Mending Fences

by Sherryl Woods

  Emily didn’t think they should. She tried one more time. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right? I’ve always told you that, and I meant it.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Dani said, her expression shutting down. “If you want to go on a trip with Marcie and Caitlyn, go. I don’t care. I’ll stay with Dad.”

  “No, that’s not the solution. Caitlyn needs your support as much as Marcie needs mine. You two have always been best friends and best friends stick by each other in a crisis.” She gave Dani a hard look. “Unless there’s some very compelling reason not to.”

  Dani leveled a tear-filled look at her mother. “You’re not hearing me, Mom. I won’t go. Period. I don’t have to give you a reason.”

  Emily’s stomach tied itself into knots. Dreading the answer, she said, “Yes, actually you do. If you’ll tell me why you feel so strongly about this, I’ll let you stay home with your father.”

  “I can’t explain,” Dani insisted.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  Dani heaved a sigh. “Does it matter?”

  “I think maybe it does,” Emily said gently. “Talk to me, sweetie. Please.”

  She waited, but Dani only shook her head, looking miserable.

  “Okay, I’ll go on the stupid trip,” Dani said grudgingly. “But I’m hanging out on the beach by myself.”

  Emily wanted to scream that the trip was no longer the point, that what mattered was whatever Dani was keeping bottled up inside, but she let it go. Badgering her would only create more resentment. It wouldn’t get to the bottom of things.

  Resisting the urge to sigh, she stood up. “I’ll go call Marcie and tell her we’ll be ready to leave right after school on Friday. It’s only a half-day session, so we should be able to get on the road by one.”

  “Whatever,” Dani mumbled, burying her face in a pillow. “Go away. I’m tired.”

  “You have homework,” Emily reminded her.

  “Have I ever once not done my homework?” Dani demanded. “You don’t have to bug me about that, too.”

  This time, Emily did sigh as she closed her daughter’s door behind her. This trip might not be starting off the way she’d envisioned, but she couldn’t help thinking it was a good thing they were getting out of town. She and her daughter really needed some bonding time. Maybe then Dani would finally open up about whatever was troubling her regarding Evan. And even if Emily wasn’t one bit sure she wanted to know the answer, she knew she needed to insist on getting it.

  11

  Emily had barely made it back downstairs, her thoughts still troubled by her conversation with Dani, when the doorbell rang. Since she was on her way past it, she opened the door without thinking. Detective Rodriguez was on her doorstep, alone.

  “Detective,” she said warily. “I thought we’d established that I have nothing more to say to you.”

  He gave her an unrepentant grin. “Had we? I seem to recall that I have at least ninety-eight more chances to annoy you before you finally cough up everything you know about Evan Carter.” His grin spread. “Ninety-seven after we finish talking this evening.”

  “You won’t go away if I just ask nicely, will you?” she inquired, unable to keep a wistful note from her voice.

  “I’d rather not,” he said. “How about a cup of coffee? Or some iced tea? Maybe a little friendly conversation? There’s no harm in that, is there?”

  “If I thought I could get you out of here simply by giving you something to drink and sharing a little small talk about the weather, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” she told him.

  “Well, then, that seems like a good way to start,” he said cheerfully. “Ten minutes, fifteen if we discover we have something in common.”

  She gave him a wry look. “You mean beyond me telling you if Evan has a birthmark or is allergic to dairy?”

  “Yeah, beyond that.”

  She stood aside. “Fine. Ten minutes. The kitchen is this way. Don’t expect homemade cake with your coffee. I leave all the baking to Marcie.”

  “Evan’s mother?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You two are close, right?”

  He pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table, looking too masculine for the cheery red decor with its ruffled curtains at the window over the sink and matching tablecloth splashed with a strawberry design. As she handed him his cup of coffee and sat down opposite him with her iced tea, Emily wondered why she’d never noticed the same stark contrast when Derek had been living here.

  Maybe it was because Detective Rodriguez looked a little rough around the edges with the faint scar over his right eye, his dark brown hair a little long as if he’d simply forgotten to have it trimmed, and that sexy shadow of a beard that some men could pull off, though she had a feeling again that it wasn’t intentional with him. His clothes—a pin-striped dress shirt and Dockers—which had most likely started the day neatly creased and pressed—had wilted in the Miami humidity. He’d stripped off his usual tie at some point and his collar was open. She had a feeling he’d be more comfortable—and even sexier—in jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Have you always been a teacher?” he asked, surprising her.

