Show Me a Hero

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  She turned her attention back to Maddie. “Have you told Greer yet?”

  “I thought she’d be here, too.”

  “She’s got a date.”

  Ali caught the look that passed between Maddie and Linc and a knot formed inside her stomach. “All right. So we know the good news. Now what’s the bad? What did Judge Stokes say?”

  Her question seemed to hover in the tense air and the knot doubled in size.

  Maddie cupped her hand tenderly over Layla’s blonde head. “He said that unless new information about her real mother surfaces, he’s going to rule on Layla’s final status before the end of the month.”

  “And what’s that mean?” Grant’s voice sounded hollow from inside the cabinet.

  Ali could see the truth in her sister’s eyes. “It means we’re all going to lose her,” she said huskily. “Just admit it, Maddie. That’s what you’re saying!”

  Maddie bit her lip. Her eyes were damp. She reached for Linc’s hand and cleared her throat. “The, uh, the family that’s next on the list is being reviewed. My boss is handling it himself. He warned me that they are eminently qualified to adopt. They live over in Jackson, but they have plans to move to Florida, where they have other family. They would have gone already, except that they learned there’s a baby who might be available for placement soon.”

  Ali’s eyes burned. “This is such bull. Layla should be staying here. We all know it. Aren’t you going to fight Stokes, Maddie?”

  “How?” Maddie spread her hands. “Everywhere we’ve turned has brought us to a dead end, Ali.”

  “But Grant’s her uncle! We know he is.”

  Grant slid out from beneath the sink. He sat up. His aqua eyes were unreadable. “Knowing isn’t proof.”

  “And we can’t get proof. Not until we find your sister. And look what a bang-up job I’ve done of that!” Frustration twisted inside her. “There’s only one thing left to do.”

  “We’re not running off with Layla,” Maddie warned.

  “And that’s the difference between you and me,” Ali retorted. “Because I would.”

  Maddie just looked at her.

  Her shoulders fell. “Okay, so I wouldn’t. But I’d want to.”

  “You think we don’t?” Linc closed his arm around Maddie and she leaned into him.

  “I don’t care what it looks like to the court,” Ali said flatly. “Time is running out. We need—”

  “A private investigator,” Grant interrupted.

  Ali nodded. “Vivian will pay for it. She’s offered often enough—”

  “Layla’s my niece.” Grant pushed to his feet. “I’ll pay for it.”

  Ali opened her mouth to challenge him. Where on earth would he get the money?

  “There’s not a court around who would argue with my legitimate right to find my own missing sister.” His voice was even. “It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the baby and who has the best claim to her.”

  “You do have that right,” Maddie whispered huskily. “She’s your family.”

  He looked grim. “And I’m probably the worst one for her.”

  “Grant. That’s not true.” Ali reached for his hand but he shook her off. And the knot inside her stomach got a whole lot tighter.

  “Yeah? Nobody with my blood has ever wanted me. Not my mom. She spent years trying to pass me off on guys she’d slept with as their kid, just to get money that she’d usually snort up her nose. And her dad—well, good ol’ Roger Carmody said he’d rot in hell before he’d see his family name smeared by a little bastard like me. That’s the kind of blood that runs in my veins.

  “I’ll find Karen and she can answer for what she did—abandoning her own baby. But for Layla’s sake, she’d be better off with almost anyone other than me.” He dropped his wrench in the toolbox and kicked the lid closed. He looked at Ali; his expression was closed. “Pipes are replaced. All you need to do is fit the new faucet in place and tighten the bolts and connect the supply line.” He left the kitchen.

  “Wait!” She hurriedly transferred Layla to her sister’s arms and followed him. “Where are you going?”

  He’d already grabbed his coat and was reaching for the front door. “I need to get out of here.”

  “But I—” She broke off. Swallowed hard. Her mind was still spinning. Not only because of Layla, but also because of everything he’d said. “I’ll come with you, then.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Grant, I just... I don’t want you to be by yourself.”

