Protection for Hire (18 page)

Except if Elizabeth really did know something significant,
it would never be safe. They might be on the run for the rest of their lives.

Was his making partner worth the unraveling of Elizabeth’s entire life? He was ashamed it was even a struggle with him.

But it was. Because of that dark place inside him, forged with each blow from his daddy’s fist. Partnership was the only place where he could finally escape that dark place forever.

But partnership wasn’t worth the bruises on Elizabeth’s face. And he realized it’d make him just like his daddy.

He shuddered violently.

He started walking back to the law offices. He had some time to think, to weigh his options, to list absolutely everything that was at stake. He couldn’t hire a P.I., but he could do his own research on Stillwater Group, about Mr. Greer’s possible interests in it, whatever they may be.

They weren’t throwing Elizabeth under the bus. They were throwing Heath.

And Elizabeth was collateral damage.

T
essa sat outside the principal’s office with a stripper sitting beside her, and thought about how much trouble she was in. Not with the principal, but with her sister. She’d have preferred the principal.

She glanced at the closed door, behind which her niece and Brianna, a student here at Palo Relleno High, were closeted with the principal. The man’s booming voice could be heard, although not his exact words, as he delivered a lecture to the two girls that had already lasted fifteen minutes. Brianna’s mother, Layla the stripper, also looked at the door.

Tessa and Layla gave identical sighs.

What was more, Layla wasn’t just any stripper; she was
the
stripper. The one with whom Paisley’s father, Duane, had that first affair. Tessa didn’t know how she was going to explain all this to Alicia when she got out of the all-day job interview she was in right now.

Paisley’s girlfriend, another eighth grader named Maria, sat on Tessa’s other side, swinging her legs since she was too short for the wooden bench. The swinging started getting wider and stronger, so Tessa told her, “Stop that.”

“You’re not my mom,” Maria said with a pout.

“No, but she’s coming soon to pick you up, and I can tell her lots of lovely things about your behavior today.”

Maria stopped, but she threw her body back against the bench and crossed her arms. “What does it matter? The principal will tell her anyway.”

“Except the principal doesn’t know the real reason you and Paisley cut school and took light rail to this high school, does he?”

Maria frowned. “Paisley talks too much.”

“You shouldn’t have roped her into this in the first place.” Tessa hadn’t met Maria before today, but she could size the girl up pretty easily — a bit of a bully, forcing people to do things for her or with her. Paisley would have been happy to do something for her friend, one of the “cool crowd” at their junior high school.

“She wanted to go with me,” Maria insisted. “She wanted to see what Troy looked like since I talked about him so much.”

“So was he cheating on you after all?” Tessa asked lightly. She already suspected the answer.

A dark look settled on Maria’s features. “Yes.”

So much for the secret older boyfriend — now he was the secret older ex.

Maria jumped to her feet.

“Where are you going?” Tessa and Layla demanded at the same time.

Maria rolled her eyes. “In case you missed it the first time, neither of you are my mother.”

“If you give me any more lip, honey, I’ll give you a spanking to warm you up for your mother,” Layla said firmly. “Sit down.” For a stripper, Layla sounded remarkably like a soccer mom.

“I need to use the bathroom.” Maria pointed to the girls’ restroom door, which was in plain sight of the school office doors.

“Fine,” Tessa and Layla said, again at the same time.

As Maria disappeared behind the swinging restroom door, Tessa gave Layla a look and found the woman looking at her too.

“I’m sorry Brianna attacked your niece,” Layla said. “She said that she got so mad when she saw Paisley on the school grounds —”

“
Skulking
around on the school grounds,” Tessa corrected. “She and Maria are not blameless in this.”

Layla gave a small smile. “Well, Brianna recognized Paisley because of … you know.”

“I guess Paisley recognized her too?”

“I’m not sure if Paisley even knew who Bri was. Bri is really upset at Duane, and so she wanted to take it out on Paisley.”

“Uh … Why is she upset at Duane?” Had Duane promised to marry Layla or something and he broke his promise?

“I don’t know if you know this, but Duane lied to me. He told me he wasn’t married.”

