by RJ Scott
“I didn’t flush—”
“So, what happened last night?”
“Tell me more about this best friend trying to find Jessica—”
“Don’t change the subject,” she admonished, and I turned my back to her and took a very long time fixing my coffee and selecting which cookie to go for. “We’ll be in town a while,” she began cautiously, and I could feel the tension ramp up. This was what she was good at, framing solutions to problems in such a way that she had suspects admitting guilt just to shut her up.
“Nothing will happen. He’s the guy who runs the hotel we’re working out of,” I said quietly. “He’s a friendly man, with a son.”
“But he likes you, and you like him. Oh my god, it’s the start of something beautiful,” she said in her best whispering tone with added wide-eyed shock.
“Avery—”
“What have you done together?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Look, all he did was hold my hand last night, and there might have been a small kiss when he caught me by surprise.”
“There’s no might when it comes to kissing, Agent Beaumont. There is kissing, or there isn’t kissing.”
“Jeez, we kissed, okay? But I really want to keep my head in the game here, so I’m not doing anything about it, even if I am attracted to him.”
She clutched her hands on her chest and sighed. “Oh, you and him together? With his gorgeous velvety eyes and hair, and you with all your fluffy blond spikes and gray gaze. Dark and light, that would be so—”
“If you say cute, I will shove you into a cupboard,” I interrupted.
“I wasn’t going to say that. What I was going to say is that you two are so sweet.”
I turned to face her and gave her my most deliberate eye roll. “Eat your cookie, drink your coffee, then let’s go through the board again. We need to look into Olivia Matthews, find out what she did after she left Jessica’s parents, and why she might have disappeared.”
She saluted me. “Okay, but we’re not letting this lie.”
Yep, we are.
Eleven
Josh
I don’t want to do this anymore. I moved in a slow circle in my office at the bank of shiny computers, another assignment in my in-box, a low-level security job that paid peanuts.
I replied with a simple “no more jobs,” which would be enough to sever ties. What I had with my contact was unofficial. He was just the go-between, and it could be that easy to be done. No more hacking meant no more money, but with a fixed furnace, selling Falls Hotel would be a lot easier. There was this house I’d seen, a small two-bedroom place on the corner of Lincoln and Grant, white boards, a tiny front and backyard, an unfussy kitchen, and the owner had informally suggested that they were selling. I’d had an offer on the hotel from a developer, which wouldn’t go down well with the historical society, but the company had promised it would be tastefully converted.
Maybe I could find a legitimate coding job, assist the PD, go into game design. Then I wouldn’t be worried about how to make money all the time just to keep the hotel going.
Grief at all this was a constant companion, but when I’d bought the place, I’d imagined tourists, business meetings, a brand-new approach to being a hotelier, and a future for Harry.
Well, that was more fucked up than it should’ve been.
I turned off each screen, even the ones running diagnostics, closed down accounts, deleted passwords, and somehow just doing that made me feel less dirty and more focused on what I wanted. Then I pressed the button to close the doors that would hide the computers away.
All I wanted was security for Harry.
I still locked the door behind me and headed for the kitchen, coffee at the top of the priority list, and spent a long time staring out at the backyard and thinking through the enormity of what I’d just done. Somehow, I felt more honest, and I wondered if kissing Lucas would be any more explosive if I wasn’t skirting the law. I was determined to tell him, and that was a scary thought, given how much I loved kissing him. I could find myself arrested if I explained how I got some of my contacts.
“Dad, can I talk to you?”
To give Harry his due, he’d waited a full two coffees’ worth of time before talking to me. He was experienced enough to know when my caffeine levels were at the right height, and I’d had a sleepless night thinking about what to do next in my world.
I sat back in my chair. “Of course.”
He walked from the door back to the table as if he didn’t know what to do with himself, and then sat, leaning forward on the table and regarding me with a strange intensity. My first instinct was that this was something to do with Marco—some prank that had gotten out of hand.
“This is nothing to do with Marco,” he began, and I wondered if I’d said something out loud but knew I hadn’t. My kid was just damn good at reading my mind.
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
He half smiled. “Yes, you were.”
“Are you sure you want to tell me?”
“I have to tell someone, but you can’t let him know I said anything.”
Oh god, if this was concerning Marco, I couldn’t keep secrets from my sister, but if I didn’t promise now, he might stay quiet. Was it something to do with the reason why I’d seen him have more than a few quiet times over the last few months.
“Actually, I don’t know where to start,” he murmured.
I put down my mug and focused on him, with my best understanding parent expression. “The beginning is always good.” I remember my mom and dad saying the same thing to me a long time ago. Buoyed by their apparent openness, I’d sat in front of them and told them that Sadie was pregnant. I’d been seventeen, a stupid, scared kid who didn’t know what to do with himself. They’d been so understanding, but they’d never really understood why it had happened, or accepted the scandal of their perfect son, destined for college and great things, who in their eyes had lost everything because of one summer relationship. They were still my parents, but they’d left Lancaster Falls as soon as I turned eighteen, and Chloe had stayed with me.
I’d grown up fast.
