by Jayne Blue
“You’re not so bad for a young curmudgeon. But one of these days I’d like you to level with me about what awful thing happened in Tallahassee that made you want to run away.”
He caught me off guard and I didn’t have time to fix a smile on my face. It didn’t matter, he would have seen through it anyway.
“I thought so,” he said just before he downed some of the wine. “Did he lay a hand on you? That Greg?”
I swirled my wine in my glass. “Craig. And no. It wasn’t that. And I don’t want to talk about it. But you don’t have to hit someone to hurt them.” I had decided a long time ago that I’d never tell Dad everything about the way I ended it with Craig. As far as Craig was concerned, it wasn’t quite over. Other than the flowers he’d sent the other day, I had three unread voicemails on my phone. But he was a thousand miles away.
My father set his glass on the counter and put his hands on my shoulder. “Pumpkin, your father is an expert at that. And now that you’re here, I plan to make up for lost time. Not Craig or Greg or any other asshole is going to hurt you like that again without going through me. That’s a promise.”
Heat stabbed through me as my father looked in my eyes. He searched for something there. Whatever he found made his lips tighten and his eyes narrow. But he didn’t press. Instead, he took his wine glass and headed out to the living room.
No matter what, the last thing I could do was tell him about Ben until I knew what he was myself.
Thursday of the next week I kept my appointment with Janet and pulled into the Killian’s Nursery and Landscaping lot. The building was on the west side of town just past the industrial parkway. They had a huge lot filled with trees and shrubs. The Killian name was written in bold green letters on a fake storefront with the legs of a dancing leprechaun making up the Ls. It made me laugh as I parked my car out front and headed inside.
Janet greeted me with open arms. She wore a bright green apron and had her wavy red hair pulled into a bun with a pencil holding it in place. Janet Killian had the kind of face that probably looked the same at twenty as she would at seventy. Though from what Ben said, I knew she was forty-five. In old-fashioned terms, she’d be described as handsome rather than pretty. She had a strong square jaw, full lips, and deep-set blue eyes that searched my face.
I thought we’d set up here in the store, but Janet pulled me through the back. I gave a wave to Joe behind the counter. He jerked his chin at me then went back to giving orders to three teenage boys he had loading a truck with mulch. We stepped outside and Janet took me across the yard to an old yellow farmhouse hidden completely from the road.
“Castle Killian,” she proclaimed. “Watch out for the dog shit on your way up.”
I laughed and followed her. Sure enough, two Irish Setters bounded across the yard and gave my hands a good, sound sniffing. Janet shooed them away and opened a creaking screen door. Inside, the house maintained a kind of cozy, Victorian charm with wood flooring throughout, shaded lamps, and an honest-to-God parlor with a baby grand piano just off the main hallway. It was there that Janet had set up a laptop and three giant leather-bound ledgers.
“You don’t still do this on paper, do you?” I marveled.
“For backup, hell, yes I do,” she said.
“I’m impressed. Is there something specific you want me to look at? I mean, to do a full forensic accounting will probably take more than just a glance.”
“Oh, I don’t expect miracles right away. But with April 15th just a couple of weeks away, maybe you could start by looking at last year’s returns. If you have questions as you’re going forward, just give a holler. I’ve got stew on the stove and I’ve still got some veggies to chop. I figured me staying out of your hair would probably be the best help I could give you.”
I sank into the plush maroon couch in front of the laptop and ledgers and gave Janet a wave. The truth was, she was right. She had the returns sitting right on top and a stack of labeled files beneath it. Though I hadn’t known her long at all, it didn’t surprise me that Janet was organized. It would make my job infinitely easier.
