Breaking the Rules

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “I have some money saved,” Eden said.

  “I do, too,” Izzy told Dan.

  “Still, I’ll need to find someplace to stay.” Dan was in heavy worst-case-scenario mode.

  “You can stay with me,” Eden said. “I’ve already paid rent on my apartment through the end of the summer. It’s not like that’ll be an additional expense.”

  “But five of us?” Dan asked. “In a one-bedroom apartment?” He looked at Jenn and there was such despair in his eyes. “Four, really, because you’re leaving in a week.”

  “You know that I can stay longer,” she told him, and he nodded. But she knew he’d never ask her to make that sacrifice.

  “We can make this work,” Izzy said.

  Dan laughed. “Said the asshole who thinks everything’s fine as long as he’s screwing my sister. Newsflash, Zanella. She’s just not that hard to get.”

  “Danny,” Jenn said, purposely keeping her voice mild. “I think maybe you’re the asshole.”

  Izzy, meanwhile, had clenched both his fists and then opened his big hands wide, in a mock Bob Fosse jazz-hands move. “Not hitting you.”

  Eden just looked miserable.

  “Sorry,” Dan muttered to her.

  “Maybe,” Jenn started, but Dan cut her off.

  “Maybe we should just kill Greg,” he said.

  “It’s probably better not to joke about that,” Jenn said.

  “Who’s joking?”

  “Really, Danny. I know you’re upset, but that’s just not—”

  “Sorry,” he said again, and he reached for her hand. His eyes were filled with regret and shame and pure desperation. “I am sorry.” He pushed himself to his feet. “May I speak to you privately, please?”

  “Of course.” Jenn followed him away from Izzy and Eden, over to the sensor-triggered doors that slid open, exposing them to a wave of ovenlike heat.

  Dan went into it and moved far enough away so the doors would slide closed again. “I was hoping Linda would force my hand,” he told her.

  Jenn shook her head. She didn’t understand.

  He clarified. “I was hoping she’d say that we should, you know, get married. That that would be our best shot at getting Ben.”

  He was looking at her with those eyes, with that face, and Jenn knew that hitting him was not the proper response to what he’d just said. Force his … Fabulous. She nodded instead. “But she didn’t say that.”

  “Marry me anyway,” he said.

  “Wow,” she said. “Way to be romantic, Gillman, and really pick the moment.”

  He looked around them, as if suddenly aware that they were standing outside of a hospital in Las Vegas, Nevada. “I was thinking about it earlier,” he admitted, “but that wasn’t the most romantic moment, either.” His smile was sheepish, and she knew exactly to which earlier moment he was referring.

  “Instead you decided to wait,” Jenn said, “to see if Linda’s advice would force your hand.”

  Danny winced. “Yeah, I heard that when it came out of my mouth, and I knew it was wrong. I’m sorry—”

  “Was it?” she said. “Wrong? It seems kind of accurate to me.”

  “It scares me,” he said. “How much I need you.”

  Need, not want …

  “You’re going to get through this,” she told him. “And if you start trying to think before you speak, and if you stop yourself before you say something that’s completely asshole-ish? You’re actually going to have a real relationship with your sister when everything’s said and done. Maybe Izzy, too—”

  “Yeah, I doubt that.”

  “Definitely Izzy, too,” she said. “For someone so smart, you can be a real dumbass. This thing with Ben is an opportunity. Embrace it.”

  “I’m trying to,” he said. “I’m trying. To. With you.”

  Jenn nodded, looking out over the parking lot, because looking into his eyes was just too hard. “If you want me to stay through to the hearing, Dan, for God’s sake, just ask me to stay.”

  “I thought that’s what I was doing,” he said.

  “I can’t stay forever,” she told him, because God, she didn’t want him that way. She didn’t want to be convenient, or needed during times that were hard. She wanted him to love her—and to not be scared by what he felt—and her temper flared. “I can’t. But I’ll stay to the hearing, if you just freaking ask me.”

  But she’d injured his pride. “Maybe I don’t want you to stay if you’re not going to marry me,” he said, clearly choosing to embrace his unpleasant inner child.

