Authors: Sherryl Woods
“Hey, slow down, kid,” he teased. “Why don’t you look through the pictures on your own for a moment, while I say hello to your mother.”
Dani blinked. “Oh, okay. Sure. Don’t take too long, though.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Grady crossed the kitchen. “You want any help with that,” he asked, sneaking in a quick kiss after he’d determined that Dani was totally absorbed with the photos.
Emily grinned at him. “I’m capable of heating a few things in the microwave,” she said. “It all smells delicious.”
He glanced toward Dani. “Maybe you should put off heating anything for the time being. It won’t take that long and I doubt Dani will want to eat when she’s so totally focused on this project.”
“Have I thanked you again for providing this distraction for her?”
“I’m not doing it as a favor, Emily. Go take a look at those photos yourself and you’ll see how desperate I am.”
“Still, it’s very nice of you to let her take a shot at it. It’s not as if she’s a professional.”
“Which means she’ll suit my budget. Now stop trying to make me into some kind of good guy. This is just a smart business transaction on my part. Besides, I like Dani. She reminds me of someone.”
“Who?”
His expression turned sad. “Just someone I used to know,” he said.
“But you’re not going to tell me any more than that, are you?”
He shook his head. “One day, though. I promise.” He studied her for a moment. “You seem more cheerful than you did when we spoke earlier.”
“I’m just relieved to see a smile on Dani’s face. Those have been few and far between lately.”
“Glad to help.” His eyes locked with hers. “When are
you going to agree to a real date with me, though? Just the two of us.”
Her pulse stumbled. “You haven’t actually asked me on one,” she pointed out.
He looked startled. “Really? How could that have slipped by me? I know I meant to.”
She laughed. “Well, when you get around to it, then we’ll have something to discuss, won’t we?”
“Of course, there is a lot to be said for coming by here and sharing a home-cooked meal from time to time.”
“Even if you have to provide it?”
“Sure. I like seeing you in your element.”
“Then you should probably be peeking in the door of my classroom. Something tells me I have a better grasp on teaching than I do on parenting or homemaking.”
“And I think you’re selling yourself short. This house feels like a home, not a showcase. And if you ask me, your kids have turned out okay.”
Emily’s attention went to her daughter, who was totally absorbed with jotting notes on a legal pad, several of her plant guides open beside her. “I’m so worried about her,” she admitted.
Grady tipped her chin up. “We can talk about it later, if you want. I may not spend as much time with teenage girls as you do, but I’m a pretty good listener.”
She saw his compassion and was drawn to it, even more than she was by the heat simmering between them. “I’d like that,” she said quietly, then gestured toward Dani. “But I think your consultant is anxious to get started.”
“But you and I have a date after dinner,” he said. “Right?”
Emily couldn’t seem to stop the smile tugging on the
corners of her mouth. “We do,” she said. And it promised to be a whole lot nicer and more intimate than dinner and a movie.
At some point during the evening, Josh came home, looked at the gathering in the kitchen, then got a whiff of the Cuban food and immediately sat down at the table.
“Where’d this come from?” he asked, scooping all of the leftovers onto his plate.
“My mother cooked it,” Grady told him. “And if you think this is good, you should taste her pork roast or her palomilla steak.”
“Count me in,” Josh said eagerly. He gave Grady a knowing look. “So, how come you dropped by and brought dinner?”
“I’m here to have a consultation with your sister about my landscaping.”
Josh looked dumbfounded, even as Dani preened. “But I thought…”
Grady grinned. “Well, there might be a little more to it,” he confided with a pointed glance at Emily that made her blush.
“Okay, that’s enough,” she said. “Josh, why don’t you take that food to your room and finish it? Dani, don’t you have homework?”
“Trying to get rid of us, Mom?” Josh teased. “Can’t you take a little competition for the man’s attention?”
“It is
not
about that,” she retorted.
“Then why can’t I stay here and talk to Grady some more about his plants?” Dani asked.
“Because you’ve already overwhelmed him with information. He’ll be seeing flowers in his dreams for a month,” she told her. “Give him a break.”
“Oh, okay,” Dani groused, then glanced at Grady. “But we’re going to the nursery to buy some stuff soon, right?”
