Before she could put too much thought into it, she slipped out of her shoes and her slacks, and lying beside him, she cupped herself to him, molding herself to his spine, the curve of his buttocks. She wanted to warm him, to bring peace into him. And later, toward dawn, when he rolled over to face her, it seemed right when he kissed her, gently at first, but then his mouth on hers grew hotter and more demanding. She responded, arching against him, suddenly desperate with desire for him in a way she hadn’t been in a long while. He found her gaze, and his eyes were intent on hers and clear of shadows. He was here now, with her, and not elsewhere, not gone to some nightmare place. She felt the urgency in his touch and welcomed it when he shoved her blouse aside and shucked her underwear from her. He groaned when he entered her as if in relief. It was as if they had made a pact to lose themselves in this wild need to take their fill of each other, but when they were finished, and Roy lifted himself from her, to lie alongside her, her impulse was to push herself away.
She was somehow appalled. It was mere hours since she was furious at Roy for walking out on her and his family. She thought of Tucker, their son, locked in a jail cell across town. Her mouth was dry, and her head was full of disgust—for herself, Roy, the sex.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, as if he were reading her mind. “About earlier, I mean. I acted like an ass.”
She rose on her elbow, surprised by his apology, ready to press the advantage. “We have to be together on this, Roy.”
He averted his glance.
“Roy?” she prompted, but he didn’t turn to her, and his refusal to meet her eye renewed her aggravation. “I can handle the situation myself, you know, with Evan and Lissa’s help. We don’t need your blessing or even your permission.”
He turned to her, and his face was gray, more haggard than she had ever seen it. “You’ve got no goddamn idea the kind of shit Tucker’s in, Em. Trust me. I’m going to do what I have to, what I can to protect this family, okay? To protect you and Lissa. But I need you not to go messing in it.”
She kept his gaze. “What are you saying? That you think Tucker’s guilty?”
He didn’t answer.
“What about Darren Coe?” she demanded. “He attacked your own daughter.”
“If I’d known—”
“Well, now you do. He has a history.”
“It’s a long way from sexual assault to murder.”
Emily didn’t respond; she didn’t know how, where to go with any of it.
“For all we know the police have questioned Darren,” Roy said finally. He closed his eyes. “We should try and get some sleep.”
She lay beside him, but she couldn’t sleep. She thought of how she had found him earlier, in a panic, thrashing, and how, confronted with the heartrending evidence of his anguish, her pity for him softened her anger. The way it always did and with the same result—that she was constantly torn inside between loving him and hating him.
She thought of how he looked at her when he raised the gun to her face. Suppose he had not been unaware of what he was doing? Suppose in that deranged pocket of his mind, where the terror overtook him, he wished her dead? Wished them all dead? Wished even himself dead? The fine hairs on her neck rose. She felt his presence, the heat from his body, like a thousand hot needles pricking her skin. Was he truly sleeping or was he watching her? Waiting for her to move, to get up, to leave him? What brought the night terror on? Something must have triggered it.
She realized she had no idea anymore what he was thinking, and it frightened her. Her heart jumped. She wanted to fling aside the bedcovers, get up, get away, but somehow, she managed to wait until Roy’s breathing slowed and deepened before climbing carefully from their bed. He would sleep soundly now, maybe for hours, after the night they had endured.
She carried her clothes into the bathroom and put them on, donning her old gray cardigan that she found hanging on the door hook. Roy didn’t stir when she tiptoed from the bedroom, taking the cordless phone, carrying her loafers. New morning light gilded the banister, while the stairway itself was lost in a bottomless well of black ink. She scarcely noticed. She could find her way through any part of this house blindfolded if she had to. She walked through the kitchen and let herself out the back door. To be safe, she went farther, down the back porch steps, out to the picnic table. She was thinking of Lissa and the danger she could be in from Revel when she sat down and dialed Joe’s number. It rang once before she thought to check her watch. Barely six.
His voice was sleepy when he answered. He brushed aside her apologies, listened while she explained her concern about Lissa, and this time, when Joe said he would find Revel and speak to her, Emily didn’t argue.
“Before we hang up, there’s something you should know,” he said, and his voice was soft with concern. “The headline in today’s paper...it says Tucker was arrested.”
“It mentions him by name?” she asked, and she knew it was foolish.
“In the article, yes,” Joe said. “I’m so sorry about all this, Em. I would give anything to spare you the heartbreak of it, if I could.”
She said she knew, that she appreciated it, and then she sat for several moments after they severed their connection, holding on to her sense of the comfort and strength speaking to him always brought her.
Somewhere nearby, there was a rustle of birds waking, a sleepy song, three notes, six. A breeze twitched the newly budding branches of the old elm. Shadows in pearled shades of gray opened and closed like a dove’s scalloped wings across the picnic table’s dirty surface. She was buttoning her sweater against the chill when she heard it, the thud of the newspaper, the Houston Chronicle with its damning headline. It struck the front porch step, and she flinched.
