They had erred so horribly as parents, Emily thought. Perhaps it would have been better to have left Tucker to Roy, to his firmer hand, then Tucker might have grown up tougher and stronger. He might have more confidence now. But how could you know what was right, what was in a child’s best interests? It wasn’t as if making a mess of your children was the same as making a mess of dinner. It wasn’t as if you could order up another baby or two and start over.
“Pop called me.”
Tucker drew Emily’s attention.
“He said you don’t want me living here anymore.”
“No, I never— I didn’t—” Emily felt blindsided, even though she had planned to make Roy initiate the discussion. “It isn’t what I want, Tucker.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s what he wants. I’m supposed to be gone before he gets home. I guess he’s on his way in from the lake now.” Tucker pulled a chair out from the table and dropped into it. “I’d damn sure leave if I had anywhere to go.”
“I’ve made a cherry pie, it’ll be done soon. You’ll have some while it’s still warm. It would spoil anyone else’s dinner, but not yours, not the way you eat.” She laughed, and even she was disgusted at how perky she sounded. Setting aside the towel, she retied the apron she was wearing over her slacks, and going to the sink, she began rinsing the dirty bowls and utensils. Outside, the air was blue with the onset of evening. The empty swing hanging from the thick limb of the old elm tree shifted idly in the breeze. The pair of cardinals that nested every year in the mock orange bush called to each other. Their song was punctuated by the raucous cry of a mockingbird.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to get an apartment without the money for a deposit. Plus a lot of places want the first and last month’s rent, too.”
Emily heard the plaintive sound of Tucker’s voice over the water’s rush and wished she couldn’t.
“Mom? What am I supposed to do? How can I go when I have no money to live on?”
She turned off the water, facing him as she dried her hands. “What do you do with it, Tucker? I just wrote you a check—”
“That was two weeks ago.”
“You’re paid a salary, too, the same as Lissa—” She broke off, seeing his mouth harden, the look in his eyes that was mutinous and hurt. It was a mistake to compare them. She knew that.
“I was fired, remember? Booted out of the business on my ass. Now he’s booting me out of my house right when I’ve got all this shit going on with my car. Getting it fixed pretty much wiped out my savings. And for the record? Pop never has paid me what he pays Lissa and Evan.”
“Oh, Tucker, I don’t think that’s true.” Emily wasn’t sure. She didn’t keep up with the business anymore. “What about everything you said last night, doing whatever you could—”
He talked over her. “Pop says it’s because I live here, I’m freeloading, don’t have a wife, a new house, responsibilities, blah blah. It’s bullshit.”
“I guess I can help you,” Emily said, reluctantly dragging out the words, as if that would somehow cause either of them to look at the mistake she was making and stop it. She found his gaze, and said, “But please, promise me this will be the last time.”
And his face when he turned it up to her was alight and set in the expression of the perpetually drowning man, the man who has once again spotted the means that will save him, buoy him, bear him to shore. Emily dropped her glance, both sickened and relieved at the upward shift in his mood. It won’t last, but for the moment, he was happier. He would be on his best behavior. Roy would arrive, and they would share a nice dinner, after all.
“Will a thousand hold you?” she asked. “I know Lissa and Evan can’t afford to pay you for whatever you’re doing for them over there, so we’ll call what I’m giving you your salary for that work. All right? Just between us.”
He shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”
“My purse is on the counter over there.” She gestured. “If you’ll hand me my checkbook...”
He went to get it.
She said, “I found out something today, about Darren Coe and Miranda, that I need to ask you about.”
“What’s that?” He had his hand in her purse fishing for her wallet, and watching him, Emily forgot her concern over Darren and Miranda; instead, thinking how often Tucker had taken her money, with her permission and without it, and it was almost surreal when she saw fingers, Roy’s fingers, close strongly, menacingly, around Tucker’s wrist. Her gaze rose to Roy’s face, which was reddened and angry. Where had he come from? How was it she hadn’t heard him? Her heart plummeted as quickly as a hailstone fell from a thundering sky.
“What do you think you’re doing, boy?”
“Jesus, Pop.” Tucker tried to jerk free and grimaced when Roy’s grip tightened.
“I said he could, Roy.”
Roy shot her an exasperated look. “We can’t keep giving him money for nothing, Em. It’s not helping him or us.”
“It’s not for nothing. It’s for the work he’s doing at Lissa’s.”
“Come and get your purse.”
“But he should be paid, shouldn’t he? And Lissa and Evan don’t have it to spare—”
“Now!”
“All right, but let Tucker go, will you? Please?” She went behind Roy and snatched the purse.
“Take it upstairs.”
Emily backed into the doorway that separated the kitchen from the front hall, but she couldn’t go any farther. She didn’t dare turn her back. She whispered his name, “Roy?” and she was weak with relief when he let Tucker go with a shove.
They stood, glaring at each other, chests heaving. Their breath in Emily’s ears was rough and hurtful like sandpaper on her flesh.
Tucker rubbed his wrist. “You ever lay a hand on me again, old man, you’ll regret it.”
