More Than Friends (6 page)

In the meantime, she distracted herself by working. She labored alongside her crew, digging trenches, running wires for landscape lighting, and laying sod. By the time she went home each night, her shirt soaked through with sweat and streaked with dirt, she had only enough energy left for a quick shower before she crawled into bed. The grueling pace meant she would finish this job several days ahead of schedule. She’d promised her crew a long weekend before they headed to the next site.

“Take a break, guys,” she called after they’d emptied another pallet of sod. She pulled a bandana from her back pocket and wiped her forehead, then grabbed her water bottle and took several long swallows.

Leaning against the door of her truck, she surveyed today’s progress. The lawn sloped gradually down from the front of the house, giving way to a circular drive and a gated exterior. Her crew had added several walkways connecting the house, the four-stall garage, and the driveway. At the owners’ request, they’d installed an opulent fountain in the middle of the drive. The gold-gilded cherubs spewing water into the center of a round pool would not have been her choice for the space, and she still winced when she looked at them. But accepting the piece afforded her the luxury of a large budget and free rein over the rest of the yard. She’d worked in the sculpture as well as possible, distracting from it with gorgeous, elegant flowers and carved marble benches.

“It’s really shaping up,” Lucas, her most trusted employee, said as he came to stand next to her. “Other than that god-awful fountain, I mean.”

She laughed. “It really is horrible.”

“Money doesn’t buy taste.” He shrugged and tilted his water bottle.

Eight years ago, when she left her desk job to start her own business, Lucas was one of the first two men she hired. The other man had left within a year, but Lucas proved to be loyal and hardworking. Because he was twenty years old, she hadn’t expected a long-term commitment when she’d hired him. But he proved eager to learn and, with a new wife and a baby on the way, he needed the job. Now, she could confidently hand him the reins on almost any project.

Since then she’d added nearly a dozen men to her landscape crews, as well as an office manager so she wouldn’t end up behind a desk full-time again. Still she spent at least two days a week in the small office she leased. Her office manager, Roberta, handled the billing and assigned crews to routine-maintenance accounts. But Melanie met with prospective clients and approved all new projects.

“Everything okay, Boss?” Lucas asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

“You’re not wearing your ring.” He nodded at her left hand. The light strip where her gold band used to rest stood out against her otherwise tanned skin.

“No. I’m not.” She’d felt strange removing the ring and had worn it for several days after the breakup. But seeing it on her finger had only made her sad, so she’d tucked it away in her jewelry box.

“What happened?”

“We split up.”

“If you want to talk…”

She shook her head. “I just need to work.”

She and Lucas couldn’t be more different, yet she considered him a friend. He was a country boy, raised on a farm with traditional Southern Christian values. He’d admitted shortly after she introduced him to Kendall that he’d never been around an openly gay person before. He struggled with how her lifestyle fit into his religion, but he accepted and respected her. Over the years, they’d worked closely together and she liked to think she’d broadened his view of how God created people. Conversely, he taught her a great deal about how strong faith could be.

Last year, when he and his wife had divorced, she had supported him as best she could, letting him adjust his hours so he could pick up his son and listening when he needed to vent. She knew she would have his ear now if she needed it, and she trusted him to keep her business private. But she couldn’t talk yet, not without crying.

She hated walking through the house and seeing Kendall’s things, but it just didn’t feel right to box them up, and Kendall hadn’t contacted her regarding what she would do with them. Instead, she found excuses to be out of the house, working late and running imaginary errands. But nothing completely distracted her from the mess her life had become.

She still believed ending their relationship would eventually prove best for both of them. But knowing that didn’t change the fact that she was now in her mid-thirties, alone, and with all of her previous plans for her future blown to hell. Maybe eventually “starting over” would sound promising—full of positive possibilities—but for now, all she could think about was how much she missed her old life, her old routines, and their friends, specifically Evelyn.

