by Nora Roberts
“My actions will hold up, Officer, I promise you. Yours, on the other hand, don’t. You’re suspended for thirty days.”
He came up out of the chair. “Bullshit.”
“The incident will be investigated, as will your actions during it. Meanwhile, you are ordered to report to the departmental psychiatrist for an evaluation within the next seventy-two hours.”
The ugly red spread over his face, as it had in the lecture room. “You’re not running over me this way.”
“You’re free to protest the suspension, but I can tell you you’ll find Captain Mc Vee, who has copies of all statements, in agreement with my decision.”
“He’d agree to flap his wings like a chicken seeing as you’re blowing him.”
She got slowly to her feet. “What did you say to me?”
“You think it’s some secret you’re sitting here because you let Mc Vee bang you? We’ll see who’s fucking suspended when I’m done with you. Bitch.”
“You’re suspended, thirty days, and the tag for insubordination is going in your jacket. You’re going to want to get out of here, Officer, before you make it worse.”
He stepped to her desk, planted his hands on it, leaned forward. “It’s going to get worse, for you. That’s a promise.”
She felt the clutch in her throat. “You’re dismissed. Badge and weapon, Officer.”
His hand moved to his sidearm, his fingers danced over it, and Phoebe saw something in his eyes that told her he was more than just an arrogant son of a bitch.
The quick rap on the door had her fighting not to jolt. Sykes poked his head in. “Sorry to interrupt. I need a minute, Lieutenant, when you’ve got one.”
“I’ve got one. Officer Meeks? I gave you an order.”
He unclipped his weapon, tossed it and his badge onto her desk. When he turned and stalked out, Phoebe allowed herself one shuddering breath.
“You okay, LT?”
“Yes. Yes. What do you need?”
“Nothing. Things looked a little heated in here, that’s all.”
“Okay. Yeah. Thanks.” She wanted to sink down in her chair, made herself stand. “Detective? You’ve been around here a long time.”
“Twelve years.”
“Hear a lot of the gossip, the buzz?”
“Sure.”
“Detective, is it common belief that Captain Mc Vee and I have a sexual relationship?”
He looked so stunned that her stomach instantly smoothed. “Jesus, Lieutenant, no.” Sykes closed the door behind him. “Did that asshole say that?”
“Yeah. Let’s leave it inside here, please. Let’s leave the whole thing inside this office.”
“If that’s what you want.” Sykes nodded down at Arnie’s badge and gun. “I’ll say one more thing I’d like to stay in this office. It doesn’t break my heart to see that. You interested in my opinion, between you and me?”
“I am. Yeah, I’m interested.”
“He’d never have had those in the first place without family connections. Guy’s a loose cannon, boss. You watch your back.”
“I’ll be doing just that. Thank you. Thanks, Bull.”
Sykes twinkled a little at her use of his nickname. He started for the door, stopped with his hand on the knob. “I guess some of us think of you as the captain’s favorite niece. There were grumbles when you came in from the feds and took over here. Some of them were mine. Grumbling stopped pretty quick, from most. You’re a good boss, Lieutenant. That’s what counts around here.”
“Thanks.”
When he went out, she let herself sit. Let herself shake.
5
What didn’t suck, Phoebe decided, was to come home after a viciously bad day and find two dozen stargazer lilies waiting for her. Essie had arranged them into quite a show in Cousin Bess’s big Waterford vase, culling out a trio from the field for Phoebe’s bedroom.
“You can have the whole lot up in your room, of course, but I thought—”
“No, this is fine. This is lovely.” Phoebe leaned over for a sniff of them where they stood elegant and splashy on the piecrust table in the family parlor. “We can all enjoy them here.”
“I didn’t read the note.” Essie handed it over. “And I have to admit, it was a bitter war of conscience and curiosity. Even though I know who sent them.”
“I suppose he did. Well.” Phoebe tapped the little envelope on her palm.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Phoebe, read it!” Ava stood behind Carly, rubbing the girl’s shoulders. “We’re dying here. I considered wrestling your mama to the ground for that note.”
Phoebe supposed when a man sent flowers to a house with four females, he sent them to all. She opened the envelope, and read.
