Vincent’s hands fell from the steering wheel to his lap, and it occurred to me that he wasn’t looking much like a savior at the moment.
“You okay?” I asked, though he ought to have been asking me that question after what he’d witnessed less than an hour ago in Tricia’s hospital room.
His left hand came up to scrub along his jaw line, and he looked as if he were going to balk, but he didn’t. “When I transferred to Mercer,” he said, “I was hoping Justin would decide to move out of the dorm and bunk with me permanently.”
“He didn’t?” I asked, surprised. I’d watched the two of them interact with each other, and it had seemed like Justin was amenable to rebuilding their father-son relationship. “I thought everything was working out well.”
Vincent spoke, now staring straight ahead. “Things were going well at first, and I thought….”
He trailed off, but I didn’t let the silence linger. Instead, I took pity on him. “Something went wrong?”
“Yes, my ex found out.”
I didn’t say a word. I only looked at Vincent as his hands clenched into fists.
He muttered a curse. “I thought this was over. He’s a goddamned adult now, and still, she’s trying to keep me from him.”
He paused for a moment, and even though I was dying to know something of his past, I figured I’d let him decide whether or not to continue with his story.
“I made a lot of mistakes,” Vincent said. He hesitated, took a deep breath, and continued. “But after our second child died, everything just went to hell. My wife blamed me, and to tell you the truth, I blamed myself too for a lot of years.”
I nodded, unwilling to say anything that might prevent me from learning a little more about the stoic man beside me.
“I’m sure Justin told you I abandoned him, and I did leave. But I never abandoned him. Ever.”
Vincent’s voice had become tight, and I couldn’t retain my distance any longer. I slid across the bench seat and took his clenched fist in both of my hands. Slowly, he loosened his grip so that I could entwine my fingers with his.
He stared at our joined hands.
“His mother got sole custody, and after several failed attempts to see my own son, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t bear to think of what Justin would endure if I kept trying to make contact. What his mother might do. So I joined the Navy. I thought once he was an adult, her power over him would cease.”
“But it didn’t?” I asked softly, and I wondered that he could hear me through the rain pounding on the roof.
“No. She’s paying his college tuition and gave him an ultimatum. Her money or my house. I lost again.” Vincent’s free hand curved around the back of his neck as if he were trying to massage away the tension knotted there. “Justin’s a good kid, but he’s hardly motivated enough to get up before noon. He’s not going to work his way through school, and I can’t afford to pay for it, so he’s leaving and she wins again.”
Now Vincent turned his blue eyes on me, and all the breath suddenly left my lungs. I felt his fingers tighten on mine as his thumb began to stroke the back of my hand.
“Today at the hospital with your sister,” Vincent said, “I understood you. I understood everything about you. I know why you do what you do. I know what made you who you are. There always seems to be that one event that sets the course of a life, and you let me see yours.”
I nodded, watching as his eyes searched mine. “You don’t even know the half of it,” I said, though I hadn’t planned to. “I’ve been investigating my sister’s rape for seventeen years. Still am.”
“Of course, you are,” he said without taking his eyes from mine, “and you should be. Even before I understood where it came from, I admired your dogged pursuit of justice.”
Feeling overwhelmed by the intensity of his gaze and mesmerized by the brush of his skin against mine, I didn’t say anything in response. He was the first person who understood and didn’t secretly think I was being obsessive.
At length, he looked down again at our joined hands. I looked too. My fingers peeked out from between his larger ones, but it was me who was giving comfort now. The small and weak comforting the big and strong.
“I wanted you to understand the same things about me. I don’t know why,” he said, “but it seemed important that you know.”
And it was true. I did understand Vincent a little more now. His insistence on justice, like mine, came from suffering injustice his whole life. And his need to protect came from the lack of protection he’d been able to provide his own children.
We were the same, Vincent and me. A moment of powerlessness had borne in us the desire never to experience that feeling again, and we ordered our lives around avoiding it. And we fought on behalf of others.
