"You can't seriously be considering her story?" Reid shook his head and rubbed at his tired eyes. “You don’t do fairy tales. The reality is she tested positive for drugs, she had a needle in her arm, and she was overdosing.”
"I'm not saying she didn't abandon her child and go take drugs. But maybe it was the first time." Willow propped a hand on her hip and demanded he listen.
"A jury isn't going to care all that much in the end. Whether it was her first hit or her hundredth they'll still see it as neglect." He rolled his eyes and knew he was getting dangerously close to pissing her off, not a good idea.
"You know the law better than I do," Willow admitted, though he could tell there was more she had to say. "But I'm a good judge of character and something about Tara has been nagging at me. Josh sees drug addicts every single day. I’ve been exposed to plenty of them, and Tara does not fit the bill in any sense. Something she said I can’t get out of my head. The boy's father died of an overdose of the same drug she was using that night."
"Yeah, I know. The DA will already know that. It'll play awful with the jury. They'll just assume the poor kid had two deadbeat druggies for parents." Reid shrugged as though Willow was wasting his time, but there was a part of him that was dying to hear if she’d come up with some explanation.
"They may think that, unless we prove there is no history of drug use on Tara's part and give them another explanation."
"What else could have happened?”
"I've spent the day tracing her steps and finding out more about her. She wasn't exaggerating about not having any friends. She doesn't call anyone. No text messages. She's alone. Tara goes to work, takes care of her son. That's it. Do you know what that kind of isolation can do to a person?”
Reid knew exactly what total isolation felt like. It was his goal most days. But he still didn't know what Willow was driving at.
"When my oldest was born it changed my life. If I didn't have a huge support system in North Carolina, I wouldn't have made it. I had family flying up, phone calls every day, encouraging letters. I had Josh right there helping me, and we were financially stable. She has none of that. It’s all her.”
“Are we working on sympathy for the jury?” Reid asked with a sigh. “I’m assuming you have a point.”
“One you’d probably never understand. Not until you’ve been up in the middle of the night with a baby who won’t stop crying. Not until you’ve gone a full day without eating and not even realized it. When a child throws up on the last pair of clean sheets or pours the gallon of milk on the floor, you get it. You know my history, and I’ve had some hard moments in my life.”
“That’s an understatement.” Reid had heard almost every detail of Willow’s childhood and subsequent challenges. Raised by abusive parents who were later killed by her brother, she saw her share of heartache. In later years she got mixed up with a bad boyfriend who caused her more problems. But Willow was like an egg: when dropped in hot water, she’d grown more solid. Whereas some people would fall apart, she seemed to have found her purpose even though it had taken unconventional methods to do so.
“Motherhood has been one of the most rewarding but challenging things I’ve ever done, and to think of the circumstances under which she’s doing it,” she paused and shook her head. “Maybe it just got to be too much. Maybe the baby was upset in the store and maybe she used her last dollar to buy food. Maybe it all fell in on her at once. And she knew what heroin could do if you took enough of it. She knew what it did for TJ. It was a way to end it.”
It was like he and Willow had been sitting in a dark room and finally the light switch had been flipped on. “Suicide?” he asked, soaking in everything she’d said now that it was in context. “You think maybe she was attempting suicide?”
“It’s possible. Think of what that might mean for the case.” Willow finally crossed the room and pulled one of the two barstools out from under the kitchen counter and sat.
“I could bring a psychologist in and walk through the stress she was under. A jury would certainly be more sympathetic to an overwhelmed mom looking for a way out rather than a drug addict looking for a fix.” The wheels in his head spun as he took the new information into consideration. “What if there is an angle of postpartum? I may even be able to get the charges reduced if I file a petition disclosing the new information.”
“I thought there was a chance that it could be reduced from felony child endangerment down to a misdemeanor. I know Tara’s goal is a path back to her son. She’ll need treatment and monitoring, but this is certainly a more manageable obstacle to overcome than drug addiction. Especially a heroin addiction. Though it still makes me sad for her that she felt that lost.”
“Yes,” Reid said, slamming a hand down on the kitchen counter animatedly. “It’s something anyway. How confident are you that she isn’t a habitual user? You’ve only had one day to look into it.”
“I’m going off my gut and what I’ve seen so far. I still need to talk to her coworkers, the people who live in her building. I’ll need a couple more days to vet it out completely. Don’t talk to her about it yet. Have her meet with a psychologist. Keep moving forward on the case, and I’ll have an answer for you by the middle of the week. But by looking at her, do you really think she’s an addict?”
Reid had been asking himself that question every five minutes since he first saw Tara at the courthouse, and his answer was complex. Tara seemed exhausted, nervous, and frantic. But he’d sat next to plenty of users in his life, and she didn’t have that kind of twitchy energy he normally associated with a user. She wasn’t asking for a fix or worried about where she’d be at any point of the day, not preoccupied with how she’d fill the need. The only thing she was obsessed with was getting her son back.
Reid rubbed at his temple. “Want a drink?” he asked, reaching for a bottle he kept on the counter. He didn’t have many glasses but snagged a couple of old mason jars when she nodded.