The news shocked her. “He did? I didn’t know that.” She’d assumed Layla had hooked up with Duane despite knowing about his marriage. She’d been thinking of Layla as the home-wrecker, when all the time it had been Duane just being himself.

“I broke up with Duane right after Paisley’s mom found out about us. I was so mad at him and so hurt.”

Alicia had mentioned that Duane had broken up with the stripper and was now with the whipped-cream-laden flight attendant. Tessa guessed Alicia hadn’t known it was Layla who broke up with Duane, not the other way around.

“Brianna’s pretty bitter at Duane because of that.”

“I can understand that.”

“I’ve never spoken to Paisley’s mom — well, you know why — so I’m glad I got a chance to tell you.”

No wonder Brianna had attacked Paisley when she saw her on her high school grounds. “Brianna must have thought Paisley was here to rub it in or something.”

Layla shook her head. “I don’t know what she was thinking. It’s partly my fault. I’ve been so busy lately with work that I haven’t spent as much time with her as I used to.”

“Uh … you work at a club?” Tessa used to know a lot of strippers — had been casual friends with some of them — so she hoped she was being sensitive in asking the question.

“No, I quit the club when I finally got my MBA.”

Whoa.

“I used to do a lot of modeling in addition to working at the club, and I just bought co-ownership in a modeling agency.”

“How’s that going?”

“Better than I expected. We make a lot of money providing hostesses for parties — you know, women to make sure people’s drinks are filled, to make small talk, to make sure people are having a good time, that kind of stuff. I used my connections from my years at the club to get some pretty high-end clients. I got some of my girlfriends out of the club to work for me instead. They get paid a lot better.”

“I’m really happy for you. I mean it.”

Layla gave her a sidelong look and a smile. “Thanks. You’re nothing like I expected, you know. I thought you’d be … tougher. You must be a marshmallow encased in steel.”

Tessa laughed. “You’re nothing like I expected either. You’re so down to earth. How in the world did you fall for Duane?”

Layla groaned. “I have no idea.”

Maria finally exited the bathroom at the same moment a flurry of activity sounded from the empty school hallway. Maria turned to look, and her face became white as chalk.

“Looks like Alicia and Maria’s mom are here,” Tessa said.

Layla’s face tightened, but her straight back didn’t waver when Alicia appeared in the doorway to the school office. Behind her in the hallway, Maria’s mom had grabbed her daughter’s arm and was delivering a rapid-fire lecture in Spanish.

Alicia’s eyes alighted on both her ex-convict younger sister and the stripper who had caused her husband to ask for a divorce, sitting next to each other on a bench outside a principal’s office. Tessa could tell that she was so shocked she wasn’t sure who to blow up at first.

Paisley got that honor because at that moment, the door to the principal’s office opened and Paisley and Brianna plodded out, both looking mutinous.

“What did you think you were doing?” Alicia and Layla both demanded of their daughters at the same time.

They spared each other a brief look — surprise from Alicia, an inscrutable one from Layla — before both ripping into their progeny.

Ah, motherhood.

“You told me she wouldn’t get into fights!” was the first thing Alicia said to Tessa after flaying Paisley’s ear off with a tirade that had reduced her to pouty tears as she followed her mother to their car.

Tessa’s first instinct was to angrily fire something back, but something made her hesitate. Maybe it was the surprisingly happy hour she’d spent this morning knitting and chatting with Vivian Britton, talking about dogs, since Vivian wanted one; cannoli, since Tessa wanted to learn how to make them; churches, both
Vivian’s old one in Louisiana and Tessa’s at Wings; and Tessa’s efforts to help Elizabeth and Daniel skip town, currently stalled as she waited for paperwork to set up new identities for them. It all culminated with Vivian helping Tessa recover a lost stitch on the scarf she was making.

While salvaging the gigantic hole with some twisty thing she was doing with a crochet hook, Vivian had asked, “Are you going to give this scarf away or keep it?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“You should give it to your sister.”

“Alicia would accuse me of lying when I tell her I knitted it.”

Vivian peered at her with blue eyes so much like her son’s. “You are too used to the way things were.”

“What?”

“With your sister. You keep forgetting you are a new creation in Christ. Your relationship with God changed, but relationships with other people should change too.”