  “I’ve been by myself nearly my whole damn life, Ali. It’s what I’m good at.” His eyes skated over her. “And frankly, it’s what I prefer.”

  Then he yanked open the door and went out into the dark.

  And all she could do was stand there, watching him go.

  * * *

  “Here.” A hand came out of nowhere and set a short, squat glass partially filled with amber liquid in front of her.

  Ali wrinkled her nose against the smell of the whiskey and looked up at Greer. “I didn’t hear you come in. When did you get home?”

  “Little while ago. Maddie called me.”

  She and Linc had left shortly after Grant had bolted.

  But that had been hours ago. “What time is it?”

  “Little after eleven.” Greer pulled out the chair opposite her and sat. She looked at the faucetless sink, but made no comment. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Nothing to talk about. There’s a ninety-nine-point-nine percent chance that Layla will be adopted by a couple who’re moving to Florida.” She’d never been to the state. Never had reason to hate it. But she did now.

  “About Grant.”

  “Why? So you can tease me for liking a bo-oy?”

  Greer just watched her.

  Ali groaned. She dropped her head onto her arms atop the table. “I’m sorry. I’m a bitch.”

  “You’re in love.”

  She whipped her head up so fast it was a wonder she didn’t get whiplash. “No, I’m not.”

  “Anyone denying something that fast is guilty.”

  “They teach you that in law school?”

  Her sister smiled slightly. “You sleep with him?”

  She dropped her head back onto her arms. “Like you would not believe.”

  “Well. I think I’m envious.”

  “Because this is so much fun.” She lifted her head again. “I fall for the wrong guy. Every time.”

  “Every time. As if there have been so many.” Greer tsked. “Ali. Come on. Who’s to say Grant’s the wrong guy, anyway?”

  “He told me he didn’t want me!”

  “In those exact words?”

  “Yes! Well, no. But it’s what he meant.”

  “Yup. Okay. I see.”

  “You weren’t there. You don’t know.”

  “Maddie was there. She heard. And if she weren’t feeling so blasted sick being newly pregnant, she’d be here thumping your head instead of me.” Suiting action to words, Greer flicked Ali’s head with her finger.

  Hard.

  And it smarted now the same way it had when they were ten. Ali sat up again, rubbing her head. “Maddie doesn’t thump anyone’s head. She’s too nice.”

  “Unlike me,” Greer said tartly.

  “Oh, you’re nice,” Ali said grouchily. “You just hide it under that laywer layer you got going. Maddie’s nice on the surface. And you’re both brilliant. And I’m—” She made a face. “I’m a glorified meter maid. And not all that glorified, when it comes down to it. I let more people slide on expired meters than not. If the town’s budget was dependent on parking fines, Braden would go bankrupt.”

  “Good grief,” Greer muttered. “Exaggerate much?” She reached for the drink and took a sip of it herself. “What I am is too i
mpatient with people who are feeling sorry for themselves.”

  “I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’m just facing the truth.” She slid the glass out of Greer’s hand and tossed it back, wincing when the liquor hit the back of her throat like a blowtorch. “I started thinking maybe we were onto something special.” She blamed her hoarseness on the fire burning down her esophagus.

  Not that she was in love with him.

  “You know what I admire about you, Ali?”

  Ali fluffed her streaky brown hair. “My incredible taste in hair color?” She knew Greer had thought she was nuts when she’d done it.

  “I have never understood the chip you have on your shoulder.” Greer’s eyes were annoyed. “The fact that you never quit. Never. You don’t give up. On anything. And God knows you don’t back down. Even when it would be more advantageous in the long run for you to do so.”

  Ali jerked back, genuinely surprised.

  “So why are you giving up on Grant just because he spewed some claptrap about being better off alone?”

  She opened her mouth to argue. But nothing came out.

  She stood and went over to the counter. The fancy gooseneck faucet they’d bought months ago was still in its box. She pulled it out and started assembling it.