But as I’d learned countless times with Tricia and my parents, we cannot will others to make the right decisions, no matter how badly we want them to. And Vincent could not force his son to stay with him when an easier path was available. It had to be Justin’s choice, and it was one he might never make.
I don’t know how long we sat in the warm cocoon of the truck and looked at each other, our hands clasped tightly as the rain eased. But before I ended up doing something I’d regret, like leaning against his shoulder or tracing my fingers along his tattoo, I leapt from the truck.
When I got inside my house, I was damp and chilled, but I didn’t feel anything other than the warmth of Vincent’s hand on mine.
Twenty
The first part of my weekend was a wash thanks to the concussion. After Vincent dropped me off Friday morning, I alternated between sleeping, taking copious amounts of acetaminophen, sitting in a daze on my sofa, and impotently cursing Deputy Marston for tasing me.
Maxwell, at least, was appreciative of my slower pace. He kept a silent vigil beside me, getting up only to eat and make use of his indoor kitty facilities.
Occasionally, I attempted to get some work done, but all I managed to do between bouts of sleep was to check my email and read Eva Sinclair’s final fire report. She had tested the fluid she’d collected from the LTD and confirmed her suspicion that the vehicle had been doused in gasoline. In the remaining debris, she’d discovered the metal springs and tube from a butane grill lighter, which was the likely source of ignition.
So according to our expert, we were, in fact, looking at arson as we’d suspected.
And given the fact that the body in the car was not Theo Vanderbilt and that the real Theo had definitely been murdered, we were looking at quite a bit more.
But what it was, exactly, we weren’t quite sure.
I wracked my brain all weekend, trying to make sense of it all, and eventually I gave up.
I had an excuse. I had a concussion.
At noon on Sunday, my phone rang, and because I was pretty sure it was my mother calling to check up on me again or to tell me something awful about Tricia’s condition, I wasn’t keen on answering it. But I couldn’t shed myself from the curse of a good, responsible daughter, so I picked up my cell phone without bothering to look at the caller ID and said hello.
I was overjoyed to hear Helena St. John’s voice instead. “Oh!” she said. “Did I wake you?”
Might as well admit it. “Yeah,” I said as I reached down to pet Maxwell’s black and white fur. “I’ve had a lot on my plate lately.”
And a slight concussion.
“And that’s why you have no choice but to come to lunch with me and go shopping like we planned. It’ll be fun.”
I shifted Maxwell out of my way, slid my legs over the edge of the bed, and slowly sat up. My head didn’t spin off its axis, so that was a good sign. “Sounds great,” I said, and, realizing how hungry I was, I added, “I could demolish an entire buffet.”
“And then shopping!” Helena added with a bit too much glee.
I didn’t really want to spend my Sunday at the Mercer Mall, which seemed to stock only clothes suitable for sixty-year-olds who were trying to app
ear thirty or fourteen-year-olds who were trying to look twenty—both were pretty scary—but I’d promised.
Besides, Helena was probably right. It would be a good distraction from, well, everything. And now was as good a time as any to go.
Kathy Vanderbilt was safely in police custody with insurance fraud charges pending, and she would keep until Monday when Vincent and I would question her more thoroughly about Theo’s murder. Supposedly, Vincent and I would receive the final autopsy report on the unidentified woman and the preliminary findings on Theodore Vanderbilt himself. But until we knew more, there was little we could do to move the death benefits case forward.
Tricia was tucked in the hospital under my father’s watchful eye, and that meant there would be no more nonsense with her IV. If I knew my father, he would be checking that sucker every five minutes to make sure she hadn’t pulled another removal trick. Now that her withdrawal symptoms were back under control, it was likely that she would be released as soon as the danger period for DTs had officially passed.
However, if I were perfectly honest with myself, I wanted Tricia to remain at Mercer Med—and away from access to alcohol—for as long as possible.