“As soon as your mom says it’s okay, which I suspect means you’ll need to be on your best behavior for a while,” he told her.
Dani rolled her eyes. “It’ll probably be months before she lets me out of confinement.”
“Nobody to blame but yourself,” Emily reminded her. “Now, scoot. Both of you.”
After they’d gone, Emily studied the man seated across from her at the kitchen table. He was starting to look awfully darn comfortable there.
“What are you really up to, Detective?”
He gave her an innocent look—or tried to. It wasn’t completely successful. “Me?”
“Sounds to me like you’re trying to ingratiate yourself with my kids. Any particular reason?”
“You may be the first attractive woman I’ve ever met who didn’t automatically assume that a guy’s presence and his attempt to be nice to her kids was all about making inroads with her.”
“I’d be flattered if that were true, but I don’t entirely trust you. You had an entirely different agenda when we met and I suspect that hasn’t changed.”
He winced slightly at that. “That’s not the best impression I could give you, is it? What’s it going to take to turn that around?”
“A few straight answers,” she suggested.
He sighed. “Okay, I’ll be honest. This is totally confidential though, understood?”
“Of course.”
“I’m scared the case against Evan Carter is going to
fall apart, despite the evidence we have. The kid’s a fast talker with lots of charm and no priors. He comes from a good family. Lauren’s a scholarship student from a lousy neighborhood. Even though her dad’s a minister, Ken Carter’s found a way to spin that into a negative, too.”
“How?” Emily asked.
“Wild child rebelling against all those rules. It’s a familiar stereotype and Carter’s taking full advantage of it. There’s a pretty active smear campaign going on around campus right now. So, that means it’s Evan’s word against hers and that can go either way in a courtroom.”
“Is there anyone who can substantiate the rumors being spread about Lauren?” she asked.
He shook his head. “As far as I can tell, they’d all fall apart under close scrutiny. Doesn’t mean the defense can’t find some way to get them mentioned in front of the jury, even if the judge turns right around and rules them inadmissible.”
Emily saw in his eyes that he genuinely cared about the outcome of the case and finding justice for the victim. “You believe Evan’s guilty, don’t you?”
“With everything in me. What about you?”
“I don’t want to believe it,” she admitted. “Our families have always been so close. This is tearing all of us apart.”
“What if this had happened to your daughter?” he asked quietly. “Would you want someone to fight for her?”
“Of course.”
He kept his regard steady and waited.
“What?” she asked when the silence had gone on too long.
“We both know it may have,” he said.
The possibility made her sick inside. “I want to believe I’d know if Evan had done something like that,” she said. “But I can’t honestly say that I would. Dani’s withdrawn. She’s acting out in ways she never has before. Something’s definitely wrong and it’s tied to Evan. I do know that much.”
“Did you know Dani paid a visit to campus yesterday looking for the victim?” Grady asked.
Emily stared at him in shock. “Are you sure?”
“We’ve had the campus police keeping an eye on the girl’s apartment. There have been some threats against her. Just talk, we think, but we’re trying not to take chances. Dani was spotted there.” He paused, then added, “Evan Carter saw her, too. He wasn’t happy.”
“Oh, God, that’s where she went when we couldn’t find her and why she was so upset when she got home.” Emily felt her heart sink. “And you think that means…”
“That Dani knows something that could help us blow this case wide open. According to the officer who saw them together, Evan was really upset when he found her there. He got right in her face.”
“Oh, my God,” Emily said, picturing the confrontation.
“Don’t worry. Dani held her own this time. But I need to talk to her, Emily. Or I can bring Naomi over here, if you’d prefer that she talk to a woman.”
“No,” she said fiercely. “I’ll talk to her. I’ll force the issue now. It’s time. This simply can’t go on another minute.”
To her relief, he didn’t try to dissuade her.
“She’ll probably deny it,” he warned. “If something did happen, she obviously doesn’t want you to know.”
“She’s my daughter,” she said, knowing there was a note of desperation in her voice. “She will talk to me.”
“Okay, then. You’ll tell me what you find out?”
She tried to stare him down, but he didn’t waver. Finally she nodded. “I’ll tell you.”