  Jenn just looked at him.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said. “That’s a lie.” Now it was his turn to scan the parking lot, and as he did so, he sighed. And he closed his eyes briefly before he turned back to her. “Please, Jenn, will you stay?”

  She could see from his eyes that she’d hurt him, but that made two of them, didn’t it? She nodded as she took out her cell phone. “I’ll call Maria and let her know that I’ll be … seriously delayed.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be inside, trying not to be an asshole.”

  “Danny,” she said.

  He stopped and turned back. “That came out kind of asshole-ish,” he acknowledged, “but I was being serious. I’d like to have a sister again. Zanella, though, I could really do without.”

  “Maybe he’ll grow on you,” Jenn suggested. “I kind of like him.”

  “You like everyone,” he pointed out.

  “I don’t like Greg,” she said. “He’s a douchebag.”

  Dan laughed at that. “I bet you hardly ever said douchebag before you met me. I think that might be my word.”

  She thought about that. “I think you’re right,” she agreed. “My brothers were fond of dickhead and a-hole. Like taking the double-S out makes it family-friendly. A-hole. It actually sounds worse, doesn’t it?”

  He laughed—“Yeah”—but then his smile faded and he got serious again. “I love you,” he said. “I don’t tell you that enough. I should’ve mentioned it, right before the whole, you know, marry me.”

  Typical Navy SEAL behavior—refusing to give up, hoping to change her mind. Even though what he’d actually said was marry me anyway. Kind of the way his I love you actually translated to I love you enough to try to make this work.

  Jenn held up her phone because Maria’s line was ringing. “I gotta …” she said, and she turned away to leave a voice mail as Dan finally did give up and head inside.

  * * *

  “So here’s the deal.” Officer Kellen sat down on the hard waiting-room seats, across from Izzy and Eden. Danny-Danny-bo-banny was coming in from his private conference with the impossibly patient Jennilyn, and he hustled over to hear what the police officer had to say. “There’s no way I’m letting the kid go home with the stepfather.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Eden said in a rush of air as she released the breath that she must’ve been holding. “Thank you so much.”

  “But I’m kind of stuck,” he said, “because if I send Ben home with you, and this Crossroads place turns out to be considered by law to be a private school, then, yeah, Ben’s parents have the right to send him there, and we’re all screwed. Including me. Child services can’t get involved every time some kid doesn’t like the education choices his or her parents make.”

  “This is different,” Eden said.

  “Yeah,” Kellen said ruefully. “It’s a political issue, the gay thing.”

  “It’s a civil rights issue,” Dan corrected him.

  “That local and state politicians are going to jump all over,” Kellen said as he looked from Eden to Izzy to Dan and then up at Jenn, who’d come back inside. “And that church the stepfather belongs to—they can get loud and ugly. You really want Ben in the middle of that?”

  “I don’t see that we have a choice,” Dan said.

  “Maybe you do,” Kellen said. “Still no luck reaching the boy’s mother, right?”

  “She hasn’t called back,” D
an said, checking his phone again.

  “So let’s buy some time,” Kellen said. “The hospital wants to keep Ben overnight, for observation. So let’s keep him here tonight.”

  “His insurance won’t cover—” Danny started.

  Eden cut him off. “It’s a good idea and I have money. I’ll pay for it.”

  He looked at her. “It’s hundreds of dollars.”

  “It gives us time for you to find Ivette,” Eden countered.

  “Who always does what Greg says,” he pointed out, “which brings us right back here, except now we’re out hundreds of dollars.”

  “Overnight means Ben’ll be released in the morning,” Izzy argued. “Into our custody, because I’m willing to bet that Greg won’t be getting up before noon.”

  It was a good point, but Danny wasn’t buying it. “You know who wins in this scenario?” He was pissed. “Officer Kellen wins.”

  “Danny,” Eden said as Jenn provided a descant, “That’s not true.”

  But it was true, and Kellen knew it and was embarrassed. “I have a two-month-old daughter,” he said quietly. “If I lose my job …”

  “We appreciate all you’ve done,” Jenn said, her hands on Dan’s shoulders as she stood behind him.

