Jonny first.
Jonny. Just the thought of his name made me smile. So much had changed in the space of a few days. Somehow seeing Jonny, the real Jonny, the man who had a bad temper, who was less than perfect, who was so strong but still had weaknesses, had waylaid my fears of inadequacy. Sure, some of my old insecurities were still simmering below the surface, but it was easy to keep them at bay. I knew Jonny loved me. I knew that if things ended he wouldn’t do it ugly, he wouldn’t walk away without explanation and abandon me. That alone gave me courage.
“Hey, babe,” he greeted when he answered the phone.
“Hey, hot stuff. How’s your day?”
“Paperwork,” he grouched. “I can’t be sure but I think I signed over my firstborn to Nixon. There’s no other reason to have a forty-page contract unless he’s buried something hokey. My eyes were blurry by page twenty. Oh, and I went from being debt-free with a healthy savings account to being broke. I hope Evie pays well, baby, you’re our only hope of survival.”
Evie did pay me well. And for years I’d lived in her guest house rent-free. Since moving to Maryland, that hadn’t changed. Evie and Chasin had overhauled an old shed and made it into a cool-as-all-get-out house for me. I still didn’t pay rent or living expenses even though I’d demanded I carry my weight. Evie wouldn’t hear of it. When she opened her studio and rewrote my employment contract, housing was included in my salary.
“Fear not, handsome, I’m loaded,” I teased.
Jonny chuckled and I sat back in my chair savoring the sound of his amusement.
“Do you have time to come into town for lunch?”
No, I did not have time. I was swamped.
“Absolutely. When and where?”
“Meet me at the office and we’ll walk around the corner to Sam’s. Two hours? Does that give you enough time to get yourself out from under the mountain of work you have piled on your desk?”
Yes, Jonny was smart. He knew I’d be busy after taking a few days off even though I’d worked while I was at the beach.
“That’s perfect.”
“See you then.”
“You will.”
I disconnected my call just as Evie was walking into my office.
“Everything okay?” I inquired.
“You tell me.”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” I told her.
“With Jonny.”
I forced myself to stay relaxed, Evie was like a hound dog, she could sniff out trouble from a mile away. And once she caught the scent she howled until you gave in to shut her up. And since Macy had still been in the lobby with Evie when I left I didn’t know what they’d said.
“I still don’t understand. Are you on a fishing expedition or do you know something I don’t?”
Evie rolled her eyes and hauled her big pregnant belly to the chair in front of my desk. I’d say she waddled to it but I was worried that if the thought flitted through my head Evie would catch it and punch me. But she totally waddled and it was cute to watch.
“His mom was arrested. Surely you know we all know.”
Oh, that.
Shit.
Evie was my bestest of best friends. Since I’d met her I told her everything that was going on in my life. Not necessarily about my past, but as for the here and now, she knew it all. But I couldn’t talk to her about Jonny’s mom. That wasn’t about me; it was about Jonny and he needed to be the one to share if he wanted to.
“Yes, she was arrested.” I thought about what I could say and offered more. “Driving while impaired.”
“You didn’t call when you left the beach,” Evie muttered.
She sounded hurt and my stomach clenched at the accusation.
“I didn’t and I’m sorry. But, Evie, this is important so please understand. There are things I can’t talk to you about. Not because I don’t want to. Not because I won’t need you to help keep me strong. But this is about Jonny. Not me. He needs me to let him work this out in his own time. Needs it, Evie, in a way that if I talk to you about what’s going on it will be an unforgivable betrayal and I will not do that to him.”
“His dad,” she guessed.
I had nothing to say. A confirmation was as good as an exhibition of disloyalty.
“Roberta Layne and her steadfast devotion to those she loves.” Evie smiled. “I get it. I won’t pry or push but tell me this, is Mrs. Spencer okay? Chasin told me that it was Mr. Spencer’s birthday and she was having a hard time.”
It took herculean effort not to grind my teeth and spit out the truth. If everyone knew what she’d done to Jonny—what his father had done—not a single one of Jonny’s friends would feel sorry for that woman. No, they’d feel sorry for Jonny and he’d hate that. He wouldn’t understand they would be pissed on his behalf. They’d feel like shit he hadn’t confided in them so they could help him. All Jonny would see was pity. He wouldn’t understand they were empathizing. Showing him support and friendship.
Suddenly I knew what Jonny needed from me. I had to guide him from the shadows, from his self-imposed isolation. Ridding him of the guilt that was not his to bear was a given. But perhaps more importantly I had to show him the true meaning of friendship.
No man was an island and Jonny needed to learn that everything he thought he knew about being a good friend was wrong. It wasn’t about always being there for the people you cared about. It was about allowing them to be there for you. It was about endless trust.
“Bobby?”
I blinked and Evie came back into focus. I’d been a horrible friend. I was as loyal as the day was long. I was a vault when it came to secrets. I would drop anything and everything and rush to a friend’s side if they needed me. But I never allowed them to return the favor. I’d withheld my pain, my secrets, my deepest fears from Evie because I was afraid of what she’d think of me.
Regret and remorse ticked up my spine.
