“Well, thanks. I hope I live up to your expectations. Your sister’s a nice young lady and lucky to have a brother who cares about her the way you do.” She reached out to shake his hand, a bit closer than the first time. He smelled of sweat mixed with something musky, a far cry from the horrible odor emanating from Sellers when he was on the witness stand.
He held her hand a moment longer than normal, but she didn’t pull away. She was gratified he didn’t use a bone-crushing grip on her like a lot of men did. His hand wasn’t very soft, but his grip was reassuring and warm. “Nice meeting you, Ma’am.”
“You too, Lieutenant. Take care now.” Something rang a bell inside her. What was wrong with her? She walked back into her office. The outside door opened and closed. She shut her door, wanting a few minutes to herself before Meredith burst in full of questions.
She pulled up Ginny’s information in her contacts and put Martin’s numbers in the notes section. She started to throw his card into the trash, but thought better of it, and put it into her billfold. Moments later Meredith cracked her door.
“What’d he want, Ma’am?” Meredith was poised at Dena’s open door with her hand balled up as if to knock.
“He’s just worried about his sister. I told him she got away okay.” Dena loosened the string tie around her neck and reached for a bottle of water from the small refrigerator behind her desk. “He says Alan Sellers is crazy.”
“Hey, Mrs. A, do you think Sellers would really rip her guts out with his fillet knife like he said?” Meredith hunched her shoulders, her mouth twisted around like she was in pain.
“I don’t know,” Dena said, laying her glasses aside and raking her hands through her thick hair. She shook out two ibuprofen from a bottle that lived on a corner of her desk and swallowed them with water. “She thinks he would. Remember how scared she was?”
“Yeah. She jumped every time the door opened.”
“Poor kid,” Dena said as she closed her eyes, hoping Meredith would see that she needed a few moments to herself.
“I felt sorry for her,” Meredith said.
“Me, too.” She leaned back in her chair and clasped her hands in her lap, but didn’t hear Meredith budge. Meredith knew Dena, on occasion, would take a catnap.
“Hey, Mrs. Armstrong, what’d you think of that brother of hers? Whoa, isn’t he a hunk?”
Dena opened her eyes. “I tried not to notice, but there was something about him.”
“Well, he got me all hot and bothered. Did you see his limp?”
“I’ll bet there’s a story there.”
“Me, too, Mrs. Armstrong, Ma’am.” Meredith cackled as she closed the door on her way out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MARTIN
Later that afternoon, Martin Richardson stopped working on an offense report in mid-sentence when Ginny showed up, skirting between desks to get to him. He was helping out in the main squad room because Charlie Gardenia had gone home sick with food poisoning. As if that wasn’t bad enough, “Tex” Plummer had been in a wreck on the seawall, which turned out to be a nine-car rear-ender pile-up, blocking traffic for half a mile to the east, which wasn’t so hard to do in Galveston in the summertime. He turned to the petty thief sitting beside the desk and said in a gruff voice, “Stay right here. I’ll finish with you in a minute.”
The little man said, “I ain’t going nowheres, Lieutenant. I done told you that. You just tell me what you want me to do. You want me to sit here and wait for you? I’ll sit here all day if that’s what you want me to do. You don’t have to tell me twiced.”
“All right,” Martin said, stepping into the aisle. He reached for his baby sister, giving her a bear hug. “It went okay, huh?” He glowered at the prisoner and led Ginny into his private office.
“Everything was perfect, except now Alan’s saying someone broke in and smashed my stuff.” Ginny tossed her head, her hair flying.
“You’re just lucky to get away from him.” He perched on the corner of his desk. “If you’d have listened to me in the first place ...”
“Don’t start.” She stamped her foot. “If one more person tells me I should never have moved in with him in the first place…” She sat on the edge of a chair and crossed her arms.
“All right,” he said. “Where’s Mary?”