“Alicia will never change.”

“Maybe not, but the way
you
relate to her should change regardless of what she does.”

So now, instead of responding to Alicia’s accusation, Tessa shut her mouth.

“And what happens?” Alicia continued. “She gets into a fight.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Paisley muffled from the back seat.

“You be quiet,” Alicia told her as she fumbled in her purse for her car keys, the buckles on the purse clanking loudly. At first Tessa thought the buckles were loose, but then she realized they were clanking because Alicia’s hands were shaking.

How strange. Tessa had always assumed Alicia — hard, selfish, and critical — was never distressed. But maybe Paisley getting
in trouble and Layla’s presence in the principal’s office had shaken her up pretty badly. And as upset as she was, Tessa didn’t want to imagine her battling rush-hour traffic. She’d probably try to run a Hummer off the road.

“Want me to drive you and Paisley home?” Tessa offered.

Tessa expected control-freak Alicia to say no, but the hand rummaging in her purse stilled. Her bottom lip trembled once — only once — before settling into her usual scowl. “Fine.” She shoved her keys into Tessa’s outstretched hand.

Tessa climbed into the driver’s seat of Alicia’s gold-colored SUV. She’d take public transportation to the school tomorrow to pick up Gramps — until then, she didn’t think he’d be in any danger in the school parking lot.

They headed out, and Alicia said, “You should have known better than to teach her martial arts.”

Again, Tessa had a retort on her lips … but she let it slide. She’d seen how upset Alicia was. And while her sister was being her usual unreasonable self, she’d also gone through a lot today that wasn’t her fault. For this one time, at least, Tessa could give up her right to defend herself, for Alicia’s sake. And maybe for the sake of Tessa’s sanity too.

Alicia continued, “How could you have thought violence wouldn’t cause more violence …”

Tessa managed to tune her out as she drove. Alicia punctuated her monologue with occasional insults of Tessa, which made her grit her teeth and then purposefully cut in front of some speeding driver.

But then Alicia started to talk about the job interview she’d had that day, which had been the reason the principal had called Tessa after leaving a message on Alicia’s turned-off cell phone. And in between ranting about chauvinistic principle investigators
and underfunded start-up companies with unreasonable expectations, Tessa heard Alicia’s insecurity.

It was a foreign thing to witness. It made the atmosphere in the car seem surreal, like a world outside of the real world. Alicia insecure? But it made sense — after devoting years to helping Duane succeed in his business and raising his daughter, now she had to rebuild her life from nothing and stand on her own.

Alicia began to wind down, and Tessa suddenly wondered if Alicia’s constant criticism and complaining was because she didn’t know how else to release her anxiety. Maybe her attacks at Tessa weren’t solely meant to attack her sister — maybe they were Alicia’s first reaction to stress.

Not that Tessa appreciated being a punching bag. But it was something she could relate to, because when she was stressed, she went out for a jog, or she tried to find someone or something to hit.

Alicia hit … Tessa.

The car became silent for several long minutes. Finally, Alicia said, “I hadn’t seen her in a long time.”

Layla.

“Did you know Duane told her he wasn’t married?” Tessa asked.

Alicia started. “She’s lying.” But her protest was half-hearted.

“I don’t think so. She said that’s why she broke up with him.”

“No, Duane broke up with her.”

“Who’d you hear that from?”

Alicia didn’t answer her.

“Brianna was crying,” Paisley said softly from the back seat. “She said Daddy hurt her mom a lot.”

As Tessa turned down Mom’s street, her heartbeat leaped at
the sight of flashing blue and red.
Don’t be silly, you’re not the only criminal the San Jose Police Department is interested in.

Except the cop cars were right in front of Mom’s house.

Tessa’s gut became heavier and queasier as she slowly pulled into Mom’s driveway. There were two policemen ringing the doorbell, but of course by this time Mom would be at work as a hostess for Uncle Teruo’s restaurant. The two policemen saw the SUV and immediately swarmed the car.

“What’s going on?” Paisley asked.

“Turn off the engine and get out of the car,” the cop ordered Tessa.

“Not again,” Tessa said.