He stood up then, but instead of heading for the door, he came toward her and bent down, touching his lips to hers. “Just so you know, when it comes to my reason for being here, it’s not all about the case. It probably should be, but it isn’t.”
And then he was gone.
T
he nonstop tension was starting to get to Marcie. Even during the early years of her marriage to Ken, when they had struggled to make ends meet, when Ken had been putting too much pressure on himself to succeed, she had never felt the kind of unrelenting stress that overwhelmed her now. A part of her wanted to crawl into bed, pull the covers up and not emerge until this nightmare was over. Of course, she couldn’t. She was all too aware of her responsibilities to her family.
Caitlyn, her beautiful, optimistic child, was an emotional wreck. She could see it in her daughter’s eyes every afternoon when she came home from school. Each day she looked a little more miserable, but she stoically denied any problems when Marcie asked, and flatly refused to consider homeschooling until the crisis passed. She tried too hard to become the buffer between Marcie and the outside world. She hid the newspaper when there was an article she thought would be too upsetting for Marcie. She’d even started sitting in the kitchen while Marcie prepared dinner, monitoring the evening news and finding some excuse to switch channels the instant any mention of Evan was made.
Evan barely spoke at all. He still had the cocky swagger that drove Marcie wild and a sharp tongue to go with it, when he did deign to address her. Looking at him, she wondered what had happened to the smiling, agreeable boy he’d once been. Though she loved him unconditionally, sometimes she didn’t even recognize this sullen, disrespectful young man.
Worse, she was increasingly fearful that he was guilty of raping that young woman. Even more troubling was her growing concern that he saw absolutely nothing wrong with what he’d done, only with the fact he’d been caught. And he was counting on his father to bail him out of the situation, rather than accepting any of the responsibility himself.
As for Ken, just when they should have been pulling together, he was at odds with her over everything. At first she’d made excuses to Caitlyn for her father’s snappish tone and gruff demeanor, but she was losing patience with him. She knew he was feeling the stress even more deeply than she was and she did everything she could think of not to upset him, but nothing she did was right. She knew from experience that snapping back would only make things worse, so she’d bitten her tongue so often lately it was a wonder the tip hadn’t fallen off.
Not fifteen minutes ago Ken had taken offense at something she’d said. She had no idea what, since the conversation had been a totally innocuous discussion about dinner. He’d stormed out of the house saying he needed fresh air. Since Caitlyn had retreated to the safety of her room and Evan had gone out earlier without mentioning when he’d be back, she’d been left sitting all alone at their oversize dining room table she’d set for four, her nerves stretched taut, her stomach in knots. It
was killing her that she couldn’t fix this. Fixing things was what she did, but the whole mess was beyond her. She didn’t even know the right starting point.
Slowly she rose and began to carry the virtually untouched food into the kitchen. Annoyed by the waste and even more distraught over the situation, she started jamming the food into the garbage disposal, rather than tucking it into storage containers as she usually did. Ken returned just as she was angrily shoving the last of the vegetables down the disposal.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded furiously. “Do you think money grows on trees? I’m spending so much time handling this mess with Evan, I’ve had to cut back on my paying clients. We can’t afford to be throwing away perfectly good food.”
She whirled around and glared at him, barely resisting the urge to toss the sponge she was clutching right into his reddened face. “Then you should have eaten it when I put it on the table,” she retorted. “As for Evan, maybe you should just let his lawyer do his job and stay the hell out of it!”
“Are you crazy? I swear to God, you don’t have the sense—”
“Stop it!” she shouted, the last frayed thread holding her temper in check snapping. “Whatever you were going to say, don’t! I’ve had it up to here with you demeaning me. I’m your
wife,
dammit! Your partner. We’re supposed to share things. You’re not supposed to treat me as if I’m some second-class citizen or a piece of property that’s outgrown its usefulness. You act as if I don’t have a brain in my head, as if I have no stake in what happens to our son.” She challenged him with a glare. “That’s right,
our
son, Ken. You don’t have a personal lock on
loving him and wanting the best for him. Did it ever once occur to you that I might have some ideas that could help? Or, at the very least, that you ought to discuss your strategy with me, if only so I don’t inadvertently say the wrong thing?”
