The Burden of Desire

by Natalie Charles

  The teenager met Ben’s gaze and then looked toward the door, almost as if he was considering running. But he stayed in place. “I had to talk to you, Attorney Dawson. You’ve been...nice to me.”

  “That’s easy.” He looked so broken that Sally wanted to lean forward and take his hand. “I like you, James.”

  “She’s like that,” Ben added. “She’s the kind of person you can trust. A good person.”

  Sally spun toward him. Was he mocking her? But no, she saw by the look on his face that he was completely serious, possibly even sincere. Her heart rose higher in her chest and she murmured a barely audible “Thank you.” She wasn’t quite sure how to take the compliment.

  “Yeah,” James agreed. “I mean, and you have to keep secrets, right? Like, if I tell you something, you can’t say anything?”

  Oh, no—what was he hiding? She winced. “Not exactly. It’s a little different because I’m a prosecutor. I’m an attorney, but I’m not your attorney.”

  His face scrunched as if he was in pain, and then he brought his elbows to the table and rested his head in his hands, his long fingers threading through his hair. Something like an agonized groan came from his throat.

  Ben and Sally exchanged a quick glance.

  “Hey, buddy.” Ben’s voice was low. “You need to talk. You can trust us.”

  Sally started to correct him, but stopped when Ben held up his hand as if to say Trust me. She sat back. If he thought he could get the kid to talk...

  James eyed Ben suspiciously from below his tangled hair. “What if it’s about a crime? Do you have to, like, report it?”

  Sally stiffened. “Are you going to confess to something? Maybe you should get a lawyer—”

  “No.” James sat a little straighter in his chair and released his hold on his hair. Some of the hair remained standing. “No. I don’t want a lawyer, and I need to tell you this.” He took a deep breath as if bracing himself. “I know you questioned my mom about her disappearance.”

  “How do you know that?” Sally asked.

  “Because she told me. She wanted to know if you’d questioned me, too. I told her no, and she said that I shouldn’t talk to you. That talking to you would piss off my dad.” He brought his hands to his lap and slid them inside the sleeves of his sweatshirt.

  “So why are you here, James?” Ben had fixed his gaze on the teen, and now Sally saw a hint of suspicion in his eyes where warmth had been only moments before. “Do your parents know—”

  “My dad killed someone.” James looked Ben straight in the eye. “He killed someone, and he’s going to get away with it.”

  The statement thrust Sally back against her chair. She’d suspected as much, but she didn’t have anything to go on, and the evidence they had was lousy. Ronnie Kruger’s DNA was on a carpet, but Ronnie was very much alive. Without a body, they couldn’t even begin to think about opening another murder case against Mitch Kruger. “Why—what makes you so sure your dad killed someone?”

  “Because I saw the body.” His voice was calm, a contrast to his anxious mood when he’d first sat at the table.

  “Wait.” Now Ben was out of his chair, and pushing back his jacket to rest his hands on his waist. He looked seriously intimidating, pacing like a panther in a cage. “You saw a body? This wasn’t part of the report.”

  “I know,” James admitted. “I’ve never told anyone this before.”

  Sally wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. He’d seen the body? Why in the world hadn’t he mentioned this minor detail? “James.” She covered her face with her hands and tried to gather her thoughts. “What, exactly, did you see?”

  “I saw my mother.”

  “But it wasn’t your mother.” Ben had stopped his pacing and was standing near James, his legs wide, his hands on his waist again. He looked as if he was deciding whether he should pick James up and hurl him out of the office, chair and all. “Your mother is alive. You’re living with her.”

  “I know. I know my mother’s alive, but I could’ve sworn I saw her on that carpet.” He rubbed his forehead with one sleeve-covered hand. “I can’t explain it. I saw a woman’s body. She was definitely dead.” He shook his head, the pain of the confession erupting across his face. “It was horrible. I don’t know who she was.”

  Sally placed a hand gently on his arm. “If you think your father killed someone...you need to speak with the police about this. Maybe you can help us figure out what really happened that night.”