  “I just think you stand a better shot,” Kellen said, “keeping this out of the system.” He stood up. “I’ll go tell the stepfather that Ben’s staying overnight.” He forced a smile. “Maybe he’ll do us all a favor and get violent. If I have to arrest him, that’s going to reflect poorly if you do need to get CPS involved.”

  Eden stood up, too. “Can we see Ben now?”

  Kellen nodded. “Go on in.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  The mall closed in fifteen minutes. Eden scanned the empty food court, looking for the girl named Neesha whom she’d met in her own living room.

  “She’s tiny,” she told Izzy now. “Chinese-gymnast tiny, except she’s not Chinese, she’s … I don’t know really. Asian, but not completely. Kind of like … if animé came to life. Huge brown eyes, straight black hair. When I saw her she was wearing these dorky black pants and a white blouse, like she was playing dress-up secretary.”

  “Okay,” Izzy said evenly, even though she knew what he was thinking. This was supposed to be a pretend errand. They were supposed to be parked along some dark deserted street right this minute, blowing each other’s mind.

  But back in the hospital, she’d promised Ben she’d look for the girl. He hadn’t wanted to stay there overnight because of his concern for his new friend. “I need to warn her about the cops at the mall—if those men even were cops,” Ben had told Eden.

  And although he didn’t say it—and she didn’t, either—Eden knew her little brother was thinking about Deshawndra, his best friend back in New Orleans. About the way they hadn’t stopped and hammered on her grandmother’s door after they’d left their home, with Katrina’s winds rising. About the way they’d just let Deshawndra stay behind—and die.

  In talking—just very briefly, when the nurses had been out of the room—they’d discovered that the police detectives who’d stopped Ben in the mall certainly seemed to be the same two men who’d come to the house and talked to Greg while Eden and Izzy had watched. And combined with the fact that the so-called detectives hadn’t shown up at the police station after Ben had been Tasered, and that all of the questions about Neesha had vanished once Ben was in the uniformed officers’ custody …

  It was weird enough for Eden actually to want to go out looking for the girl.

  Besides, she’d promised Ben.

  So here they were. At the mall, minutes before closing.

  “Apparently she eats other people’s trash,” she told Izzy, and he picked up a french fry from a tray that had been abandoned on a table and ate it. “Oh, yuck.”

  “I’ve eaten way worse,” he said. “Out in the world. Bugs, for example.”

  “Well, okay,” Eden said, laughing—because it was hard not to laugh when Izzy was grinning at her like that. “In the bugs-versus-cold-french-fries contest, the cold fries win. But still, yuck.” She headed for the restrooms. “I’m going to check the ladies’ room.”

  “Hey, you want an ice cream?” Izzy called after her, taking out his wallet and ordering himself a cone from the half-asleep girl behind the Häagen-Dazs counter. “Can you make it half raspberry, half vanilla?” He glanced back at Eden. “Sweetheart …?”

  “No, I’m good, thanks,” Eden called back.

  “Huh, that’s weird,” Izzy said as he frowned and flipped through his wallet, before finally taking out a bill and handing it to the girl in exchange for his cone. As Eden turned the corner, she heard him ask, “Have you happened to see a small Asian girl, around twelve years old? Well, she looks twelve, but she’s more like sixteen. She hangs out here and …”

  The hallway to the bathroom was brightly lit and tiled and endlessly long, as if the department of health decided this was their best shot at having the people of Las Vegas get some desperately needed exercise. There was a water fountain cut into the wall, but it wore an “Out of Order” sign—no big surprise there. Half of the stores in this mall had gone out of business, their windows boarded up with big “Coming Soon” signs. But that’s all they said; COMING SOON, and then a big empty nothing.

  The women’s-room door had the standard silhouette of a lady in a dress, along with some graffiti. Apparently Naomi was a ho and Hector had a tiny wiener and Eden was willing to bet that neither of those things was quite true.