For an instant he looked taken aback by her attack, but then a strange little smirk crossed his lips. “You want to share in Evan’s defense? You want me to tell you what’s going on? Then let’s share this. Your very best friend in the entire world is over there tonight entertaining Detective Rodriguez. Did you know that?”
Shock took the fight right out of her. Marcie sat down hard. Still, she managed to muster a weak argument. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ken. Emily wouldn’t do that. He’s probably just over there asking more questions. You know he’s been talking to everybody in the neighborhood for weeks now.”
“Has he been kissing everybody in the neighborhood?” he inquired, his expression smug. “Damn friendly for a cop, if you ask me. Then again, maybe it’s some newfangled interrogation technique. Probably pretty effective with a sex-starved divorcée like Emily.”
“Don’t be vulgar,” she snapped. “Emily’s not like that.”
“Are you sure you know her, Marcie? Has she mentioned anything about her little tête-à-têtes with the detective? This isn’t the first time he’s spent the evening over there. I’ve seen his car in the driveway before. And if it’s all about business, why isn’t that partner of his with him? And how long can it take to ask a couple of questions? Not the hours he’s been hanging around, I’ll tell you that.”
She stared at her husband incredulously, not sure
whether she was more stunned by his twisted take on what was going on or by the fact that he seemed to know so much about what was happening over at Emily’s house, in the first place. In the end it was the latter that she found most offensive. In her view, people didn’t go around spying on friends. She looked her husband directly in the eye.
“Have you been watching Emily?” she asked, radiating indignation. “For God’s sake, Ken, have you no shame?”
He didn’t even attempt to look apologetic. “Oh, get off your high horse. Let’s face it, who knows this family better than she does? I wanted to keep an eye on her, figure out whose side she’s on. I even tried to get her to tell me point-blank where she stood. Well, now I know, and it isn’t ours, Marcie. It isn’t ours.”
“You don’t know that,” she insisted, needing desperately to believe it. Emily was the one person in the world she’d ever trusted enough to confide in. Emily knew more about her and about her family than anyone else, Ken included. Practically the only thing she hadn’t told her was how fearful she was that Lauren Brown had been telling the truth about Evan. She was barely able to stomach thinking such a thing, much less voicing it aloud.
“I saw what I saw,” he said, looking thoroughly satisfied at having thrown her so completely.
“You really hate that I have a good friend, while you have no one outside of this family you can really talk to,” she accused. “You want to drive a wedge between me and Emily. You always have. That’s what this attack is about.”
He shrugged indifferently. “I could care less about
Emily Dobbs, except when it comes to her ability to make things harder than they need to be for Evan. He’s my only concern right now. He should be your top priority, as well.”
“Don’t you dare suggest that I don’t care what happens to our son,” she retorted. “But I have to worry about our daughter, too, or have you forgotten about the toll this is taking on her?”
“Caitlyn will be fine,” he said dismissively. “This isn’t happening to her.”
“It’s happening to all of us. Are you blind to everyone in this family except Evan? Nothing’s the same for any of us. I can’t even walk out the front door. You’re obsessed with trying to ruin that girl’s credibility. Caitlyn comes home from school looking shattered. She’s not even talking to her best friend anymore.”
“And none of that compares with the possibility that Evan’s life could be ruined forever.”
She sighed. “No, I don’t suppose it does, but that doesn’t mean we’re not all feeling the impact of this, and now you want me to distrust Emily, who’s stuck by me, who’s been there when I needed her for years now.”
“All I’m saying is that you might want to consider that her loyalty is an illusion. Ask her about Rodriguez, Marcie. Confront her about that kiss I saw. See what she says. See if she lies. Because if she tells you it never happened, she
will
be lying. I know what I saw. Then you’ll need to ask yourself why she’d lie if you two are such good friends.”
“Fine,” Marcie said, throwing down the sponge she’d been clutching since Ken had walked into the kitchen. “I’ll ask her now.”
“Go,” he said. “And don’t come crying to me when you find out what a traitor she is.”
Though a part of her didn’t want to accept the challenge, she knew she had to. Casting a defiant look at Ken, she slid open the kitchen door with such force it almost jumped out of its track. He had to be wrong. Not just because she couldn’t bear the thought of losing her best friend, but, frankly, because the idea of listening to him gloat from now through eternity made her sick.