  He shook his head, glowering at the table. “I don’t know anything. I told you, I thought it was my mom. That’s not why I’m here, anyway.”

  “Then why are you here?” Ben sat on the edge of the table, crowding the teen’s space. An old intimidation tactic.

  But James ignored Ben now and looked straight at Sally. “I’m here because I’m telling you I know for a fact that my dad killed someone.” He paused. “And if you keep pushing this case, he’s going to kill you, too.”

  Chapter 5

  Sally stood so quickly her chair fell over. She didn’t seem to notice as she scrambled backward, away from the youth. “No. No. That’s not true.”

  James blinked at her as if he didn’t understand. “I just told you. My dad killed someone. A woman.” He shook his head. “You don’t know him the way I do. He’ll do anything to stay out of prison.”

  She stood by a bookcase, as if she didn’t know where she was anymore, and Ben felt something protective surging through him. He fought the desire to carry her out of this room and bring her somewhere safe, settling instead for placing himself in between her body and James. “I think you need to tell us the truth about what you saw that night, kid.”

  He rubbed his forehead again. “Yeah, I know. I will. I just... I didn’t lie. You—the police—everyone knew my dad killed her. Thought he did.”

  “Maybe you didn’t lie, but you hid the truth of what you saw from us.” Sally’s voice was tighter now, and her arms were folded across her chest defensively. “You told me that you had been at a party that night and that you’d snuck into the house and gone to bed. Then you said that the next morning, your mom was gone and your dad was acting suspicious. You said he’d removed the area rug in the living room the previous night without explanation, and that the house smelled like bleach.”

  “Yeah, all of that is true. It’s just...I left out a part where I came home from the party. I came in and I saw her. She was lying facedown on the rug. Blood everywhere.” He chewed on the edge of his sweatshirt sleeve, pulling on a thread with his teeth. “I thought it was Mom. Now I don’t know who it was.”

  Ben mumbled a curse. Was this kid for real? He’d neglected to inform the prosecution that he’d seen a woman’s dead body in his living room. He’d “just left out” that part? Ben bent over and placed his hands squarely on the table, bringing his face within inches of James’s. Time to get up close and personal with this punk, and he wanted to be close enough to watch him sweat. “How the hell do you neglect to tell the cops that you actually saw what you believed was your mother’s body in your living room? What the hell kinds of drugs would you have to be on for it to sound like a good idea to keep that little secret to yourself, huh?”

  The kid flinched and looked away. Ben’s stomach sagged. “Wait a sec. Were you on drugs?”

  Sally slumped into a chair. “James. Oh, God.” She balled her fist and kneaded at her forehead with her knuckles. “All right, let’s hear it. What kinds of drugs were you doing that night?”

  He shifted in his seat. “Just a little weed. And I had a couple shots of tequila.” His eyes widened. “That’s it, I swear. And it’s not like I was hallucinating. I mean, I know what I saw.”

  There was a long pause, and Ben heard Sally inhale deeply. “So you didn’t tell us that you saw the body because you were high and dru
nk at the time, and you thought...what? That we’d press criminal charges against you for marijuana use or underage drinking?”

  “I didn’t want to get my friends’ parents in trouble. I was at their house.”

  Ben snorted. “How considerate. You realize that you’ve been helping your father get away with murder, right? I can’t speak for Sally, but I’m pretty sure a stoned teenager would have been the least of her concerns.” He raked his hand through his hair. Sure, he’d been a teenager once, too, but that didn’t mean he’d ever understand the weird reasoning that went into some of their decisions.

  “You must have been terrified.” Sally said it quietly but intently, staring at James with eyes that had softened. “You thought your father had killed your mother, and you thought you saw her body, but if you told us the truth, you knew it would come out that you’d been engaging in illegal activities that night. You thought you’d end up in jail, too.”

  James swallowed and nodded slowly. “Yeah. I figured you would catch my dad anyway, and if he knew what I saw, I didn’t know what he would do to me.”

