Tainted Evidence (Evidence Series Book 10)

by Rachel Grant

  “None of that is true, Ava.” He stroked her back. “I’ve loved you since you were a baby.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “I did.”

  It was time to tell her everything—even the parts about her dad that he’d hoped she’d never have to hear.

  “I lived in Portland, not far from your parents’ apartment, when you were born, and your dad and I still tolerated each other then. I was twenty, and you were the first baby I’d ever spent time around. Your mom was sweet and kind and so damn young when you were born, just a year older than you are now. She grew up in the same small town as us in eastern Oregon, and I’d known her since middle school.

  “Our moms were friends—there were only a handful of Jewish families in the community, and since my dad wasn’t Jewish and, I later realized, a raging anti-Semite—we sometimes observed the High Holy Days and Passover with Lori’s family. My mom wasn’t super observant, but she wanted Ari and me to know our history. Your mom’s family was very observant. I learned a lot from your grandma.” He smiled, thinking of what a relief it had been to have the Passover Seder with Lori’s family, away from his father’s insidious cruelty toward his mother.

  “I don’t understand. If Grandpa is anti-Semitic, why did he marry Grandma?”

  “I don’t know if my dad was anti-Semitic before he moved to eastern Oregon and became friends with a guy who was openly white supremacist, but my guess is the seeds were there. His views intensified when my mom decided she wanted to teach Ari and me about Judaism. Your grandpa was emotionally and physically abusive to Grandma, so it was another part of the cycle of violence.”

  Josh had done a lot of reading about power and control and abuse to try to understand both his parents.

  “But back to your parents. I think your mom had a crush on Ari since she was a freshman in high school and he was a senior. Ari moved to Portland after graduation, but he came home for Passover the year Lori was a junior. They started dating, and the following fall, a few weeks before her eighteenth birthday, she got pregnant.”

  “My dad said she—they—waited until they were married to have sex. He said anyone who doesn’t wait is a slut.”

  “Honey, your dad lied to you. And he’s dead wrong when it comes to slut shaming.”

  “Maddie said the same thing. About slut shaming.”

  His heart squeezed. It wasn’t time to talk about Maddie yet. Ava needed to know her own history first.

  “Your mom dropped out of school and moved to Portland with your dad. She got her GED, and after you were born, she wanted to take classes at the community college. But your dad…let’s just say he wasn’t big on helping take care of you. When you were six months old, I started babysitting you three times a week so your mom could sneak off to class. You and I had great adventures on those afternoons. I’d stack the blocks, and you’d knock them down.” He could remember her laugh. The squeals of joy. The zest for life of a nine-month-old who’d just learned to crawl was a power to behold.

  “We spent three days a week together for nearly eighteen months. I remember your first words, first steps. All of it.”

  Maddie had said he was a caretaker and was concerned he wanted to fix her. Thinking back, he realized Lori was probably the first person who brought out the caretaker in him. Ava’s mom was also his biggest failure.

  “Then I joined the Navy. I tried to stay close to you and your mom after that, but you know how your dad feels about the military. Your mom sent me pictures of you, though, and I sent her money for you, until your dad found the letters.”

  “Dad said you had an affair with my mom. He said I might even be your daughter, and I’m lucky he stuck around all these years raising your bastard.”

  “I’m not your dad, Ava. I never touched your mother. We were friends.”

  “I wish you were. My dad, I mean.”

  What could he say to that? Sometimes, in an abstract way, he’d wished he was her father too. But if he’d fathered a child at twenty, he never would have joined the Navy. Never would have been a SEAL. He’d had his own path to follow.

  But on his path, he’d abandoned this girl to a depressed mother and abusive father. Did his service to his country matter when he couldn’t even help those closest to him?

  “After your dad found the letters, your mom wrote me one last time. She said not to send money anymore. If he found another note, he’d hurt you. You were six years old, and I was in Afghanistan and there was nothing I could do. I thought I was protecting you by letting you go. But I was abandoning you and your mother to a man I suspected was the same kind of monster I grew up with.”