Janet disappeared into the kitchen singing in a warm alto as she went. I buried myself in her ledgers and returns. It didn’t take long to see that whoever had done her taxes for the last couple of years had been conservative with deductions, to say the least. I’d rather it be that way than the opposite, but I spotted a few areas that could save her close to a thousand dollars right off the bat. The accounts payable and receivable would take a little more time to dig into. She had entries going back five years just in the three ledgers on top. She used accounting software that I wasn’t fond of and it wouldn’t surprise me if I found discrepancies because of it. After spending some time on the most recent entries, I got a feel for the way Janet ran the business. Her accountant wasn’t doing much more than entering data from Janet’s notes. When I saw the fees he charged her it rankled me. I wrote down a list of items I wanted to go over with her then set my work aside.
Stretching my legs, I looked out the window. I’d lost track of time in the numbers like I often did. It was past five o’clock and I could see Joe turning off the lights in the shop. He’d be coming in soon for dinner and I wanted to be gone. I’d taken advantage of Janet’s cooking and hospitality once already. Stiff-necked, I rose from the couch and walked over to the window. Janet’s baby grand shone under the lights almost as bright as a mirror. I wondered who played. I resisted the urge to plink the keys but set my phone down. She had more than a dozen family photos perched on top in matching silver frames. I couldn’t resist. I turned on the nearest lamp and tried to find Ben.
He was easy to spot. I covered my laughter with my hand as I found a large picture of Ben standing with his four brothers. He couldn’t be more than ten years old and he held a fat green bullfrog in one hand while his brothers stood behind him, each one making faces. They wore matching brown dress pants and button-down shirts. Clearly some adult had wanted to take a nice family shot, but this group of boys wouldn’t comply. In another shot, I saw Janet. She was nothing more than a fresh-faced teenager looking out across the yard in front of this very house. She sat on a porch swing resting her chin on her bare knee, completely unaware that her picture was being taken.
In another shot, Ben stood in front of an American flag in his dress blues. It was his police academy graduation picture and he stared at the camera looking bright-eyed but solemn. A thrill of heat went through me and I wished I’d known him then too.
I picked up one of the largest portraits and ran my fingers across it. It was a wedding photo of a young couple. The groom could be Ben’s twin but for shaggier hair and long sideburns. I guessed it was his father, Joe Sr. The woman beside him had coal-black hair just like Ben’s. She had a tiny waist tied with a blue sash and she looked up at her groom with all the love in her eyes.
“Mama Peg,” Janet said. I startled and clutched a hand to my chest. “God, are you part vampire?”
Janet laughed. “Well, I’ve been accused of being a witch. But I’ll take it.”
“She was stunning,” I said, placing the picture back on the piano.
Janet nodded. “Scariest woman I ever knew. Fierce. Loyal. She’d cut your throat out before she’d let you hurt any of her own. She put me through my paces before she settled to the idea that I was the one for her Joey.”
“Ah. Firstborn son. A little bit of her favorite, I suppose.”
Janet pursed her lips and shook her head. “No, ma’am. Not even close. Benny was her favorite. He was the baby.”
A flash of warmth went through me. “Benny. I don’t think I could get used to ever calling that. To me he’s too ... alpha male, I guess.”
A glint came into Janet’s eye. “When I first met Benny he wasn’t even potty trained. That whole first year I started dating Joe, I swear Mama Peg carried him on her hip the entire time.”
“A mama’s boy? I never would have guessed.”
Janet reached out and traced the
frame of the picture I’d spied of all five boys. “He was. But I watched him become a man one rainy afternoon right before my eyes. Michael too. You haven’t met him.”
A pit formed in my stomach. Janet’s wistful gaze turned toward the front window. She smiled as she spotted Joe loading up another pickup truck.
“How did it happen?” I asked. The weight of my question hung between us for a fraction of a second and I started to regret it. But Janet turned toward me with kind eyes and took a seat on the piano bench. She didn’t ask me to, but I sank into the nearest chair and waited.
“Peggy was a nurse. Did Ben tell you that?”
I shook my head. “He ... we ... Janet, the truth is, I don’t know Ben that well.”
