“No, Evan, think about it. You’ll have to tell them Revel’s connection to Momma, that Momma bribed her. Besides, I’m not one hundred percent positive it was her. Call Mickey instead. There must be some way he can find out who that car belongs to.”
But when Evan dialed him, the attorney didn’t answer. Evan left a message and pocketed his phone.
His silence made her anxious.
He blew out a sigh, plowing his hand over his head. “I did talk to Mickey earlier,” he said.
“And?” Lissa prompted.
“He told me there’s a possibility the D.A. will ask for the death penalty, if they can prove premeditation or if kidnapping came into it. They’re going to go hard because Jessica was a senator’s daughter. It’s how it works.”
Lissa couldn’t breathe; her head felt light. Evan eased her into his embrace, walked her to the table, lowered her into a chair and knelt beside her. He was prepared for her tears, but she was too stunned, too frightened, to cry. He looked into her face and said Mickey wasn’t certain yet.
“I wouldn’t have said anything, but I didn’t want you to hear it on the news.” He waited a half second, and added, “All this stress you’re under, it worries me for the baby.”
“The baby? The baby?” She had to repeat herself before she could grasp the sense of his concern, and then she bolted from the chair, pushing by him, turning to stare at him. “Good God, Evan, my brother could be put to death for something he didn’t do! How can you even think about that?”
Evan straightened. “How can you not?”
“I don’t want to be pregnant. I don’t want to have a baby. I never lied to you about it.”
“But now it’s happened. Do you know how it makes me feel to hear you say that you don’t want it? Why don’t you just say what you really mean? That you don’t want me.”
“That’s ridiculous, one thing has nothing to do with the other.”
They regarded each other, and she saw something working in Evan’s eyes. She thought he might be debating how to respond; she thought she was prepared for whatever he might say, but she was wrong, and when he told her, “I can get an attorney,” when he said, “I can fight you for our baby’s right to live,” she was caught so off guard, her knees loosened.
She reached for the countertop, bracing herself. Her ears were ringing. She had known this morning, in the driveway when they’d argued, that he was angry at her, terribly angry, but she hadn’t imagined it would come to this. “You’d do that?”
He held her gaze for a long moment. “I love you,” he said. “You are my heart, Liss, but I would leave you. Know that. I would have to, and I would ask you then to have our baby and give it to me. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, in your right to choose, but I’m the baby’s dad, and I have rights, too.” He waited, and when she didn’t answer, he went on. “I’m sorry for the timing. I’ll help Tucker any way I can, always, but you’ve got to understand that I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure our baby is safe.”
She stared at him, speechless, breathless in her sheer amazement at his equanimity. When did he have time to think it through so thoroughly, this plan for his life that didn’t include her? It panicked her, infuriated her. How dare he? How could she live without him? She wrapped her arms around herself, her abdomen, subliminally aware that the gesture was protective, proprietary, born of pure instinct. She was shaking so hard he must see it, but he made no move toward her. He meant her to know that he wouldn’t back down, she thought.
He apologized again for the timing, for putting additional pressure on her, but he felt he had to act immediately, before she did something irrevocable. He said it was a lot to take in. He offered her that, a bone to the dog. “If it makes any difference,” he said, “I’m as surprised as you are about the way I feel. I never expected to look forward to changing another shitty diaper. I thought after raising my sisters and brothers, I’d had my fill.”
A silence came only to be broken a moment later by the merry chime of the doorbell. Evan said he’d go, and when he came back, Tucker was with him.
If anything, he looked more haggard than before. Lissa saw nothing familiar in his eyes when he found her gaze. All the silliness, the brash foolishness, was gone, the light extinguished. He seemed lost, like a bewildered child, and she went to him, flinging her arms around him, furious at herself when the waterworks started.
“I hope it’s okay that I came,” he said. “I’d have called, but as you know, I don’t have my phone.”
Lissa swiped her eyes, pinched her nose, exchanging a glance with Evan.
