by Kathy Altman
“I thought for sure once you saw my car, you’d burn rubber on your way out.”
Charity didn’t respond. Slowly she walked the ring of paving stones, touching a leaf here, a bud there, ridiculously saddened by how much the greenery had grown. She finished her circuit, stopping an arm’s length away from Grady.
She clutched at the hem of her jacket. “I haven’t always been in my own way,” she said. “We were in each other’s way.”
“I know.” He straightened. “I said that out of frustration.”
He’d always been straightforward with her. Scratch that. He’d mostly been straightforward with her. She’d missed that.
She pressed her teeth into the inside of her lower lip and resisted the urge to take a step back. Not from him, but from the memory of the crazy, intense teen love they’d shared. “You didn’t want me to join the force, and I didn’t want you to leave town.”
Something chittered in a tree across the lot and Grady turned his head toward the sound. “Is this the part where we take turns assuring each other it all turned out for the best?”
“You’re mad because I won’t discuss Justine with you.”
“I’m pissed because there’s nothing I can do for her.”
This time Charity had to resist taking a step forward. “Yes, there is. You can be there for her. Considering you just traveled several hundred miles at a moment’s notice, I’d say you’re off to a pretty great start.” She dropped down onto the edge of the fountain. “Speaking of which, aren’t you exhausted?”
With a short, sharp exhale, he scrubbed his fingers through his hair and settled beside her. “You know I’m not looking forward to going home.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I do.” She tipped her head back and stared up at the moon through the layers of oak leaves. “So absence hasn’t made the heart grow fonder?” When he remained silent, the vagueness of her words registered. “Of your parents, I mean.”
His chuckle carried an edge. “Are we going to talk about why we’re both here?”
Charity caught her breath. Here in their spot, he meant. In high school, finding time to be alone together had been a challenge. Their schedules had been very different, and after school Grady always had soccer practice or some charity or volunteer event to go to, while Charity was due at her job washing cars at the auction yard. When they did find time to see each other, they had to be sneaky about it, because though Charity’s mother didn’t pay much attention to what her child was up to, Grady’s mother did. They’d taken turns inventing research projects that demanded late nights at the library, and out here in the seclusion of the meditation garden that Grady’s mother herself had spearheaded a committee to create, they could relax, and talk, and joke, and make out, and plan.
Oh, how they’d planned.
A hollow ache spread through Charity’s insides as she scooted around to face him, shifting backward at the same time. She dipped her fingers in the fountain and gasped at the frigid snap of the water. “Seeing you again today...” Her lungs pulsed. “I thought it was time for some closure.”
“And here I was, hoping for a chance to reconnect.”
She curled her damp fingers into her palm, hating herself for the flash of hope that warmed her chest. “I’m sorry I didn’t take your phone calls.”
“I wanted to apologize.”
“I wanted to forget.”
“Fair enough.” He slapped his hands to his knees and pushed upright. “You’re right. I’m beat. I’ll see you in the morning.” He hesitated, then held out his hand.
She didn’t need help getting up, but there was no way she could refuse his gesture without appearing rude. Thank God. Because, heaven help her, she’d been dying to touch him again.
Charity put her hand in his and allowed him to pull her to her feet. The warm solidness of his grip stoked her feminine side, long neglected thanks to her job. They faced each other, listening to the other’s breaths, surrounded by the faint scents of hyacinths and fresh mulch, remembering a similar spring night long ago that had echoed with shouts and accusations. Grady didn’t tug her close, but he didn’t release her hand, either.
“Hey.” Gently he jiggled her fingers. “Whatever happened to that freshman who used to follow you around? The skinny math whiz who won that trip to Las Vegas, then missed his flight?”
She had to swallow before she could answer. “Tater Boggs.” Dear Lord, her palm was sweating like a glass of iced tea on a summer day. Still she couldn’t bring herself to separate from his touch. “I haven’t thought about him in forever. Last I heard he was out in California, making big bucks writing Smartphone apps.”