“Waiting for me down in the car. I just wanted to run up and tell you, so you wouldn’t worry.”
“I already talked to your lawyer.”
“You didn’t. She’s going to think I’m a big baby. First Mary comes with me to court, and then you call her.”
“I didn’t hear from you, and I wanted to know what happened.” Martin didn’t correct her. He didn’t want to hear what she would say if he told her he’d actually gone to Mrs. Armstrong’s office. “She seems pretty nice.”
Her eyes lit up. “She’s the best. You should have seen her rip him up on the witness stand. There was nothing he could say that would have done him any good. She was great.”
“I’ll have to watch her in court sometime. Mitchell Trailor’s wife had her for her lawyer, and she ripped him a new one, too. That’s why I sent you to her.”
“You didn’t tell me that.” She giggled and tossed her long hair over her shoulder. “Remind me not to mention her to Mitchell the next time I see him.”
He stood, hoping she’d understand it was time to leave. He had a lot of work to do. “Well, now you know. Hey, it’s great to see you laughing again, Gin.”
She studied the tops of her shoes. “I wasn’t laughing in court. He still scares me to death. I could hardly look at him.”
He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face. “Don’t worry, Sis. Mary and I will take care of you.” His eyes bored into hers. “He’s never going to hurt you again.”
Ginny clasped her brother’s hand to her cheek. “Thank you,” she said in a soft voice. “Thank you for everything.” She squeezed his hand and jumped up, her old bouncy self. “You’re the best. Well, I’ve got to go. Mary’s double-parked outside, and I don’t want her to get a ticket.” She grinned and headed for the door.
He touched her arm. “By the way, where have y’all been? Court’s been over for quite a while.”
“Lunch and then we poked around the shops on The Strand.”
“Women.” He wanted to fuss at her for not calling but thought it better to save it for another time. “See you later, kid.”
She walked back through the crowded office, dodging some other police officers and the desks. She was so young. If only he’d been able to talk her out of seeing that bum. The only thing he could do now was make sure she was safe until it was all over. He’d never let her make the same mistake again.
Glancing at the little guy he’d been talking to in the squad room, Martin remembered the report he’d been filling out when his sister had arrived. He went back to the computer. “Okay, let’s finish this and get you booked in.”
CHAPTER NINE
ALAN SELLERS
Sellers browsed in the front windows of an antique store on Postoffice Street that stood catty-corner from Dena Armstrong’s office building. He wanted to see if Ginny would come out. After having found the address of the lawyer on the bottom of his papers, he had decided the best place to find Ginny after the hearing, and away from Mary, would be at her lawyer’s place. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to try to reason with her. He wanted to find out why she had said they were married.
He’d stood outside every shop and café on each side of the street down from the lawyer’s office. He’d sweated all day. He could smell himself. The pavement had heated up the bottoms of his shoes. He ate a bowl of gumbo at a place next to what used to be a sandwich shop. At least it had been cool in there. When he figured he had worn out his welcome, he went into an art gallery with big picture windows so he could see out. After a while, the man inside had crowded him so much Sellers left and went into the shop next to it. Afte
r waiting for hours, Ginny hadn’t come out.
She might not have gone back to her lawyer’s, but he didn’t want to think about that possibility, because if true, what would he do? He couldn’t call her at Mary’s. Mary wouldn’t let her talk to him. Mary had never liked him. He didn’t like her either. Or Martin. He had never liked any cops, especially big ones, and Martin ranked with the tallest, if not the biggest.
If he couldn’t talk to Ginny, he at least wanted to follow her. That lawyer and the judge had made him so mad that after court he not only hoped to find out what Ginny was doing and who she was doing it with, but he might even scare her a little.
Where did she plan to live after she left Mary’s? He had gone to Mary’s one night late and seen Ginny’s car there and figured she lived there for the present, but it wouldn’t be forever. He figured she still lived with Mary since she came to court with her, but he wanted to see for himself. What if she had already found another place to live?