“Look, Liss, I know about Revel,” Tucker said. “She’s playing games. I’m sorry she’s coming after you guys, but no matter what she says, she doesn’t know anything, okay? Don’t give her any money.”
“No, I wasn’t planning to. She may not have the phone, anyway. Did Mom tell you?”
“Yeah. I heard you saw Sonny, but just so you know, I wouldn’t trust that guy, either.”
“But the other night when we got you from jail, you said—”
“Yeah, well, things change.”
Lissa didn’t know what to say next.
Tucker broke the silence. “I was hoping maybe I could stay with you guys for a while.”
“How did you get here?” Evan asked. “Don’t the cops still have your car?”
“Mom loaned me hers, but I’ve had it pretty much all afternoon. I need to take it back.”
“We can follow you,” Lissa said, “and bring you back here.”
He pulled her braid over her shoulder and held her gaze. His eyes were reddened with his sorrow and regret. “I’m really sick about all of this, Liss.”
She glanced sidelong at Evan. Couldn’t he see it? Tucker’s terrible vulnerability? He was in a fight for his life. His very life! It would take more than money. It would take everything they had—everything she had—to save him. It would use every ounce of her courage and strength to keep her brother going through this. And she wasn’t brave or strong, not the way Evan was. How could she handle being pregnant, too?
Evan went to the sink, washed his hands. “So, I guess you’re staying for dinner, Tuck? I don’t know what we’re having.”
“Yeah, if it’s okay. Listen, I would just stay through the trial, ’cause, you know, I don’t think I can handle being at home with Pop the way he is.”
Evan turned his back.
“What happened?” Lissa asked. “Did you two get into it again?”
“No, and as crazy as it sounds I almost wish we had.” Tucker raised his ball cap, and when he resettled it, he pulled the bill low, shading his expression. “It’s just the way they look.”
“Mom and Dad?”
“Yeah. Like they’re half-killed. Pop’s a mess. He’s in so much damn pain, but he won’t do shit about it. He just sits there. I can’t take it. Knowing I’m the cause, I mean.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You can’t help that this is happening, Tucker. For whatever reason the police have fixated on you. They won’t look at anyone else. God!” Lissa bounced the heel of her hand off the counter. “It’s just so unfair and wrong.”
“Did Evan tell you? The state’s asking for the death penalty.”
“He told me, but it’s not certain, right? Isn’t that what you said, Ev?”
“It’ll only happen if they can find concrete, physical evidence,” Evan answered. “So far, they’ve got nothing. You heard Mickey, Tuck. Their case is strictly circumstantial.”
Lissa looked a question at Evan. “You saw Mickey?”
“I sat in on Tucker’s meeting.”
“I called you first.” Tucker found Lissa’s gaze. “I wanted someone to go with me to Mick’s office. I didn’t want to ask Mom or Dad.”
/> Lissa admitted she’d been to see Darren, and Tucker was as unhappy about it as Evan. Why had she gone? Tucker asked. Didn’t she know the guy was dangerous?
“Plus the dude hates my guts,” he added.
Lissa said she understood that. She started to bring up Miranda, the reported assault. It bothered her that Tucker hadn’t told her about it when it happened. She wanted to know why, but he or Evan, one of them, would only remind her Tucker wasn’t charged with Miranda’s murder. They would only go on and on about how she shouldn’t interfere.
Tucker went to the table, asking if he could sit down. He asked for water, and Evan brought him a bottle from the refrigerator. Uncapping it, Tucker took a long swallow. His hand tremored. He was as pale as frost. Lissa had to look away. It hurt too much, watching him, seeing the signs of his terrible fear.
“Do Mom and Dad know?” she asked, looking back at him.
“What? That they might put me down? I couldn’t tell them. I guess somebody should, though, before they hear it on the news.”