Grady huffed a laugh that actually sounded genuine. “Every day he bought fries to go with his lunch. Didn’t matter if he’d packed peanut butter and jelly or leftover lasagna. He could fit a dozen fries in his mouth before he started to choke. We’re talking steak fries here, not the fast food, matchstick kind.” Grady shook his head. “Sounds like he could probably buy his own French fry factory now. Good for him.”
The earnest sincerity in his voice reminded her of why she’d fallen for him in the first place.
Oh, hell, no. She could not afford to be thinking like this.
She retrieved her hand. “Get some sleep. You’ve had a long day.”
After a moment he nodded, and motioned for her to precede him. He followed her to the SUV, and waited while she climbed in. When she reached to close the door, he held it open.
“You were looking for closure. Did you get it?”
No was the truthful answer, but if she gave it to him, he might consider it a challenge. She refused to consider why saying yes was not an option.
“Good luck with your parents,” she said, and yanked the door shut.
* * *
Grady turned off the engine and stared across a brightly lit expanse of marble statuary surrounded by topiaries so tortured and twisted they looked like a psychotic’s version of balloon animals. On the far side of this bizarre, evergreen zoo sprawled his parents’ four-level brick home. The house looked down on the Teton River—much like its occupants looked down on the other residents of Becker County—and was lit up like a nineteenth century lighthouse guiding river travelers through the fog.
He gave a soundless snort. No doubt a hundred years ago his family would have guided those river travelers right into the rocks. But only after making sure they had enough local labor to tote the spoils up the riverbank.
The front door swung open, and his mother leaned against the doorframe. Waiting. The light behind her emphasized the sharp edges of her fragile form. Grady sighed and slid the keys free of the ignition. A stranger might consider her pose a sign of fond impatience. Grady knew better. She needed help staying upright.
For one fierce, brief, insane moment, Grady wished he could camp out at Charity’s instead.
The engine scolded him with a muffled tik tik tik, and he scrubbed a hand over his face. Damn, he was bitter. How bitter hadn’t registered until he’d been sucked back into the family dynamic. You’re not the one in control here, Charity had said at the station. And she had it right. He hadn’t felt in control since the moment Valerie had told him she was pregnant.
Even less in control since the first time his son had announced he hated him.
Grady exhaled. He had to shake this resentment. It wouldn’t do anyone any good, least of all his sister.
Sitting out here freezing his ass off wouldn’t help, either.
His mother pushed away from the doorjamb as he approached. She adjusted her heavy, satin-trimmed dressing gown, a far cry from the thin, ratty bathrobe Mrs. Bishop had worn. But her disapproving expression was a perfect match. “Figured you’d gone to a motel.”
“I will if you’d prefer it.”
She considered, then lifted a thin shoulder and stepped aside. “Peyton waited up.”
A slim teen with red-rimmed eyes, pale skin, and dark hair as straight as her mother’s was curly turned
the corner into the hallway, and Grady blinked. He’d seen her three months earlier when Justine had brought the kids out to the Pacific coast for a long weekend. Still it seemed his fifteen-year-old niece had grown two inches.
“Uncle Grady.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed.
Grady watched his mother shut the door behind them and, in an elegant zigzag, drift away toward the living room. He set his bag on the floor and pressed a kiss to the top of Peyton’s head. “How you doing, cupcake?”
“She didn’t do it. You don’t believe she did it, do you?” Peyton looked up at him, chin pressing into his chest.
He shook his head.
Peyton’s eyes went liquid. “Then why’d she confess?”
“I’ll ask her when I see her.”
“When are you going to see her?”
Grady lifted an arm away, retrieved his phone, and glanced at the screen. “In less than five hours.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Let’s get to bed, then.” He gave her a final squeeze and retrieved his bag. He called after her as she headed up the stairs. “Drew up, too?”