“You think you can go against me and win?”
“Push me again and see what happens.”
Roy beckoned. “C’mon with it, then, tough guy. You think you’re the man, take a shot.”
Tucker’s hands balled into fists. His eyes flattened.
Emily caught her breath.
“Well?” Roy asked. “What are you waiting for?”
The silence spun out, tinsel thin. Tucker found her glance. “Momma?” he said, and the sound of him, the bewilderment that had so suddenly seized him, caused her heart to lurch even more heavily against her ribs. He was a child again, that long-ago boy, the one she had scooped out of the closet, mute in his terror. That little boy had blinked at her in just this way. He had said, “Momma?” then, too, as if he wasn’t sure.
“What’s the matter, big-time? You scared? Scared of a one-legged old ex-army sarge like me?”
The talk was tough, but there was a tremor in Roy’s voice, a certain tentativeness in his posture, and Emily knew he was remembering that day, too, when he had menaced his son, and instead of acting the part of a loving father, he had become a monster to be feared. She could taste his anguish over this as well as her own, and the flavor was corrosive, like acid, and it burned. She moved to Tucker’s side. “That’s enough,” she said. “Leave it alone now, both of you.”
“Asshole,” Tucker said without heat.
“Hah!” Roy made a dismissive motion with his hands. “You’re nothing but another punk mouth thinking you’re a big hoss. I dealt with your kind in the army all the time.” He took Emily’s purse from her and headed down the front hall. “You’re not getting any money off your mother,” he said over his shoulder. “Not this time. Hear me? You know what’s good for you, you’ll keep out of my sight. You’ll get clear away from here.”
“How do you expect me to do that?” Tucker yelled after him, and he’d recovered his temper, his adult belligerence. “You’d give it to Evan or Lissa, no questions, but not me. Right,
old man? I’m the loser, the fuckup, the one you wish was never born!”
His voice cracked, and Emily laid her hand on his arm, murmuring his name.
He brushed her off. “He thinks more of Evan as his son than he ever has me.”
She wanted to speak, wished desperately to reassure him, but her throat was tight and swollen with her grief, her misgiving.
“I’m out of here,” Tucker said in a low voice. “I’d rather live on the street than live another fucking second with that asshole.”
“No! Tucker, you can’t leave like this.” Emily’s voice broke on the words.
“Watch me,” he said.
And then he was gone, up the stairs, and the ceiling creaked as he moved roughly around his bedroom, slamming drawers, jerking things off shelves from the sound of it.
Moments later, the timer rang, and Emily took the cherry pie from the oven and set it on a folded tea towel to cool. Methodically, she set about mixing the ingredients for the meat loaf she’d planned for dinner since she’d left the makings for chicken Parmesan in the grocery cart she’d abandoned at the store. She was glad, really. Tucker loved meat loaf. He would stay and eat, she told herself. Roy would calm down, and they would talk sensibly. They would work out something. It was a ridiculous dream; she knew it was. Nevertheless, within half an hour, she had popped the meat loaf into the oven, peeled the potatoes that she intended to mash and serve with butter and set a pot of fresh green beans over a burner to simmer. Going to the pantry now, she shifted things around until she spotted the one remaining jar of red sauce she’d made from last fall’s tomato crop.
She had it in her hands when the thud of something hitting the floor overhead in Tucker’s room startled her. Her gaze jerked upward, and that quickly, the jar of sauce slipped from her grasp, shattering on the tile floor. She froze, her anxious stare fixed to the ceiling, waiting for a sign that Roy had reacted badly to the noise, but there was only silence.
Lowering her gaze, she studied the mess on the floor. Her slacks were splattered, too, and she thought how much all the red, puddled and dripping, looked like blood, and the sight of it disturbed her on some level she couldn’t name.
13
WHEN LISSA STOPPED by Sonny’s office after leaving her mother’s, no one was there. The door was locked. It was the same at Lissa’s own office. Everyone, including her and Evan’s assistant, was gone. Retracing her steps to her truck, Lissa’s mind was on Evan, the notion that he was probably at home, wondering where she was, and she didn’t see the woman, not until she spoke.
“Excuse me, are you Tucker Lebay’s sister?” The woman picked her way around the front of a new, red Lexus.
Watching her approach, Lissa wasn’t alarmed, only curious, wondering who she was.
“My name is Revel Wiley. You don’t know me, but your brother and I are friends—or we were once.”
Now a small pulse of anxiety did dart up Lissa’s spine. “What do you want?” she asked. She couldn’t see the woman’s eyes. They were hidden behind sunglasses that reminded her of Jackie Onassis. Lissa could see herself mirrored in the lenses.
Revel hitched her oversize handbag higher on her shoulder. “I work at La Femme Mystique.”
No surprise there, Lissa thought, given how the woman was dressed—in a fitted, purple jacket over a matching pair of skinny jeans so tight they clung like paint. “Is there a problem?”
