Whatever Remains (42 page)

             
Griggs’s hand, when Ben got to his feet and took it, was smooth and hard and cool as worn stone.

             
They sat in unison, and for a long moment, the AC humming above them was the only sound. Finally, Griggs said, “I was over here – in the area; I drive a truck now and had to make a run into Atlanta. I was going by and I thought…well, I thought I’d see if you boys were in. To thank you.”

             
“We were just doing our jobs, Mr. Griggs,” Trey said.

             
“Still.”

             
“How’s Gabby?” Ben asked, not at all surprised to remember the girl’s real name. She and her sister were the ghosts that would stay with him always.

             
Griggs started to smile, but it caught and faltered. “She’s okay, I guess. She’s real quiet. Don’t eat much. But her therapist – she sees a doctor in Huntsville twice a week – says she’s makin’ progress, so I guess that’s somethin’.”

             
Trey made a sympathetic noise. “It takes time to…come back from something like that.”

             
Griggs nodded absently. “Yeah, ‘somethin’ like that.’” He took a breath. His eyes went out through the window above their desks, and then beyond, the point of focus somewhere deep in his own head. “You know, when Alicia first had Helen, the doctor said she had post-partum depression. She wasn’t depressed all the time, though. On the weekend, when I was home, she was just happy as could be. But when I went to work…she called me cryin’ just about every day, wantin’ me to come home. I told her I couldn’t…” He sighed. “Then she was always so sure Helen was sick. She took her to the doctor over and over, and there was nothing wrong with her. I…”

             
Ben could feel the man’s guilt, swelling up around him, heavy as lead.

             
“I think I always knew, ya know? That Alicia had a problem. She wasn’t crazy.” His gaze came to Ben, almost pleading. “She’s a smart woman. Wiley as a fox. That’s the worst thing about all this.” He swallowed. “What she did to Helen – that was on purpose.”

             
“Yes, Mr. Griggs. It was.”

             
His smile was the sad, utterly defeated expression of a man who’s long since made peace with the nightmarish turn of his life. Had it been different with Alicia – had she been suffering from some kind of mental illness – he would have been good for her. He could have been her rock.

             
But there’d never been anything wrong with Alicia’s mind. There was no helping what was wrong with her.

             
“Your family?” Griggs asked, motioning toward the new silver-framed photo on the edge of Ben’s desk. It was of Jade and Clara riding double on Atlas, both of them laughing, sun in their hair.

             
Ben twitched a smile. “Yeah.”

             
“Lucky man.”

It was a year before
People v. Latham
went to trial. Ben was called to the stand by the defense.

             
The attorney, a blonde pantsuit locally famous for repping high dollar madams and abusive mothers, fired snide, barbed questions. The ADA, Todd Allerman, objected a hundred times, coming half out of his seat, but it didn’t help. The jury watched, blank-faced, and could have been leaning either way. Alicia stared at the judge serenely; she’d lost some weight in the past twelve months, and her hair was back to its natural brown, streaked with gray.

             
“You arrested Scott Redding for the murder of Heidi Latham, didn’t you?” defense asked.

             
“Yes.” In the witness box, Ben had his hands curled into fists, the pinch of his wedding ring a comfort. “We felt we had a solid case against him.”

             
She snorted. “Obviously.”

             
“Objection!”

             
“Sustained. Get on with it, Ms. Hines.”

             
She paced a slow circle in front of the box, nodding, red nails catching the sun that streamed in through the high windows. They were the exact color of blood. “The charges against Mr. Redding were dropped?”

             
“Yes.”

             
“And you arrested my client personally?”

             
“No.”

             
Before she turned to the judge, a shadow of a smile bisected her face. “And why not?”

             
Ben ground his teeth. “I was on temporary leave. My partner, Detective Kaiden, arrested her.”

             
“Why were you on leave? You were suspended, weren’t you?”

             
“Yes.”

             
“Because you were caught sleeping with a witness?”

             
“Objection!”

             
“Overruled.”

             
It went on and on. She drew his story out by harmful degrees, until he looked like a stupid ass, and maybe even a bad cop. The jury…they couldn’t understand. No one did.
I had to
, he wanted to tell them.
I had to stay on that case. What would you have done, if there was a murderer in your girls’ backyard?

             
But it didn’t matter, in the end. All that mattered was the truth, and his truth was disastrous in the harsh daylight. The only saving grace was that Jade wasn’t here to see him. She’d testified the day before, proud and beautiful and unflinching. Her part of the story – the night in the barn with Grace – had taken only minutes to relate. Defense had gone easy on her. Alicia had never looked more guilty than in those five minutes – at least, that’s what Trey had relayed. He’d stayed to watch after his testimony; Ben was half-convinced the guy had a crush on his woman.

             
And then there’d been his own testimony…

             
Allerman gave him a
thanks a lot
glance as he left the box. Ben made hard eye contact for a moment:
do your job, asshole. This isn’t my fault.