  She was just about to push open the door and look inside, when the men’s-room door opened. And who should come out, but one of the two men who’d questioned Greg while Eden and Izzy sat watching from the street.

  It was the bald man with the mangina, and from up close, Eden could see that his baldness wasn’t completely by choice. He had the equivalent of a five o’clock shadow, but only on part of his head—on the sides and the back. He was older than she’d thought as she’d watched him from the car, with skin like her father’s—her real father’s—that was toughened from the sun.

  He was also with a woman—a girl, really—who wore makeup as if she were trying to win a contest for the largest number of gallons used in one single application. She was putting on lipstick as she followed him out of the men’s room, as if she’d just smeared the half tube she’d previously worn all over the skinhead’s dick, and yes, the back off, bitch hate-filled glare she gave to Eden was definitely reminiscent of high-school-age territorial behavior.

  Except the man she was with was so un-high-school, it was almost funny. He was old enough to be the girl’s father, and really, it was not fair for Eden to judge her for that. She herself had once been the queen of terrible choices when it came to choosing whose dick to suck—and Danny clearly thought she still was—but Lord, so much of what and whom she’d done had been out of anger and hurt, and from just wanting, desperately, to feel as if she mattered, somehow, to someone.

  Except, by doing what she’d done, she’d become exactly what she’d feared she was: a worthless empty shell with a willing mouth and open legs.

  But here and now, the man was looking at Eden with eyes that were pale gray and flat—and narrowing slightly because, yes, she was standing there, staring back at him. She’d also exhaled an involuntary little “oh” upon recognizing him, which she quickly covered by pulling out her cell phone—pretending its vibration had startled her—and pushing open the ladies’-room door.

  “Naomi, are you in here?” she called as she leaned down and scanned for feet, but the room was definitely empty, “because Mama’s calling me again, and …”

  She let the door close and opened her phone and put it to her ear.

  And if this man was a cop, then the world was also flat, Elvis lived in Ohio, and Eden herself was next in line to be the pope. Whoever he was, though, he seemed satisfied that she wasn’t a threat. But as she said, “I’m here, Mama, I’m here,” he took the time to g
ive her one last appraising look that succeeded in completely undressing her.

  It was a nearly palpable look, meant to intimidate, but she’d learned not to respond. She’d learned that she had the power, and she could shut him down and shut him out quickly and effortlessly.

  The day she’d been hired at D’Amato’s, she’d gotten a crash course in men, from Nicola Chick, aka Chestee von Schnaps of the basketball boobs. Nic had taught Eden to recognize and identify the different types of men who came into the club to watch the women strip. They all wanted eye contact with the strippers, but some men would pay more for a fuck you look in response, instead of a come hither smile. But certain men—such as this one—seethed with such danger and misogynistic hatred that Eden—on Nic’s sage advice—would have done neither.

  If this man had looked at her like that in the club? Eden would have gone blank. Zero expression, nobody home—so that any rudeness and impropriety would bounce off, avoiding any potential escalation. She’d mark him, though—be aware of where he was sitting, and be alert as to if and when he moved. And she’d avoid eye contact after that, and would be sure to point him out—discreetly—to the bouncers as well as the other women, after she left the stage. And she’d take a taxi home after her shift.

  Yes, Nic had been full of good advice, all of which Eden had heeded.

  She’d also told Eden to save the acting for the stage. Men could be total boneheads (Nic had used a different, more colorful word), so it was best for a beautiful woman to wear a safely neutral expression when the room wasn’t filled with bouncers to protect her.

  Right here and now, though, she wasn’t Eden the stripper and she wasn’t Eden the civilian, either. She was Naomi’s beleaguered sister, who was browbeaten by their mother. She most certainly hadn’t attended Nic’s impromptu stripper school, so Eden let herself cower and turn away from the skinhead—but not so far that she couldn’t monitor him in her peripheral vision.

  Her reaction again apparently satisfied him, because he followed BJ-Girl down the hall to the food court—to where Izzy was no doubt asking everyone he saw if they’d seen Neesha. Who Ben had been convinced was in some kind of danger, which was why Eden and Izzy had come to the mall.