Clearly puzzled, White said, “He’s popular. He doesn’t need to force girls.”
Emily spoke up. “Maybe he likes to. You need to check his computer. Get into his social media accounts. Find out what he’s doing online. What kind of websites he visits. There is a dangerous pattern emerging. Your son likes young girls. You should be monitoring him.”
“My dad had a right to yell at Justin after what he did to me,” Aiyana added. “Personally, I would have been happy if he’d beaten him up, but that would have gotten him into trouble. Just because he told your kid to stay away from me and to stop posting lies about me on the internet, you arrested him for murder on flimsy evidence. You need to look for the real killer and not my dad. Do your job.”
The sheriff looked lost. If he hadn’t been such a hard-ass every time Emily had dealt with him, she would have felt sorry for him now. But it was good to see him look human, and less cocky.
“I’ll talk to my son.” He sent Iris a hard glare. “You aren’t going to have him charged with rape, are you?”
Whoa. That sounded too much like blackmail, or bribery. I’ll ease up on Salem if you promise not to charge my son. Emily opened her mouth to warn Iris, but she got there first.
“Your son needs to change. You’re an officer of the law. You need to monitor him. You need to make sure he doesn’t retaliate against any of us. That’s your job, not ours.”
She turned and left the building, almost as though she couldn’t stand to stay in the same room with Justin’s father another second. Iris hadn’t, Emily noted, made the sheriff any promises.
The girls departed amid grumbling, not everyone convinced anything would change.
“I don’t blame them for their skepticism.” Emily lingered for a final word with the sheriff. “Your son has been getting away with this crap for a long time. He’s probably felt immune from consequences because of your position in town. That has to stop.”
The sheriff didn’t say anything, just nodded, his jawline hard. Emily wasn’t sure who he was most angry with—her, the girls, Salem or his son—but she hoped like crazy it was all against Justin.
She left the office and found everyone waiting for her on Main Street. They looked unsure what to do next. They’d finally had their day in court, so to speak, but needed more. “Let’s celebrate,” she said. “Let’s go to Sweet Temptations for sugar and chocolate. My treat.”
The girls laughed and headed to Laura’s bakery and café.
Emily stepped inside and was immediately transported back twenty years. The colors of the walls might have changed over the years, but the essence of the decorations, the ambience, was still pure Laura. Big, bold and colorful. Sensual and lively.
A wave of sadness swept over her.
So much time passed. So much water under the bridge. How much had she missed over the years? And now that Salem was in jail, was it possible she’d waited too long to come home?
After they all had their snacks, they sat around two tables.
Emily bit into her date square. Apparently, Laura had sold out of cinnamon buns early today. A pair of arms wrapped around her from behind and she was washed by patchouli and incense. She smiled. Laura.
Laura pulled away and asked the girls, “How did your meeting with Sheriff White go?”
“We think it went well,” Sophia said. “He seemed to at least listen to our stories. It’s hard to know what he’ll do about it, though.”
Aiyana put down her brownie and wiped her fingers on her serviette. “I got the feeling he took us seriously. He looked a lot less like a bad guy by the time we left.”
“Yes,” Emily said. “More human.”
“Not as cocky. I think he’ll talk to Justin.” Aiyana picked up her hot chocolate and blew on it. “I just hope he doesn’t buy any of Justin’s lies.”
The door opened behind them and an extraordinarily good-looking boy walked in, set apart by olive skin, dark wavy hair and, oh my, the most gorgeous pair of bedroom eyes Emily had seen in a long time.
“Hey, Tony,” Sophia called. “Join us.”
He dragged a spare chair from a nearby table and straddled it. “Hey, sis.”
Sophia introduced her brother to everyone. Aiyana’s cheeks, Emily noticed, turned pink. Holy relics, so sweet.
Tony glanced at her sideways and then said hi to everyone else. “What’s good today?”
Laura tapped him on the shoulder. “Everything’s good here, buster.”
Tony laughed, white teeth flashing against tanned Italian skin. Had Hollywood come knocking yet? It was only a matter of time.
“Soph,” he said, “can you take my shift on Thursday night?”
“Sure. Hot date?”
“My secret.” Tony grinned, stood and ambled to the counter. Two tables full of female eyes tracked his progress. He seemed oblivious, natural in his skin.
In a strange way, he reminded Emily of Salem. He’d always been comfortable in and with his body, too. It was one of the things she’d first fallen for, while watching him play basketball for hours. Later, her dad had taught her how to play, and she’d loved it, but had never become really skilled. Music had been her thing.
Tony left and the room breathed an audible sigh.
“Oh. My. God. Sophia, your brother is so hot.” One of the girls, Jane, fanned herself with a napkin. “His eyes are amazing. Sleepy. Dark. So Italian.”
“He’s my pesky younger brother, Jane. I so don’t see him as hot.”
“How old is he?” Aiyana asked quietly.
“Sixteen.”
“He’s dating already.”
Sophia picked up on the same apprehension in Aiyana’s voice that Emily heard. “He is not like Justin. He likes girls and they like him. He knows he’s good-looking, but my parents raised him right. He has fun with it, but doesn’t let it go to his head.”