  Tears slid down his cheeks as he held Ava, remembering the crushing pain of reading that email. The hopelessness, heartache, and fear. He’d had an op to prepare for, a dangerous scouting mission deep in Taliban-held territory, and he’d had to shut off his mind and heart to Ava and Lori, or he’d be a danger to his team and the mission.

  His mom had suffered a stroke and died the year before. Without her or Ava and Lori to visit, there’d been no reason for him to return to Oregon. He’d never communicated with Lori again. Hadn’t reached out to his brother at all until eight years later, when a Google alert told him Lori had committed suicide.

  He should have gone back to Portland after the Afghanistan deployment was over. He should have kicked his brother’s ass and moved Lori and Ava to Norfolk, where he was based. He should have gotten CPS involved when he received the threat to Ava.

  Lori always swore Ari didn’t hit her, but there was more to domestic violence than physical abuse, and knowing Ari, it was only a matter of time until the abuse escalated from emotional to physical.

  “I failed your mother, Ava. I failed you. And I will live with that shame for the rest of my life. But I can promise you now, I will never fail you or abandon you again. There is nothing you can say or do that will make me turn my back on you.”

  Ava let out a heart-wrenching sob. “I was so scared. Maddie said I had to tell you, and I started to because I knew she was right, but then…I saw the look on your face, and I was afraid you’d decide I’m not worth it. That you’d throw me away.”

  She pulled back and looked at him. He could see the tears streaking down her face in the dim glow of the alarm clock and LED lights from the electronics on the desk. “When I was small—I’m not sure how old I was, but I think I was in kindergarten—Mom was gone for a few days. I think she’d gone home to see her parents, and she didn’t bring me. Maybe it was when Grandma was sick, I’m not sure. Anyway, it was fun to have Daddy to myself for a bit. He got me McDonalds. Let me eat ice cream right out of the container. I could watch as much TV as I wanted, and it wasn’t all stuff for little kids. Then I did something wrong. I—I don’t even remember what it was. I talked back to him, or maybe I spilled juice on the couch. I don’t know. But he suddenly got all mad. Said I was such a pain in the ass. He then told me that it’s okay to throw away bad kids, and I needed to always be good, or he could throw me away and nobody would care.

  “He wanted me to know what that was like, so I’d never be bad again, and he put me in the stinky, huge dumpster behind our apartment complex. It was empty—I guess it had just been dumped—and the walls were slick and slimy. I was too small to reach the lid, and I couldn’t climb out. I don’t know how long I was in there, but it felt like hours. A neighbor finally found me. I’d lost my voice from screaming, and my knuckles were bloody from punching the metal walls. They helped me out and brought me to my dad. He was playing Nintendo on the TV, claimed I’d been playing hide-and-seek with one of the neighbors and must’ve gotten stuck.”

  Josh went cold, his body rigid with horror. He could picture it all in his mind. Her screams. Ari’s indifference as he played video games. He might wonder if Ava was lying to garner his sympathy, given that she’d lied before, but that detail, it was so Ari.

  “I still have nightmares about that dumpster. I can still smell it. Feel the slime of the walls on my s
kin. I hear the sound of a garbage truck, and I panic. My biggest fear was that a truck would come and I’d be emptied into the bin and be crushed to death.”

  “My God,” Josh said, barely able to breathe. “Have you told your therapist about this?”

  She hugged herself as she shook her head. “For years, I’d wake up screaming, but Dad must have convinced Mom it was just a nightmare, because she would just pat my head and tell me it was nothing but a dream that couldn’t hurt me. Eventually, she stopped coming to my room when I screamed. Nobody believed me. I guess I didn’t see the point in telling a therapist.”

  “Honey, therapy only works if you tell them the things you’re keeping locked inside.”

  “But what if she didn’t believe me? What if she thinks it’s all in my head? Just a nightmare, like my mom always said?”

  “I believe you,” Josh said.

  “You do? Even after I lied and said Maddie found and read your letter?”