  Ben groaned loudly. “Forgive me if I don’t exactly care about all of that.”

  Her eyes grew huge. “Ben—”

  “Sorry, Sally, but this sympathy of yours is crap. Complete crap. This kid has been concealing information in a murder case. Now we’re investigating how it is that a woman we thought was dead could turn up alive right before trial. How much do you want to bet that Junior’s testimony—honest testimony—could have saved this office from this embarrassment?” He spun to face the kid again. “I don’t care how much weed you smoke. For future reference, if you see a dead body in your living room, you tell the cops about it. Got it?”

  James blinked a few times and glanced away. “Got it.”

  Sally shot Ben a look that warned him off, before saying, “What happened after you saw the body? What did you do?”

  He swiped under his nose with his sleeve. “I ran. I thought I’d go get my dad, and maybe he could call the cops.” James spread his hands wide on the table. “I thought it was a burglary or something. Dad was at work. Supposed to be.”

  Ben remembered reading that detail. Mitch Kruger had been scheduled to work late at the hardware store, but had called in sick at the last minute. “You could’ve gone to a neighbor,” he noted. The homes in the Krugers’ neighborhood were far apart, but the hardware store was farther.

  “I panicked.” The youth hung his head slightly. “I wasn’t thinking. I just thought that I needed to find my dad.”

  “So what did you do?” Sally asked.

  “I took my bike to the hardware store, but Dad wasn’t there. I didn’t want to go home.” There he went again, rubbing his forehead. “I called his cell phone and he wouldn’t answer. Then he finally picked up. He was talking like there was nothing wrong, and he told me to get home right away.” James’s eyes were haunted as his gaze jumped from Ben to Sally. “He was home. He told me he’d called in sick. I mean, don’t you see? He was home the entire time. That’s when I knew. I knew he’d killed her.”

  Ben pulled out the chair across the table from James and sat down. “How long would you say it was from the time you first came home to the time you heard from your dad?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe two hours. It took me a while to get to the hardware store, and then, like I said, I was walking around. I didn’t know what to do. I thought it was the drugs. Paranoia, you know? I just kept thinking that I had to wait. I had to wait, and then my head would clear up and I’d know what to do.” He balled his hands until the knuckles turned white. “But after that phone call, once I knew what had happened...” He made a hissing sound through his teeth as he fought to maintain control. “I still didn’t know what to do.”

  Ben couldn’t decide whether to believe him. He appeared distraught, but then again, it was incomprehensible that the kid would have hidden this information in the first place. Were they supposed to believe that he’d seen what he believed to be his mother’s body, and then neglected to mention it? That didn’t sit well with Ben. “And what’s your point in coming here now, James? To scare Sally off this case?” He laughed drily. “In my mind, that makes you a suspect.” After all, James could be trying to hide something by tossing threats around. If he was lying about seeing the body, what else could he be trying to conceal?

  “I didn’t do anything.” James’s voice was surprisingly calm. “I mean, yeah, I did some weed, but I’ve been straight since then. You can ask anyone. I didn’t hurt anybody.” He swept his sleeve under his nose again and looked at Sally. “My dad’s bad news, that’s all. I don’t know who he hurt or why, but he killed someone, and he’s gonna get away with it. If he sees you coming around, asking questions...” His voice trailed off. “I don’t want you to go missing, too.”

  Sally’s mouth pressed into a line, and she nodded tightly. “All right. Thank you. I appreciate you telling me all of this.”

  She stood to signal that the interview was over. Ben and James rose, and Ben walked the kid outside the office, gesturing to Sally that she should stay in the conference room. She didn’t argue. She wrapped her arms around herself and watched them, her brows tightly knit.

  James looked over his shoulder as Ben followed him out of the state’s attorney’s office. “You don’t need to follow me.”

  “Oh, yes, I do,” he replied evenly. “You just delivered a threat to my partner. I’m making sure you leave here without any trouble.”