Thoughts swirled around in Sellers’ mind like little whirlpools. He wanted to punish Ginny for what happened in court. He couldn’t believe the judge and the lawyer thought they could tell him what to do, thought they could talk to him like they had and get away with it. Did they think he wouldn’t get them back for that?
A part of him wished his father hadn’t died. They wouldn’t have dared treat him so badly if his father had come to court with him. His father would’ve called some of his union buddies and someone would’ve called the judge and none of that protective order stuff would’ve ever gotten off the ground.
Too bad his father wasn’t alive.
His father would’ve worked a deal with that lawyer. His father wouldn’t have let anyone push him around. But his father was deader than dirt, and he really didn’t like thinking about what caused him to be that way.
Sellers pretended to be looking at some junky furniture in the antique store window but stared across the street, though he didn’t have much hope Ginny would still show up.
Judges were supposed to be fair. At least, judges were supposed to act like things were fair. He wondered how that judge could’ve dared let that lawyer talk to him like he wasn’t worth scraping off the bottom of her shoe. The judge and the lawyer didn’t act like they cared what he had to say. What about his side? He’d worked out a whole story to tell, and they didn’t let him, and that really pissed him off. Slamming his fist into his palm, he tasted bile, as his insides spun around with anger. Could that judge have gotten some money from Martin to fix Ginny’s case? It’d be just his luck to get a judge like that.
Sellers had been planning on telling the judge that Ginny stole his money out of the bank. Ginny had no right to it or the DVD player or the TV she took, and the judge ought to make her give it all back. To top it off, now the judge ordered him to pay alimony. When did they get alimony in Texas? The judge must have decided they were married, like the papers said.
Just what did Ginny say on the witness stand? She couldn’t have been there more than a few minutes. He wasn’t that late. Now he moved across the street to the next antique store. This one had its whole storefront across from the lawyer’s office. He’d be able to see real good.
The more he thought about it, the more pissed he got. He wouldn’t have to pay alimony if something happened to Ginny. Pleased at the thought, he began to play with that idea. He picked up a mallard bookend from an old desk and pretended to look at it as he watched the door across the street. Once a person did something serious, it didn’t take too much to do it again.
“May I help you, Sir?”
Sellers looked into eyes the color of bluebonnets and then focused on the person talking to him. She had a halo of dark hair and large, even teeth, but could have been as old as his mother. “Nah, just looking,” he answered, setting the bookend back on the spindly desk.
“No problem,” she said. “Please let me know if I can show you anything.” She moved away, toward the back of the store.
The shop people probably thought he was going to steal something. He shoved his hands in his back pockets and moved slowly between the furniture and display racks in front of the windows that went all the way across. After a few minutes of listening to the sappy music they were playing and breathing in some sweet candle smell, his anger faded, replaced by a grim determination to get revenge. If he did it right, he could get away with almost anything, including putting that lawyer in her place, six feet under.
Mama. Sellers’ vision blurred, and he saw himself as a little guy, just out of diapers, standing on tiptoes and staring out a window in search of his mother, a mother who never answered his cries.
What made him remember that?
Clearing his throat and focusing on the building across the way, he pretended to brush his hair off his forehead as he wiped at his eyes and glanced around to be sure no one watched. It might take him all afternoon, but if Ginny never came out, he would just have to find out where that lawyer lived. He smiled a smile that did not spread to his eyes.
After six that evening, he sat in his car on Twenty-second Street, still watching the building. The lawyer finally rewarded him by pushing through the door in the company of a fat white man in a white suit. Scooting down in the seat, Sellers watched over the edge of the car door as they rounded the corner, crossed the street, and walked out of his sight. He started his father’s Cadillac and eased down to the corner of Twenty-second and Market, turned right, and found an open spot across the street from a parking garage. He spotted her in a little black Ford sedan when she came out. She headed south in the direction of the seawall.
