Mending Fences (14 page)

“She has Jenny,” he said. His expression brightened perceptibly. “And she’s pretty amazing.”

Emily smiled at his response. “Then one good thing has come out of this. You’ve met a truly admirable young lady. Maybe you could bring her home sometime. Lauren, too. I’d like to meet them both.”

Josh flushed. “Maybe sometime,” he said, his tone noncommittal.

“Just so you know they’d be welcome anytime,” she said.

“Did you know I’d talked to Detective Rodriguez?” he asked.

She nodded.

“He seems like a pretty decent guy,” he said.

“I think so, too.”

He studied her anxiously. “Have you let him talk to Dani?”

She shook her head.

“She could know more than she’s saying, Mom. I don’t want to think about the same thing happening to her, but it could have. Now that I’ve seen how it affected Lauren, I think we should know if it happened to Dani, too. She’s been acting kinda weird since all this started, almost as if she feels guilty about something.”

“I’ve noticed the same thing, and I know you’re right. I’ve tried more than once to get her to open up, but she won’t even discuss Evan.”

“You want me to try?”

She thought about that. Maybe Dani would open up to her big brother under most circumstances, but not about this. “I don’t think so,” she said eventually. “I’ll try again. If Evan did do anything to her and she’s been keeping it to herself, she’ll need her mother.”

“Okay, but if you change your mind, let me know.”

“I will,” she promised.

“I guess I should go upstairs and study. Any chance we can order pizza for dinner?”

“Didn’t you have pizza every night while I was away?”

He grinned. “What can I say? I love pizza. It’s a perfect meal. Just about all the food groups in one.”

“Fine, but I’m ordering it with mushrooms and green peppers, so there’s at least a smattering of vegetables on it.”

He wrinkled his nose. “It already has tomato sauce.”

“Tomatoes are a fruit, actually.”

“Well, there you go. It’s even better than I thought.”

He started from the room, then turned back. “Do you think I should contact some of the girls Evan dated in high school? I’ll bet anything at least some of them had
a problem with him, even if they never talked about it. I have e-mail addresses at college for a lot of them.”

Emily gave the offer some thought. She knew whatever Josh found might be invaluable to the police, but the toll it would take on Josh and Evan’s friendship—whatever was left of it—would be high. “Do you really want to do that? It’s bound to get back to him that you’re actively trying to find backup for Lauren. It will sever the friendship forever. Maybe you should just pass the contact information along to Detective Rodriguez.”

“You’re probably right, but not because of my friendship with Evan. That’s pretty much wrecked,” he said without any evidence of regret. “I know we were really close when we were kids, but lately…” He shrugged. “He’s changed, or maybe I have. I don’t know. Is it awful that I can’t stand up for him?”

She saw how hard he was struggling to find his way through this quagmire and sought to be reassuring. “No, it’s honest, and it shows you’re learning that character matters even more than popularity and athletic skill. Lots of people change and grow apart over the years. It’s no reflection on either of them.”

“But you don’t feel the same way, do you? You still think Evan’s okay?”

“I’m trying to keep an open mind. I haven’t seen him in the same situations you’ve seen him in, so I trust your judgment about his behavior toward women. I just hate thinking that the sweet boy who spent so much time here could have changed so dramatically. And I feel absolutely awful for what Marcie and Caitlyn are going through.”

“Yeah, me, too. It must really suck for them.”

“That’s why I don’t want to do anything to make it
worse, more for their sakes than Evan’s.” She studied him worriedly. “That’s one reason I think you should just give the names and contact information for the girls to Detective Rodriguez. Getting any more deeply involved yourself would really hurt Marcie and Caitlyn.”

Josh shook his head. “I get what you’re saying, Mom, but the girls might not be as candid with him,” he said. “At least I can break the ice for him.”

“I’m sure he’d be grateful.” She smiled at the young man who was maturing faster than she’d realized. “I imagine Jenny will be, too.”

