Healing Sands

by Nancy Rue

  The judge looked pointedly at his watch. “We’ve only been in session for a half hour, Mr. Yarborough.”

  “The prosecution was granted four days, Your Honor. I’m only asking for twenty minutes.”

  “All right. Make it thirty.” The judge looked at Ian. “You will take the stand again for Mr. Yarborough’s cross-examination after the recess, Mr. Iverton. You remain under oath.”

  Ian stepped obediently from the stand. In the midst of the gavel pounding and the buzzing of voices, Will conferred with a guard and took Jake up the side aisle and out into the hall.

  “Where are they going?” I said to anyone who would answer.

  The guard jerked his head toward the door. “Conference room.”

  I took off.

  “You can’t go in,” he called after me.

  I didn’t ask him what army was going to try and stop me as I charged up the aisle and shoved my body against the heavy wooden door that swung out into the corridor. I nearly mowed Elena Sanchez down with it.

  “Grafa,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, Elena,” I said. “I’m sorry I misled you. I’m sorry for everything—but I have to go to my son.”

  “No. Grafa, you must listen.”

  I was backing off from her, pushing away her reaching hands. “I will,” I said. “Later.”

  “Now. Please.”

  She pulled me to the other side of the corridor, then took my face in her icy palms and forced me to look at her.

  “Everything that boy said was a lie, Elena.” My voice was loud and shrill, and I couldn’t stop it. “But everyone believes him, and I have to—”

  “I do not,” she said.

  “What?”

  She put her finger to my lips. “That boy—Ian. I know his voice. He call for Miguel that day, on the telephone.”

  I stared at her.

  “I am home from work, sick, and I answer the phone. That voice ask for Miguel. That boy.” Elena pulled her hands to the sides of her own face, as if to stop it from collapsing in her pain. “I told him where is Miguel. I told him. I lead him to my son, so he can kill him.”

  She did collapse then, into my arms.

  Sully had paced and he’d prayed and he’d planned. He was ready at nine thirty Friday morning when Harlan Snow returned his call from the evening before.

  “Sullivan, I haven’t gotten much further with your case than I was yesterday,” he said before Sully could get past hello. “You have to understand, this takes time.”

  “I just have one question for you.”

  Sully detected a sigh, but Snow said, “Shoot.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this severe emotional distress idea.”

  “Extreme is the word,” Snow said. “Extreme emotional distress. And we haven’t decided to go that route.”

  “I’m just trying to think ahead, in terms of who could testify to that.”

  Sully heard papers being shifted.

  “Did you have anybody in mind?” Snow said.

  “Detective Baranovic said someone at my clinic told him I was under a lot of stress. That was probably Martha Fitzgerald.”

  Sully waited, holding his breath and with it his hope that all of his conclusions had been wrong.

  “I don’t see her name on the report,” Snow said. “It says that information came from a Kyle Neering. But listen, Sullivan, we’ll put our heads together on that down the road. You let me . . .”

  Sully missed the rest of it. He wasn’t even sure he said good-bye before he hung up.

  He sagged against the refrigerator. He’d known it since he talked to Ryan. Formed a plan around it. But he’d also had hope that he wouldn’t have to follow through.

  Only the alternative made him open his phone again, punch in the number for the clinic, and pray shamelessly that Rusty wouldn’t answer.

  Olivia did, sounding like an orphaned waif.

  “Hey, Liv,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Dr.—”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Just checking in.”

  After a tiny pause, she said, in a voice that tried to sound formal, “Mr. Huff isn’t here. He’s not coming in until noon.”

  “Ah.”

  Again a pause. And then she broke into babbling. “He doesn’t need to. We don’t have any clients this morning. Everybody canceled, which is stupid because anybody who’s ever even seen you knows you didn’t kill somebody.”

  Sully pulled away from the fridge and straddled a chair. He should have known he could count on Olivia to tell him more than he needed to know and at least some of what he did, without even having to ask.