  “You don’t have anything to say?”

  She fed the faucet line through the hole in the sink and then crouched down. Nuts and bolts. Supply line.

  “Alicia!”

  She finally sat down on the floor and looked at her sister. “What if he really meant it, Greer? What if he turns me away?”

  Greer leaned over and grabbed her hands, squeezing them. “Ali. What if he doesn’t?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You need a phone line.”

  Grant eyed Ali, standing on his porch beneath the bare, flickering lightbulb, and wondered if he’d finally fallen asleep to dream. She was wearing her uniform and coat, but her hair streamed loosely over her shoulders. “Haven’t we been here before?”

  She watched him. It had started snowing again, and the occasional snowflake floated into the sphere of flickering light. “Are you going to invite me in?”

  Last time she hadn’t waited for an invitation.

  He stepped out of the doorway and she came inside.

  There were two more boxes sitting near the door. They’d been there when he came home tonight.

  Chelsea’s biting idea of humor. Bury him in shipments of his own damn book.

  Ali stepped around them. She unfastened her coat but didn’t take it off. “You get a lot of books. I never see you read.”

  “It’s two in the morning, Ali. What do you want?”

  “Yeah. It’s two in the morning. I didn’t have to pound on your door to wake you up or anything.”

  “Waking would require sleeping.”

  Her lashes were lowered, keeping him from truly seeing what she was thinking. “I wasn’t going to come.”

  He threw himself down on the couch and pinched his eyes shut. “That would have been a good choice.”

  “What’s your story, Grant?”

  “I didn’t give you enough of it back at your house?” He opened his eyes to see her slowly pace across the floor.

  “From what I’ve been able to piece together,” she said in an even tone, “Roger Carmody was a puritanical bastard. Helen Carmody, Roger’s wife, appeared to be equally puritanical, though it was common knowledge that Roger was abusive. When she died, their daughter, Denise, was just sixteen. There was a brief investigation into Helen’s death and it was ruled suicide.” Ali turned to pace the other way. “A few years later, when Denise, now eighteen, came to tell her father that she’d been raped, Roger blamed her. Kicked her out of the house. When Denise learned she was pregnant as a result of that rape and once more went to her father, he turned her away yet again.”

  His stomach churned. “Guess you’ve been doing some homework, Officer Ali.”

  “I wish you would have told me.”

  “So you can feel sorry for me?”

  “So I would have understood you more. Instead, I had to spend the last several hours pumping poor Mrs. Gunderson for details and once again use departmental resources for a personal matter.” She stopped pacing. Pushing one of Chelsea’s oversize boxes in front of him, she sat on the edge of it, clasping her hands in front of her. “None of what happened with the Carmodys was your fault. You must know that, Grant. Roger’s failure as a father and a grandfather is not your failure.” She hesitated. Waiting.

  But he had nothing to say.

  “He’s dead, you know. After the bank took back the ranch, he went to Minnesota, where he had grown up. Died alone and penniless, living on the street just like he’d condemned his daughter and grandson to do some thirty years earlier.”

  “I know.”

  She didn’t question how he knew. She merely pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and held it out. “My grandmother gave me the name of an investigator that she’s had reason to use before. She says his retainer is pretty high but he always gets results. And she says that now isn’t the time for pride. She’s happy to pay—”

  “I already have an investigator.”

  Ali slowly returned the paper to her pocket.

  “It’s the same investigator who told me the glad tidings about Roger. I don’t need anyone’s money when I’ve got plenty of my own.”

  She pushed to her feet, looking disbelieving.

  “It’s all under the corporation.”

  “What’s all under what corporation?”

  “Rules, Inc. My corporation.”

  He got up and went into the kitchen, returning with a knife.

  Her eyebrows rose slightly.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna use it on you.” He sliced open the box and pulled out one of the slick hardbacks stacked tightly inside. He handed it to her and went back to the couch, waiting for the puzzlement in her eyes to shift inevitably to comprehension. Blame would be soon to follow.