Our parents had chosen their path. I’d chosen mine, and they sent presents to Harry for birthdays and Christmas, but they didn’t visit. Chloe was still here in town. She’d refused to leave me, and when I turned eighteen, I had her and Harry in my corner. They were my life, and nothing was changing that. Now, if Harry was going to be a daddy, then hell, how had he slipped seeing a girl past me when I thought I knew him. And what about my demonstration of condoms on bananas? Was this how mom and dad had felt, as if they’d missed something important? Well, whatever he told me, I wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Was I going to be a grandfather in my early freaking thirties?
“You know the youth club?” Harry began in a soft but focused tone.
The question threw me unless he was going to tell me that he’d met a girl at youth club and fallen for her and… stop thinking. “Uh-huh.”
“Pastor Bill, he was… I liked him, even if he ended up being a bad guys.” That was the oddest sentence, and when he was done, he stared down at his hands, and there was this incredible fragility in the air as if the next thing he said would unearth things I didn’t want to know. “But Mayor Stokes, he used to… I didn’t like him.” He lifted his chin and looked at me. “He would hug me, and it was just a bit long, like… I mean, he didn’t hug Marco like that or any of the other kids, apart from Leo Bryant, but Leo and his mom moved to West Falls, and they didn’t come back.”
I was still processing the mention of Gerald Stokes hugging my kid, and hearing the uncertainty and fear in my son’s voice, processing the white noise in my head. Hug? Was that another word for something way worse?
“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but even though I know you think it’s good for me to go to the youth club… you at least didn’t make me go when I finally said I didn�
��t want to go there anymore.” He stopped talking again, and I fought the need to shake information out of him that I could act on.
“Go on,” I encouraged instead.
“So the other day when I said I wanted to talk and then I couldn’t?”
“Yes.” God, I wanted him to spit out whatever he had to say so I could solve whatever was hurting him, but I had to be patient.
“You know Lewis Jackman? His dad is the school janitor? He’s a year below me.” I nodded. “Well, a week back, I found him crying in the park, and he wouldn’t tell me why for real, but he got super angry and told me that he was scared and wasn’t going back to the youth club, even if his parents paid him to, and, Dad… I don’t like it. He made me promise I wouldn’t say anything, but yesterday I saw him, and he bolted in the opposite direction, but I swear he’d been crying again. You always said I could tell you anything, and I know I should tell you if I was worried.”
In my head, I counted back from ten as he spoke, as the picture he was painting with his innocent words formed in my mind.
“Thank you for trusting me.”
“What do I do now?” he asked me, and he looked so much younger than he was.
“We’ll talk to Uncle Sawyer,” I said in my steadiest tone, not letting one flicker of temper scare my son.
“We can’t.”
“We can.”
“Dad—”
“This could be the very worst kind of thing. You understand that, right?”
“Only Uncle Sawyer, then. Promise me?”
I’ll speak to Sawyer. After I’ve killed Stokes.
“Did he… touch you?” I asked the hardest of all questions, and Harry winced, but when he shook his head, I could see that he was telling me the truth. I shouldn’t have felt relieved that my son was safe while out there, others might be in trouble, but I was a fierce lion, and Harry was my world. “Okay, I’ll talk to Sawyer, and I won’t tell him you told me.” I was lying again, and Harry was too perceptive for his own good.
“Promise on the life of Jiminy.”
Oh, for the love of… Harry had found a bug in the garden when he was tiny and brought it into the house in a shoebox that he’d filled with grass. It certainly hadn’t been a cricket, but we’d been watching Pinocchio, and so the poor, bewildered bug had become Jiminy. We’d set it free immediately, and I’d explained that Jiminy had a family he needed to go back to. Which had led to a full-on discussion because Harry had asked me why his mom wasn’t around like Marco’s was. We’d sat in the grass, him five, me twenty-two, and I’d explained that her love was all for him, but that it was a different kind of love she had for me. He remembered it to this day or said he did, and Jiminy had become our unofficial oath that backed up important promises. It was only ever invoked at the most serious of moments.
Like when your parent is homicidal at the thought of anyone touching their child.
“On Jiminy’s life,” I promised, even though said bug was probably long gone.
“Just ask him what he thinks and get him to talk to Lewis without Lewis knowing why.”
“Yep.”
“Uncle Sawyer might want to talk to me.” Harry pulled back his shoulders and looked every inch a young man.
“If he does, then he’ll come find you.”
He came around the table to hug me, and I stood so I could get the full dad/son experience. It wasn’t often he wanted us to hug. He was growing up, and the starring role I’d always played in his life was changing. I couldn’t stop him from crying by putting a Band-Aid on a cut. I couldn’t make everything better by kissing his boo-boo. But I could give him a strong man-hug that ended up with us play-fighting around the kitchen.
“I think you should go over to your aunt Chloe’s for now, play games with Marco, stay inside.”
I stood at the door and watched him cross the street to Calabresi’s. Going inside, I texted Chloe, told her to keep him and Marco and the girls in view at all times. God knows why I would worry my sister like that or put the boys in a lockdown, but fear and concern were acid inside me.
Her text said they would help Luca with pizzas and that she’d keep an eye on everyone. She asked me what was wrong. I didn’t answer, just sent her our standard sign-off, three Xs.