Emily was still sitting at the kitchen table, her heart aching, when Marcie tapped on the back door, then walked inside, her cheeks red. Clearly upset about something, she looked as if she might burst into tears at any second.
“Are you okay?” Emily asked, dragging herself out of her own misery to try to deal with whatever was going on with Marcie. “Has something else happened?”
“I just had a huge fight with Ken,” she began, then waved it off. “Nothing new in that, unless you count the fact that I fought back for once.”
Emily hid her surprise. “Sit down. Can I get you some tea? Something stronger?”
“No, but I do need to ask you something.” She sat down, her hands reaching for a napkin and twisting it nervously.
“Of course. You can ask me anything.”
For several minutes, Marcie seemed to be struggling to work up her courage, but she finally blurted, “Was Detective Rodriguez here tonight?”
Dismayed that Marcie knew about his visit, Emily didn’t even consider denying it. She merely nodded.
Marcie looked strangely defeated, as if the response had taken something out of her. “I see.”
“Marcie, it’s not what you’re thinking.”
“You can’t possibly know what I’m thinking,” Marcie retorted in a tone Emily had never heard her use before. “It’s not the first time he’s been by, is it? Ken says he’s been here several times. Why?”
So that’s what their fight had been about, Emily thought, resigned to answering more uncomfortable questions. “He’s just doing what cops do, asking questions,” she said.
“And the kiss? He has kissed you, right?”
Emily’s temper stirred. “How on earth do you know about that?”
“Ken saw him kiss you.”
“He was spying on us?” she asked indignantly. “You have to be kidding.” She stood and picked up the teakettle just to have something to do. She turned on the water so hard it splashed everywhere. She ignored the mess, filled the pot and slammed it down on the stove before facing Marcie again. “Look, I know you and Ken are under a lot of pressure right now. I understand that. I really do. But so help me, Marcie, if I ever catch him over here peeking in windows to see what I’m up to, I will call the cops on him.”
“If Rodriguez is here as much as Ken says he is, you won’t have to wait long for help, will you?” Marcie said bitterly.
Emily’s gaze narrowed. “I think maybe we should end this conversation before we both say some things we can’t take back.”
“No,” Marcie said, surprising her. “I’m not leaving here until I get answers. I want to know why my best friend is chatting up a man who’s trying to put my son in jail. Are you so hard up for a man in your life that you’ll go to any length to have one?”
Emily froze. “Excuse me?”
Marcie flushed, but she didn’t back down. “There must be thousands of available men in Miami. Why would you choose to spend time with this one, when he could destroy us? Obviously you don’t give a damn about me or my family.”
Stung, Emily stared at her. “It’s not like that.”
“Really? Ken said you’d turned on us, and you have. I can’t believe it. I thought, of all people, I could trust you to be on our side.”
“Marcie, you know I love Evan and Caitlyn as if they were my own children, but this is a very serious accusation. The police have to get to the bottom of it. If Evan’s innocent—”
“
If?
They’re destroying my son with this outrageous accusation,” Marcie said heatedly. “And now I find out that you’re helping them. Some friend!”
“I’ve never said a single bad word about Evan to the police or anyone else,” Emily insisted. “I’ve kept an open mind from the beginning.”
“Really? An open mind? Not ten seconds ago, you suggested you’re no longer convinced that Evan’s innocent.”
Emily leveled a look at her. “Can you honestly tell me that you haven’t had a few doubts yourself?”
“That’s not the point. I’m not the one sleeping with the investigating officer.”
“Neither am I, dammit!”
“Oh, pardon me. It hasn’t gone that far, yet. Fine. Then you’re only making out with him not a hundred yards from my house, filling his head with who knows what nonsense about Evan, giving him added ammunition to make him look guilty. For that matter, just letting
him visit you puts him in a position to keep a close eye on what’s going on over at my house.”
“Grady is not the one who’s been spying on a neighbor,” she retorted angrily, then clamped her mouth shut. She recognized that there was no way to get through to Marcie when she was this worked up. She hated that Marcie had found out about Grady’s visits from Ken, who’d obviously given her the news in the most biased way possible.