*

Evelyn entered the courtroom and strode to the front. She pushed through the swinging gate and joined several other officers sitting behind the prosecutors’ table. One officer was engrossed in a paperback book, and two others appeared occupied with their phones. She dropped into a chair next to a familiar face.

“Hey, Princess,” she said. On the outside, Jennifer Prince was all girl and made no secret of just how high-maintenance she could be, which was why she’d earned the nickname in the academy. The instructor had coined the not-so-imaginative take on her last name the very first day in his attempt to break her down. But she’d proved to also be extremely tough and had soared through the challenge of the police academy.

“Hey, Fisher. How’ve you been, babe?” Jennifer winked and her belly fluttered. Something about a beautiful woman winking at her always got to her. Jennifer was one of those women who didn’t seem to notice the effect she had when she tossed her chestnut curls, beamed a dimple-revealing smile, or casually touched an arm while she spoke. She was a natural flirt, which is what had made it easy for Evelyn to cross a line with her.

“My day just got a little brighter. How are you?”

“Not bad. I’ve been seeing someone new.”

“Yeah? Is it serious?” Evelyn kept her voice down, conscious not only of the other officers around them, but the defendants and their families occupying the rows behind them.

“There’s definite potential.”

“Good for you. We should have lunch one day and catch up.”

“Absolutely. I always have time for you.” Jennifer smiled. “Hey, I heard about Kendall and Melanie. How’s Kendall doing?”

“Ah, she’s a bit of a wreck, but she’ll get through it.”

“How long were they together?”

“Seven years.”

“Wow, an eternity.”

“Yeah. I’ve never known them separately. It’s weird.”

They fell silent as the seats around them filled. The prosecutors entertained a line of defense attorneys, brokering last-minute deals for their clients. When the judge took the bench and the clerk read through the names on the docket, those who’d reached an agreement would enter their pleas and sign the appropriate paperwork. The remaining defendants waited their turn for the preliminary hearing to determine if probable cause existed to bind their case over to the grand jury.

Just as everyone else had settled down, the heavy door at the back of the courtroom swung open. The man who entered had carefully cultivated his appearance, from his towering height to the breadth of his shoulders, all wrapped in a dark suit custom-tailored to appear distinguished but not too expensive, alluding to stability. He’d selected the wire rims on his glasses specifically because they didn’t obscure the one touch of softness in his appearance—big, brown, trustworthy eyes. He strode to the front of the room, emanating the prowess that earned him his hourly fees.

He still knows how to make an entrance.
Nearly every head turned as he passed. His smug smile seemed to encompass every one of them.

“Hey, isn’t that your—”

“Yeah.” Evelyn reluctantly made eye contact with her father. He raised his chin in greeting and she nodded in response.

He pushed through the swinging gate and turned left, heading for the defense table on the opposite side of the room.

“Damn, he’s intimidating,” Jennifer whispered.

Evelyn was relieved when the court officer ordered them to stand and announced the judge’s name. She didn’t want to talk about how impressive her father was. She’d grown up in awe of his obvious power and confidence, until she was old enough to understand exactly what a defense attorney did. The biggest argument she’d ever had with her father had come on the day she’d told him she’d applied to the police academy instead of law school. Until then, he’d believed she would eventually join his firm.

“Be seated.”

She sank back in her seat and listened for the names of her defendants. When the clerk finished reading the docket, neither of her cases had pled, and what was worse, her father represented the defendant in her first case. She shifted, pushing against the bulky gun belt around her waist, and attempted to get more comfortable. She’d be here most of the morning.

Chapter Five

“Are you just now getting out of court?”

“Yep. And I hadn’t even left the parking garage when dispatch sent me this call.” Evelyn climbed out of her patrol car and glanced at the house in front of her, checking the address against the one on the laptop screen in the car. Kendall, her backup, had pulled up just before her.

“Well, at least you’ll have fat overtime on your next check.”

She nodded. Sitting around in court all day had exhausted her, and now she had to endure the rest of her regular shift.