“Well, yeah, it’s your brother, he’s—” Revel stopped, seeming to consider. Then she said, “Never mind. I’m really sick of trying to deal with you people. I should take this to the cops. It’s what I should have done in the first place.” She started to walk away.
It was pure reflex when Lissa grabbed her arm. “You’ve obviously got something on your mind that concerns Tucker. What is it?”
Revel looked pointedly at Lissa’s hand; she let go.
“I guess it runs in the family.” Revel took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were as heavily made up as her mouth, and full of malice, a kind of twisted pleasure, as if she were enjoying herself.
“What does?” Lissa asked.
“Grabbing. Hanging on when no one wants you to.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your brother. That’s what he does. He hangs on, always trying to tell people how to live, always playing the role of savior. First he tried that shit on Miranda, then he pulled it on Chantelle. Now they’re both dead.” Revel looked hard at Lissa. “Doesn’t that worry you?”
“Should it?” Lissa didn’t know where she found the breath to ask, the will to stand her ground. She had a sensation similar to the one she’d felt at the meeting this morning with Sergeant Garza, that Revel wanted something from her, that she suspected Lissa of hiding something.
“I could tell you things about him.” Revel’s eyes were bright, probing.
“Such as...?”
“Oh, no, no, no.” She wagged her index finger in front of Lissa’s face. “I don’t talk for free.”
It was a moment before Lissa registered it, that this was some kind of blackmail attempt, in near-broad daylight, in her office parking lot. “You’re asking me for money?”
“I don’t give it up for free, darlin’”
“No,” Lissa said. “I’m sure you don’t.” Her truck chirped when she hit the button to unlock the driver’s-side door.
“Does the name Darren Coe mean anything to you?”
A smattering of gooseflesh rashed Lissa’s skin. She turned to look at Revel. “Why are you asking?”
“Son of a bitch worked Miranda over pretty good the month before she was killed. He might have done it to others. Does that fit with what you know about him?”
Lissa was momentarily astonished, and she worked not to show it, to keep her voice casual when she asked how Revel knew.
She shook her head. “Only other thing I can say is that’s pretty much how and when all this shit got started—with those two losers.”
“You mean that’s all you can say for free.”
Revel laughed. “You’re smarter than your brother.”
“I think I’ve heard all I want to—”
“So, you’re saying you want me to talk to the cops instead, is that it? Because I want to be clear here, give you a fair chance.”
Lissa set her booted foot on the running board, using it to boost herself into the driver’s seat. “You’re bluffing,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “If you knew anything substantial, you would have already gone to the police.”
Revel stepped in close enough to the truck to keep Lissa from closing the door. “You know, I never did get what Chantelle saw in your brother, or Miranda, either, for that matter. He gave them nothing but shit about the dancing. He was always on them to quit, to find a better life. If it had been me, I would have told him he could park his opinion up his ass.”
Something in Revel’s tone of voice made Lissa look sharply at her, made her say, “You have a thing for him.”
“Hell, no!” Revel was quick to deny it, but everything else about her posture, her expression, said she had feelings for Tucker.
The tension in Lissa’s shoulders eased a bit. She said, “I need to go,” pulling the door toward her, narrowing the gap.
“All right, but you should talk to your mother,” Revel said, backing away.
“My mother?” Lissa flung the door wide again. “Why?”
“When you talk to her, give her my regards, will you? She’s a nice lady.”
“What are you talking about now?”
“She knows. Ask her about Tucker’s cell phone. Tell her she’s got three days to pay up, or I’m handing it over to the cops.”
“You have Tucker’s phone?” Lissa was thoroughly confused. “Where did you get it?”
Revel didn’t answer; she disappeared into her car and drove out of the parking lot without a backward glance.
* * *
Evan turned from the stove to smile at Lissa when she came into the kitchen. His eyes filled with warm affection, his delight at seeing her. He held out a spoonful of his famous chili, offering her a taste, totally caught in the moment, and she opened her mouth dutifully, like a bird, taking in the food, talking around it, nearly breathless, jittery in her impatience to spill the details of her encounter with Revel.
“Revel,” she said when she’d finished filling Evan in, “what kind of name is that?”
“A stage name,” Evan said. “How’s the chili?”
“Fine. Delicious. I’m still trying to figure out how she knew I’d be there when I didn’t even know myself I was going there until I left Mom’s.”
“She took a chance obviously. We should make a salad, hmm?”
“Come on, Evan. How can you be so blasé? She has Tucker’s phone. She said she knows things.”
“Did you see the phone?” His gaze on hers was steady.
“You think she’s lying?” Lissa hadn’t considered that possibility.
“She said she knew your mother, too. Do you believe that?”
Lissa thought about it. “No,” she said after a moment. She realized she couldn’t imagine her mother knowing anyone like Revel. “She threatened to go to the police, though.”
“The Revels of this world don’t usually talk to the cops, trust me. She’s just some hooker out to make a buck, or it could be like you said—she’s got a thing for Tucker. Maybe she’s trying to get to him through you.”
“Get his attention, you mean?”
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