The Once and Future Father

by Marie Ferrarella

  “I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

  Walking away, he conferred with the two uniformed policemen who’d already taken notes and were now in the process of taking pictures of the scene. But even though he was talking to the men, his attention remained focused on Lucy. From where he was, he could see her face was immobile, but he knew that wouldn’t last. Lucy was not one to remain devoid of emotions for long. They were just gathering up a full head of steam.

  He wanted to protect her. He wanted to send her home. This was no place for her.

  Nodding his head at something one of the policemen said, he crossed to Lucy. She’d picked up a figure of an angel. The wings were broken off. Taking it from her hand, he put it aside on the counter. “This could just be a random break-in.”

  Suspicious, Alma pounced on the words. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  That’s right, Lucy thought. Alma didn’t know. “Because he thinks that someone’s looking for something,” Lucy told her. The numbness she’d felt when she walked in to the shop was beginning to recede, supplanted by barely contained rage. The same people who had invaded her store had more than likely invaded her home. And her life by killing her brother. She wanted justice. For her brother and for herself. If that wasn’t available, she wanted revenge. She looked at the only man who could help her get that. “Isn’t that right, Dylan?”

  “Looking for something?” Alma asked. “Looking for what? Discount coupons?” She waved an angry hand at the shambles on the floor. “They sifted through everything, absolutely everything. You should see the storeroom.”

  The words were no sooner out of Alma’s mouth than Lucy was hurrying to the back to see the damage in the storeroom for herself. Dylan was right behind her.

  Opening the door, she took a breath and turned on the light. It illuminated a state of chaos. Within the small, airless room, towering boxes, once carefully piled one on top of the another, were now toppled, their sides ripped open, their insides spilled out all over the floor. Children’s videos and audiocassettes of time-worn favorite songs, mingled with gift books, more cards and figurines of cheery-looking animals in a macabre dance that covered the entire area.

  Lucy covered her mouth, not knowing how much more of this she could take. “Oh, God.”

  Dylan wanted to take her in his arms, to tell her everything was going to be all right. But he didn’t make promises. He just kept his word, once given. Instead, he turned to Alma. He’d felt her eyes boring into the back of his neck like a laser beam.

  “Was anything taken?”

  One shoulder rose and fell in abject confusion. “Damned if I know. It’s going to take me hours of going over the inventory to find out. Besides, there’s nothing of real value to take. There wasn’t even money in the register—which they broke into, I might add. It looks like someone jimmied it apart.”

  Leaving Lucy behind, Dylan walked out again and looked at the cash register. It was on its side behind the counter, its drawer hanging open like a broken jaw. Whoever had done it had been thorough. Nothing was left untouched.

  He turned around to find Alma right behind him. Lucy was just walking out of the storeroom, still looking stunned.

  “Don’t touch anything until we can get the forensics team out here.” He’d placed a call to them while driving over to the shop, but they were busy with another crime scene and couldn’t be over until later.

  Alma clicked her heels at attention and saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  Lucy placed herself between her best friend and her former lover. She knew Alma was only acting this way out of loyalty to her. But it wouldn’t accomplish anything and they had more important matters to deal with. She wanted to get her shop back on its feet as soon as possible. “Do you think they left any prints?”

  Amateurs would have, but Dylan had a feeling these were no amateurs.

  “It’s doubtful. They didn’t at your house,” he pointed out. “But anything’s possible.” There was always a chance someone had gotten careless. They needed very little to start with.

  Alma swung around to look at Lucy, horror and disbelief on her face.

  “Your house? Someone broke into your house?” she demanded, her hands on Lucy’s shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Lucy shrugged. “I didn’t want to worry you.” Alma began to open her mouth in protest, but Lucy raised her hand to stop her from saying anything. “Don’t start with me, Alma. This hasn’t exactly been the best day of my life.” Struggling to hold on to her temper, she looked around again. The task looked almost hopeless from where she stood. But everything began with the first step. She needed to take it. “We need to call the insurance company first to cover our losses.”

  The bright side, she counseled herself. Look at the bright side. Right now, that was almost impossible to find, but she tried.

  She looked at Alma. “We’re going to have to sell all these at a discount.”

  Alma looked at her dubiously, then took in the area. “Sure, we can call it a break-in sale. Might even catch on.”

  Lucy laughed shortly. It was better than crying. “You think?”

  There was just so much of this he could watch. Lucy was torturing herself. Dylan took her elbow. When she raised her eyes to his questioningly, he saw the pain.

  “Why don’t I take you back home?” It wasn’t really a suggestion, it was a plan. “There’s nothing you can do here until after forensics is finished. Might take the better part of the afternoon. Alma can handle things until the team leaves.”

  Lucy wanted to protest, to scream and rail at something. At him. To lash out just for lashing out’s sake, but that would only drain her more and solve nothing. It wouldn’t replace a single thing, wouldn’t right a single stand. Dylan was right. There wasn’t anything she could do right now.

  And there was a baby back at home who needed her. At least there she could be useful. Temporarily giving up the battle, she nodded.

  “All right. For now.”