  “Kyle’s not here either,” she was saying. “And that is just fine with me.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s supposed to be in charge when Mr. Huff isn’t here, and at first I was all happy about that, even though Martha got all pouty and would hardly even come out of her office.” She went into a whisper. “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you this. Kyle said to leave you alone because you’re so stressed out—but you don’t sound that stressed out to me.”

  “I’m okay,” Sully said. “Dish, Liv.”

  “See? You sound just like you always do. I wish you were here. Kyle isn’t doing a good job, and I won’t even care that much now if he does leave.”

  Sully’s breath caught in his chest. “He’s talking about leaving?”

  “Yes. He said not to tell anybody, but I don’t care about that either. You’re the real boss, and you need to know. I think they should let you be here.”

  “Maybe soon,” Sully said, finger already on the End button. “Hang in there, Liv.”

  “I totally think I can now.”

  Sully barely closed the phone before he opened it again and searched for Martha’s mobile number. Renewed urgency coursed through him. This had to happen before Kyle disappeared and took Sully’s innocence with him.

  I stood against the wall opposite the door being guarded by a deputy who seemed to expect Jake to break out and make a run for it. When Will and Jake emerged, I was going to be there with the first real hope we had. Before Cecilia Benitez had come to take Elena Sanchez from my arms, Elena promised me she would testify, and I was hanging on to that.

  “Do you know where Dan is?”

  I pulled my gaze from the door and stared at Ian. He stopped a few feet from me, hands on his hips.

  “Are you talking to me?” I said.

  “Look, I don’t want to get into it,” he said. “I know you probably hate me right now, and I totally understand that. I’m just looking for Dan.”

  “No, you do not understand.” I was too stunned to slap him across the face, but I was getting closer to it. The sympathetic lean of his head made my hand twitch at my side.

  “I understand what it’s like to find out somebody’s not who you thought they were,” he said. “It has to be even worse when it’s your own son.”

  “Are you serious ?”

  “You couldn’t see it, but he’s probably changed a lot since you and Dan split up and you took off.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Just shut—”

  “Ryan.”

  My head snapped to the conference room door. Jake stood just outside it, Will behind him, the deputy reaching for his arm. Will frowned at me, but I looked away, back to Ian, who was shaking his head sadly as if his heart ached for Jake.

  I didn’t have to listen to Will Yarborough. I could take this boy down, eviscerate him one organ at a time. There were no words too heinous, and I was capable of slicing him open with every one of them.

  But when I looked at Jake again, I bit them back. He struggled visibly to hide the betrayal that stabbed at him. I could do this for him, and I could do it well. Or I could set him free.

  Taking a step back but keeping my eyes trained on Ian, I said, “He’s all yours, son.”

  Will put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “This is all going to come out in court now, Jake. Let’s save it for the judge.”

 
Jake shrugged his hand away, and the deputy went for his arm again, but Will shook his head at him. Neither of them moved away from Jake, but he seemed to stand apart as he shifted his gaze to Ian.

  “It’s good to see you, man,” Ian said.

  “You lied.”

  Ian’s eyes startled only slightly before he turned his head to the side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “In there, just now. That was all lies. You hated Miguel, not me. You were mad because he beat you at soccer—and debate. Not me. ”

  Debate. Whereas. Inalienable rights. Pieces clicked into place almost audibly in my head.

  “I didn’t make up a plan to force him to drop out of soccer.” Jake jabbed his finger. “You did. I just went because I thought I could change your mind.”

  “Come on, buddy,” Ian said. “That’s just wrong and you know it.”

  “And I thought when Miguel’s mom said he was doing dishes at the restaurant, you wouldn’t make some kind of big scene there.”

  Ian smiled like he was looking at a five-year-old. “I don’t make scenes, Jake.”