When Aiyana wasn’t looking, Sophia met Emily’s gaze with her own and smiled. Emily could tell Sophia was totally going to promote something between Aiyana and Tony.
Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe a date with Tony, and maybe one with Cody. Wouldn’t it be sweet for Aiyana to get some experience with boys who were safe, even if it was only one or two good dates, just to restore her faith in the opposite sex?
Emily nodded, letting Sophia know she had her full support. If Sophia could get her brother to ask Aiyana out, it would be the best thing that could happen to her.
* * *
SALEM LAY ON THE COT staring at the gray ceiling, stunned by everything he’d just heard.
Aiyana hadn’t been the only girl Justin had victimized. And in their way, all of them had just taken themselves out of the victim role. By testifying against Justin, even if only in the sheriff’s office rather than in a court of law, the girls had turned themselves into survivors.
He was proud of Aiyana for fighting back, both for herself and for her father, for displaying spunk and backbone.
The worst, though, was what had happened to the one girl who had said she’d been raped at fourteen. He thought of Mika. It would kill him if it happened to either of his daughters, but so young? That would be even more devastating.
The front door of the office opened and closed. More girls?
Salem heard the sheriff’s voice. “What are you doing here? You should be in school.” Who was it?
“I heard rumors there were a whole bunch of girls from school here this morning.”
Justin was here. Salem stood and crept to the corner of the cell nearest to the office so he could hear.
“Brent,” White said, “why don’t you go on your rounds?”
“But I only just got back before those girls showed up.”
“Go. I need to talk to my son alone.”
Salem heard the front door open and close.
“What do you think those girls were doing here, son?”
“I don’t know.” Justin sounded surly.
“Think about it. Apparently, all of them know you.”
“Yeah? So?” Salem imagined the boy’s shrug. “We all go to the same school. Of course they know me.”
“They all had complaints about you. Serious ones.”
“Like what?” Now he sounded worried.
“About you trying to pressure them to have sex with you when they didn’t want to.”
“That’s a lie. I don’t have to force girls. They’re all over me. Dad, you know that. You’ve seen them.”
“Yeah, but there was more to their allegations.” Sheriff White sounded about as serious as Salem had ever heard him. He’d taken what the girls had said to heart. “Some of the girls you tried to have sex with were underage.”
“So? They wanted it. They went out with me when I asked them on dates.”
“You were asking fourteen-year-old girls out when you were sixteen and seventeen? There are plenty of lovely girls out there your own age. Why go after the young ones?”
“So? It’s not illegal if they’re willing.”
It was interesting, Salem was learning, how much could be heard in a voice when you couldn’t see a person’s face. What he heard now was a careless bravado.
White groaned. “It doesn’t matter if they’re willing. They’re too young for it to be acceptable. And that’s another thing. What about when they aren’t willing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you ever raped a girl?”
“No,” he snapped. “Who said I did?”
“Harold’s daughter, Iris.”
“The pretty one. Man, she looks like she should be in an old-fashioned Italian painting or something.” The tone of Justin’s voice had taken on a sensual air, had, as one of the girls had stated about him, become creepy.
“Come off it,” Sheriff White snapped. “Did you rape her?”
“No. She’s lying.”
“She didn’t say no?”
“Never.”
“You didn’t drag her into an alley and put your hand over her mouth so she couldn’t scream?”
“Nope.” The kid was lying. Salem could hear it. He wondered if White could, too.
Standing here in the dimness listening, but not seeing, was like being a lie detector. He could hear so much in a person’s voice without the distraction of seeing a face.
“You know something, son? I believed her. She was one of the most convincing victims I’ve ever seen. That girl hates your guts, and it sounds like she has good reason.”
“You’re gonna believe a girl over me? What about all the stories you told about when you were young? Sowing your wild oats, you called it.”
“I never forced a girl. I never pressured. I never even seduced. And I certainly didn’t drop them after one night unless they wanted to be dropped. You’ve moved into a whole other category altogether, and it’s not only disgusting, it’s illegal.”
Salem actually heard one of them swallow, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t the father. “What are you going to do about it?”
Sheriff White sighed. “Legally? I don’t know. No one’s pressed charges. Yet. Morally? I’m suspending all privileges. No car. No dates. No allowance. No going out nights. They said you use the internet to tell lies about them.” Salem heard a drawer slide open. “Goddamn it. Do you see all of this stuff? This is training material they keep sending us, teaching us to recognize cyberbullying. It’s a crime. Jesus. My own son.”
The drawer slammed shut. “No internet. I’m confiscating your computer. School and studies and that’s it. You’ve got another week of classes left. After that, I don’t know what we’ll do. For now, you stay away from all girls, y’hear?”
“That really sucks. I can’t believe you won’t support your own son.”
“I’ve supported you for years, even when your grades slipped and the teachers complained that you goofed around too much and slacked off. Even when that old teacher kept holding you back year after year, I argued for you. I thought, so what, the kid’s young, but I was wrong. You’ve been screwing up big-time behind my back. I haven’t been strict enough. That changes as of today.”