This was the longest she had remained sober in years, and now that she had been through a safe, medical detox, I did not want to see her go right back to drinking again.
And if anything was going to drive her to drink, it would be the news that I was pursuing her rapist.
Yeah, it was best for her to stay where she was.
But of course, the rape case was stalled at the moment too while we waited for the lawyers to go through the motions of the plea agreement in order to find out the name of Atkins’s accomplice.
And as for Vincent himself, well, I pushed away thoughts of him with every effort I could muster.
So there was nothing for me to do but say yes when Helena protested, “Oh, come on! I know you’re not a girly girl, but you’re also not a fashion dud. Besides, I need to freshen up my wardrobe, and I don’t want to do it alone.”
She was right. I wasn’t a girly girl. As a LEO, I couldn’t wear skirts or sexy heels on a daily basis, especially if I knew I was going to be mucking about crime scenes or staking out a suspect. And now that I was required to be armed at all times, skirts were out completely for work.
Gun belts and skirts do not work well together on any level.
So unfortunately, my options were limited mostly to trousers, serviceable boots, and jackets. When I wasn’t in the field, I did spice it up in the shoe department, but still, my wardrobe was not particularly exciting.
I sighed. It couldn’t hurt to step it up in the LEO fashion department. My supply of jackets and tops that concealed my M&P was pretty slim. “I guess I could use a few new things,” I admitted.
“Oh? And why would that be?” Helena asked with a lilt in her voice, obviously teasing me for my unenthusiastic response. “You wouldn’t have your eye on a new gentleman, would you?”
I rolled my eyes. Ever since Vincent had shown up to help on my last case, Helena had become inordinately interested in my nonexistent love life. But as far as she knew, Mark Vincent had gone back to Atlanta. And after our incident in the truck Friday morning, I was inclined to let her keep thinking that.
But I could still torture her a bit.
“Didn’t I tell you?” I asked slyly as I made my way to the closet to find something to wear on our excursion. “I’ve decided to hit the Mercer singles scene.”
Honestly, I didn’t even know if there was a Mercer singles scene. Where did unmarried people go to meet each other in this town anyway? I had no idea.
“Seriously?” she asked, sounding skeptical and yet also hopeful at the same time.
I let her question linger for a moment before letting her down. “No, not seriously. I’ve got more important things to do, but I do need to upgrade my work wardrobe to accommodate the…equipment I need.”
“Oh,” Helena said, and I could hear her disappointment. “Well, that could be fun too. Come across the street when you’re ready. I’ll drive.”
A half hour later, I was showered and dressed in jeans, a crewneck sweater, and a pair of comfy shoes. I secured my M&P in the gun safe, checked Maxwell’s food and water bowls, locked up the house, and headed across the street for my day of shopping bliss.
Helena must have been watching out the window because she met me in the driveway looking like a well-dressed wood nymph. I’d always envied her short hair, mocha-colored skin, and almond-shaped eyes, but mostly, I envied her ability to know what she wanted out of life and to go after it.
Right now, she wanted to shop, and nothing short of nuclear war was going to stop her from giving me a fashion makeover.
“Hey, girl,” she said as she looked over my attire. “Lord, you should be thanking me for dragging you to the mall. You really do need some new clothes!” She motioned me toward her waiting BMW.
I lowered myself inside, enjoying the new-car smell and the buttery leather seats and wondering how she managed to keep it so clean with a baby in the mix.
“What are Tim and Violet up to today?” I asked.
“Oh, you know, father-daughter stuff. Probably a few Disney princess videos. Maybe a tea party.”
I smiled, thinking of Helena’s husband, the grilling king, sipping pretend tea from a little pink plastic cup.
“I ran into Tripp Carver downtown the other day,” Helena said.
“Oh, yeah?” As my two closest friends, Helena and Tripp knew each other, of course, but they were from different parts of my life, so they didn’t often socialize together.
“We talked about your sister,” Helena said, her voice hesitant.
