Second Chances: A PAVAD Duet (21 page)

“
Lucifer!” A masculine voice bellowed from somewhere and
Marianna jumped, her hand tightening on her youngest son’s. Bobby’s
blue eyes were wide, the man’s voice something
he
wasn’t used to,
either.

The little blond boy at the
desk just giggled. And giggled. Apparently whoever was bellowing
didn’t frighten
him
in the least. “Grandpa! Lucifer likes to play hide and
seek!”

“
Apparently.” A rueful
Director Edward Dennis suddenly appeared behind the desk, obviously
on his knees and clutching something black and white,
and...wiggling...in one hand. “He also likes to play destroy the
expensive tie...”

He looked up and saw his
guest in the doorway. “Dr. Glendower, may I...we...help
you?”

Ed Dennis was on his knees
clutching a puppy. Not exactly what she expected to find when she’d
gone searching for her middle son. “Yes, sir...Ted?”

“
Hi!”
Matthew jumped down from the leather swivel chair and rushed to
Bobby’s side. “
You’re
the new kid!”

Bobby—always quiet and
reticent at first—slowly nodded. “You’re in my class.”

“
Yep. I’m Matthew
Dennis—hey Grandpa!”

“
Indoor voice, Matthew.
We’re all in the same room.” Dennis’s voice was mild. It surprised
Marianna; she thought surely he’d be harsher with a child. Her ex
certainly had been, at the slightest provocation. “What do you
need?”

“
Am I Matthew Hellbrook
yet?”

“
Not yet. A few more
months.”

“
Oh. I’m still Matthew
Dennis, then.” He held out a hand for Bobby to shake. He did, after
glancing up at Marianna. “Want to play with my puppy? He’s real
nice.”

“
Sure.” Bobby let go of her
hand and the two little boys bombarded Dennis. He handed over the
puppy after retrieving what looked to be a silk tie from the
animal’s mouth. They carried the dog over to a soft-looking leather
couch. Marianna remembered it well. It was where she and Ted had
sat waiting for Ted’s sentence to be handed down.

Dennis approached her.
Marianna fought the instinctive tensing. “Sir?”

“
Please,
it’s just Ed. Sir’s ok when in large groups, but when it’s us
one-on-one, I’d prefer that the
sir
be dropped. Now, what can I do for you? Can I
interest you in a Border collie puppy by any
chance?”

“
Uh...no.” Marianna didn’t know how to respond to
this
Ed Dennis. “But if
you could tell me where my son is...”

“
He was supposed to be
waiting in Agent Len’s office.” Dennis frowned. Marianna tensed.
“Was he not there?”

“
No. And neither is Agent
Len.” Marianna felt a small touch of worry.

“
Here I am, Mom!” Ted said.
He and Agent Fin McLaughlin stood directly behind her. “Agent Len
took me to see Uncle Fin’s office. We thought we’d be back before
you got here. We didn’t know Uncle Fin was here!”

“
I stopped by to get some
paperwork.” Fin wrapped his good arm around Marianna’s shoulder and
gave her a quick hug. “Ted and I got to talking.”

Marianna immediately
relaxed. Ted was smiling, Fin was smiling. Apparently there was no
hard feelings on the man’s part where Ted was concerned. “Ok. I was
just a little worried. You’re brothers are waiting with Aunt Ally
and Ryan and Aislin. They’re in the lobby.”

“
Cool.”

Marianna did a quick
inspection; taking in the messy hair and bright blue eyes of her
son. He seemed more relaxed than he’d been since the last time they
had both been in Ed Dennis’s office. His cheeks were a little red,
but he’d spent a great deal of time outside in the last two days
before returning to school. And Ted always burned. But he seemed
happy and healthy. Dennis hadn’t been too hard on him.

Marianna had been
terrified.

She’d had a few days to
hear stories of the division leader, to hear how protective he was
of his only daughter. And Georgia Dennis Hellbrook had been in that
elevator that morning as well. She’d also seen younger agents
quaking when they mentioned Dennis, had heard the reverence and
fear in their whispered conversations.

Her fear had just grown
with each story until she’d been more afraid of Dennis than
Ted.

Instead her
son—
two
of her
sons—were laughing at the antics of a puppy while Dennis stood less
than a yard from her with dirt on the knees of his expensive
suit.
His
hair was
just as unruly as his grandson’s, though it was the color of steel.
His shirt was unbuttoned, partially revealing a plain white
undershirt beneath. His tie was gone, clutched uselessly in his
hand, and his charcoal suit coat was being trampled by two
first-graders and a dog.

And the man was smiling,
fully smiling, as he watched the kids and the dog.

He looked at Marianna
again. The smile lingered. “Are you
sure
I can’t interest you in a puppy?
I can guarantee the name
Lucifer
is a true misnomer.”

“
Funny, Grandpa! You can’t
get rid of Lucifer!” The little blond boy giggled.

Dennis looked at him a
moment, frowned. Marianna tensed. Dennis looked
back
at her. “Can I interest you in a
blond five-year-old
and
a puppy named Lucifer?”

Did she always have that
confused expression? Ed was beginning to wonder just who he’d hired
to lead his forensic department. Poor woman looked as if she’d
fallen down a rabbit hole. He watched as she hurried her two sons
out of his office. As if he’d bite or had two heads. Something
about her was just...off...in a way he couldn’t quite identify. He
made a mental note to dig a little deeper into just who Marianna
Glendower was.

Matthew demanded his
attention for most of the evening, but after at least a dozen
rounds of Go-Fish and SpongeBob Memory, the little boy was finally
asleep and tucked in to the top bunk in the room Ed had redecorated
just for him. Spiderman and various other super heroes covered the
walls in a mural he’d had hand painted.