“Did I ever tell you about the night I spent at the police station?” I blurted out, knowing damn good and well I had never uttered a word about that night.
Evie startled and shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
“I was thirteen. EJ gave me a bunch of stuff to take to the pawnshop to sell. He didn’t say, but I knew it was stolen. So off I went to do my brother’s bidding. I’d almost gotten away with it but the police came in saw what I had and since the jewelry had been reported stolen and the cops were there specifically looking for those items I was taken in.
“Daddy was coming off a bender, EJ was too scared to come down and pick me up so I spent the night at the station. This was after I’d convinced the cops I’d found the necklaces and rings on the side of the road. I guess I was lucky I lived where I did and the cops didn’t call CPS. They knew who my daddy was and they knew he’d come get me. I think they let me stay because they felt sorry for me and knew sleeping on a cot in the bullpen was better than me going home.
“The next morning Daddy came to get me. I waited while the cops reamed his ass. By the time I got into the truck, he was madder than a hornet. When we got home, he belted my ass for being dumb enough to get caught. Told me it was my fault the cops got in his face. I had to sleep on my side for a week because my backside hurt so bad.”
“What the hell?” Evie leaned forward and slapped her palm on my desk and frowned. “I’m so spitting mad right now I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I’m so grateful you finally opened up I want to drop to my knees in thanks—which would be hard with my ginormous belly—or if I want to sic Chasin on your asshole of a father. I’ve waited years for you to talk to me. Years, Roberta Layne. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had and it kills me I haven’t been that to you.”
“I’m sorry, Evie. I…I don’t have an excuse. It was a shitty thing for me to do and I understand that now.”
Her frown deepened and my heart broke.
“He hit you,” she whispered. “That bastard hit you, Bobby.”
He did. He hit
me so often I couldn’t begin to remember all the times.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you apologize.” She shot to her feet and I followed.
“Calm down, Evie. The baby.”
“He hit you,” she screeched. “Goddammit, Bobby.”
With that, she turned and left my office.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I snagged my phone off my desk and did the only thing I could do. I called Chasin.
“Yo, Bobby. What’s up?”
He sounded chipper, which sucked because I had to kill his good mood.
“Listen, Chasin, I hate to bother you but I think you need to come home.”
“Where’s Evie?”
God, he loved my friend.
“I reckon she’s on her way back to the house. I told her something about my childhood. It wasn’t good and she took it harder than I thought she would. She’s pissed at me and left. I think she needs you.”
I heard Chasin’s ragged exhale, then he asked, “How bad?”
Shit.
I drew up all the courage I had and remembered this was Chasin. He was not only Evie’s soon-to-be husband, he was my friend.
“I told her about a time my daddy gave me a belting.”
“Son of a bitch,” he snarled and my heart sank.
Maybe this sharing stuff wasn’t a good idea especially while Evie was pregnant, planning a wedding, and getting ready for a concert. She didn’t need me unloading my shedload of crap on her. Later I could find a way to gently explain my childhood had sucked and leave it at that. I’d been selfish in my newfound knowledge of what true friendship was.
“If that piece of shit wasn’t already rotting in his miserable life, I’d strangle the motherfucker.”
All the oxygen was leaving my lungs as I wheezed, “What?”
Chasin softened his tone but that didn’t mean it softened the blow when he told me, “Evie doesn’t know, but you were part of our original investigation. We had to clear you so we could focus on finding her stalker. I did it personally, no one else knows what I found. But even if they did, none of them would think less of you.”
Of course, Gemini Group would’ve investigated me. I was closest to Evie. I was the only one who had access to every part of her life. I didn’t know why I had never thought about it. My juvenile record being sealed wouldn’t stop Chasin from finding the records.
He knew.
He knew about all of it.
“Bobby—”
“I’m not that person, Chasin. Please believe me. I’m not that. I would never hurt Evie. Never.”
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“Please, Chasin, don’t take her away from me. I didn’t…I mean, I did. I did do those things, but I didn’t want to. You have to understand.” Panic drowned out all sense of reality. I was right back in the holler. Right back to being a Layne and all that it meant.
I was a thief.
A liar.
I had a record and not the kind that Vivi Rush made. I had the arrest kind.
Jonny’s mom had been arrested.
“I have to go.”
I disconnected the call and tossed my phone on my desk. It wasn’t mine, it was Evie’s. She paid for it. It was all hers. And Chasin knew I was a thief. How closely had he been monitoring the accounts I had access to? If he knew everything I had done, he probably checked them daily and I didn’t blame him. He loved his fiancée and he’d want to make sure she was protected in every way. Especially from a piece of trash like myself.
God, I was so stupid to think I could get away from where I’d come from.
I was nothing more than white trash from the holler.
Her Appalachia is showing.
If Genevieve only knew how true that was, she’d be appalled.
15
Jonny was sitting behind his new desk staring out the window. The sight before him was bittersweet. The natural light streaming in the big window and the view of the green fountain across the street was a stark contrast to the artificial light of the bullpen and his only view was of the interrogation rooms.
