In This Town

by Beth Andrews

  “I apologize for the inconvenience,” Walker lied. “Maybe you were right and we should schedule an interview. Or, if it’d be more convenient for you, we could go down to the station now.”

  Ken looked pointedly at Walker’s clothes. “Son, let me give you a piece of advice, don’t try to bullshit an attorney. We know all the tricks. Now, you can’t intimidate me and we both know you have no right to take me anywhere, so ask your question. My family is waiting for me.”

  Lawyers. Even ones who used to fight on the side of good were sneaky. “I have a witness statement,” Walker said, his tone rigid, “from one of the crew who cleans your office. She states that she saw Dale York leaving your office, your personal office, the evening of July 10. Why was he there?”

  Ken spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “I have no idea.”

  “You have no idea why the man who allegedly killed your sister-in-law was at your office.”

  “Did this witness recognize Dale York?”

  Walker’s eyes narrowed. “She recognized Mr. York from a photo I showed her.” He’d questioned not only the cleaning crew but also several employees of Ken’s law firm trying to discover if anyone had seen Dale and Nora Sullivan together, had ever heard her speak about him or noticed Dale hanging around.

  Instead he’d found another connection between York and a Sullivan.

  “Did the witness see me that night?” Ken asked.

  “No.”

  “Did they see me with Dale York?”

  Wait a minute, who the hell was asking the questions here? And why did Walker feel as if he was on the witness stand? He pulled his shoulders back. “No,” he admitted.

  Ken nodded. “Then there’s nothing more for us to talk about.”

  “Mr. Sullivan, do you have any idea what Dale York was doing at your office that night? Any idea how he got into the building?”

  “Detective, there’s no way Mr. York could’ve gotten into the building unless someone from the cleaning crew let him in. I believe you’ve been misinformed.”

  He was lying. Walker knew it. But until he could prove it, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do except return to his room and do some more digging for the truth. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Sullivan.”

  Walker went around the end zone toward the back parking lot. He needed to check his notes and the cleaning woman’s statement about seeing Dale York at Ken Sullivan’s offices.

  As he hurried down a set of concrete stairs, his mind replayed the conversation he’d just had. As much as he hated to admit it, there was no denying Ken had gotten the better of him.

  Walker would have to make sure it never happened again.

  Only a few cars remained in the back parking lot as most of the parents seemed to have parked closer to the admission box on the other side of the field. A group of boys in street clothes with various stages of helmet-hair were gathered by a set of glass doors. Laughter rang out.

  “Take that back,” a tall kid with brown hair yelled, his hands fisted.

  “Why?” a shorter, rounder boy asked with a sneer. “It’s the truth.”

  The tall kid stepped closer to the chubby kid, his face red with rage, his skinny body vibrating with it. “Take it back now.”

  Slowing down, Walker hoped like hell the conversation wasn’t going to end how he thought it was going to end.

  “No,” the chubby kid said.

  And then the tall kid punched him.

  Walker squeezed the back of his neck. He really didn’t have time for this.

  The rest of the boys encircled the combatants, their voices raised as they yelled—encouragement or abuse or for them to stop—Walker had no clue. Still, he waited, hoping a parent or coach would show up.

  No such luck.

  Shit.

  He stormed up to the boys. “Knock it off,” he growled.

  A few of the kids on the outer edge looked at him wide-eyed, nudged each other and pulled back enough for him to see that the tall kid had the other one pinned to the ground, his knees on the chubby one’s shoulders as he pounded on the poor kid.

  Walker stepped forward, snatched the kid by the scruff of his skinny neck and hauled him to his feet. The kid kept swinging, one of his bony elbows catching Walker below the ribs. He grunted. Gave the kid a shake that he hoped rattled his teeth.

  “Boy,” he said, giving him another shake because, damn, but that elbow had caught him good, “you need to settle down because you are pissing me off.”