He stayed back so she wouldn’t see him, but she wasted no time pulling ahead by three car-lengths and speeding toward the beachfront. He stomped on his gas pedal and tried to catch her as she turned west on the seawall. The summer tourist traffic slowed them down on the boulevard as drivers ogled everything from bikini-clad females on roller-blades to surfers catching waves. To be on the safe side, Sellers kept an eye on her and remained a fair distance behind. Even if Ginny-the-Bitch had told Mrs. Armstrong what his car looked like, he had covered himself. She wouldn’t know him in his daddy’s white Cadillac. He had taken it out of storage after his own car’s air conditioner had quit, and he’d put it in for repairs. At least that was one thing Ginny wouldn’t get out of him. His father had left the Caddy to him, and if it hadn’t reminded him so much of that night his father had died, Sellers would’ve been driving it a long time ago. He didn’t think Ginny even knew about it.
He trailed the lawyer all the way down the seawall, past the hotels, past Sixty-first Street where the fast food joints were, past the Wal-Mart Supercenter. After that, he had to work to keep up with her as she cut in and out of traffic. The traffic used to thin out after Sixty-first, but in the past decade or so even more condos and hotels and restaurants had been built.
He banged on his steering wheel. Damn. Why didn’t she slow down? Lawyers. They could probably get their tickets fixed while people like him had to pay his or hire one of them to fight it. He accelerated so he wouldn’t lose her.
She turned right and drove down the slope of the seawall toward the north. The cars in front of him were driving in slow motion. When the driver in front of him hit his brakes, Sellers came to a halt. His neck grew hot. He slammed his fist on the steering wheel again, blasting the horn. The other cars pulled around both cars. The people in front of him had stopped right where she had turned. One of them held up a map.
He blasted them with his horn again and gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. He pounded the dashboard and stuck his head out. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he yelled. The people pulled up past the turn so he could get by. Gunning his engine, he swerved around the corner, down the slope, and stopped at the stop sign. The Ford had disappeared.
CHAPTER TEN
DENA
Dena and Zack sat perpendicular to each other at a table in an Italian restaurant. A red and white-checked
cloth covered the table. A single red candle burned down next to a breadbasket, the aroma of garlic filling each breath she took. There had been a time when she chose to sit across from Zack so she could gaze into his eyes, but that time was long past. Now she positioned herself so she could watch the children punching in songs at the jukebox. Paul could read just enough to think he knew what each song was about.
Dena kept the hand closest to Zack in her lap and the other hand resting next to her wine glass. Conversation had been sporadic as it usually was lately unless he was chastising her about something, which seemed like everyday. He cleared his throat.
Dena glanced from the jukebox to him and waited. He was probably going to tell her he was going out of town again. She was long past caring. In fact, now she relished the time with him gone. She sipped from her glass of red wine.
“You know how I’m fixing to go out of town? Well, I’m going to El Salvador for a week after I get home from this trip.”
“Let me see if I have this straight,” she said, hiding the relief that danced in her stomach. “You’ve only been home a week, and you’re leaving again tomorrow. So when you get home next week, you’ll be home a week and then go again?”
“Yep. That’s not a problem for you, is it?”
She shrugged and twirled the nearly empty wine glass between her fingers. “Nope.” It used to be a problem. Once upon a time, she’d get a pain in her chest when she heard he’d be leaving. She’d been so in love that she wanted him to be home as much as possible. “The kids will miss you.” She felt his eyes on her but didn’t look at him.
“If it wasn’t for the money, I wouldn’t have to be gone so much.”
Dena ignored the comment about the money and pulled off a piece of bread, biting a big hunk out of it. She felt all mixed up inside. One minute she was sad. The next, angry. Then, suspicious, distrustful. She drew a deep breath, not wanting another argument, trying to keep her feelings inside. It didn’t work. “Are you sure you aren’t going off visiting another woman?”
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