“Yeah, he’s around here somewhere. See you in the morning.”
“It is morning,” he said, but she was already gone. He followed his mother down the hall and paused in the living room doorway. “Which bedroom shall I take?”
Roberta turned from the liquor-laden credenza. “The first one you come across with an empty bed.”
Damn. Even wearing her your-sister-is-a-killer attitude, Charity had been more welcoming.
She’d felt something, back there in the library garden. Some of their old magic. Her fingers had trembled. Had she felt his tremble, too?
For God’s sake, let it go. They were far from the kids they used to be.
He chose a small guestroom in the “east wing.” Before he’d left home, his bedroom had been on the other side of the house. After Justine’s divorce, she’d moved herself and her kids into that section, the “west wing,” and Drew had claimed Grady’s old room. Just as well. Too many less-than-friendly memories over there.
He shrugged out of his jacket, dropped it on the designer-clad bed and unzipped his bag. The door opened behind him and he turned, expecting to see Peyton. But it was Drew who stepped into the room. Grady went still, arrested by the pained confusion shadowing the eighteen-year-old’s face.
“Uncle Grady,” Drew choked.
Some vague masculine instinct stopped Grady from pulling his nephew into a hug. Instead he offered his hand.
Though Drew’s grip was firm, his fingers shook, and when he spoke his voice followed suit. “I have to get Mom out.”
“We’ll work on that first thing. We’re meeting with the family lawyer—”
“You don’t understand. She doesn’t need a lawyer. She needs me to tell the truth.”
“What truth?”
Drew swallowed, and squared his shoulders. “I’m the reason she’s in jail.”
* * *
Drew felt better just saying the words but his uncle looked like he wanted to hurl.
Uncle Grady rubbed his hand across his mouth, backed up, and sat down hard on the bed. “What does that mean, exactly? That you’re the reason she’s in jail?”
Drew itched to fold his arms across his chest. But that would make him look defensive, so he buried his hands deep inside the pockets of his jeans instead.
“I was there first. I’m the one who...found her.”
“You found Sarah Huffman. Dead. In the vet’s parking lot.”
Drew nodded, fighting hard against the lava-like surge of emotion that threatened to spill out of his eyes. Judas Priest, he’d never forget his confusion when he’d pulled in and seen that minivan instead of Sarah’s Audi, or the instant he’d seen her lying on the ground and he’d known, he’d known, even before staring at the spooky flat shine of her eyes...
“Then you called your mother.”
Drew choked out a half laugh, half sob. “I’m not proud of that.”
“Hey. Anyone criticizes your reaction, you ask when’s the last time they found a dead body.”
“She wasn’t just a dead body.”
“Christ. I know. I’m sorry. What the hell happened? Why were you out there in the first place?”
“I got a text. Around eight. From Sarah. I was at Ethan’s, shooting pool with the guys. The message said...wait, I’ll show you.” Drew slid his cell from his pocket and pulled up the text. His uncle took the cell and frowned down at the screen.
Need help. Pls come. Just u. 11pm vet clinic.
Drew gestured. “I couldn’t ignore something like that, could I? And yeah, even though it’s like some pathetic frickin’ slasher movie cliché, to meet someone in an empty parking lot in the middle of the night—” He shrugged, as slowly as he could, using the time to swallow the burning mass of regret that clogged his throat. “What was I supposed to do?” he whispered.
He waited for his uncle to growl something like “Take someone with you, dumbass,” but instead he handed back the cell. Which made Drew feel a hell of a lot less like a loser, since he could tell his uncle would rather have kept it.
Uncle Grady stood. He walked to the window and back, his motions slow and jagged, like his grandfather after a nap in his recliner. “Why would Sarah contact you instead of your mother?” He said it like he didn’t expect an answer and Drew hated himself for feeling relieved.
His uncle turned. “What’d you do then?”