“You know,” she started as she took a long swig of the amber liquid he’d just poured, “I tell my husband all the time all I want is some peace and quiet. My hotel is completely quiet, and I keep thinking about my kids.” She took the rest of the drink into her mouth and gestured for him to refill it.
“I’m not one for sleeping either. It’s like eating—one of those annoying things we need to do to stay alive. You’re welcome to stay and work the case if you want. Maybe you’ll have another one of those brilliant epiphanies.” He tipped his head back and finished his drink, not wanting Willow to feel bad about swigging hers back so quickly. It was a two-hundred-dollar bottle of Scotch, meant to be savored and sipped but he wouldn’t say anything, even as she reached for more. With the amazing work she’d done already, she’d earned it.
“I’ve been over her bank and phone records. In the morning I’m going to check out her medical history. The boy’s too.”
“Good, I imagine the prosecutor will be scrutinizing that as well, looking for a history of any abuse or neglect.”
Willow slid the satchel off her shoulder and pulled out her laptop. “You sure you don’t mind the company? I don’t want to interrupt anything you had planned.”
“I’ll cancel the dinner party,” he laughed, checking his watch as though the time mattered. “It was a pretty impressive guest list but they’ll understand. I was going to make a nice roast.” He spun off his stool and headed for the fridge. “Instead I can offer you a ketchup packet, a jar of questionable looking olives, or a protein bar.”
“You need help,” she groaned, rolling her eyes at him. It was funny. Willow was a mom, a grown woman, but there were still moments Reid could see what kind of kid she’d been. There was an element to her attitude, a fight for power, never let your guard down, that always bled through. Never hesitating to call someone on their shit, or tell them what she thought of them. In Reid’s opinion it was one of her finest qualities. “I’ve known bachelors in my life, but you are like professional grade. I’m going
shopping for you tomorrow.”
“You’ve done enough,” he said, tossing her a protein bar. “I’m not looking for a mom. I’m a big boy.”
“I’ll tell you, as a mom, it was hard listening to Tara this morning. She’s a strong woman. I hope this works out for her.”
“I don’t do hope anymore. This job will stomp that nonsense right out of you.” He refilled their glasses, forgetting the price tag of the bottle, and realizing this stuff was meant to be consumed. It wasn’t all that often he had someone to drink with.
“So, you and Tara, how good of friends were you back in the day? I’d like to have known you then. I feel like you would have been a sweet kid.”
“I’m not sure she’d agree. We were best friends, when I wasn’t doing something to screw it up.”
Chapter 12
“Are you drunk?” her squeaky voice asked through the crack in her partially opened bedroom window.
“Buzzed,” Reid lied, but the slur gave him away. “Are your parents out? Can I crash on your floor again?” He knew she’d say yes. Tara could never turn him away. With one hand holding him up, he lifted his foot to climb in.
“Why do you keep doing this?” she asked, sounding annoyed but lifting the second floor window open the rest of the way. He’d become a pro at scaling the porch on the side of her house and gaining entry without having to use the front door. “Seriously?” she asked, her hand perched high on her hip as he fell clumsily through her window and to the floor. He stared at her and from his perspective, lying flat on his back, caught a new angle. Something he didn’t remember seeing before that moment. There were a few key curves to her body that hadn’t been there the last time he looked. Or maybe he just hadn’t looked all that close in a while. Tara was wearing only a thin, oversized night shirt and some skimpy shorts she’d recently outgrown. From the floor her legs looked like skyscrapers, seeming to go on forever.
“Did you get taller?” he asked, furrowing his brows as he tried to get the world to stop spinning around him.
“What?” she faltered, looking painfully self-conscious. Her cheeks burned, and she folded her hands over her chest. “Yeah, I grew like an inch or something.” She shrugged.
“Cool,” he said, pulling himself upright but stopping short of standing, knowing he couldn’t manage a crazy task like that in his condition. Instead he scooted over to her bed and leaned against it, resting his head on the fuzzy blanket covered in cartoon kittens.
“I’m serious, Reid, I want you to tell me right now why you’re drinking. Ever since you made the varsity team and started hanging out with all those idiots, you show up here drunk all the time. You’ve got to cut this out before you get in trouble.” Her voice was sharp, but he still loved to hear it. There was something familiar and warm about the way she reprimanded him. A reminder that he was somewhere he could crash, give in to the whirling feeling in his head, and truly let go. Even if she was mad.
“It’s fun,” he said, slapping her leg playfully with his floppy drunken hands. “You should try to have some fun now and then. You just stay stuck in this room reading your books, playing that broken keyboard, and hiding out.”
“Don’t pull that on me,” she lectured, kicking at him harder than he had expected. “I’m being serious. This isn’t you. So why do you keep doing it?”
“How do you know this isn’t me?” he snarled, shooting her an angry look. Tara didn’t understand the pressure he was under. His parents had all these expectations for his future. The teams he played on demanded so much of his time to stay competitive. The friends he’d made wanted him to be like them. There was nothing as comforting as someone else making the same mistakes as you. He could say: I’m not the only one screwing up. I’m not the only person failing. And in that camaraderie came comfort.