  The kid stilled, his chest rising and falling rapidly. A few of the other boys helped the chubby kid to his feet. Blood dripped from the cut on his mouth. The kid’s cheeks were scraped and a bruise was already forming above his eye.

  Walker looked at the group as he took his badge out with his free hand. Showed it to the kids, who all stepped back in unison. The power of the badge. “Beat it,” he told them. “Now.”

  They took off, feet slapping against the concrete.

  “Get your hands off my son!”

  Walker shut his eyes. Of course. He shouldn’t have expected any less.

  When he opened them it was to see Tori racing toward him, her hair flying, her eyes blazing. A mama grizzly in full overprotective mode. One of the boys who’d been part of the huddle hurried after her—must’ve run to get her while Walker was breaking up the fight.

  He glanced down at the kid, saw Tori’s eyes glaring at him. “You’re Tori Mott’s son?”

  The kid’s face was flushed and sweaty, his hands scraped. But in his eyes was pure defiance. Pure Tori. “Yeah.”

  And wasn’t that freaking perfect?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TORI HURRIED down the steps, her entire focus on her son. And the man holding him by the back of the neck.

  The son of a bitch.

  She’d been waiting with the other parents—deliberately not thinking about Walker Bertrand—when Ryan raced up and told her that Brandon was in trouble. Close enough now to see her son’s dirty face, the scratches on his skin, she stumbled. Her fingers curled into claws.

  “What did you do?” she yelled at Walker, their rapt audience the only thing stopping her from ripping his throat out. She took Brandon’s arm and yanked him away from Walker, examined his face. “What happened? Are you okay? What did he do?”

  Brandon pulled away from her, his expression mulish. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. You’re hurt.” She whirled on Walker, tried to figure out why he looked so damn put out when surely he was to blame for this. “What’s the matter, Detective? You get tired of going after the adults in my family so you thought you’d abuse my kid?”

  Walker didn’t even have the common courtesy, the decency, to look abashed. “Maybe we could go over there,” he said, indicating the far corner of the parking lot. “Discuss this.”

  “The only discussion we’re going to have is in front of Chief Taylor…or Meade or whoever is in charge at the police station.”

  Walker rolled his head from side to side, looked as if the weight of the world was on his very capable shoulders. “He was fighting.”

  She blinked. Frowned. “What?”

  “He was fighting. I broke it up.”

  That didn’t make sense. Brandon didn’t fight. He was easygoing and fun and nice. Likable. Lovable. He was everything she wasn’t. Everything she wanted him to be.

  But when she cleared the righteous anger from her gaze, looked closer, she saw the truth on her son’s face. The guilt and shame.

  Walker inclined his head to something behind her. She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see whatever Brandon had done. She wanted to protect him. Even from his own mistakes.

  Just because you feel guilty is no reason to give in to him.

  Her sister’s voice floated through her head. Tori wished it would float right back out. It wasn’t guilt that made her want to hide from this, it was fear. That whatever was going on with her little boy was all her fault.

  Slowly she turned. Saw D
alton Nash, his lip bloodied, his round face bruised, his shirt ripped. “Oh, God,” she breathed. “You did that?” she asked Brandon, her voice raw, her stomach cramping.

  Her son, her baby, had inflicted violence on another person. Had hurt his teammate, his friend.

  Tori went numb, couldn’t wrap her mind around what had occurred. She stared at Brandon but it was like looking at a stranger. How could the boy she’d raised, the one who just last year was always smiling and happy, have turned into this child she didn’t even know?

  “Why?”

  She hadn’t realized she’d asked that question out loud, hadn’t meant to say it or to sound so desperate. Desperate to understand. To somehow make this right, make her son be okay again.

  Brandon stared at the ground.

  “What happened?” The woman’s screech had Tori hunching her shoulders. Dalton’s parents rushed forward to crowd around their son.

  “Shit,” Walker said mournfully.

  “Me, too,” she whispered.