  She stared at the gold lettering on the glossy black background. “You tried to give me this the day I first came here.” She flipped over the book. And there on the back jacket was his photograph. “T. C. Grant.” She looked pained. “Right there in front of me this whole time.” Instead of heaving the book at his head, which is what he’d have wanted to do if their positions were reversed, she flipped it open and started paging through it. “What’s the T.C. stand for?”

  “Talia and Cal.”

  She closed the book and held it against the front of her coat. “Your adoptive parents. That’s another blank I couldn’t fill in. How did your paths cross? Mrs. Gunderson said when Roger turned away Denise that last time, she didn’t stick around here. Rumor had it she hitched a ride out with a trucker heading north. After that—” Ali spread her arms, shaking her head “—all Mrs. Gunderson heard was an occasional rumor that Denise was in Florida. Texas. California. Everyone figured she’d either lost the baby or had an abortion. Not surprisingly, Roger never said anything more about either one of you. So why Oregon?”

  “Why not Oregon? We’d been every place else. Denise had a one-nighter with Cal once. Before he and Talia were married. We were in Portland and she was broke. She looked him up, prepared for her usual con. Only this time it didn’t work like either one of us expected. He knew I wasn’t his kid, but he still offered her twice her normal asking price. In order to get it, though, she had to leave me there.”

  She sucked in an audible breath.

  “She jumped at it. Took the money, told me ‘so long’ and ran. I never saw her again.”

  “Grant—”

  “I don’t want your pity.”

  “No, you just want to be left alone. So you can...what? Feel sorry for yourself while you make this house habitable again? Is it working? Are you erasing Roger Car
mody from this place with every pass of a paint roller?” She spread her arms wide. “Or are you just here to keep reminding yourself that the Carmodys didn’t want you?”

  “Dammit, Ali—”

  “No! Dammit, Grant!” She tossed the book aside. “Their failures aren’t your failures!”

  “Then why did I tell my own sister to stay the hell out of my life!”

  Grant’s shout seemed to echo around the walls, and Ali sucked in a breath.

  He swore and kicked over the box and dozens of black-covered books slid out onto the floor. “I did the same damn thing to her that Roger did to my...to Denise. I shut her out. Cut her off. And she ended up so freaking desperate she dumped her kid off on someone else, too.”

  Ali slid her arms around his waist and pressed her head against his heart. It was pounding hard.

  “Don’t.”

  She linked her fingers together even tighter.

  “Goddammit, Ali. I said don’t.” He tried to push her away, but she hung on like a limpet.

  Finally, he stopped pushing and held her back. And only then, when his heart wasn’t pounding like a wild beast’s and his breath wasn’t whistling between his teeth, did she finally ease her grip. “Tell me about Cal and Talia. You said he was a PJ?”

  He gave a huge sigh, and it took only a small nudge from her before he dropped unresistingly onto the couch. “It’s not gonna work,” he said. “Getting me to talk about them doesn’t make me forget the rest.”

  “I have the feeling getting you to talk at all is an accomplishment.”

  He frowned. “Cal couldn’t have kids. That’s how he knew Denise’s claim was crap. And evidently Talia had a soft spot in her heart for nine-year-old boys who could barely read or write thanks to their upbringing. They hadn’t even had Karen a year when I entered the picture.”

  Ali pulled off her coat and sat next to him. “Obviously you overcame the reading and writing challenges.”

  “She was an English teacher.” He leaned his head back against the couch. “But she quit work once I entered the picture. I did not appreciate all of her attention. They had rules I was expected to follow. The only rules I knew up until then were to keep the clerks distracted in stores while Denise shoplifted our next meal and to keep my head down if the cops were too close. With Cal and Talia it was keeping my room clean. I’d never even had a room before. I had to say please and thank you. I had to go to school on weekdays. Church on Sundays. It was a helluva change.”