As soon as I knew Harry was safe with Marco, I was straight out of the front door, and as much as I wanted to turn left and head to Stokes’ McMansion, I turned right and headed toward the PD, where Doc and Grandma Garton were shooting the breeze with Tate. In front of her on the counter was another casserole, destined for Logan, I guessed, but next to it was a plate of her cookies, and I knew I’d be nabbing a few of those before I left the PD. I caught the tail end of a story from Doc about the day the reservoir had been filled. I knew it was that particular story because Doc found a way to mention it at poker every week. I loved that Doc and Barbara Garton were often promenading around town. It gave me hope that everyone could find love, even at their age, although eating her cookies meant he might go soft in the belly if he wasn’t careful.
“Can I help you, Josh?” Tate asked a little desperately, probably wanting out of hearing the same old story again.
Doc shuffled around to face me, smiling broadly. “Josh! Hello. We missed you at poker. I could have done with winning your money as well.” He grinned at his own joke, but I wasn’t in the mood for talking and laughing right now.
Grandma Garton placed a hand on my arm. “How are you, sweetheart?”
“Leave the boy be, Barbara.” Doc flushed and couldn’t quite meet Grandma Garton’s eyes. They were an example of enduring love, not married, but partners for the longest time. “Are you okay, Josh?”
“I’m good. I just need to check something with Sawyer.”
I gave the best fake smile I could manage and then headed straight to Sawyer’s office, barging in because fuck this shit, catching him and Chris jumping apart from their heated kiss as if I’d caught them naked.
“Shit,” Chris said and clutched his chest with a fake look of shock, then a wink and a smile. I thought that my expression gave me away because he was instantly serious, and with a nod to Sawyer, he left the office, knocking elbows with me as he walked past before he shut the door.
“What’s wrong?”
Jesus, where do I start? I felt like demanding Sawyer make up a posse so we could hunt down any person who got in my son’s life and scared him, but I had to be the grown-up here.
“Christ. I don’t like this at all. Gerald Stokes hugged Harry, and Harry didn’t like it, and it’s taken him this long to tell me because he thought he was being stupid. Only Lewis Jackman was crying in the park, and Harry is sure that something bad is happening.”
Sawyer moved from relaxed and quiet to bristling in an instant.
“What?”
“Harry said—”
“I’m on it.” He walked right past me and opened the door. “Stay here.”
“Fuck that Sawyer! I’m not staying here. His son was an abusive asshole, and if the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, if Stokes is hurting kids—”
“Stay. Here.” Sawyer held up a hand and then pressed it to my chest. I wanted to shove him out of the way and charge up there with him, but he wasn’t messing around, and he was right.
“Don’t let Stokes…” Talk you out of doing your job. Lie to you. Make you think that Harry is making things up. You have to talk to Lewis too. I didn’t say any of this out loud because he was gone, and I was left in the office, right opposite the murder board, with Casey’s smiling face, and I couldn’t bear to look at it. I left the office and shut the door behind me, immediately face-to-face with Lucas, back in a suit and acting as though he had a lot on his mind.
“I need to get in there.” He gestured to the door and the handle I still had hold of, and I stepped to the left. He went right. We clashed in the small space, and after an apology from both of us and me sidestepping the opposite way, he slipped past me and into the office. I headed up to Tate, taking
a seat by his desk and staring at the floor.
“Can I get you anything?” Tate asked.
“No… thank you.”
I’m not sure how long I sat there, but I was working myself up a head of steam and just this side of heading out to question Stokes myself. I knew he was a corrupt bastard, but if he’d laid one inappropriate finger on Harry, then he was going down. Lucas came out of the office, ear glued to a phone, and headed out, too involved in the conversation to notice me. Then, when Sawyer came through the door, a neutral expression on his face, I knew he hadn’t found Mayor Stokes.
“He’s not at home—”
“What about the golf club—?”
“I headed up there, but everything is locked, and there’s a sign to say it’s all shut for maintenance.”
“You need to put out a BOLO on him—”
“On what grounds? Josh, think about this.”
I dragged Sawyer into his office. “On the grounds he’s messing with young boys!” I snapped. Why was Sawyer just standing there and spouting this official crap? “Harry is your goddamn godson, asshole, and if you don’t care enough about him to do anything and think that Stokes is—”
Sawyer slapped my chest, stealing my breath as I let out an oof of surprise. “That’s enough, Josh. I put a call in with him to say I had some police business I needed help with. All we can do is wait now.”
“We need to go out and…”
Sawyer laid a hand on my shoulder, and I didn’t shrug it off. I wanted the warmth of his support.
“Let me deal with this, Josh, huh? Go home, and tell my godson that his uncle Sawyer has it in hand.”
I meant to go home. I headed back down Main, but when it came to crossing over to the hotel, there was something that kept me walking. I didn’t know how long I was out for, as the impossible-to-contain worry and fear grew inside me. It was my job to keep my son safe, and he hadn’t felt safe, but he hadn’t told me? I circled the town, getting closer to the exit to the road for the golf club, thinking about Sawyer’s words when he’d asked me to reassure Harry.