  A muscle worked in his jaw but when he stepped past her toward the Nashes, she could’ve sworn she felt the brush of his fingertips against her wrist. In understanding? A show of solidarity? She had no clue; all she knew was that, brief as it was, that light touch was comforting.

  She couldn’t afford to find comfort in him, to take it from him. That she wanted to was enough to have her straightening her shoulders, ready to face whatever hell-storm came her and Brandon’s way. She had to stand on her own, take care of this by herself. She couldn’t trust Walker not to twist this to his advantage, use it against her and her family.

  All the boys seemed to be talking at once, trying to explain what happened. Mrs. Nash alternated between fussing over her son and sending Brandon skin-melting glares. Mr. Nash stood with his hand on Dalton’s shoulder.

  Walker stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle that silenced everyone.

  He stepped into the middle of the crowd, tall and in charge even in jogging clothes. “You,” he said, pointing to the Nash family, “and you—” This time a two-finger point at Tori and Brandon. “Don’t move. The rest of you…” He swept his gaze over the crowd, which now included a few parents and Coach Stillman. “Clear out.”

  Coach stepped forward. “Now wait a minute—”

  Walker held out his badge, cutting off the rest of Coach’s words. “I’ll handle this. Any team discipline you want to enforce, you can do so at a later date.”

  “Uh, all right,” Coach Stillman said, then swept his glance around the crowd. “You heard the man. Let’s give them some privacy to work this out. But, boys,” he said to the fighters, “we will discuss this at tomorrow’s practice.”

  The crowd dispersed, most of them dragging their feet and shooting curious glances over their shoulders.

  “Call the police, Michael,” Jennifer Nash said.

  “Whoa,” Tori said, moving to stand beside Brandon, to show they were a team even if her son didn’t believe it. “Why do you want to involve the police?”

  Jennifer folded her arms across her flat chest, the light-colored mom jeans she wore doing her wide hips no favors. “We’re going to press charges.”

  “Press charges?” Tori asked incredulously. “What for?”

  “What for?” Jennifer threw an arm out, almost hitting her son upside the head with her dramatic gesture. “Look at Dalton! Brandon should be punished for attacking him.”

  “We don’t know what happened,” Tori said, hating that her voice shook, that she was so unsure of her son’s innocence. “Or who started the fight. I think we should just calm down and—”

  “Of course you want us to calm down,” Jennifer said, her pointy nose stuck in the air. “You want your son to get away with this…this…vicious assault.”

  “I want to get to the truth,” Tori insisted.

  Hopefully before she perpetrated a vicious assault herself. All over Jennifer Nash’s gray-streaked head.

  “Michael,” Jennifer snapped. “Call. The. Police.”

  “What’s the point?” he asked distractedly as he turned Dalton’s head this way and that to check his injuries. “You know Tori’s sister is the assistant chief and she’s sleeping with Chief Taylor. Do you really think they’ll do anything about this?”

  Jennifer pulled her own phone from her huge purse. “Then I’ll call the state police.”

  “I’m already here,” Walker said, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything other than getting involved in a skirmish between a couple of preteens and their parents. He showed his badge again, this time letting Michael examine it instead of just flashing it and shoving it back into his pocket. “Now, we can go the legal route,” he continued, sounding way too calm for the situation, “or we can try to resolve this on our own.” Without waiting for their agreement, he faced the boys. “What happened?”

  They both shrugged.

  “Who started the fight?” Walker asked.

  They dropped their gazes.

  “From what I gather, and what little I saw of the beginning of the…disagreement…we’ve got two boys who are evenly matched who had a difference of opinion, one they stupidly thought to handle with their fists. That about right, boys?”

  Again with the shrugs. Really? Did they practice this? Or maybe twelve-year-old boys shared one universal brain.

  “Dalton,” Jennifer said, bending at the waist as if she was talking to a reticent toddler, “did Brandon start the fight?”

