“It had to have been your brother,” Milo continued after Davey’s rant, “or your father. There’s no question it had to be one or the other one. It could not have been Erica, and certainly not you nor your mother.”
Ricki was floored.
“But it wasn’t me,” Davey said again.
“I know that,” Ricki said.
Everybody looked at her. “What are you saying, Rasheda?” Vince asked.
“I’m saying it wasn’t my sister and it wasn’t my brother. That’s what I’m saying.”
“And you’re probably right,” said Milo, “because we uncovered something else.”
Vince and Ricki were eager to hear it. They needed more.
Davey did too. “What else you know?” he asked Milo. Above anybody else in that room, he had a vested interest in their revelations.
“Our sources, and they are very good sources,” said George, “told us that Miss Althea McDonald was and continues to be in a two-year love affair with Hershel Richardson.”
Davey and Ricki both were shocked. “With my father?” they asked almost at the exact same time.
Milo nodded. “With your father, yes,” he said. “Which would explain why she was so willing to risk her law license to lie about that DNA.”
“To protect my father?” asked Ricki.
George nodded. “That’s the only explanation we can figure out.”
Ricki was more determined than she was upset. “Let’s go, Vince,” she said. “He’s supposed to be at the house to make sure no looters in little Milton are stealing from him. That asshole!”
“He’s at the house,” said Davey. “Him and Mommy. That’s where he told me they were headed.”
Vince would have told Ricki no way was she going to her father’s house after how she behaved when Davey made a run for it, but he knew she was the only one in that room who had the chops to confront her father. Who just might be able to get him to confess. And that was what they needed. Not conjecture. Not speculation. They needed cold, hard facts.
“Come on,” he said, and he led her out of Davey’s hospital room.
But when they got near the door, he told George and Milo to hold back a few minutes and come to the house after he and Ricki left.
“Why?” asked Davey.
“So that the cop outside in the hospital corridor won’t get curious,” said Vince. “If the cops show up, they’ll want to arrest rather than get the facts first. We need to get the facts first to exonerate Davey, and Erica once and for all.” Then he looked at Milo. “We’re wait for you a block before we get to the Richardson house.”
They agreed, and Vince and Ricki left.
Vince kept his arm around Ricki’s waist as they walked. He could feel her trembles.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“I told your stupid ass this stuff still some good,” they could hear Hershel say to his wife as Vince and Ricki and George and Milo entered from the only door that wasn’t blown off its hinges at the Richardson’s still-devastated home: the back door.
Hershel and Mamie Richardson were in the kitchen pulling down can goods out of the cupboards when they walked in.
Hershel immediately took issue with their presence. “Who gave you the authority to just walk into my home?” he asked them.
“I did,” Ricki said. “Your daughter.”
They could tell Hershel didn’t like her defiance, but he decided to let it go in front of company. “What do you want?” he asked. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t come to town.”
“Me?” Ricki was stunned.