She smiled and let out a breath. She played a chord on the piano then set her hands in her lap. “Peggy worked labor and delivery. She worked the night shift so she could take care of her boys during the day. She and Joe Sr. barely ever saw each other. He worked the store in the daytime. She watched the boys and cooked and cleaned. Then she went to work. I never could figure out how she did it. But she did. She kept this place going, even when Joe Sr. wasn’t in the best place to help her. He drank. Not all the time. But when he did, it was lousy.”
I gave her a slow nod to tell her that I understood. I couldn’t bring myself to say it, but I had firsthand knowledge of the kind of lousy she meant. Though he’d been sober for over nine years, my father had his own struggles with alcohol.
She paused and I thought she wouldn’t go on. But then, Janet lowered her head and massaged her palm with the thumb of her opposite hand. “She had a stroke. Benny was in seventh grade and he missed the bus one morning. Joe wasn’t in any condition to drive him so Peg did it. It happened out on Waverly Road. I don’t know if you know it. It’s an old country road that runs parallel to the one out there. Farms on either side just like this one used to be. Deep ditches. Anyway, Peg lost control of the car and went into one of them. The engine caught fire. Ben ... see him here?”
Janet turned the bullfrog picture toward me. “He was so skinny back then. Junior high wrestler. Strongest, scrawniest kid there ever was. Still, I don’t know how he pulled her out of that car. But he did. But this was almost twenty years ago. He didn’t have a cell phone on him. He tried to keep her breathing until one of the farm trucks drove by.”
My guts twisted and it got hard to breathe. “He has a scar.” I closed my eyes and remembered that awful puckered patch near Ben’s hip. He’d flinched when I reached for it that first night and pain came into his eyes.
Janet smiled when she caught me blushing. She had to know there was only one way I would have been in a position to see that particular part of his body. But that part of our relationship wasn’t a secret.
“He was burned pretty badly. He didn’t even realize it until after they got him to the hospital. Benny was so focused on Peg. But she never had a pulse.”
“I can’t ... oh God. How old was he?” I almost didn’t want to hear it.
“Thirteen,” Janet answered. “It was the year after Joe and I got married. So at least Peg got to be there for that. I always kind of thought that was God’s weird plan. See, big family scandal, but ours was a shotgun wedding. Oh, we were going to end up together, we already knew that. But we got a little careless. We wouldn’t have gotten married the spring before Peg died if it weren’t for my angel baby. I ended up losing her too a month after that. Still, I like to think she’s with her now. Peg got to dance with her firstborn son on his wedding day. It’s always weird how fate works out sometimes. And it worked out for us too. I had a lot of trouble after that, but sixteen years ago Joe the third came along.”
I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. For some reason, I didn’t want Janet to see it. I felt I had no right to shed it. Not yet. I wasn’t part of this family.
“It’s why he is how he is.”
“Who, Joe the third?”
Janet smiled and turned toward me. “Ben. He doesn’t see it this way I don’t imagine, but he’s been trying to save that woman for the last nineteen years. I think it’s why he became a cop.”
Smiling, I thought of that thing my own mother always said. “Lois Lane had to have had a pretty shitty life.”
Janet’s eyes widened and she cracked a smile. “You’re probably right about that.”
I saw Janet Killian in a new light. The girl she was still seemed to peer from behind those hard green eyes, but this woman had a hard core. I guessed she was more like Peg Killian than she thought. I realized then that she’d had to be.
“It’s been you since then, hasn’t it?”
Janet looked back out toward the lawn. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. What were you? Twenty-five, twenty-six, and with a baby on the way? But you’ve held them all together, probably with your bare hands sometimes, since Peg died, haven’t you?”
Janet’s dimple deepened and her eyes glistened with the pain of her secrets. But it was too late, I saw the truth of my guess. Then the spell broke when my phone rang. I’d set it on the piano when I picked up Ben’s picture. It skittered across and Janet caught it just before it fell into her lap.