  “No—you made sure there wasn’t anybody else around. And you didn’t even talk to Miguel about soccer, like you said you were going to.” Jake’s voice broke, but he pushed on, through the chasm I knew had to be splitting his heart. “You said we were just gonna take a ride in his truck—and I was so stupid I believed you.”

  Ian put one hand in his pocket and held up the other. “Look, knock yourself out,” he said. “I gotta get back in there.”

  “No!” A vein bulged in Jake’s forehead. “I had to sit there and listen to you lie. Now you’re gonna hear me tell the truth.”

  “Jake,” Will said.

  “I still believed you when you said there was something behind us and Miguel better get out and move it before he ran over it. And then you ran over him. You, Ian, not me. And then I believed it when you said you were gonna help him, that I had to pull the truck forward while you pulled him out. I was so stupid, I believed it when you said you were gonna go get help even after I told you I already called 911 on that cell phone. You took off with it, and I waited for you to come back. Only you never did.”

  Jake was sobbing now, but I had never seen such courage in a face. His eyes never wavered from Ian.

  “Does anybody believe this?” Ian said.

  He spread out his free hand toward the knot of people who had gathered. Two deputies. Someone from the prosecutor’s table, who turned and scurried into the courtroom. Dan.

  “Dan, dude.” Ian’s voice caught on a high-pitched edge. “I know he’s your kid, but come on, you know me.”

  “Do I?” Dan said.

  “Look, he’s messed up. We didn’t go there to kill that kid. We were just gonna knock him down, scare him.”

  “Not we!” Jake said. “You! And then you said you were gonna fix it—you weren’t gonna let me go down for it. ”

  “I didn’t think it would ever get this far. Who knew everybody would get all freaked out over an immigrant?”

  “You never said that! You said for me to wait and let Miguel tell the truth when he woke up. And he didn’t!”

  “Like I knew he was going to die. Come on.”

  “Your mom said you were gonna tell the truth when you got up on the stand.”

  For the first time, Ian seemed brought up short. “My mom.”

  “She came to the jail and told me not to worry because you were gonna tell the truth today. I was counting on that.”

  Ian’s incredulous mask slipped. “Dude, when did you ever know my mother to tell the truth? She’s kept her mouth shut all this time. Why would she start talking now?”

  “Ian—stop.” Nina Hernandez sailed down the corridor toward us, hand up, all but blowing a whistle. “Don’t say another word. Yarborough, what were you thinking?”

  I left them to yammer at each other and stepped around the now-frozen Ian so I could see Jake. The deputy gave me a warning look, but I didn’t need to touch my son to know that he was okay— more than okay. Even with sobs swelling his face and the crumbling of his idol still lingering in his eyes, he raised his hand to his ear and tugged at his lobe.

  I tugged at mine too.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Martha Fitzgerald had always seemed nervous when she came into Sully’s office. Coming into his home made her a veritable candidate for anxiety medication.

  She made a valiant effort to hide it, crunching her hands tightly in her lap and fixing on a stiff variation of the smile as she perched on Sully’s couch.

  “Thanks for coming here,” Sully said. “I’m limited in where I can go.”

  Her eyes darted to the bracelet on his leg, and her face cracked like an eggshell.

  “Martha, I’m sorry,” Sully said. “I didn’t ask you here to upset you. Here, let me get you a Kleenex.”

  She shook her head and mysteriously produced one from inside her jacket sleeve. “I’m on overload,” she said. “It’s okay—you said you needed my help.”

  Sully leaned on his knees. “First of all, I want to apologize for blowing you off when you came to me about Kyle. I was wrong on every level I can think of.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I don’t want to talk about Kyle right now. What can I do for you?”

  He winced. “What you can do is talk about Kyle. I can’t really tell you why. Holy crow, I don’t even have the right to ask you to trust me on this.”

  “What do you want to know?” Her eyes were dry again, her voice solid. “If it helps you, I don’t need to know why.”

  “I just need you to tell me what you’ve found out about him. I know you’ve looked into his background.”