  “Now is all I’m working with,” he told her.

  Alma looked at Dylan. He’d broken her best friend’s heart and for a rather well regarded police detective, he was as thick as mud when it came to the parentage of Lucy’s baby. But at least he’d managed to talk her into going home. She gave him his due grudgingly. “I guess you’re good for some things.”

  He made no answer as he followed Lucy out the door. It was better that way for all concerned.

  “I’ll call you later tonight,” Alma promised, raising her voice as Lucy and Dylan left the store.

  Lucy stopped in the doorway and waved, then turned toward Dylan once they were outside. “Don’t pay any attention to Alma.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. Because part of the street in front of the shop was being repaved, he’d parked on the other side. Taking her elbow, he waited to cross the street.

  Feeling unsteady on her feet, she let him guide her to the car over the uneven road. “She doesn’t like you because of what happened between us.”

  He didn’t want to get into that. He didn’t want to open doors that were best left shut. “No explanations necessary.”

  He was pretending nothing had ever happened between them. As if what had been there hadn’t ever existed. Lucy felt the threads of her patience unraveling down to nothing.

  “Oh, there’re lots of explanations necessary,” she said, her voice rising to a dangerous level as she got into his car. “But that’s your answer to everything, right? If it’s not a case, you don’t want to hear about it, talk about it, nothing. All you want to do is just shut it out of your mind.”

  Starting the car, he backed out of the spot and then turned it around to head back to her house. “Lucy—”

  But his words had unleashed her pent-up feelings. She wasn’t going to let him ignore their past. It existed. And because of it, Elena existed. “Because if it’s not a case, then it doesn’t deserve your attention. You even cut Ritchie out of your life so you wouldn’t have t
o talk about why you walked out on everything between us.”

  Her voice was quavering, making him uneasy. He didn’t know how to deal with tears, never had. Not his mother’s and not hers. “Lucy—”

  “The only reason you’re interested in him now is because he’s a homicide to you, so that means you have to play policeman and pretend you’re actually a living, breathing human being instead of some machine that—” Her voice hitched. “Some machine that—”

  Lucy’s voice broke completely. Tears filled her eyes, spilling out into her soul. Seeping through eyelids that were pressed shut.

  He heard them and they tore at him, frustrating him. He had no idea what to do, how to make her stop. “Lucy—”

  Turning her head away, she waved a dismissive hand at him. She was angry with herself for crying in front of him this way. She should have been braver. More controlled, the way he was. He didn’t give a damn about anything except his work.

  Frustrated, Dylan pulled his car over to the side of the road. There were things he wanted to say to her, things he suddenly wanted to explain. But no words came, nothing formed in his mind. He’d never been good at talking. People hadn’t talked in the world he’d grown up in. There’d been nothing but silences and hot accusations. His father had threatened, reviled, beaten. His mother had withdrawn into herself. There hadn’t been room for him there.

  There’d never been anyone to teach him how to communicate.

  When Lucy felt his hands reaching for her, self-preservation kicked in. She batted them away. If he touched her, she’d fall apart completely.

  “Leave me alone. You know how to do that. It’s what you do best.”

  The accusation hit its mark, stinging, but there was nothing he could say to negate it. It was true.

  “I did what I had to do.”

  “So do it again.” It was a dare, a challenge. When he reached for her a second time, she began to pummel him with doubled-up fists. But he was stronger than she was and right now, more stubborn.

  His arms closed around her. Lucy gave up the fight and collapsed, sobbing against his chest. Crying out her frustration, her fears, her relief that Alma hadn’t been there to get in the way of whoever had broken into the shop.

  She cried for Ritchie, for herself. And for what was and what would never be.

  He held her to him and let her cry.

  Chapter 9

  Very carefully, Watley moved the tiny puzzle fragment he’d been studying from piece to piece on the folding card table, trying to match up the indentations and extensions. Beside him, on the floor, was the cover from the thousand-piece puzzle, showing him what it would ultimately look like. Three giant polar bears standing in the snow. He liked being challenged.

  Part of the challenge was keeping his humor while trapped in an apartment with Dylan who was beginning to have more than a passing resemblance to a wounded bear.

  Watley mopped his brow. “Want my advice?” he said.

  Dylan didn’t even spare his partner a glance, concentrating instead on their quarry across the street. The view through the camera lens brought the entrance right up to him. It was noon and the flow of customers was at a peak. “Not particularly.”

  “Well, I’m giving it to you, anyway.” Watley frowned at the piece and for the moment, retired it as he picked up another one. “Free of charge. Don’t ever move back east.”

  It was sticky in the apartment. The two floor fans did little to change that, moving the heavy air around only marginally. The weather had been particularly bad the last two days, with the humidity factor unusually high for Southern California.

  But it wasn’t just the weather that was getting to Dylan. It was the surveillance that appeared to be going nowhere despite the fact that they now had one of their men working inside the restaurant, taking the place that Ritchie had left vacant. It was the fact that he was getting nowhere in the investigation of the break-ins into Lucy’s house and shop even though he knew in his gut who was responsible. And, it was the fact he’d spent the last ten nights sleeping on her sofa, hearing her and the baby just a few doors down. Picturing Lucy in his mind the way she looked as she was getting dressed and undressed. It was all of these things that were making him feel surly.