“I’m doing it for Lauren,” he insisted.

“Either way, you’re doing a good thing for all the right reasons and I’m proud of you.”

He looked embarrassed by the praise. “Whatever. I’ll be down when the pizza gets here.”

Dani had heard her brother talking to her mom downstairs. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it had to be serious for the conversation to have gone on so long. Usually Josh mumbled a greeting and went straight to his room. She had a funny feeling they’d been talking about Evan again, and maybe her.

She opened the door to her room when she heard Josh on the stairs and went out to wait for him.

“What were you talking to Mom about?” she asked, blocking his way.

“Just some stuff,” he said.

“Was it about me?”

He regarded her quizzically. “Why would we be talking about you?”

“Because I know you do it all the time lately. You think I’m hiding something about Evan.”

Josh didn’t deny it. Instead, he looked her in the eye. “Are you?”

A part of Dani wanted to burst into tears and say yes and then let it all out, every ugly detail, but she simply couldn’t get the words past the lump in her throat. Not to the brother she’d always looked up to. He’d never see her the same way again.

“No,” she mumbled.

To her surprise, Josh put his hand on her shoulder. “Listen to me, kid. If you do have something to say, you should tell me or Mom. We’d understand. So would Dad.”

How could they? Dani thought miserably. They knew she’d had a crush on Evan. They were bound to assume that she’d thrown herself at him, but it hadn’t been like that. She’d wanted him to kiss her, sure, but nothing else. None of what had happened after.

Once again, she drew in a deep breath and leveled a defiant look at her brother. “Nothing happened.”

Josh didn’t look as if he believed her. Oh, he clearly wanted to, but skepticism was written all over his face. Dani backed toward her room.

“When’s dinner? Did Mom say?” she asked.

“She’s ordering pizza now,” he said.

“How’d you talk her into that? She never does it when I ask.”

Josh rubbed her head with his knuckles. “She likes me best,” he told her. “Always has.”

“In your dreams,” she retorted, glad that he’d dropped the whole subject of Evan. As annoying as it was when Josh teased her, she still liked it. On his good days, he was the best big brother ever. On the other days, well, she’d gotten used to him being a nuisance.

Even as she thought that, she remembered how close Caitlyn had always been to Evan. No wonder she was struggling with everything that was going on. She loved Evan just as fiercely as Dani loved Josh. If Josh were in trouble—not that he ever would be—Dani wouldn’t want to believe the worst about him. Maybe she ought to cut Caitlyn some slack for not being so quick to condemn Evan, even though she had to know the truth about him. Just because Dani had good reason to hate him didn’t mean she could expect Caitlyn to. First chance she got, maybe she’d even tell her that.

Though they’d had a good time in Sanibel, they’d both been on the defensive. Dani had missed the way things used to be. With all the trouble going on, maybe they could never have that same easygoing camaraderie again, but she’d like to try. She’d always thought she and Caitlyn would go through life being almost like the sisters neither of them had.

It was wrong to let this whole mess with Evan destroy that, too, she concluded. He shouldn’t be allowed to steal one more thing from her. He’d stolen her innocence and her ability to trust, and that was more than enough.

G
rady’s frustration was mounting. Everywhere he went, he and Naomi were running into a wall of silence—the university community, the athletic department, Evan’s old high school, the neighborhood. No one wanted to say anything bad about the star athlete, while quite a few were all too eager to disparage Lauren Brown. The tide was shifting, turning Evan into the victim. Grady knew he could thank Ken Carter for that. A well-planted rumor here, a sly innuendo there, and Lauren became the calculating woman who was trying to ruin a boy’s life.

Grady was at his desk, trying to figure out what he could do that he hadn’t already done when he looked up to see his uncle crossing the squad room. Luis Rodriguez was sixty now, with strong shoulders, a long stride, and salt-and-pepper hair. He ought to be thinking about retirement, but he’d turned down every incentive the City of Miami Police Department had offered him. He liked his beat in the Little Havana neighborhood where he’d been a patrolman for his entire career. He was obviously off today, since he was out of uniform and wearing neatly pressed khakis and a pale blue guayabera shirt.