             
He slipped into the back row and listened to Scott Redding get brutalized, until the guy was red-faced and spitting and had to be restrained. The courtroom smelled musty and damp, and vaguely, underneath, of linseed oil. Somewhere down the hall, a floor polisher droned. Benches creaked, papers rustled, humans sighed and coughed and cleared their throats.

             
Then it was Alicia’s turn.

             
She was born for the stage. Tissues were produced immediately. Her eyes filled with shiny tears. Like someone twice her age, she lowered herself, shaking, into the chair and dabbed at her nose, sniffling. Her hands shook for effect. Ms. Hines laid a reassuring hand on her forearm that Alicia grasped hard, their fingers intertwining.

             
Ben was suddenly nauseas. He fought down his gag reflex and got to his feet. Alicia’s gaze came to him laser-guided, all the way to the back of the courtroom. Shielded from the jurors by her attorney, in the shadow of a passing cloud, she sent him the ghost of a smile. Her eyes shifted to Hines, and her smile widened into a quaking semblance of bravery. But for that second, the taunt was there.

             
Cold to the bone, disgusted with the world, he left. Outside, it was a brilliant gold September afternoon, leaves dancing and air cool as it slipped down the collar of his jacket. Foot traffic was at a maximum on the Marietta square, all the hipster and tennis-playing and yuppie moms out for a stroll with their friends and sticky-handed kids. He stood a moment on the courthouse steps, breathing in the smells of exhaust and lunch from the pub. He checked his watch – it was almost one – and then his messages. One missed call from Jade.

             
She answered on the second ring when he called her back. “Hi, handsome. You get done at court?”

             
Her voice – the rich emotion in it – did magical things to his coiled insides. He felt the tension flood out through the soles of his shoes. “Yeah. What are you up to?”

             
There was a rustling. “Choking down lunch between lessons. I was gonna see” – she took a sip of something – “if you wanted to pick up Clara. I can run in and get her, but – ”

             
“I’m right here; I’ll get her.”

             
He could hear the smile in his wife’s voice. “She’d like that.”

             
His shoulders unlocked, the knot between them loosening. This was why he’d done it. This moment of her easing salve over all his burns out in front of the courthouse was exactly why he’d dug his claws into the case a year ago. He needed her. Painfully. To keep the humanity in his world. “How are you feeling?”

             
She was ten weeks along and the doctor had said she could keep riding – lightly – but he’d stressed her need for caution so much that she was teaching more than anything else at the moment. Her working student, Casey, was handling all the training horses. Jade was only allowed on Atlas, a compromise that had been more of an order on Ben’s part. She’d rolled her eyes and consented. “Pretty good.”

             
“Did you throw up today?”

             
“Only almost.” She laughed. “The ginger ale helps.”

             
He kept her on the phone as long as he could, until she started to sound distracted, and he hung up, promising to pick up more saltines on his way home. Then he drove to the Baptist church where Clara was enrolled in kindergarten, parked far back along the curb, got out and leaned against the hood of his Charger like the legions of other parents.

             
When the kids came pouring out like ants from a kicked hill, he found Clara right away: the flash of sun on her dark braids, the bright burst of her laugh, the pink pony silkscreened on her shirt. She talked animatedly with three other girls as they walked. She’d been terrified her first day of school a month before, but had adjusted well. She was like her mother: both adjusters.

             
She spotted him halfway to the car, and abandoned her friends, skipping toward him. In only a few short years, she’d be too cool for him. All “Da-ad!” and rolling eyes and huffy sulks. But today, in the burnished sunlight, she said, “Daddy!” and jumped into his offered hug. He gathered her close, breathing in the smell of her shampoo, tucking her small shape in over his heart.

             
“Did you have a good day?”

             
“Yes!” He set her down and she beamed up at him. “We learned about the letter M today. You know what starts with M?”

             
He grinned. “Let me guess.”

             
“Merry!”

             
“How’d I know that?”

             
“I got to draw him. I used purple for his dapples, even though he’s not purple. You wanna see?”

             
“Yeah.” He opened her door for her. “Let’s see.”

             
She plopped down backward on her seat and dug the drawing from her bag, thrusting it proudly into his hands. A year ago, he would have said
maybe later
and put her crayon sketch off for some other time. A lot came into perspective in a year, like purple pony crayon sketches and ginger ale and saltines. “It’s beautiful.”

             
She blushed. “It’s for Mommy, since she feels bad.”

             
He handed it back to her, ruffled her hair. “She’ll like that.” The woman in the minivan behind him was giving him a dirty look for holding up the line. She could get the hell over it. “Alright. Legs in.” He stood and put a hand on the top of the door as she complied. “Let’s go home.”

Other Titles From Lauren Gilley

The Walker Family Series:

Keep You
Dream of You
Better Than You
Fix You

To read more about Ben’s brother, Chris, and his wife, Jess, be sure to look for them in the fourth volume of the Walker Family Series:
Fix You
.

Search for Lauren Gilley at
Amazon.com
and visit her blog for update information, bonus material, and original content:

Hoofprintpress.blogspot.com

Be on the watch for her next release, coming in 2013:

Made for Breaking