“‘See you Saturday. Duncan.’”
“That’s it?” Disappointment dragged through Ava’s voice. “Not much of a poet, is he?”
“I’d say he’s letting the flowers speak for themselves,” Essie corrected. “That’s poetical enough.”
“Mama, is he your boyfriend?”
“He’s just someone I’m going to have dinner with tomorrow,” Phoebe told Carly.
“’Cause Sherrilynn’s big sister has a boyfriend, and he makes her cry all the time. She lays across the bed in her room and criesall the time, Sherrilynn says.”
“And I bet Sherrilynn’s big sister enjoys every minute of it.” Phoebe reached down to cup Carly’s face. “I’m not much of a crier myself.”
“You cried when you called Roy last time.”
A mother could never hide tears from a child, and a mother who thought she could was delusional. “Not so very much. I’m going to go up and change. I heard a rumor it’s pizza night around here.”
“And DVD and popcorn night!”
“I heard that, too. I want to go take off my work, and put on my play.”
Upstairs, Phoebe sat on the side of the bed. Could a mother ever really protect her child from her mistakes, or the ripples from them that spread all through a life?
Weren’t they in this house now because of a single event from more than twenty years before? Weren’t they all who they were, with their lives tangled together under this roof, because of that steamy summer night when she was twelve? Decisions she made, actions she took, even words she spoke would affect her daughter forever. Just as her mother’s had affected her.
Mama had done her best, Phoebe thought. But trusting a man with herself, with her children, had changed the course of their world.
And she remembered it all, every movement, every moment, as if it were yesterday.
The room was a box of heat, stained with the grease of his sweat. He’d begun to swig whiskey straight from the bottle of Wild Turkey Mama kept up high in the kitchen cupboard, so the stench of whiskey added another smear to the trapped air.
Phoebe hoped he’d drink enough to pass out before he used the .45 clutched in his free hand that he’d taken to waving around like a mean little boy with a pointy stick.
Put your eye out, you’re not careful.
He’d already fired off a few rounds, but just to kill lamps or bric-a-brac and put holes in the walls. He’d held it to Mama’s head, too, screaming and cursing as he’d dragged her across the floor by her long red hair.
But he hadn’t shot Mama, not yet, or made good on his threats to put a bullet in Phoebe’s little brother Carter, or Phoebe herself.
But he could, he could, and he made sure they knew he would ifthey gave him any goddamn lip. So fear lived in the box, too, a terrible, helpless fear that hung in the trapped air like blackflies.
Though all the shades were drawn or the curtains pulled tight over the windows, she knew the police were outside. He talked to them on the phone, Reuben did. She wished she knew what they were saying to him because he mostly calmed down afterward.
If she knew, for sure, what they said to calm him, maybe she could say it, too, in the in-between times he got tired of talking to them and hung up the phone and before he stirred h
imself up hot again and they had to try to cool him off, one more time.
He called the person on the other end of the phone Dave, as if they were friends, and once he’d gone on a long ramble about fishing.
Now, he’d gone back to pacing and drinking and cursing. The terrible in-between time. Phoebe no longer flinched when he swung the barrel of the gun toward the sofa where she and Carter huddled.
She was too tired to flinch.
He’d broken in just after supper, when the sun had still been up. It had been down a long time now. So long, she thought maybe it would be coming up again before long.
Reuben had shot the pretty little clock with the mother-of-pearl face that had been a wedding present to Mama and Daddy, where it sat on the dropleaf table, so Phoebe couldn’t be sure how many hours had passed since its death at five minutes past seven.
Mama loved that clock. Phoebe knew that’s why Reuben had killed it, because Mama set such store by that sweet little clock.
When the phone rang again, he slammed the bottle on the little table and snatched it up.
“Dave, you son of a bitch, I said I want the electric turned backon. Don’t you fucking tell me you’re working on it.”
He waved the gun, and Phoebe heard Carter suck in his breath. She rubbed a hand over the point of his knee to keep him still, to keep him quiet.
As much store as Mama set by the little clock, she set a lot more by Carter. Reuben knew that, too. So hurting Carter was bound to be somewhere on Reuben’s list of things to do.