  “I was trying to help her,” he retorted. “I was doing a favor.”

  “You let me be the judge of that. Keep walking, kid.”

  Ben followed him to his car, a beat-up blue Honda coupe with a dented passenger’s side door, and stood with his arms folded across his chest while James climbed inside. Ben grabbed the edge of the door with his left hand before James shut it. He leaned in closer, his right hand braced against the roof. “From now on, if you have anything else to say about this case, you say it to me. That means no more threats to Ms. Dawson and no more remembering about other dead bodies you saw in your living room. I don’t care if you suddenly remember where you saw your dad stash the corpse. If you have anything else to say about it, you tell me, not her. Understand?”

  The teen swallowed and stared at the steering wheel. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled.

  Ben stepped back and shut the car door firmly. Then he watched as the kid backed out of the parking space and sped away. When he was sure he was gone, Ben walked back to the office. He couldn’t say for sure if James had been lying again, or for the first time. If he was lying, he was a hell of an actor. The body language was spot on—the way he met their eyes when he told the story, his anxiety about his previous half-truth.

  The fact was, Ben couldn’t be sure whether he could discredit that surprise meeting as an orchestration by a troubled teen. Until he could, he had to take the threat seriously. Taking it seriously meant he had to do whatever he could to protect Sally from the Kruger family.

  * * *

  Sally was standing beside her desk, tapping her pen rhythmically against a stack of papers and staring out the window. A landscaping truck had pulled up beside the park and unloaded several employees with leaf blowers. She could only faintly make out the steady mechanical sounds, but she found the loud drone almost soothing to her nerves. By the time she heard Ben’s voice in the doorway, she had completely lost track of how long she’d been standing there.

  “I’m talking to Jack,” Ben declared with authority. “I want you off this case.”

  She let out a strangled laugh. “You don’t get to decide whether or not I’m on a case. Being partners means if you’re on this file, then so am I.”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Not anymore. If James Kruger is right, his father killed someone, and you could be in danger if you continue to pursue your investigation.”
/>   Sally rolled her eyes and let out a melodramatic groan. “Don’t tell me you actually believed him!”

  Despite her protest, a part of her had turned to ice at James’s words. She knew him well from the investigation. They’d had several long talks about the case and his mother’s disappearance, and he’d confided in her about other family dynamics. By all appearances the Kruger household was normal, but below the surface ran an undercurrent of chaos.

  James’s parents had fought constantly, he confessed. They’d eloped as teenagers when Ronnie became pregnant, and while she’d ultimately returned to school to become a nurse, Mitch Kruger blamed his son for holding him back and tying him to a woman he didn’t love. James had told Sally that he was a mistake, the kid who never should have been born. He’d cried while sitting in the very conference room they’d just left. He was a hurting, confused young man, but he was not malicious. If James told her that she was in danger, he was telling her the truth—at least as far as he understood it.

  But Ben didn’t need to know all that. He didn’t need to develop some hero complex about her, so better to play it cool. Besides, there was no way she was going to be edged off this case now. If James had seen a woman’s body in his living room...well, that changed everything.

  “I’m not going anywhere, and there’s not a damn thing that you and Jack are going to do about it.” She grabbed a notebook and some pens and a few scattered files. “We’re supposed to go to the crime lab, and you don’t even have a car. Ergo, you need me.”

  His brows drew together. “We need to rethink this partnership,” he said softly. “You can’t take any chances. It’s not worth the risk.”

  Warmth crept across her cheeks at the display of concern. For years, Sally had been fighting the impression that she was soft, flighty and undeserving of her position. Ben may have been battle-tested in a war zone, but she had plenty of scars of her own. She’d risen through the ranks based on merit, and she’d earned every single promotion and show of faith from her superiors. The last thing she needed was for Ben to plant a suggestion in someone’s mind that her life was in danger, and to have her removed from this file for good. Sally cared about all her cases, but this one was special. She needed to see it through to completion. She had something to prove.