“Tio Luis,” Grady said, walking over to give the older man a hug. “What brings you by?”

“I’ve been reading the paper, listening to the talk on the radio and on the street. I thought you might need a friendly ear about now. You have time for lunch?”

“I’ll make the time,” Grady said, calling over to Naomi to let her know he’d be out for an hour.

Naomi grinned at his uncle. “Luis, don’t you dare let him near any French fries,” she said. “He eats entirely too many.”

“We’ll stick to good, healthy Cuban food,” his uncle promised her.

Naomi frowned. “Are you sure that’s not a contradiction in terms?”

“Hey, young lady, you tell me what’s wrong with black beans and rice? Complex carbohydrates, yes?” Luis said with indignation. “You know I always take care of my nephew,
sí?
”

“I’m counting on it,” Naomi told him.

When Grady and his uncle left the squad room, Luis regarded him solemnly. “She is concerned about you. She is warm, compassionate, not bad to look at. Perhaps you should consider—”

Grady sighed. It wasn’t the first time someone in his family had speculated about a romance between him and his partner. The meddling was off base and exasperating, though he should have grown used to it by now. Naomi did a better job than he did of shrugging it off.

“Don’t go there,” Grady said. “Naomi and I have a working relationship, nothing more.”

Luis remained undaunted. “I’m just saying that having such a beautiful woman care about you can’t be
a bad thing. You need someone special in your life. You’ve been alone too long.”

“You’ve been talking to my mother again,” Grady guessed. His mother wasn’t above enlisting her brother-in-law’s assistance in fixing his love life.

His uncle shrugged. “She, too, worries about you. It’s time to stop blaming yourself for what happened with Kathleen and Megan and move on.”

“And I really don’t want to go there,” Grady warned as he climbed into his uncle’s flashy sports car. His aunt had worried that the car was just the beginning of some midlife crisis, but Luis insisted it was nothing of the sort. The car was just the fulfillment of a long-held dream.

“Has Tia Delores ridden in this yet?” he asked his uncle, determined to change the subject to something that would put Luis on the defensive for once.

Luis sighed heavily, his expression sorrowful. “She says she doesn’t trust it or me, that we’re too old for a car like this. She thinks we should drive a nice, safe sedan.”

“You sure she’s not sneaking out while you’re working and taking it for a spin around the neighborhood?” Grady asked.

“I wish she would,” Luis said as he pulled into the parking lot at Versailles, one of the oldest and most popular Cuban restaurants in the heart of Little Havana.

Inside, Luis called out greetings to several of the regulars who were standing at the counter in front ordering Café Cubano, the thick, sweet coffee that came with a real jolt of caffeine and a generous dollop of local gossip spoken in Spanish or, in a very few instances, heavily accented English. He led the way to a table in the
back, near one of the ornate, etched mirrors that harked back to the decor of many places in Havana in a happier era before Castro.

When they’d ordered—pork with black beans and rice for Luis, a traditional Cuban
media noche
sandwich with hot pork, ham, cheese and pickles grilled between thick slices of Cuban bread for Grady—Luis studied him. “You look tired.”

“I’m not sleeping well.”

“Because you are troubled about this boy, am I right?”

Grady nodded. “If I can’t find some other women he’s done this to, I’m afraid the rest of the evidence—damning as it is—won’t hold up. And if he gets off…” He shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about what that would do to the young woman he raped.”

“On the street, they are saying he has been falsely accused.” His uncle gave him a rueful look as he repeated the most outrageous theory of all. “Those who follow football think it is some conspiracy by one of the other colleges to keep him from playing in the fall. One group believes she has ties to Tallahassee, another to Gainesville.”