Joe had told her what it said. He had worked a case most of the night, and he’d seen the newspaper when he got off. She was scarcely conscious of the movement when she stood and, leaving the phone, walked around the corner of the house toward the street. She had no plan to speak of. She would tell Lissa later she had nothing in mind, really. In fact, she wasn’t thinking at all when she walked into the yards of her neighbors, and onto their porches, to collect the offending newspapers, as many as she could carry, and when her arms were full, she brought them home and dropped them into the trash can.
Looking down at them, she thought how many more there were, delivered all over the city, all over south Texas, and she knew she couldn’t gather them all, any more than she could stop the calamity that was unfolding or keep the media from reporting it. The stories would be based on half truths and conjecture and outright lies. It was the lies that would break her family, Emily thought. The lies were what would be their undoing.
It didn’t occur to her then that it was possible for the truth that exposed the lie to be even more deadly.
17
LISSA PICKED UP the Houston Chronicle from her mother’s kitchen counter and looked at the headline. Boyfriend Held in Strangling Death of Former U.S. Senator’s Daughter, it read. Tucker’s photo, his mug shot, was underneath it, but the sight of him, connected to this headline, was surreal. Surely, she was dreaming.
“It’s a terrible picture, isn’t it?” her mother said.
“Worse than terrible,” Lissa murmured. Tucker was disheveled and staring, scarcely recognizable. “I don’t believe this is happening.” She passed the newspaper to Evan, and then handed him a steaming mug of coffee. Their fingers touched; their eyes clashed. He looked exhausted, Lissa thought, as if he hadn’t slept, either. She didn’t ask. They weren’t really speaking. She found her mother’s glance. “Evan has to leave in a bit to meet Mickey at the courthouse.”
“You’ll post bail and bring Tucker home?” her mother asked Evan.
“If the judge allows it.” He leaned against the counter.
“You’ll ask Mickey about Darren?” Lissa didn’t
want him to forget.
He nodded.
She looked from him to her mom. “I’ll stay here and wait with you and Daddy,” she said, and when her mother’s eyes welled, she repeated what Evan had told her last night, that it would be all right, even though none of them knew if it would be, today or ever again.
Her mother pulled out a chair and sat down. She said something about having taken the neighbors’ newspapers.
“What do you mean, you took them?” Lissa poured coffee for herself.
“It was dumb, but this morning before it was really light, I was—I was outside, and something came over me. I don’t know what. I got all the newspapers I could carry and threw them in the trash can. I’m so sick of the way the media lies about everything. Even that picture of Tucker is a lie.”
“What is that all over your pants?” Lissa came to the table. “It looks like blood.”
“It’s tomato sauce. The last of the homemade. I dropped the jar last night.”
Lissa realized the slacks were the same ones her mother had worn yesterday. She was wearing the old gray cardigan, too. One of the cuffs was unraveling; the elbows were baggy, and she’d buttoned it wrong, and somehow it was that detail, the misaligned buttons, even more than the rest of her mother’s rumpled appearance, and the deep forlorn shadows in her eyes, that alarmed Lissa. Her mother was ordinarily so tidy. She took pride in being neat. “Did you sleep in your clothes, Momma?”
“They write in the newspapers as if they know us....” She trailed off, her fingers worrying the sweater’s crooked neckline. “I shouldn’t have done it, taken the papers. People will be annoyed. I know I am when I don’t find the paper on the porch where I expect to.”
Lissa exchanged a worried glance with Evan. She took her mother’s hand. It was cold. “Have you eaten anything?”
“I couldn’t. I should make breakfast, though, for your father. I heard him come down. He must have gone into his office. He’s in terrible shape, Lissa. He had an awful night. I don’t know when I’ve seen him in such dire straits.”
Evan looked down the front hall. “The door’s closed.” He checked his watch. “I could try and talk to him, but I really need to go.”
Lissa shook her head. She imagined her father sitting in there alone, brooding, furious. “What about some toast and juice?” she asked her mother, going to the counter. “You can manage that, can’t you?”
“I’m going to take off.” Evan brought his cup to the sink.
“You’ll call?” Lissa asked.
“Soon as I know anything.” He kept her gaze, and his eyes were gentle, but he didn’t kiss her, and as she watched him go down the back steps and out to the alley, where they’d parked the truck earlier, tears seared the undersides of her eyelids.
* * *
Lissa couldn’t coax her father into joining them for breakfast. He wasn’t mean, or loud, or rude. He just asked to be left alone.
“What happened after we left last night?” Lissa asked when she came back into the kitchen. “Did you and Daddy argue?” She lowered two slices of wheat bread into the toaster and turned in time to see her mother shiver. “Momma?”
There was no response. She didn’t even raise her gaze, as if it were so heavy it couldn’t be dragged up, but faint color did rise out of her shirt collar to settle on her cheeks.
Lissa didn’t press. She thought she understood. Clearly, her parents had gotten into it, and it was no surprise given how they had spoken to each other last night. She buttered the slices of toast and brought them to the table. She poured two small glasses of orange juice and brought them to the table, as well, and sitting across from her mother, she said, “I’m not hungry, either, but it won’t do Tucker any good if we starve ourselves. So let’s eat this, okay?”