“What’s wrong? You seem a little edgy.”

“Eh, my dad.”

“He was in court?” Kendall winced. Evelyn had watched him cross-examine Kendall once, and he didn’t give her any slack either.

“Yeah.”

“How is Charles W?” Kendall asked, making her usual joke about his penchant for introducing himself as “Charles W. Fisher.”

“Same as always. He is who he is and I’m not changing either.”

“Did something happen today?”

“No, we didn’t even speak, except when I was on the stand.”

“Unfortunately, he really is good at what he does.”

“I know.” His questions were always on point and delivered with just the right amount of respect and skepticism.

“So, what’s the score now?” Kendall asked.

“What?”

“You keep a running tally every time you’re in court with him, right?”

His criminal-trial record was beyond impressive, and he was a pro at winning juries over. But she had inherited his trustworthy smile and usually felt she could hold her own against him.
Against him.
Despite knowing that they were both simply cogs in the gears of justice, she couldn’t help making their encounters personal.

“Forget that. Let’s go find out what they’re fighting about this time.” She forced her attention back to her current situation—one she could do something about.

Today wasn’t the first time they’d been to this particular residence. The husband and wife who lived here argued often, which usually resulted in one of them calling the police. Today it was the wife. But when police officers arrived, neither would make a statement against the other. If they got physical, they were careful about it. She hadn’t seen a mark on either of them yet, and until she did, she couldn’t do anything to force prosecution.

Kendall nodded and opened the chain-link gate leading to the residence in question. Aside from the bright-red front door, the small, square house wasn’t different from any of the other houses on the block. But before they could reach the front porch, that very door flew open and a harried-looking woman hurtled out and stopped when she saw them. She wore fuchsia fuzzy slippers and a flowing nightgown covered in huge, obnoxiously bright flowers. She shook one fist in the air while clutching the neck of a broken wine bottle in the other.

“Where have you been? I called fifteen minutes ago.”

“What’s going on today, ma’am?” Kendall asked. She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, leaving plenty of room between them and the woman.

“Other than the piss-poor response time of the police? If I’d been shot in the street, I would have been dead before you got here.”

Evelyn bit back a snarky response. She’d heard this twisted logic before and had long ago given up explaining just why this woman would not have been left to die in the street while the police ate doughnuts down the street.

“Where’s your husband tonight?” she asked, ignoring the rest of her tirade. If the woman complained to the department, their response time would be investigated. The department didn’t have enough officers to answer every call immediately, so incidents were prioritized and that meant some people had to wait. She had no doubt that’s what had happened in this case. Neither of these two admitted to physical injury, and despite the bottle in the woman’s hand, she hadn’t mentioned any weapons on the phone, so some high-priority calls had been dispatched first.

“He’s inside. On the kitchen floor where I left him.”

“What happened to him?” When the woman tightened her grip on the bottle, Evelyn rested her right hand on her gun. “Ma’am, I need you to put down the bottle and stay out here with my partner while I go inside and check on him.”

She nodded and set it down in a nearby rocking chair. Evelyn met Kendall’s eyes in silent communication, and at her slight nod, they both moved forward. Kendall steered the woman toward a chair on the other side of the porch, and Evelyn continued through the front door.

Her hand still on her gun, she scanned right to left as she passed through each room. An overturned chair and broken vase on the floor indicated a struggle in the living room. She stepped over a lamp lying across the doorway, and the broken bulb crunched under her boots. A fixture in the next room provided enough light that she didn’t have to use her flashlight. A picture hung askew in the hallway leading to the back of the house. She saw no effort to hide the obvious physical struggle here. The couple had apparently crossed a line this time.

She found him unconscious, in the kitchen, on his side, wedged between the counter and a battered dinette table. After a quick glance around the room, she bent and felt for a pulse. Satisfied that he was alive, she grabbed her radio and asked dispatch for an ambulance and a domestic-violence detective.