The pay was better. The job description was much better. But Jonny still couldn’t shake the ache in his chest. Somehow when he’d been hiding at the beach he’d managed to push aside his new reality. He was no longer a cop. He’d quit the one thing he’d always wanted to be. From as far back as he remembered, he knew he would be a police officer. Now he wasn’t.
He’d signed the operating agreement, made arrangements for the wire transfer, and he was now part-owner of Gemini Group.
Time.
He needed time to adjust. As soon as he got lost in his first case he’d acclimate to his new surroundings, he’d redefine what it meant to protect and serve.
Which reminded him—Jameson had left a file on his new desk that was alarmingly thin for a case Jameson said he’d been working on for almost a month. With the security brief for Evie’s concert and the visit to the attorney’s office, Jonny hadn’t had time to look at the file.
Jonny flipped it open and was surprised to see a picture of a man he knew—Anderson Bull. Over the years, Jonny had thought about him. Not every day but it wasn’t rare for his mind to wander to Anderson’s arrest. It was the first time Jonny had suspected something was going on in his department. Something had not been right then and something was wrong now. Anderson Bull had been a model citizen his whole life—that was, until he was arrested. The charges were pled down, Anderson had done his time and was a model prisoner throughout. When he was released, he went right back to being a productive member of society. Though he did it while on probation.
Jonny flipped the image over but hadn’t read a single word when he heard feet pounding down the hall. Instinct had Jonny on his feet with his hand reaching for his sidearm. Chasin came barreling into his office with a seriously pissed-off face and wild eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Jonny asked.
“This might piss you off, it might not. If it does, bury that shit,” Chasin returned.
Seeing as Jonny was done burying shit, he didn’t agree. If whatever Chasin had to say pissed him off, Chasin would know it.
Jonny didn’t get a chance to communicate this before his friend announced, “Bobby called me.”
Every cell in Jonny’s body froze. Not because Bobby reached out to Chasin, the two of them were tight, her best friend was engaged to him, but because Chasin looked…unsure. Like he’d been kicked in the gut and winded.
“Is she okay?”
“No.”
“You wanna explain that?” Jonny asked, rounding his desk.
“Bobby called to tell me I needed to get home to see to Evie. Bobby shared part of her childhood with Evie and she didn’t take it well.” Chasin paused and his face twisted into a nasty grimace. “Evie’s been worried about Bobby for a long time. You know Bobby doesn’t share her past and that included not talking to Evie. I thought I was doing the right thing but I fucked up.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Back when Evie hired us, I ran a full background check on Bobby. Standard procedure, anyone close to the target gets investigated. I unsealed her juvenile record. That’s the part that might piss you off. I dug deep into everyone Evie had contact with. My fuck-up is two-fold. One, I should’ve warned my woman that when Bobby opened up it was gonna be ugly. But I couldn’t do that without her knowing I knew about her best friend’s past. Which would’ve meant breaking Bobby’s trust. A trust she didn’t know she’d given me but it was trust all the same. My second fuck-up was when Bobby told me she told Evie her dad had hit her. I lost my cool and let it slip that if he wasn’t already rotting in his miserable life I’d kill him. When she pressed me on how I knew, I told her truth and she freaked.”
Jonny didn’t give two fucks Chasin had looked into Bobby. It was the first place any good detective looked during an investigation. Seventy-five percent of the time the victim knew their assailant.
“What does freaked mean?”
“She begged me to believe she’d never hurt Evie. She was frantic in her pleading. Then she hung up on me without me being able to calm her down.”
“I have to get Bobby.” Jonny nabbed his keys off his desk and moving toward the door when Chasin stopped him.
“She was a wreck.”
“Then why are you stopping me?”
“Because what you’re walking into might not be pretty.”
“I know her father’s a motherfucker,” Jonny told him. “And since you looked into her, I also know her mom bailed and I know about her father’s abuse. You read the report. I’ve witnessed the damage. And there’s no might about it, Chasin, it won’t be pretty.”
With that, Jonny pushed past the man only to have Chasin on his heels down the hall, through reception, and down the stairs. They broke at the sidewalk. Jonny going to the street where he’d parked and Chasin going to the lot behind the building.
But as it turned out it was Jonny who followed behind Chasin all the way to the farm. Chasin stopped in front of his house and Jonny continued down the lane to where Bobby lived. He parked his truck and hurried to Bobby’s door. He knocked, impatiently waited, and when she didn’t answer he tried the knob. It twisted and he pushed in.
“Bobby?” he called out.
No lights were on and since the space was a converted shed he could see her living room, kitchen, dining area, and bed from where he stood. The only place he couldn’t see was inside the bathroom but the door was open and the light was off.
No Bobby.
He closed the door and walked across the barnyard. A path he’d taken hundreds of times. The buildings might have been repurposed but everything was the same. The old milking parlor where Jonny had spent a shit-ton of time helping Wayne Swagger with his cows, was now Evie’s recording studio. And the big metal shed that Bobby now lived in had once had a dirt floor and housed equipment. The only new thing was the huge firepit and kick-ass benches a friend of theirs had made that were placed around the pit. Other than that, the exterior remained the same.
Jonny was nearing the entrance to the studio when he noticed Bobby’s car was gone.
Jonny's Redemption (Gemini Group Book 7) Page 12