Salem heard the sheriff move and what sounded like a minor scuffle.
“Hey! Let go of me!” There was no missing the shock in Justin’s voice.
“Your mother and I indulged you. We were wrong. No more. This summer, you’ll go to a counselor, as often and as long as it takes to fix whatever is wrong inside you. A sex counselor, if I can find one. And if I ever hear of you forcing a girl again, I will personally lock you up and throw away the key.”
The silence that followed hummed with an electrical charge Salem swore he could feel all the way back here in his cell.
“I hate you.” The door slammed, shaking the building.
The office chair squeaked as though White had sat down and either leaned back to stare at the ceiling, or forward to put his head in his hands.
As a parent, Salem commiserated, but he wasn’t so dumb that he didn’t also feel good about this turn of events. Maybe the sheriff would get off his back. Salem heard a car start and roar off down the street and crossed his fingers the kid didn’t kill anyone on his way home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EMILY LEFT THE CAFÉ with Aiyana and Mika. Just as she did, farther down the street, John Spade stepped into the sheriff’s office.
“I was going to drive you to school for the afternoon,” Emily said, “but we need to return to the jail. I want you to see that your dad is being taken care of.” She wanted it for their peace of mind.
“What do you mean?” Aiyana asked.
“Did you see that man who just entered the office?”
Aiyana nodded.
“He’s the cavalry.”
“Who?”
“That was John Spade, your father’s new lawyer.”
“Let’s go.”
They practically fell over each other to get there first. They stepped into the office just as John Spade handed the sheriff a sheaf of papers.
“I would advise you to let my client out of here right away.”
“Um.” Sheriff White didn’t look very good. “I thought you were gone for a week.”
“I was. I came back.” John Spade was the epitome of a lawyer who’d made good money, his suit expensive, his white shirt perfectly pressed, his face and body buffed, scrubbed and pampered by the best money could buy. “What’s the problem? Let me in to see my client.”
White rubbed his hands over his face. His goose was cooked and he knew it. White had banked on the only lawyer in town being away and hoping he could throw Salem in jail and sit on the case from last Friday and for the full week through until next Monday, when John should have returned. By then the bruises would have been gone, and the cuts healed.
Steps heavy, White brought John around back. Emily followed and could feel the girls behind her.
When John Spade saw Salem, he stopped short. “You’re in a shitload of trouble, Sheriff.”
“He fell—”
John raised a hand to shut him up. “Save it for the courtroom.”
Emily wasn’t sure she’d ever been in the presence of a more confident man. Jean-Marc had been arrogant, but wasn’t that sometimes a function of insecurity? An overcompensation? Hadn’t Jean-Marc’s excessive need to philander been a means to cover his fear of isolation? He couldn’t stand to be alone, ever. Every minute of every day had to be filled. His need for attention had exhausted Emily.
Jean-Marc had never learned the difference between loneliness and solitude. He had never experienced the rejuvenation that moments of solitude could bring.
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John Spade, on the other hand, could probably spend endless days alone happily, and had the cojones to back up Emily’s dad’s claim that he was the best. So great to have a ruthless man on one’s side.
“Open the cell door. I need to meet with my client.”
“He’s a criminal. A murderer.”
John’s ice-blue eyes cut through White’s B.S. “He’s a suspect. Every suspect has the right to legal counsel, and to private meetings with that counsel. If you don’t allow that, I’ll file a complaint and have you fired. Open the door.”
Whoa. The implacability in his voice intimidated even Emily. Sheriff White hadn’t managed to intimidate her with his mean spirits no matter how hard he’d tried, but Spade did with his ice. If there was even a trace of warmth behind those eyes, Emily couldn’t detect it.
The sheriff unlocked Salem’s cell and left them alone, returning to the office around the corner. Before Spade could enter, Aiyana and Mika scooted in ahead of him and threw themselves into his arms.
“Daddy, I missed your hugs.”
“I hated not having you home with us. Oh, Dad, your poor face.”
“I’m going to kick the sheriff.”
“Hush. You’ll do no such thing. I won’t have you tossed in here with me.” Emily thought she detected a damp gleam in his eyes. “I missed you, too.” His butter-soft voice sounded hoarse today, whether from emotion or disuse Emily couldn’t tell.
“The sheriff wouldn’t let us in to see him.” While she told John this, she gripped the bars, holding herself from running in to claim any tiny spot left in that hug for herself, but Salem had his hands full. And rightly so. His daughters mattered to him. “Other than Laura bringing him the buns, he’s had no visitors.”
Both girls started to talk, speaking over each other, cutting each other off, sharing with their father details of what they’d done that morning.
“I heard you when you came to the office.” Salem ran his hand over their smooth raven-dark hair that matched his. “I heard it all. You were brave warriors.”
John turned his cool gaze on Emily, but she thought she detected a spark. “I heard he had one other visitor, after midnight on Saturday night.” He kept his voice low enough that Sheriff White wouldn’t be able to hear him.
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