  She nodded. “I just couldn’t get past all the diagnoses of suicidal-ity. You thought I was overreacting, but I know now that I wasn’t.”

  “How?”

  “I suspected that something happened, maybe to a patient, possibly when he was in grad school, so I looked up reported suicides in Little Rock over the past five years, and a Hayley Neering came up.”

  “Kyle’s wife?”

  “She took her own life a year and a half ago. That had to have played a part in his wanting to hospitalize everyone who came in depressed, but—”

  “Suicide,” Sully said. “You’re sure?”

  Martha’s face softened. “He really didn’t tell you? You two seemed to talk a lot. I thought maybe you knew, although I couldn’t imagine that you—”

  Sully closed his eyes.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “Kyle told me his wife was in an accident.”

  “Maybe he thought you wouldn’t consider him a good therapist if you knew.”

  “He had every reason to tell me. Martha, would you be willing to find out more about Hayley Neering if you can?”

  “With or without Kyle knowing?”

  “Would it bother you if I said without?”

  She looked him straight in the eyes. “No, Dr. Crisp,” she said. “Not in the least.”

  For a bunch of people whose life’s work was law and order, no one in the courthouse corridor seemed to be able to create any. Confusion reigned as the deputy took Jake back into the conference room to wait for Will while he argued with Nina Hernandez in legalese. I could only assume that the “recess” had been extended when Levi Baranovic showed up and went off into a corner with Hernandez, and Will returned to Jake. The deputy emerged and planted himself pointlessly in front of the door.

  With one eye on Baranovic, another deputy hovered near Ian, but he needn’t have worried that the kid was going to make a break for it. Even from a discreet distance, I could see that Ian’s only focus was Dan. He sliced through everyone to get to him, hands already shaping an explanation.

  “I never meant it to go this far,” he said. “I really thought he’d get out of it. You had that Jew lawyer—”

  Dan turned his head away, one hand up, eyes closed. “Ian, stop. You’re only digging your
self in deeper.”

  But Ian went on, in a voice careening toward panic. “I thought Jake would get out of it and you wouldn’t have to know it was me. I didn’t want to screw things up between you and my mom. I just want you to understand—”

  Dan’s head snapped back to him. “You killed a boy and let my son take the rap for it. Period. What is there to understand about that, Ian?”

  “You’re just the only one who ever understood me.”

  The boy was so shameless I wanted to laugh—except for the pain that etched Dan’s face.

  “I thought I did,” Dan said quietly. “It turns out I was wrong about a lot of things.”

  “Ian Iverton.”

  Heads turned to Levi Baranovic, who approached them with the deputy. Automatic anxiety gripped my stomach.

  “We need to take you down to the precinct and ask you some questions.”

  Ian set his jaw, all begging for “understanding” gone. “You can’t question me without a parent present.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “I don’t want her. I want Dan.”

  Dan shook his head. “I’m not your parent.”

  “You almost are.”

  “No,” Dan said, “I’m not.” He stared at Ian until the boy’s bravado melted.

  “Almost doesn’t count anyway,” Baranovic said. He looked, inexplicably, at me. “Anybody know where this boy’s mother is?”

  I, in turn, looked at Dan, but Ginger herself appeared at the top of the stairs, hair and eyes wild.

  “Someone said you’re arresting my son!” Her voice echoed through the corridor like the cry of a woman gone mad in a horror film.

  “We’re not arresting him,” Baranovic said. He nudged Ian toward the stairs. “We’re just going to question him. You’ll need to meet us at the precinct.”

  “I want a lawyer.” Ginger gathered a handful of Dan’s sleeve into her fingernails. “Dan—we need legal representation.”

  Dan pulled his eyes from Ian to her and peeled her fingers away. “You knew Ian was involved in this?” His voice was so dead it made even me shiver.

  Ginger went white. “All I did was go pick him up from the alley when he called and bring him back to the house.”