  Dalton’s cheeks got even redder, his eyes glistened. He shook his head.

  Tori had no idea if that was a negative answer to his mother’s question or a refusal to answer.

  Tori took a hold of Brandon’s shoulders and forced him to look at her. “Enough of this. Tell the detective what happened, what really happened, right now.”

  “I don’t remember,” he grumbled.

  “Okay,” Walker said, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other what either boy had to say. “I’ll question the rest of your teammates. I’m sure one of them can tell us how, exactly, this went down.”

  “No,” Brandon blurted, his face white.

  Walker towered over her son, looking steady and implacable. “You have something you want to say?”

  Brandon glared at Walker. “I did it,” he ground out. “I started the fight.”

  Tori’s thoughts spun. “What? Brandon…why?”

  “I just did,” he said.

  “See?” Jennifer said. “He admitted it.” She looked to Walker. “You heard him confess. We want to press charges.”

  Walker didn’t even spare her a glance. “You grow up around here?” he asked Michael.

  “I did.”

  “You play a sport? Have a group of buddies you hung out with?”

  His hand still on his son’s shoulder, Michael looked wary when he asked, “Why?”

  “Boys fight. It’s stupid and wrong and it shouldn’t be tolerated, but not everything is a punishable offense by the law. Plus, kids don’t usually hit someone on their team, one of their friends, unless they’re provoked in some way.” Walker turned his attention to Dalton. “That what happened? You guys were razzing each other and it got out of hand?”

  Jennifer looked ready to shove Walker’s opinion down his throat. “No matter if they were…razzing…each other, it’s no excuse for violence.”

  “Agreed,” Walker said mildly, “but sometimes things are said that a man can’t let go.”

  “Did you say something to Brandon?” Michael asked his son.

  Dalton flushed so hard, Tori worried the boy was going to have heatstroke. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled.

  “I’m guessing the coach will come up with some sort of punishment for these two,” Walker said. “I can’t imagine he tolerates fighting.”

  Both boys groaned. “He’ll run us until we’re dead,” Dalton said, looking more worried about that prospect than being taken down to the station. Tori would never u
nderstand boys. Males were much easier to deal with when they turned into men.

  “I hope he makes you sit out a few games,” Michael said. “Both of you.”

  Walker and Michael exchanged a loaded look, one between men who were on the same wavelength. Tori wasn’t sure if she wanted to join them there or let them keep their manly thoughts to themselves.

  The latter. Most definitely the latter.

  “I’d say between the coach’s punishment and whatever you all dole out as parents, these boys will learn a valuable lesson,” Walker said.

  “I can guarantee that Brandon will be punished,” Tori said. She just hoped she could come up with a suitable discipline—one that’d make such an impression Brandon didn’t dare raise a finger to another child. “I’m really sorry about all of this.”

  Michael nodded but Jennifer and Dalton just walked away.

  Tori’s chest was tight. Anger, disappointment and fear mixed together in her stomach like toxins.

  She didn’t even wait for the Nash family to disappear around the corner of the building before turning to her son. “What has gotten into you?” When he just stared at the ground, she snapped, “Look at me.”

  He lifted his head. And she stepped back at the fury in his eyes.

  “What?” he asked in that tone she hated, the one that reminded her, every day, that he was slipping further and further away from her. That he no longer looked up to her, no longer adored her. That he no longer loved her like he used to.

  “What?” she repeated. “You were fighting. What were you thinking?”

  He glared, his lower lip stuck out in a pout better suited for a six-year-old. “I don’t know.”

  He was mad at her? Unbelievable.

  “Fine. You want to act like a tough guy? Go ahead. But you’ll be doing it from your room. You’re grounded.”

  He shrugged. “Big deal.”

  “You want a big deal?” she asked, feeling hapless dealing with her son, to give him a punishment that would teach him a valuable lesson. “You’re off the football team.”

  His eyes rounded. “That’s not fair.”

  “Life often isn’t.”