  “I do. I know Ari is capable of being that cruel. And I even understand why you felt compelled to lie about Maddie. But that doesn’t mean your lies won’t be punished. Doesn’t mean you can get away with hurting people like that.”

  She backed away from him. “Punished?”

  “Of course. You can’t lie like that and not suffer consequences.” He saw stark fear in her eyes. “Ava, what do you think I mean when I say punish?”

  “A few weeks after Mom died, when we were still living in the third-floor apartment, Dad took all my books and burned them, then he locked me in my room—without any electronics, paper, pens, or anything to do—for twenty-four hours. No food. No water. I couldn’t escape out the window. I had to pee in the trash can.”

  Holy hell, she was telling him all this now? But then, he sort of understood. She was so afraid he’d reject her, she’d held back from telling him just how messed up her life had been. Again, he had to consider she might be lying to garner sympathy, but also again, his brother’s actions over the years gave her words the ring of truth.

  “Okay, so to start with, I think we’re going to forgo the word punish in favor of discipline. Discipline is about learning, while punishment is about retribution. Your dad deserves retribution. You need to be disciplined. You lied to me, and I took you at your word because I didn’t want to hurt you by not trusting you. Your lie hurt not just me, but a woman who has been nothing but kind to you.”

  “I don’t want to like her,” she said under her breath. “But she’s okay.”

  Josh reached out and pulled her back to his side. “I didn’t plan or want this thing with Maddie—I mean, I want it, but the timing is bad, for you and me. But I’m all in now. I’m crazy about her. I want her in my life. And I’m all in on being your dad too. You’re stuck with me, for better or worse. So you’re going to have to apologize—and mean it with all your heart—to her, or none of us are going to be happy.”

  “That’s it? Just…apologize?” Ava’s voice was hopeful.

  “Uh. No. You’re also grounded for two weeks, no going out with friends, no computer or video games except for schoolwork—all to be carried out when it’s safe to do so. Living in a hotel does not count as part of your grounded time. You also are going to start opening up to your therapist about everything that went on with your dad, and you and I are going to start doing joint sessions so we can work through our issues together.”

  “I guess that’s fair,” she said softly.

  “You’re going to have to try with Maddie,” he added. “If she’ll even take me back. I abandoned her right after she’d been doxed and robbed.” And opened herself up to me.

  “I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t know. But that shouldn’t matter. I shouldn’t have lied at all.”

  “Don’t lie to me again, Ava. I need to know I can trust you, or all the therapy in the world won’t help us.”

  “Does Maddie hate me?”

  “Before any of this ever happened, she said there’s nothing you could do or say that would hurt her. And she meant it. It’s what I did that hurt her. She’s angry with you, yes. But she’s a compassionate person and knows this was more about you and me and our messed-up communication. I think she might be willing to forgive you but you’ve got to earn her forgiveness.”

  “I was so scared when Chase said she’d been kidnapped.”

  “I was too, Ladybug.”

  “I like it when you call me that. It reminds me of my mom.”

  He hugged her tight and leaned back against the pillows. For the first time, he was glad the hotel put an insane number of pillows on each bed. He’d been too exhausted to dump them on the floor before crawling into bed, and now they made a decent nest for him and Ava. He closed his eyes, one arm around her. “Your mom loved you very much. She’d be proud of you.”

  “Would she? I mean, I got my dad arrested. Lied about Maddie…”

  “Your dad got himself arrested—he’s the one who committed the crime, and you were protecting yourself. He should have been arrested for what he did to you and your mother years ago. So yeah, she’d be proud. I mean, not about the snooping and lying part, but you’re a good kid, Ava. You’re owning what you did wrong—now I am talking about the snooping and lying part—and that’s an important step. Absolutely everyone makes mistakes. It’s how we respond to those mistakes that shows who we are at our core.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Josh.”

  “We should get some sleep.”