Evan said, “Maybe we should table all of this for a little while, try and relax, and have dinner. You hungry, Tuck? Could you eat a steak? Lissa, don’t we have some T-bones in the freezer? It would only take a sec to thaw them in the microwave and get a fire going. What do you say?”
“I love you, man, that’s what I say.” Tucker went to Evan, and they grabbed each other clumsily the way men do when they’re overwhelmed and feeling awkward with emotion.
Lissa wanted to be there, too, with her arms around them both, but she was afraid Evan would reject her, that Tucker would notice, that she would have to say why, and she wasn’t ready. It was difficult enough facing the thought of calling her mother. How could she tell her that her son was facing possible execution? How could she say Evan might leave her?
She waited until after dinner, and while Tucker and Evan did the dishes, she took her cell phone outside. The night air was crisp and as tart as the first bite of a fresh, chilled apple. A breeze scattered splinters of light from a full moon across the yard. Lissa perched on the edge of an old wooden porch rocker that had once belonged to Hiram Winter, and hugging herself, she looked at the sky, delaying the inevitable, finally dialing. Her mother answered, and as quickly as she could, Lissa said Tucker was fine, and that he wanted to stay with them for a while, and then she stopped because she didn’t know how to go on, how to say, Oh, by the way, your son could be put to death by the state.
But her mother knew already.
“It was on the news?” Lissa asked.
“I don’t know. We aren’t watching it. A reporter came up to your dad outside and told him.” Her mother’s voice was flat, carefully devoid of emotion.
Sensing the effort it took, Lissa matched her mother’s reserve, saying it wasn’t certain. She went on, dishing out a stream of comfort, and her mother returned the favor. They agreed the blood in the Tahoe would lead the state nowhere, and in fact, that alone could end their case. They didn’t mention the cell phone or the other unknown evidence that might have been packed into the bags the police had taken from the house, or Lissa’s meeting with Sonny, or the Camry, or Revel Wiley and her blackmail scheme.
Lissa decided against telling her mother about the trouble with Evan, too, and when her mother asked her how she was feeling, she said she was fine and left it at that. She didn’t mention Darren, either. She had no idea where her own breaking point was, much less her mother’s, and she had no wish to find out. Not tonight.
She said, “We’ll bring your car back after dinner.”
“How will Tucker get around?”
“I’ll take him to the office to get the company van. It’ll do until he can get his car back from the police.” Assuming they give it back. Assuming he’s free to drive it. The thoughts were there, alive in the air between them, but they would’t say them.
“Have you told Tucker about your pregnancy?” her mother asked.
Lissa said she hadn’t. “I think I should wait until I know what I’m going to do.”
Her mother agreed.
A silence hovered. Lissa looked out over the yard. The only sound was the cool breath of an evening breeze. It whispered through the greening blades of grass, sighed along the row of pink-blossomed oleanders that served as a fence line. “Momma,” she said finally, “how can this be happening to us?”
But her mother couldn’t answer that, and after a moment, they said good-night.
* * *
A little later Lissa followed Tucker to their parents’ house and waited while he went inside to give their mother the car keys, then she drove him to the office to get the van. When they came home, Tucker followed her into the guest room and helped her shift her art things around—a big table, her easel and boxes of her art supplies—to make a path from the bed to the doorway.
Lissa shook out the bottom sheet and Tucker helped smooth it over the mattress corners.
“At least while I’m here I can finish the floor in your real studio. Then we can get your art stuff moved in down there.”
“If you feel like it.” Lissa unfolded the top sheet.
“I’ll go crazy if I don’t have something to do. I’d work out at Pecan Grove with you and Evan, but Pop doesn’t want me there. I’m already scaring away the customers.”
Lissa looked up. “What do you mean?”
“A buyer backed out today.”
Her heart fell; she ducked her face, not wanting Tucker to see her dismay. “Does Evan know?” she asked even as other frightened thoughts crowded her mind. How would they make it? How would they manage if they couldn’t sell those houses? And they’d pulled all that money out of the business account to get Tucker out of jail. There hadn’t been an alternative.