It was an innocent gesture, but she flipped it over before she handed it to me. My throat went instantly dry as she saw the picture on my caller ID when I did. It was lazy of me. I should have deleted his number. At the very least, I should have changed the damn picture on his contact. But as Janet held the phone out to me, her expression hardened. She saw Craig’s name and a picture of the two of us embracing as he kissed my cheek.
I remembered Janet’s words and they cut through me. Just like Mama Peg, she was fierce, she was loyal, and she’d cut your heart out before she let you hurt one of her own.
Chapter Twelve
Ben
“Bates, I swear to God, you’re the only guy I know who can actually snore when he’s awake!” I lobbed a crumpled piece of paper across the room and hit Tim square in the chest. For the past week I’d been cooped up in the office with him on light duty. I had three more days before I could get back out there with the team.
Tim caught the paper and smirked. “You make a habit sleeping next to a lot of other guys, do you?”
I shot him a middle finger and straightened the stack of reports on my desk. “How do you put up with this shit?”
“What part? You? You’re not so bad.”
I leaned back in my chair and tapped my pen on the edge of the desk. “Do you miss it? Being out there with the team?” He’d grumbled about it often enough, but since I’d had the last few days to spend time with him, I had to admit Tim looked better. He’d lost weight for one, and there was a, I don’t know, lightness about him I wasn’t used to.
Tim’s nostrils flared and he laced his fingers behind his head. “You’re not fooling anyone, you know. And I still haven’t forgiven you for bugging out on our meeting with the chief.”
I didn’t like the look in his eyes. Of all the guys in the department, I’d known Tim the longest and best. He looked like he was about to give me one of his whopping lectures. Usually I ended up hating myself for a little while afterward because he was rarely wrong. The asshole.
“You look like you came out of it all right. Didn’t you take Brett like I told you to?”
Tim shook his head. “Brett was still out sick when the chief scheduled it.”
Now I felt like the asshole. But I still figured it was a good idea if I kept my distance from Chief Marek. Things were cool with Charlotte as far as I knew, but it would be pretty tough standing in the room with the guy knowing what I’d done with his daughter. Hell, just thinking about it now in passing set my nerves on fire. I wanted to see her again, badly.
“Are you going to just sit there and look guilty, you dipshit?” Tim asked. He got up and walked over to the door. Glancing both ways down the hall, he shut it and turned back to me. It was just the two of us here in the squad. The rest of the team had gone out to ru
n surveillance. There’d been another home invasion near the college and we’d gotten a description of the vehicle they drove.
Tim walked over to my desk and perched himself on the corner. “Fine. I’ll ask. Is there something going on between you and the chief’s daughter?”
My blood turned to ice. I didn’t want to look Tim in the eyes because then there’d be no use in trying to downplay anything. He knew me too well not to see through any bullshit I now wanted to shovel. I wanted to say it was none of his or anyone else’s business. That was true. But I felt a fierce protectiveness where Charlotte was concerned. The girl had me spinning in ways I wasn’t used to. She also kept blowing me off.
“Nothing I really feel like talking about.” I gave him an honest answer but it wasn’t enough to satisfy him.
“Ben, you’re a fucking idiot.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“No. I mean it. You wanna know what everyone’s been saying?”
I tossed my pen on the desk and leaned back, looking at Tim square on. “Not really.”
“Well, you should. You took her home from the bar a few weeks ago. In front of witnesses. And she showed up at the hospital for you.”
“Who’s been talking out of school, Tim?”
He spread his hands wide then smacked one of them against his forehead. “You really think that’s the salient point?”
“Rackham? Jefferson?”
“Well, yeah. It’s not like you acted with a lot of discretion. And look, I’m not trying to bust your balls. But you gotta hear me. This guy? Marek? You don’t want to fuck with him. I gotta admit. He impressed me. He’s not looking to hurt any of us and he doesn’t seem to have any qualms about standing up to the mayor. That’s a rarity in that position and you know it.”
“Great!” I smacked my hands on the armrests of my chair. “So what the hell does any of that have to do with me or my personal life?”