“Nothing, until 10:30. Then I told the guys I had to leave. Said I had a date.”
“Wait a minute. You were hanging out at 10:30? On a school night?”
“News flash. I’m not twelve anymore.”
His uncle dipped his chin and held up a hand, conceding the point. “Go on.”
Drew’s palms started to sweat and he was suddenly craving something cold and wet, something made with tooth-eating acid and enough sugar to fuel a busload of first-graders for a week. Hell, maybe all he really needed was a healthy belch or two to drive the panic from his gut.
“Mind if we talk in my room? I need a drink.” He caught a glimpse of his uncle’s face before he turned and opened the door. Talk about panic. Drew wanted to smile but his lips wouldn’t cooperate.
“What kind of drink?”
But Drew was already well on his way to the opposite side of the house. Two minutes later he opened his bedroom door and ushered his uncle inside, grabbed two sodas from the mini fridge and tossed one to his guest. Uncle Grady’s expression was as sheepish as it was relieved.
“Thanks.” He looked around Drew’s own personal “man cave,” at the hand-striped wood floor and the leather furniture culled from the family room, at the sports wall holding the standard swimsuit posters and trophies as well as skateboards and an electronic dartboard and even the grille from a 1954 Corvette—the missing teeth replaced by Drew himself. His uncle tipped his can and pronounced his verdict. “Sweet.”
Verdict. Judas Priest. Drew popped open his can of soda and took a swig. The rush of wet eased his thirst but it didn’t do anything for the misery simmering beneath his skin. His uncle raised an eyebrow and Drew sighed, slumped down onto the side of his bed.
“When I was about seven or eight years old I got up really early one Saturday morning and wandered outside. I was headed down to the water when I noticed something waddling along the riverbank. I kept staring and staring but the sun wasn’t all the way up and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what the thing was. Finally I realized it was a possum, but there was something wrong with it, ‘cause it kind of…rippled. Then it clicked. I was watching a bunch of baby possums, clinging to their mother’s back. She was moving them, or carrying them somewhere, or something.”
Another swig, and he couldn’t help wishing it was something a hell of a lot stronger than soda. Something that could numb his memory of the night before. He leaned forward, and let the soda can dangle between his legs.
&nb
sp; “That’s the way it was when I found Sarah. I pulled into the parking lot and saw this pile of clothes and I thought what the hell? I got out of the car and walked over and stared and stared and finally it clicked. It was a woman. It was Sarah. And she was dead.”
He didn’t remember releasing his grip on the soda can but all at once he had both palms pressed against his eyes. He couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, couldn’t stem the emotion that had punched and kicked and banged against the walls of his chest since the moment he’d discovered Sarah’s body.
“I-I panicked,” he choked. He felt the bed dip beside him, felt the sturdy warmth of his uncle’s arm around his shoulders. “I knew I needed to call 9–1-1 but I was afraid she’d killed herself and it was my fault and I couldn’t stand it. Then I saw sh-she’d been strangled and...I called Mom.”
“Why would you think it was your fault?”
He hesitated. Of course it had to come out. Man up, dude. He wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve and stood. “Thing is, she wanted to call it quits.”
His uncle rose more slowly. “She wanted to...kill herself?”
“No, I mean she wanted to bust up.” He dropped his gaze and caved to the urge to cross his arms. His fingers dug into his biceps. “We have...had...a thing.”
He figured he should probably feel shame. All he felt was loss.
“I wouldn’t have hurt her. Not for anything. I didn’t love her, but I cared about her. A lot. She was smart and sexy and honest and...when I was with her I didn’t feel any pressure, you know? All we wanted was just to enjoy each other.” He could feel his cheeks heating and wished he’d kept his soda so he could press the can to his forehead. “I thought maybe she was going to tell me she was pregnant,” he whispered.
“That’s why you didn’t call the police.” Uncle Grady put a hand on his shoulder. “You know what this means, don’t you?”