“I know,” Grady said, not even trying to hide his exasperation. “Just imagine what a field day they’d have if
I’d
actually graduated from Florida or Florida State, rather than Miami. I can thank the kid’s father for all the speculation. I’ll give Ken Carter credit for one thing. He’s damn good at what he does. He can spin a story with the best of them.”

“Can you blame him? Isn’t it what any father would try to do—save his son?”

Grady studied him with dismay. “You’re defending him?”

“No, I’m just saying his tactics might be deplorable, but they are understandable.”

Grady tried to envision his own father standing behind him in a similar crisis and couldn’t. Luis, however, would be there, his loyalty and faith unshakable, so perhaps his attitude made sense, as well. Oh, his father loved him, but he was judgmental and wouldn’t tolerate mistakes or flaws, even in his own son.

“That doesn’t make it right,” Grady groused.

“No,” Luis agreed. “And it definitely makes your job harder. Any other prospective witnesses who see what’s happening to the victim in this case are far less likely to come forward.”

“Exactly.” Grady pushed his half-eaten sandwich aside. Suddenly he’d lost his appetite.

His uncle reached across the table and put the meal, including the side of fries, back in front of him. “Eat. Ruining your health won’t help this young woman.” His dark eyes, so like Grady’s own, regarded him with sympathy. “What can I do to help?”

“Just having you listen to me has helped. How did you know I’d hit a wall today?”

“I know you. You are hard on yourself and you take these cases to heart. I knew it would not be easy on you to have people starting to question whether you had done the right thing in arresting that boy.”

“I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks about me,” Grady protested. “I’m only interested in justice for Lauren Brown.”

“A noble ideal.” His uncle regarded him knowingly. “And I’m well aware than you don’t care about public opinion, but it is only a short leap from listening to what’s said to doubting yourself. Just look how events
in your own life have haunted you for years now. I know you’re not convinced of this, but you’re a good man, Grady, and a good detective. You have proved that time and again. Your instincts are solid and your heart is on the side of the angels.”

Grady appreciated the vote of confidence, but he wasn’t so sure he deserved it. He had only to think back ten years to question every action he’d ever taken.

“There, you see, I was right,” Luis exclaimed. “I see the doubt in your eyes.”

“No,” Grady insisted, forcing himself to stay in the present. “I know that boy is guilty. I know in my gut that he’s done this before and he needs to be locked away.”

“Then you will see that it happens,” Luis said with assurance. “Do you have any leads at all?”

“One,” Grady said, thinking of Dani Dobbs. “Unfortunately, I’m only speculating. And the girl’s underage, so her mother refuses to let me speak to her. At this point, with the little I know, a court would probably support the mother.”

“And the girl’s father? Surely he would want this man behind bars if his daughter has been harmed.”

Grady suddenly realized that he’d never had more than a cursory, preliminary conversation with Derek Dobbs. Even that had been on the phone before he’d become convinced that Dani might hold the key to this case. Maybe because of his personal feelings for Emily, he’d almost blocked the existence of her ex-husband. That alone was proof that he was allowing his emotions to cloud his judgment anytime she was involved. That needed to stop. For now the case had to come first. Whatever there might be between him and Emily had to take a backseat.

“You’re a genius,” he told Luis, standing up and giving him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “I need to get back to the station. Are you ready?”

Luis tossed him the keys to his beloved car. “Go. I will spend some time in the neighborhood and then call your aunt to pick me up. You can bring the car over tonight and let her feed you dinner. She’s missed you.”

“I’ll be there,” Grady promised.

As he headed back to the station in the spiffy little car with the top down and the radio blaring, he felt better than he had in days. The only thing that could possibly improve his mood even more would be having Emily Dobbs riding right here beside him.

He shook his head as he realized how quickly he’d forgotten his resolve to back-burner any wicked, inappropriate thoughts of her for the time being. Still, maybe when things were less complicated and he got up the nerve to ask her on a real date, he’d borrow this car and take her for a spin. She’d say yes and, well, who knew where things would go from there.