He loved that kid beyond
belief, and loved being a grandfather. His daughter had done a
wonderful job since taking guardianship three years earlier.
Matthew was a happy, healthy, gregarious little bundle of non-stop
energy. He wasn’t, however, a
tidy
child, Ed thought, as he tripped over a
Transformer currently being devoured by a stuffed
dinosaur.

He made a mental note to
have Matthew at least create a pathway between his bed and the
door. The toys had trickled out into the hallway; a stuffed dog sat
forlornly near the top of the stairs. It looked remarkably like the
puppy whining from the plastic dog kennel in the family room.
“Lucifer, it’s time you went to sleep.”

The dog gave a pitiful
whimper and Ed sighed. “Let me guess—you need a drink of water?
Have to go potty? I know—there’s a monster under the
bed?”

“
Come on,
then. Let’s go.” He released the latch and the puppy gleefully shot
out of the pet taxi. The next ten minutes were spent trying to keep
the puppy on task. He must have said
go
potty
sixty times in that span of
time.

The first thing the dog did
upon reentering the house was jump on the leather sofa. Lucifer
curled up in a tiny furry ball and snuffled. His dark eyes closed.
Ed didn’t have the heart to put him back in the kennel. He moved
his laptop from the desk and settled on the couch with the puppy.
Soon he had a warm body pressed against his thigh as he began
searching for information on the enigma that was the beautiful
Marianna Glendower.

It took him about two hours
of searching the FBI databases to find everything about the
woman—including a six-year-old divorce decree—and a six-year-old
police report. Domestic battery and sexual assault charges were
filed against Illinois state senator Harvey Glendower by his
ex-wife. Three witness statements were also included in the
file—signed by Fineas McLaughlin, Sebastian Lorcan, and Marianna’s
then nine-year-old son Nathan.

Charges were dropped two
months later.

The first child support
check was issued through the county court house one week after the
charges were dropped. Seven months and two weeks after charges were
dropped, Robert Sebastian Glendower was born. Ten months after his
mother had given birth to twins James and Timothy, who would have
been less than a month old at the time the charges were filed
against their father.

Ed knew what it most likely
meant. And it explained a lot—her reticence with him, her almost
obsessive retreat from all the males in the department, the
protective manner in which both McLaughlin and Lorcan treated her.
How Ted had seemed so bitter about his father. As a law enforcement
officer he’d seen the results of domestic violence and abuse—and he
could now point out the signs, the behaviors she exhibited that
told him what had most likely happened.

It made him angry, on her
behalf and on her sons’. It also made him admire her even
more—she’d triumphed. Her children were happy, healthy,
well-adjusted children. She was fast becoming a leader in her
field, and that only came with hard work and accuracy.

He hadn’t selected her by
random. He’d kept an ear to the ground and when he’d needed to
shake up the forensic department, he’d asked around. And gotten an
overwhelming response about the Indianapolis team leader. And it
hadn’t taken much to lure her and her people to his division. He
was pleased with his choice, and now that he understood her
background a little better, it made things very clear to him. Now
he knew how to proceed.

He just had to make her
feel safe in her position, help her realize
he’d
never do anything to hurt her or
her children. Maybe eventually she’d come to view him as a friend.
Like she obviously did McLaughlin and Lorcan. He was a firm
believer that people needed friends in this type of business. To
function to the fullest you had to trust the people you worked with
and for. Hopefully, he could help her see that.

He closed the laptop and
scooped the puppy up. Damned thing went completely limp, didn’t
even open its eyes as he carried it down the hall. He was just a
puppy, and Ed couldn’t see leaving him all alone in the kennel. Not
all night.

He’d let him sleep on the
foot of the bed. Just for the one night; after all, the pup hated
to be alone.

It had been the longest
week of Marianna’s life—at least in recent years. The kids were
still attempting to get used to a new school while she was still
attempting to get used to the new world she worked in. It wasn’t
easy. Still, when the first week was finally over she gave
heartfelt thanks that she’d have two whole days to
finally
get the house
into as much order as could exist with seven boys
around.

Ted was the only fly in her
ointment. The three younger boys were doing great—Bobby coming home
every day with more tales of Matthew Ed than Marianna expected—but
Ted...Ted still struggled. Even with Ryan at the same school, Ted
just wasn’t adjusting. Part of it was his size, she knew that. Of
all her children, Ted was the smallest for his age. Add in the lack
of interest in sports, the thick glasses, and high intellect—Ted
was the classic nerd. And the other kids at the middle school he
attended in the Brynlock complex had picked up on that
fact.

One week, and she’d already
had two telephone calls from the school, expressing concern over
his adjusting. It had her worried, and stumped. How could she help
her child fit in, when she’d always struggled with the same sort of
issues? She’d been tall and geeky throughout school. Clumsy and
intelligent as well. It hadn’t been any easier for her.

And she hated that it
wasn’t easy for Ted.

She checked her watch—Ted
had five minutes to get his scrawny self down to the cafeteria. She
always made him check in with her after the car pool dropped him
off. He’d had five days under Ed Dennis’s punishment, and if she
wasn’t mistaken—he almost seemed to be looking forward to it every
day. He hadn’t complained as much as she’d expected. She didn’t
know if that was a good thing or if she should be concerned. What
kid liked being punished?

When he hadn’t made it to
the cafeteria, Marianna began to get worried. It seemed she spent
so much of her time worrying about Ted. He’d given her more
worry-filled moments than any of the other boys. Maybe even more
than his three older brothers combined. Still, he needed to let her
know he was in the building, then she had to have a meeting with
Richison and Eric, before heading over to the schools to get her
boys. She didn’t have time to wait on Ted.

She took the stairs, and
was nearly to the top of the first floor landing when she heard a
voice she recognized—Ted. She missed exactly what it was he said.
She couldn’t see him, or who he was speaking with.