would be a bad thing to do.”

He dropped the shovel, and with dirty hands and all threw his arms around me. “Really? I’ve been a good boy?”

“You know you have. What were you burying?”