Emily was grading papers a few days after her conversation with Josh when the sliding glass door was shoved open and Ken Carter charged into the kitchen, his face red and his eyes dark with fury. For the space of a heartbeat, she felt real fear, but then she reminded herself that this was a man she’d known for years and for all of his demeaning and nasty talk, she’d never known him to become physically violent. If there’d been even a hint about such behavior, she would have pushed Marcie to get away from him at once.

“Where is he?” he demanded, lurching drunkenly. “Where’s that lying, rotten son of yours?”

Emily shot to her feet and squared off in front of him. Maybe she was foolish, but nobody spoke to her about Josh that way.
Nobody.

“Excuse me?” she said softly. “I don’t think I heard you correctly, Ken. You just called my son a liar?”

“Damn straight I did. Where is he?”

“Not here, but even if he were, I wouldn’t let you near him while you’re in this kind of mood. You might get away with bullying your family, but I won’t allow you to do the same with mine, especially not when you’re obviously drunk. Are we clear?”

To her surprise, he backed down. Pulling a chair away from the table, he sat down heavily. He shoved a hand through his thick, disheveled hair. “I’m sorry, Emily,” he said contritely. “I really am. I don’t know what got into me. You’re not the problem.”

Emily didn’t entirely buy his sudden transformation, but she was grateful that he’d taken the shouting down a few decibels. She’d been terrified that Dani would hear him. She didn’t want her coming downstairs to confront their less-than-sober neighbor spewing his venom.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked eventually. “I can make some coffee.”

“No, I’m okay,” he insisted. He regarded her with a dismayed expression. “I’m just worried sick about Evan, that’s all.”

“I know you must be,” she said, taking pity on him. She might hate his tactics and his behavior in general, but she understood a parent’s unconditional love for a child. And in Ken’s case, he’d been living vicariously through Evan for years now, pinning all of his own hopes and dreams on Evan becoming a professional football player, some kind of superstar jock. She wasn’t sure if
it was the money or adulation he craved for his son, but she knew he was desperate for it.

“Why would that girl say such horrible things about Evan?” he asked, sounding genuinely bewildered. “You’ve known him for years now. Can you imagine him doing the things she accused him of?”

“Honestly, no,” she admitted. “But Ken, neither of us were there that night. We don’t know what really happened. I have trouble believing that a young woman would make up a story like that. Just look what she’s had to go through.”

“And what about everything Evan’s gone through?” he asked heatedly, growing agitated again. “You saying he deserves that?”

“Not if he’s innocent, no.”

“But you believe her, don’t you?” he demanded, back on his feet and towering over her. “You’re as bad as that lying son of yours. Whatever made me think that you would stick by your best friend and her family? God, you people make me sick. You’re a bunch of damn hypocrites, nothing but fair-weather friends.”

“I am
always
on Marcie’s side,” she said just as furiously, even though she knew she was wasting her breath. Ken was beyond listening to her. Still, she couldn’t help adding, “I want to believe in Evan as desperately as she does, but the evidence—”

“Circumstantial, all of it,” Ken claimed, weaving in front of her. “You wait. Once we get into court, Evan’s lawyer will prove what a pack of lies that girl has been spouting. She’s going to regret the day she made up all that stuff about my boy.”

“If you’re so certain of that, then why are you so upset by whatever it is you think Josh has done?” she asked him.

“Because he’s trying to muddy the damn waters, that’s why,” he said, then scowled at her. “Why am I even wasting my time talking to you? You don’t have any more sense than my wife when it comes to the way the world works.”

Before Emily could even think of how to respond to that, Josh burst into the kitchen and threw a punch that caught Ken square in the face. It wasn’t a particularly powerful punch, but it was enough to rock the already unsteady Ken back on his heels and to have blood spurting from his nose. He sank back down on a chair, looking dazed, and grabbed for a fistful of napkins to stanch the bleeding.