  Most of all, it was the last thing that was really getting to him.

  For lack of anything else to do, he adjusted the focus on the video camera. There were piles of videotapes against the wall, all neatly labeled and signifying nothing. “I’ll cancel the movers.”

  With a triumphant smile, Watley pressed one puzzle piece into another, forming a union of white that looked very much like all the others he’d managed to connect together so far. “And while you’re at it, I’d get ready to lose out on the Miss Congeniality award if I were you. It’s not going to happen.”

  Dylan got up and crossed to the small refrigerator they’d brought in with them. Opening it, he took out a can of soda and popped the top. “Are you deliberately trying to start a fight?”

  “Maybe.” Watley raised his eyes from the puzzle and regarded his partner. “So I can find out what the hell has crawled under your skin and died there, making you so damned irritable.”

  Dylan took another long swig before trusting himself to give a civil answer. “Other than this investigation, which has taken almost four weeks to head exactly nowhere, and a partner who won’t mind his own business?”

  Watley picked up another piece. “Hey, in case you haven’t realized it, you are my business. You’re supposed to watch my back.” He slanted a glance toward Dylan before looking down at the pieces again. “How are you going to do that if your head’s someplace else?”

  He didn’t like being reminded of his responsibilities, even by someone he liked. “Don’t worry about it, Watley. My head’s just where it’s supposed to be.”

  The look Watley gave him told Dylan his partner was unconvinced. “Can’t tell by me.”

  Temporarily halting the recording, Dylan took out one tape and inserted a fresh one. “Can’t tell a lot of things by you.”

  Watley had seen too many partnerships torpedoed by unavoidably close proximity. For all his distance, he liked McMorrow. The man was a solid cop, none better. For the sake of peace, he decided to change the subject. “Getting anywhere with Alvarez’s sister?” Watley asked.

  Dylan stopped labeling the tape. “What do you mean by that?”

  The look in Dylan’s eyes answered a lot of unasked questions for Watley. Dylan wasn’t the only one who could piece things together. Smiling to himself, Watley moved another piece of the puzzle into place on the table. And another one in his head.

  “I mean have you figured out yet what it was those jerks who broke into her place and her shop were looking for?”

  Dylan blew out a breath and told himself he was getting too edgy. But the tightrope he was on was getting to him. He wasn’t sure just how much longer he could maintain his balance.

  Labeling it, he shoved the old tape back into its jacket and placed it on top of the pile. “Could be a microchip, could be a disk, a CD, although I’m leaning toward video. I don’t know. But whatever it is,” he told Watley grimly, “it’s important enough to kill for.”

  “Don’t you think it’s about time you asked the captain for some police protection for the woman?” Watley said.

  What did Watley think he’d been doing all this time? “She has police protection.”

  Watley waved his hand at Dylan. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Reed and Madigan and Saldana. And you. But all that’s unofficial.”

  Dylan’s shirt was sticking to his back and he longed to throw open a window. But they couldn’t risk it. Any stray breeze would ruffle the curtains that were drawn to shield their camera.

  It made it hard to keep his mind focused on the conversation. “I’d rather keep it that way. The whole thing is low-key. The less attention paid to her, the better.”

  Watley shrugged, going back to his puzzle. “If you say so.”

  Alma du
g herself out of Lucy’s overly comfortable chair. It was time to get going. She’d come over to drop off the inventory pages Lucy had requested and remained to coo over the baby and feel her heart melt to the consistency of a puddle within her chest. It was hard to believe that Dylan McMorrow had fathered such an adorable child. Not that the man wasn’t good looking, she’d give him that. It was just difficult associating the word “adorable” with him.

  “So how long is the Great Stone Man going to be staying with you?” she asked.

  Eager to begin doing something productive, Lucy spread out the inventory sheets Alma had brought her all over the coffee table. Alma and Beth and Margaret had gone over the wreckage in the store and salvaged as much as they could. The items on the list that were too damaged to be sold as new were marked with only one-half of a cross instead of an X.

  A cursory glance had told her that things weren’t as bad as she had first thought. There was also nothing missing, not even a single video.

  What was it they were looking for?

  She realized that Alma was waiting for an answer. Too bad she didn’t have one. “I don’t know. Maybe until whoever tried to break in is caught.”

  Alma frowned. “Or until some whim makes him leave.”

  Lowering her eyes, Lucy began putting the sheets in order. “Drop it, Alma.”

  “No, you drop it.” Her hand over the top form, Alma leaned forward until she got into Lucy’s face, forcing her to look up. “You drop the brave act. This is me you’re talking to, your best friend since pablum and strained beets. You can’t lie to me.”

  With a determined movement, Lucy lifted Alma’s hand and removed it from the sheets. “I’m not lying, Alma, I’m just trying to get this ready for the claims adjuster.”

  “The hell with the claims adjuster, how about the adjuster you’re dealing with right now?”

  That caught Lucy’s attention. “What is it you’re talking about?”