Iris Avenue (29 page)

“Don’t go anywhere,” Scott said. “Stay here, and your real friends will stand by you.”

“Don’t you think it will look bad for the police chief to be friends with an ex-drug producer?”

“I don’t care,” Scott said. “I’ve been reassessing what’s important, and what other people think of me has fallen way down on the list.”

Hannah stopped in the service station to say hi to her dad and found Patrick sharing some new gossip.

“Hatch is buying Marvin’s gas station,” he was saying. “I don’t know where he got the money, but word is he came up with enough for a down payment and the bank is giving him a loan.”

Hannah was reminded of what Hatch said when they chatted while waiting for the dog’s owner to arrive. She thought about his sister’s boyfriend, the drug dealer. She decided to drive out there.

Hatch was working on a car when she arrived.

“Hey, you!” he called out as soon as he saw her, and he looked truly pleased to see her. “I heard about Grandpa Tim and Brian. I’m so sorry for Bonnie and Fitz. You tell ‘em I’ll put ‘em in my prayers.”

“I hear you’re buying the place,” she said, and watched as his face changed. She knew him well, and could see his troubled conscience.

“Yeah, well, you can guess where I got the money,” he said, looking away. “We called it a gift for legal purposes but it was Patty’s man payin’ me off for takin’ care of Joshie. He ain’t Joshie’s father but he cares what happens to him.”

“Where’s Patty?”

“She’s in some jail for people who done went crazy. I guess the drugs finally fried her brain. He figures she’s never gettin’ out.”

“How’d he get the money?”

“Hard to tell,” Hatch said, and seemed reluctant to say more.

“Is he still working for Mrs. Wells?” Hannah asked him.

Hatch shrugged and said, “I never asked him and I don’t wanna know.”

“If it’s drug money, or he took that money for killing someone, and it gets traced to you, what do you think will happen?”

“I guess I’ll worry ‘bout that when it happens, if it happens.”

“What will happen to Joshie if you go to jail?” Hannah asked him.

“I ain’t going to no jail,” Hatch said.

“You need to go to the police and turn Patty’s man in,” Hannah said.

“Are you crazy?” Hatch said. “What do you think will happen to Joshie if I do that?”

“Tell me this,” Hannah said. “Is Joshie officially yours, like, with paperwork through the courts and everything?”

“He is. I had to do that before he could get enrolled in school.”

“You need to make a will saying what happens to him if something happens to you.”

“I ain’t gonna even think about that,” Hatch said, shaking his head.

“If you care about him you will,” Hannah said. “You want Patty’s man to get hold of him, or him to be sent to foster care if no one else in your family will take him?”

“Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to me.”

“Just like nothin’ happened to your mom and dad, I guess.”

“Why are you here?” Hatch asked her. “I heard your old man is back; does he know you’re out here?”

“I’m here, you stupid man, because even though you broke my heart a hundred years ago I still care what happens to you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you or Joshua.”

“You better get on outta here before you get tangled up in something you’d best not,” Hatch said, with real heat in his voice. “This ain’t none of your business.”

“You know I’m right,” Hannah said.

“Go on,” Hatch said. “Go home to your husband.”

As Hannah left the station and walked toward her truck, she noticed a young boy of about seven running down the sidewalk. Hannah felt her breath leave her body as he approached her, grinning and loping along like the happiest kid she’d ever seen. His clothes were scruffy and wrinkled, and one of his shoes was untied. But more importantly, his head was covered in bright red curls and his big blue eyes were shining out of a sea of freckles.

“Hi!” he said to Hannah, and Hannah had to blink a few times before she believed what she was seeing.

“Joshua?” she asked him.

“Yep,” he said, “Who are you?”

“I’m Hannah,” she said. “I’m a friend of your uncle’s.”

“Nice t’meetcha,” he said, and bobbed past her into the service station, so Hannah got a good look at the raggedy backpack, patched with duct tape, that he wore on his back.

Hannah stood there, rooted to the spot, as the spitting image of Timmy Fitzpatrick greeted her old boyfriend.

“Another one,” she said. “There’s another one.”

Scott stopped in at Ava’s on his way back to the station.

“Hey, stranger,” she said, then hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.

A warm feeling spread throughout Scott’s body and he forgot what it was he came to say.

“How are you holding up?” Scott asked.

“I’m just taking it moment by moment,” Ava said.

Her big dark eyes were full of tears.

“Is there anything I can do?” Scott asked her.

“Come by more often,” Ava said. “I’ve been missing you.”

“It seems like Jamie’s keeping you isolated,” Scott said. “It makes me wonder if he has an ulterior motive.”

Ava looked at him like he had two heads.

“What in the world makes you think that?” Ava said.

“I’m sorry,” Scott said. “I just don’t want him to take advantage of you.”

Ava laughed, grabbed Scott’s arm, and gave it a shake.

“You crazy nut,” she said. “You’re so sweet to worry about me. Agent Brown has been nothing but professional. Actually, he warned me away from you.”

“What?”

“He said I was taking advantage of you by making you stay here; interfering with your job. That’s why I told you to go, you know, not because I wanted to.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t because he wanted to get rid of me?”

“I have a feeling Delia’s imagination has been running away with her,” Ava said. “She doesn’t like Jamie and she’s over-protective of me. Believe me, nothing could be farther from the truth.”

“Sometimes we read things into a situation that aren’t true,” Scott said. “Sometimes we think people feel a certain way when actually the situation is completely innocent.”

Ava stood close enough to Scott so that he felt enveloped in her warm, floral perfume. He felt himself drawn toward her. It was intoxicating.