  “Can I—can I stay here for a few more minutes? Marcus won’t hug me now that he’s a guy—not because I care, but because everyone watches us weird. Like they expect our friendship to be different. So I guess it is. My mom used to hold me like this sometimes. I miss it. Being hugged.”

  “Sure, Ladybug. But you’ll probably sleep better in your own bed.”

  “Just a few minutes.”

  He was dozing when, sometime later, her voice cut through the darkness. “Uncle Josh?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Does Desmond have a girlfriend?”

  He jolted, physically, mentally, at the shift in conversation. Oh, to be a teenager…

  “I don’t know.”

  “If he…asked me out, would you let me go?”

  He did not want to be having this conversation in the middle of the night. But apparently, that was when Ava did her best talking. “I don’t know. I mean, it depends on the whole doxing situation, really. People are after him because of his role in the rally. People are after me, and by extension, you, for the same reason. It wouldn’t be safe.”

  “It’s not because he has a police record?”

  Josh let out a bark of a laugh. That was the very least of his worries. “Not in this case.” He’d looked into it, and the charges against Desmond had been bogus. Plus, the young man had more than proven himself. “It’s more about the fact that he’s nineteen and you’re barely seventeen.”

  “It’s legal for us to date in Oregon. I looked it up.”

  He didn’t correct her by saying, legal for you to have consensual sex, which was an entirely different thing, but no point in planting that thought in her mind. It was probably already there.

  “Did Desmond ask you out?”

  “No. But I want him to.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll invite him over for dinner one night. You, me, Chase, Desmond, and Maddie—if she’ll come—and no hitting on him or making him uncomfortable, but it’ll give you two a chance to talk. See if you like each other.”

  “Everyone will be there?”

  “Everyone. I can invite others from the gym too…”

  “No! Then they’ll all hang out together, and no one will notice me.”

  Josh highly doubted a bunch of nineteen- to twenty-one-year-olds would fail to notice Ava, but he kept his mouth shut on that point, not thrilled at the idea of some of the older guys giving her attention. A two-year age difference, he could handle. Four was out of the question. Not until she was eighteen and, legally, he had no say.

  Damn, he had h
is work cut out for him to prep her for making good decisions when she was a legal adult.

  “All right, Ladybug, we’ll keep the dinner small. Now scoot. We both need to sleep.”

  She climbed from his bed. “And you can’t call me Ladybug in front of Desmond.”

  He smiled at that. “But you like being called Ladybug.”

  “Uncle Josh—”

  There was a very normal teenage whine in her tone, and his heart squeezed. God, he loved this girl, and she was going to thrive, dammit.

  Strangely, it was because of Maddie that they were finally on the right track. If this thing hadn’t happened this week, and if Maddie hadn’t insisted he address it with Ava, he’d probably be in Maddie’s bed right now, not available for this middle-of-the-night talk.

  He’d wanted to be in Maddie’s bed, had hoped she’d change her mind, and not because he wanted sex, but because he wanted to comfort her in the wake of her abduction. But she’d refused, and now he’d had the most revealing and rewarding conversation with Ava since he became her de facto father.

  “We’ll negotiate endearments later,” he said with a laugh.

  Her blankets rustled as she settled back into her bed. He was drifting off to sleep when he heard her whisper, “I love you, Uncle Dad.”

  26

  Thank goodness for bathtubs. After an early and exhausting morning being interviewed at the police station, Maddie had earned a long, quiet soak in the big hotel room tub. She’d dumped at least a cup of fancy salts in the bathwater, and now, as she floated in the deep tub, she willed her mind to go blank and forget everything that had come to pass in the last week.

  But even bath salts couldn’t quiet her mind, and slowly, she began to go over what she’d learned during her interview with the detective on her case. She’d easily picked out her abductor in a photo lineup, and he confirmed the man was the Nielsen Tower security guard, as Josh had said.

  She’d watched video taken at the White Patriot rally three weeks ago and spotted Peyton Hoffman without difficulty. She’d spent time studying his brother Karl’s face, in case she came across him in the hotel or any other place she frequented.