Like the buzzing of a pesky fly dead set on landing on your sandwich, Tara wouldn’t relent. “I know you so well, you don’t need to answer the question. I already know why you’re doing this. I only wanted to hear you say it. But I guess you won’t.” She flopped down onto her bed and pulled her knees up to her chest, pouting at him. She looked too big to sit that way, too grown up to pout.
“Let’s hear it then, if you’re so smart. Why am I plastered right now?” He’d spun so he could see her, his chin resting on her bed as he stared at her, like a puppy waiting for a scrap of food. He refused to admit he was afraid she might get the answer right.
“Because all these new people in your life keep telling you that you need to be more. You need to be faster and cooler and more fun. They keep telling you in not so subtle ways that you, just regular old Reid without the alcohol, without parties, without getting in trouble, aren’t good enough.”
He knew his face was ghost white now; he could feel the rush of blood whooshing away from it as a cold sweat overtook him. Maybe it was the tequila finally catching up with him, but he knew better. It was the truth that was making him sick. Spoken out loud, it was like being struck in the face with a hammer.
Tara slid off the bed and sat next to him, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at her. “You are enough, Reid. You are more than enough. They measure things the wrong way. They don’t see that you’re the kid who stopped when the bottom broke out of that woman’s grocery bags. You were there chasing oranges around the parking lot for her. They don’t see that you’re the guy who always buys my lunch. How could they know that you feel people’s pain so deeply that sometimes you don’t know what to do with yourself when someone else is hurting. You need to stop feeling less than them. You are more than them. Miles more.”
Reid reached up and took her hand from his chin and held it in his for a moment. Tara had always been caught somewhere between one of the guys and his little sister. At some point he started to grow taller, but she started to grow smarter, more insightful, mature. He’d gotten all the inches, and she’d gotten all the wisdom. He noticed for the first time the roundness had left her cheeks and she’d done something different with her hair. Her bright sea blue eyes were glazed with tears. When Tara cried it was like his insides were being pulled out of him and stomped on.
“Your hair is down,” he said coolly, as though she hadn’t poured her heart out to him. He grabbed a few loose strands of it and tucked them back behind her ear. “You always have it up in that ponytail thing.”
“Just pass out already,” she said, attempting to shove him back, but he didn’t move. “At least when you’re out cold you don’t talk so much.”
“No,” he said, grabbing her wrist. “You’re right. I don’t know when you started getting so smart about everything, but you’re right. I don’t want to keep doing this.” He gestured down at his body as though the alcohol had changed him into a different being. One he didn’t want to be. “My shoes are on the wrong feet,” he groaned, that seeming to be the best example of what a mess he was.
She broke free of his grip, but only because he’d allowed it. Tara moved down his body toward his feet and unlaced his shoes, yanking them free. “Your feet stink.”
It bubbled up inside him, born out of a tiny laugh that bloomed into tears. He crumpled his face, trying to dam it all inside. Feeling exhausted, like the world had grabbed hold of each of his limbs and kept yanking in opposing directions until he was flat, he let it all out. “This sucks,” he gurgled and wiped with the back of his hands at his eyes. “It’s like this ride, and I can’t get off. I can’t go back to the way things were before. You and me, it used to be simple. We had fun, right? It was fun, all the stuff we did.”
“You can go back,” she promised, hurrying over to him and clutching his shoulder tightly. “You just need to forget these people. These girls, Mary, Sasha, and all the others, they don’t care about you. The guys from the team. They don’t know you.”
“I know,” he said, angry at himself for the uncontrolled emotional outbreak, the arch nemesis of any teenage boy. Tears. “Never mind. I’m fine. I’m just drunk.”
“You are fine,�
�� she said, leaning and patting his hair. “You’re fine. Everything is going to be fine.”
It was hard to imagine how a girl who’d never in her life been shown comfort or compassion from her parents, could muster this much of it. And so freely give it to him. On the nights she sat alone and hungry in this broken-down house, never knowing what the next day would hold, no one ever reassured her. His life was idyllic in its lack of outside excitement, so much so that he sought out the mess and the drama. Tara, on the other hand, had unavoidable levels of it. She didn’t need to create any.
He stared at her face, the sudden newness of it. It was the most familiar thing in his life yet it was like he was seeing it for the first time. Gone was the girl who played cards with him on every rainy summer day. This wasn’t the silly-faced child who laughed so hard she’d pee her pants every time he made that joke about their guidance counselor.
Reid had always taken care of Tara the best he could, but her problems weren’t ones he could solve. “Tara,” he whispered, the tears all dried now. She looked at him quizzically, probably wondering why his voice was so low and controlled. Before she could ask, he leaned in and pressed his lips gently to hers. He expected a shove backward, maybe a slap or a shout. What he hadn’t expected was her lips parting and her tongue swirling into his mouth. He didn’t think she knew how to kiss, let alone French kiss—and pretty damn well.
Reid’s hand slid to her cheek and held her there, not wanting this to end. It was like connecting so many parts of his life all at once. His best friend, his biggest cheerleader, was now also the person making his heart thud with excitement and his body beg for more.
Three Seconds To Rush (Piper Anderson Legacy Mystery Book 1) Page 7