“Right,” I said, suddenly remembering my conversation with Tripp. I turned to her as guilt overtook me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“About your investigation?” Helena said with a small wave of her hand. “Anyone with half a brain knew you were still looking for the man who hurt your sister. I mean, you became a cop.”
“It’s just that….” I hesitated. Here is where I should have told Helena the whole story: how I’d copied my sister’s file and stolen bits of evidence. But how do you explain that? How do you explain that you don’t want to pollute the best friendship you have developed as an adult by dragging your past into it? So I said, “Tripp told me that you gave him some direction on how to proceed with Atkins. Thank you.”
“It was nothing,” Helena said.
And then I changed to topic to work.
Her work. Not mine.
She was so excited about her new job at the US attorney’s office that the topic carried us all the way through lunch, which ended with her announcement that it was time for us to hit the shops. “You’re gonna be the hottest chick at the DOI when I’m done with you,” she proclaimed. “Maybe I’ll even get you to show a little leg.”
“Can’t do skirts with a sidearm,” I reminded her, only briefly wondering what Vincent might say if I did show up in a skirt. I dismissed that thought almost immediately.
“Well, a little cleavage then.” She tilted her head sideways and shook a finger at me. “You can’t tell me a gun can stop you from wearing a nice, deep v-neck.”
I groaned.
The sad truth was that I was already the best-dressed chick at the DOI. Our office assistant Matilda recycled the same slacks and boxy blouses every week, and she was the only other woman employed there at the moment. Besides, the last thing I needed was to show a little cleavage, especially with Vincent around.
But on the other hand, I didn’t want to end up like my mother, who wore the same outfits she had ten years ago. I looked at my own attire. It wasn’t so bad, was it?
“Come on,” Helena said as she pulled a small menu from the side of the table. “Let’s have dessert. You’re going to need your strength, girl.”
Helena wasn’t lying. It was a good thing I’d eaten the whole order of lasagna and a piece of tiramisu at lunch because
we spent the next four hours hitting every department store and women’s clothing boutique in the mall.
Fortunately, I managed to hold the line and purchase mostly items that I could wear to work, and that meant blazers, trousers with belt loops, and tops that could be tucked in.
But I admit that I did get into the shopping spirit and give in a bit to Helena’s suggestions. I got talked into a blouse with small ruffles around the neckline and a few empire waist tops that could conceal my M&P without a coat.
Those would be excellent in the summer.
I also ended up purchasing two lower-cut v-neck sweaters and some lacy camisoles to go underneath. Helena insisted I didn’t need the camisoles, but even though I occasionally used my feminine wiles to manipulate a suspect, I couldn’t get my head around the idea of flaunting my wares with my colleagues on a daily basis. Not in a business dominated by men.
Helena bought so many suits and coordinating pieces that I lost count. In a way, I envied her. She didn’t have to think about weapons and handcuff cases. She bought what she liked, pure and simple. But the more I considered it, the more I realized I was thankful for my wardrobe limitations. Sure, I often wore sexy shoes, and I owned a few cute skirts, but when it came right down to it, I was a practical girl. I liked having a good excuse for wearing comfortable attire and shoes that didn’t crush my toes.
And I could still ratchet up the sexiness factor when I needed to.
Yeah, I was fine with my wardrobe.
And even though I hadn’t expected to find much solace in a shopping excursion, by the time we were finished, I was feeling rather peaceful, and that was when I made the mistake of talking about my work.
We were settled at a small table outside a bookshop with our bags—mostly Helena’s, actually—piled around us like a barricade.
“You would not believe the crazy case I’m working right now in Cranford County.”
“Oh, yeah?” Helena asked as she sipped a latte.
I explained about the death benefits case, the suspicious car fire, and even the craziness with Kathy Vanderbilt. I omitted the part about being in the hospital, but then I added, “I don’t know what’s going on around here lately, but I keep getting the oddest cases.”
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