“I think you know how I feel about you, Scott,” Ava said.

Agent Dulvaney came in and Ava stepped away from Scott. If that hadn’t happened, he was pretty sure Ava would have kissed him.

Maggie was sitting at her kitchen table, sipping tea and making a list of things she had to do to get ready for the funeral, when she heard someone climbing up the fire escape to her balcony. The hair stood up on the back of her neck. She knew the doors were locked but nonetheless she tiptoed across the room and took a large, sharp knife out of a drawer. She heard a tap on the glass. She parted the curtains. It was Gabe. Her heart thumped and she set the knife on the table. She unlocked the door and opened it a crack.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Let me in, Maggie, please,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

“We don’t have anything more to talk about,” Maggie said.

A pair of headlights shone down the alley and Gabe gave her a pleading look.

“Please, Maggie,” he said. “There are people out here who want to kill me.”

“Then why risk it?” she asked as she let him in, closed the door, locked it, and drew the curtains behind him.

“I needed to see you,” he said.

He looked a little more rested and there was color back in his face. The cigarette smell was still there, but not the industrial detergent smell. He looked and smelled more like the Gabe she remembered. Maggie was so quickly overcome by her attraction to him that it frightened her.

He took off his coat and sat down at her kitchen table. He rolled up both sleeves of his shirt and leaned forward, his arms on the table and his hands outstretched toward her. He drummed his fingers on the table and then cracked his knuckles. He couldn’t seem to sit still.

“I heard about your grandfather and your brother,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’ve decided I’m not going to let you go without a fight.”

Maggie sat down across from him, but sat back in her chair, arms crossed.

“We already discussed this,” Maggie said. “You’re going to testify and then go back to Florida with Maria and Luis.”

“I know that’s what Luis wants, and I convinced myself it was what I wanted. I love my son, and I want to be a good father to him, but Maria and I were so young when we met, and we’re such different people now. I don’t have the feelings of a husband for her. I don’t feel the attraction to her that I feel for you. I don’t love her like I love you.”

Maggie’s heart beat a little faster and she could feel her face flush.

“This is about more than feelings,” Maggie said. “You’re married to her; you promised to stay married to her, in a church, before God and everyone. How can you turn your back on her when she’s willing to forgive you and try again?”

“She doesn’t love me. Better for us both to tell the truth now than to live a lie.”

“I can’t just decide the past seven years didn’t happen, Gabe. I can’t pretend you didn’t lie to me about everything.”

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to change the past, to make all that up to you. Haven’t I served my time for the mistakes I’ve made? Don’t I have a right to be happy? Don’t we have a right to be happy together?”

“We can’t be together. You’re married. It’s as simple as that.”

“She would give me an annulment. She doesn’t love me. She knows I love you.”

“Even if Maria doesn’t care, I don’t want my happiness to be at the expense of Luis,” she said. “Besides, how could I trust you when everything you’ve ever told me was a lie?”

“Not everything,” he said. “You know that in your heart.”

“It’s no use,” Maggie said. “It would never be the same.”

“It could be better,” he said. “Only pride is keeping us apart. You hold my heart in your hands, Maggie.”

Maggie was confused by her conflicting feelings. She had every reason to be righteously indignant but suddenly she couldn’t bear to be mean to him. His dark eyes were so intent upon her. She couldn’t help but remember how it felt to be with him all those years ago. How safe he made her feel, how loved and protected. Sweet memories began replaying themselves in her mind as she felt herself soften toward him.

“Please, just go,” Maggie said, but even she could hear the lack of conviction in her voice.

“Is that what you want, Maggie?” he asked her. “Is that what you really want?”

The timbre of his voice was like smooth whiskey. It felt like everything up to this point had been a dream and now she was wide awake, but intoxicated. This was her Gabriel, the love of her life. Memories of how they were together flooded her mind, her resolve collapsed, and the attraction she felt toward him overwhelmed her. She let herself remember what it felt like to be in his arms, kissing his lips, and, oh my… All she had to do was reach out and she could have that again.

“Say the word,” he said. “Say the word and I’ll move heaven and earth to be with you.”

“My family would never accept you,” Maggie said.

“To hell with them, then,” he said. “We don’t need anyone else. We can go someplace no one knows us. We can start over.”

“My mother is going through hell right now; I can’t do that to her.”

“Then we’ll stay here,” Gabe said, looking around. “There’s plenty of room for me here. Eventually she will get over it. If we give her a grandchild she will definitely forgive us.”

“But where would you work?”

Maggie knew it would be next to impossible for Gabe to find employment in Rose Hill, where everyone knew everyone else’s business. After the trial commenced, Gabe’s testimony would seal his fate in this town, reputation-wise.

“I don’t know,” Gabe said. “Maybe your Uncle Ian would let me work in the Thorn.”

“Not likely,” Maggie said, trying to picture it and failing.

“Then I’ll work downstairs,” he said. “I can learn to make fancy coffee drinks.”

Maggie pictured the fall off in business from all the local customers who wouldn’t want an ex con and former drug pusher to sell them anything. She’d be ostracized in the community. Hannah would stick by her, but few others would.

He pushed back his chair and stood up. Maggie felt paralyzed as he came around the table and knelt at her side.

“Maggie,” he said, and put his hands on her crossed arms.

The warmth of his hands and the proximity of his scent overwhelmed her senses. Their eyes met. There was no denying the feelings that had reawakened between them. Maggie tried to think but the pull was too strong. It was that familiar drowning feeling, that drowsy, drunken force field that quickly overwhelmed her rational mind.