Tucker answered that Evan did know and that he’d told Pop earlier in the afternoon.
Lissa didn’t ask how their father had reacted. She didn’t want to know.
Tucker said, “I’m sick about it. All of it, the cash you laid out for bail, horning in here on you and Evan. I thought of going to Morgan’s, you know, the girl who gave me a ride when my car broke down the other night, but I didn’t think that would be smart under the circumstances.”
“No, it wouldn’t be. I’m glad you came here, Tuck.”
“I just don’t want to be a burden. I promise it won’t be for long. I’ll get my own place.”
“It’s okay. You know you can stay as long as you need to.” Lissa wondered how he thought he would get his own place. She wondered how Evan would take it, her offer that Tucker could stay with them as long as necessary; she wondered where Evan would sleep tonight.
Tucker stood in front of her easel. It held a half-finished painting of a garden landscape, one she’d started weeks ago. She’d been working on the light that fell over the path. It wasn’t right, and it frustrated her. She usually painted in the evenings after dinner, but she hadn’t in the past few days, not since Sunday. It seemed as if it had been much longer than that—weeks. Months, even. She wondered if she would ever get back to it. If she would ever feel like it again.
Tucker touched his fingertip to the painted moon gate. It was standing ajar, a sunlit invitation. “Pretty,” he said. “You are so talented, Liss. Maybe you’ll paint something small to hang on my cell wall.”
“Don’t even talk like that,” she said.
“I don’t think I could do it, you know? I couldn’t survive in a prison, especially not on death row—just sitting there for years?” He found her gaze. “I’d rather they’d pull the plug.”
* * *
After her shower, Lissa wrapped herself in a towel and peeped into the bedroom. Empty. She stepped across the threshold, paused to listen. She had left Tucker and Evan in the kitchen talking the Astros’ preseason stats, but now the house was silent. Moon-flushed shadows layered th
e hallway walls. Had Evan gone to bed without saying good-night?
The threat of tears caught her off guard and annoyed her. She pressed her fingertips to her eyes until the urge passed, then, dressed in her nightshirt and sweats, she found her way through the quiet house in the dark. The guest room door was closed, and she hoped Tucker was sleeping.
She crossed the great room to the study. The wood-framed windows there were clear of drapery, and she could see Evan from the doorway, curled on his side on the leather sofa, still dressed except for his shoes. His arms were crossed over his chest, hands flattened beneath his elbows. She wondered where he’d found the old chintz-covered bolster he’d stuffed under his head; she’d made it years ago and hadn’t seen it in ages. She wondered why he had no blanket. He appeared to be dead asleep, and it both maddened and relieved her.
She rested against the door frame. Outside, the fitful night wind rippled the newly flowering canopies of three redbud trees they’d planted two weeks ago. Their shadows trembled over Evan’s body, bringing his face in and out of darkness, first whitening the ridges of his cheekbones, now blackening the hollows beneath his eyes. She imagined the tender softness of his skin there, under his eyes. She imagined tracing the blade of his cheekbone with the tip of her finger—
Abruptly she went from the doorway, and retrieving a quilt from the linen closet, she brought it back with her and laid it carefully over him, jumping when he grasped her fingers. Pure reflex made her draw back, but he kept her hand and her gaze, and the moment stretched with the two of them watching each other in the night silence with only the sound of their breath between them.
After what seemed an endless time, when he released her hand, she left him without a word.
23
SHE COOKED A huge breakfast the following morning—bacon, eggs, homemade biscuits and hash browns—and at one point, wiping her brow, she thought, I’m turning into my mother. But that was exactly why she was doing it, because it felt normal.
She tensed when Evan came to the counter and poured his coffee, waiting for a word, a clue about his mood. She glanced sidelong at him and found him looking at her. There were dark smudges under his eyes and a red scuff mark near the back of his jaw where he’d scraped the sensitive skin while shaving.
Safe Keeping Page 21