“Don’t you fucking tell me we’re going to work this out. You’re not in here sweating like a goddamn pig, using goddamn oil lamps. You get the air back on in here, and right quick, and the lights, or I’m going to hurt one of these kids. Essie, get your skinny, worthless ass over here and tell him I mean what I say.Now! ”
Phoebe watched as her mother pushed out of the chair he’d ordered her to sit in. Her face looked haggard in the lamplight, her eyes stunned as a trapped rabbit. When she was close enough to take the phone, he hooked an arm around her throat, pressed the barrel of the gun to her temple.
Beside Phoebe, Carter braced to leap. Phoebe gripped his hand, hard, shook her head, to keep him on the couch. “Don’t.” She barely breathed the word. “He’ll hurt her if you try.”
“Tell him I mean what I say!”
Essie kept her eyes straight ahead. “He means what he says.”
“Tell him what I’m doing now.”
Tears slid down her cheeks, bumping into the dried blood from the cut his fist had ripped there earlier. “He’s holding a gun to my head. My children are sitting together on the sofa. They’re frightened. Please, do what he wants.”
“You should’ve done what I wanted, Essie.” He closed his hand over her breast, squeezed. “You should’ve kept doing what I wanted, then none of this would be happening. I told you you’d be sorry, didn’t I?”
“Yes, Reuben, you told me.”
“You hear that, Dave? It’s her fault. Whatever happens in here, it’s her fault. I was to put a bullet in her useless brain right now, it’s her own damn fault.”
“Mr. Reuben?” Phoebe heard her own voice, calm as a spring morning. It felt like it came from someone else, someone whose heart wasn’t punching like fists into her throat. But Reuben’s hard eyes tracked over and latched onto her.
“I ask you to talk, little bitch?”
“No, sir. I just thought maybe you were getting hungry. Maybe you want me to make you a sandwich. We’ve got some nice ham.”
Phoebe didn’t—couldn’t—allow herself to look at her mother. She felt her mama’s fear rising like a flood, and if she looked at it head-on she might drown in it.
“You figure if you fix me a sandwich, I won’t shoot your whore of a mother in the head?”
“I don’t know. But we got some nice ham, and some potato salad.” She wasn’t going to cry, Phoebe realized. It surprised her there weren’t any tears pushing against that hammering heart. But there was fury in there, bubbling with the nerves in her belly. “I made the potato salad myself. It’s good.”
“Go on then, take that lamp with you. Don’t think I can’t see you in there. You try anything stupid, I’m going to shoot your baby brother in the balls.”
“Yes, sir.” She rose, lifted the little oil lamp. “Mr. Reuben? Can I use the bathroom first, please? I really have to go.”
“Jesus Christ. Cross your legs and hold it.”
“I’ve been holding it, Mr. Reuben. If I could just use the bathroom, real quick, I’d make you a nice plate of food.” She cast her eyes down. “I could leave the door open. Please?”
“You better piss fast. I don’t like how long you take, I’ll start breaking your mama’s fingers.”
“I’ll be fast.” She hurried toward the bathroom right off the living room.
She put the lamp on the back of the toilet, then, yanking down her pants, prayed that nerves and simple embarrassment wouldn’t clamp her bladder shut. She shot a quick glance at the window over the tub. Too small, she knew, for her to wiggle out of. Carter could probably make it. If she could convince Reuben to let Carter use the bathroom, she’d tell Carter to try to get out.
She hopped up, flushing with one hand, reaching up to ease open the medicine cabinet with the other. “Yes, sir!” she called back when Reuben shouted at her to hurry the hell up.
She grabbed the little bottle of her mother’s Valium from the top shelf, stuffed it into her pocket.
When Phoebe came out, Reuben shoved her mother so that Essie went sprawling toward the sofa. “You there, Dave? I’m going to have me a little bite to eat. If the electric isn’t on by the time I finish, I’m going to play eenie meenie miny mo and kill one of these kids. You go make that sandwich, Phoebe. And don’t be stingy with the potato salad.”
It was a shotgun house, and small with it. Phoebe made sure she stayed in his line of sight as she took the ham and the salad out of the refrigerator.