Lissa was glad for the ghost of a smile that drifted over her mother’s mouth. She smiled, too. “We’ll get through this, Momma. We did it before, we can do it again. At least Tucker has a lawyer this time.”
“It’s going to cost a fortune, isn’t it?”
“Yep, but Mickey is the best. What else can we do?”
“Your dad—”
“He’ll have to get over it.” Lissa took her plate to the sink and came back, balancing her hands on the back of her chair. “Momma?” she said. “You know the headaches I’ve been having?” and then she stopped, before she could say it, before she could deliver Dr. White’s diagnosis. It sat in her mind, huge and unthinkable. It must be a mistake. The thought appeared, even though she knew it wasn’t likely.
“You aren’t sick, Lissa, are you?”
She sat down. “No, I’m pregnant.”
“What?”
Lissa might have laughed at the look of pure amazement on her mother’s face.
“How?”
“The usual way, I guess.”
“Well, I know that, honey.” Something that looked as if it might be delight hovered in the corners of her mother’s eyes. “You’ve seen Dr. White? You’re sure?”
“I talked to him this morning. He’s sure, but I’m not.”
Her mother was tentative. She leaned forward, and reaching over Lissa’s shoulder, she lifted Lissa’s braid and set it down, then ran her fingertips around Lissa’s ear, patting her cheek, soothing her, comforting her.
Lissa turned her face into her mother’s palm. “I’m really scared.”
“I’m here, honey. I’m right here.”
Lissa sat back, covering her eyes with her fingertips. “Evan is talking as if we should have it. I didn’t expect that. He’s always said we were enough, you know, just the two of us.”
“He’s changed his mind? Did he say why?”
“It’s the reality of it. Before, we were talking theoretically. But this is real, a real baby. Only it doesn’t feel real to me. It feels like headaches and me getting light-headed and passing out. It feels like the worst timing in the world.”
“You’re fainting? You didn’t tell me—”
“I’m thirty-eight, Mom. Evan’s forty-two. There’s a better than average risk of us having a baby with problems. As if we don’t have enough already.”
“If you mean Tucker, you can’t let his issues interfere—”
“What if I have a child like him? I love him, but when I think of all he’s put you and Daddy through, I don’t think I could handle it.” Lissa hadn’t meant to say it and, seeing the flare of regret, of remorse, in her mother’s eyes, wished she could call it back. “I’m sorry, Momma. I only mean—”
“No, I know what you mean,” her mother said, “but a child is such a miracle, a unique blend of so many different things. No two are alike, not even in the same family. Look at you and Tucker, you couldn’t be more different in temperament.”
Lissa held her mother’s gaze, looking intently at her, and even though she knew it was a terrible question, an unfair question, she asked it, anyway. “If you knew then, before you got pregnant with him, what you know now, would you do it again?”
Her mother shifted her glance, something like annoyance or impatience, crossing her expression. “If I could change anything,” she said after a moment, “it would be the day I left Tucker here alone with your father when he had that terrible breakdown. I would spare them both that, if it were possible, and who knows then the difference it might have made? Where we might be now, instead of this awful place where we are?”
“You couldn’t have known that would happen, Momma.”
Patting Lissa’s arm, she said, “You can’t know the future, honey. None of us can. All we can ask for is the courage to deal with the situation when the people and circumstances in our lives aren’t the way we thought they were or what we planned.”
“But having a baby—it seems like you’re playing Russian roulette. There’s no changing that outcome, either, on
ce the bullet’s in the chamber, once it’s fired.”
“Oh, Lissa, I think that’s a little extreme—”
“What if I don’t have what it takes, Momma? The courage, the mothering, nurturing gene, whatever it is?”
“You do. Of course you do. You’ll make mistakes. Every mother does. They’re inevitable.”
“I know everything in life is a risk, including birth, and it isn’t that I don’t love children. I do. It’s just—” Lissa broke off. Her apprehension seemed made up of so many different elements.
“Are you considering an abortion?”
Lissa looked at her mother. “Would you hate me? I’m not so sure Evan wouldn’t.”
“No, of course not. You have to do what’s right for you, but don’t base a decision solely on the difficulty your dad and I encountered raising Tucker. You and Evan aren’t the same.”
The doorbell rang. Their eyes locked. Mutual alarm jolted the air between them.
“I’ll go,” Lissa said.
“What if it’s a reporter? Or one of the neighbors? Suppose someone saw me taking their newspaper?” Her mother clutched the front edges of her sweater.
“I’ll tell them they’re welcome to look in the trash can,” Lissa said.
But it wasn’t a reporter or a neighbor. It was Detective Sergeant Garza and her partner.
Lissa’s heart paused. “Detectives? Or should I call you both Sergeant?”
“Either or both is fine, Mrs. DiCapua.”
Lissa’s glance darted over Garza’s shoulder to another man in uniform, and then her gaze traveled farther, to the street, where a Lincoln County sheriff’s patrol car was parked at the curb.
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