She could hear him talking to Dave, and struggled to keep her hands steady while she got out a plate and a saucer. A million dollars? Now he wanted a million dollars and a Cadillac, along with a free pass over the state line. Stupid as he was mean, Phoebe decided. Using the big blue bowl of potato salad as cover, she dumped pills on the saucer. Using her mother’s pestle, she crushed them as best she could. She dumped a generous scoop of potato salad on the pills, mixed them together.
She slathered mustard on two pieces of bread, slapped some ham and slices of American cheese between them. Maybe if she could get a knife out of the drawer, maybe—
“What’s taking so fucking long?”
Phoebe’s head jerked up. He’d put down the phone—she hadn’t been paying close enough attention—and with the gun jammed under Carter’s chin, was halfway to the kitchen doorway.
“I’m sorry. I just have to get you a fork for the potato salad.” Palming the pill bottle, she turned, yanked open the flatware drawer. She let the bottle drop in as she reached down for a fork. “You want some lemonade, Mr. Reuben? Mama made it fresh just—”
“Get that food out here, girl, and quick.”
She snatched up the plate. It was easy to let the fear show, to let it mask everything else. Seeing the gun under Carter’s jaw overwhelmed even her rage. Her hands shook so the plate bobbed up and down. When he smiled, she understood their fear was part of what he wanted. Giving it to him cost her nothing.
“Put that plate by the phone there, and go sit your skinny ass down on the sofa.”
She did exactly as she was told, but before Phoebe could sit, Reuben lifted his leg to give Carter a solid boot on the ass that sent the boy pitching forward. Essie leaped up, stopping only when Phoebe blocked her way, shot her a fierce look.
Phoebe walked over to pull Carter up herself. “Hush, Carter! Mr. Reuben doesn’t want to hear all that crying while he’s trying to eat.”
“Got some sense.” With a nod, Reuben sat, laid the gun across his lap. He pi
cked up the fork with one hand, the phone with the other. “Don’t know where you came by it with that worthless whore who raised you. Where’s that electric, Dave?” he said into the phone, and took a forkful of potato salad.
While Carter sniffled in their mother’s arms, Phoebe watched Reuben eat. Had she put enough pills in? Enough to make him pass out? The liquor he washed down the food with would help, wouldn’t it?
Maybe it would kill him. She’d read about things like that, pills and liquor. Maybe the son of a bitch would just die.
She leaned down, whispered into Carter’s ear. Her brother shook his head, so she pinched him, hard. “You do just what I say, or I’ll slap you stupid.”
“Shut the hell up over there! Did I tell you to talk?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Reuben. I was just telling him not to cry. He’s gotta pee, too. Can he just go use the bathroom, Mr. Reuben? I’m sorry, Mr. Reuben, but it’ll be an awful mess if he wets his pants. It’ll only take him a minute.”
“Christ’s sake! G’wan, then.”
Phoebe closed her hand over Carter’s, squeezed viciously. “Go on, Carter. Do what you’re told.”
Knuckling his eyes, Carter pushed off the sofa and dragged his heels into the bathroom.
“Mr. Reuben?”
Mama hissed at her to stay quiet, but Phoebe ignored her. Carter could get out. If Reuben didn’t think about him for a few minutes, Carter could get out.
“Do you think if I asked that man to turn on the electric, he would? It’s so hot. Maybe if I asked him, if I told him we’re all so hot, he’d turn it on?”
“Hear that, Dave?” Reuben kicked back in his chair and grinned. His glassy eyes drooped. “Got a kid wants to negotiate with you. Sure, what the fuck. Come on over here.”
When Phoebe stood in front of him, Reuben passed her the phone. And pressed the gun to her belly. “Tell him what I’m doing first.”
Sweat snaked a slow, fat line down her back. Why didn’t the pillswork ? Had Carter wriggled out the window?
“Mister? He’s got the gun at my stomach, and I’m awful scared. We’re so hot. No, we’re not hurt, but we’re so hot it’s going to make ussick . If we could just have the air-conditioning back on, maybe we couldsleep, ’cept we’re so scared I guess we’d need a bunch of sleeping pills or something. Please, mister, would you please turn on the electricity?