  “In terms of a profession, yes. I took some time off when the kids were small, but as soon as Dani started school, I went back to it.”

  “Must be tough these days.”

  Emily nodded. “Some classes are more rewarding than others, but I don’t mind a good challenge. If I can get a few kids excited about literature or writing, it makes the rest bearable.”

  “Was Evan Carter one of the good students?”

  She smiled. “I knew we couldn’t go the whole ten minutes without his name coming up.”

  He shrugged. “It’s my job to find answers.”

  “I don’t have any.” He leveled a doubting look into her eyes that made her want to squirm. “I don’t,” she insisted.

  In an attempt to change the subject, she said, “What made you want to be a detective?”

  “My favorite uncle, who came here as a child from Cuba, is a cop. I grew up listening to his stories and admired his dedication.”

  “What about your dad? You didn’t want to follow in his footsteps?”

  He gave her a rueful look. “My dad is an engineer. He was already in college, well on the way to his degree, when they fled. He was so single-minded about mastering English and finishing his education that he didn’t have time to sit around and chat with my brothers and me.” He grinned. “Do you know anything about engineers?”

  “Not really.”

  “They’re very good at building bridges or high rises, but not so great with communication. Unless he was telling us to be quiet or disciplining us for misbehaving, he hardly knew we were around.”

  Emily studied him curiously. “Just how bad were you in an attempt to get his attention?”

  He looked surprised that she’d guessed that. “Pretty bad. Nothing criminal, just nonstop mischief. It was my uncle, not my dad, who sat me down and told me that if my behavior escalated much further I was going to be crossing a dangerous line and he wouldn’t be able to protect me. I respected him for that, for not being willing to bend any rules for me.”

  “And so you chose him to be your mentor,” Emily said.

  “Something like that. He was happy being a street cop, intervening with other troubled kids like me. He focused on crime prevention in our neighborhood. Me, I wanted to solve the big crimes. I like the puzzle, putting the bad guys behind bars.”

  “Evan Carter’s not one of the bad guys,” Emily said impulsively.

  Detective Rodriguez regarded her with a disappointed expression. “If you spoke with his victim, I doubt you’d say that.”

  She didn’t even try to hide her exasperation. “You’ve been saying all along that you want my impressions of him. Now that I’ve given you one based on having him in and out of my home for ten years or so, you’ve dismissed it. That’s not a very unbiased attitude, Detect
ive.”

  “Because I have hard evidence that contradicts your feelings,” he said. “And your son thinks his sister might have a different experience with him, as well.”

  That one, simple sentence contained enough distressing information to stir her temper. She clenched her glass of iced tea so tightly she was surprised it didn’t shatter. Putting aside his speculation about Dani, she focused on the fact that he’d made contact with her son.

  “You spoke to Josh? When?”

  “Earlier this afternoon. I ran into him on campus.”

  She didn’t even try to hide her skepticism that the meeting had been as innocent as he seemed to be suggesting. “It wasn’t an accident, I’m sure.”

  “No, Detective Lansing and I went looking for him.” Again, his gaze locked with hers. “He’s worried about his sister. What about you? Are you concerned about your daughter?”

  Troubled by his persistence, especially after her own disturbing conversation with Dani earlier, she hedged. “I’m concerned about both of my kids. What mother isn’t?”

  He gave her a chiding look. “Come on, Emily. We both know what’s at stake here. Do you think your daughter might have had any sort of inappropriate sexual encounter with Evan Carter?”

  Just hearing him say the words made her skin crawl. “Absolutely not,” she said fiercely, but his eyes were unrelenting. She was the first to look away. “God, I hope not,” she whispered.

  He sat there, waiting, and suddenly she couldn’t keep her fear inside for another second.

  “Okay, I’m terrified that something might have happened,” she admitted. “But she won’t talk to me.”

  “Have you asked her point-blank?”

  Her lips curved slightly. “You obviously don’t know anything about teenage girls, or at least about my daughter. Confrontation only shuts her down completely. I’ve just spent fifteen minutes upstairs trying to get her to tell me why she doesn’t want to go on a trip this weekend with Marcie and Caitlyn. I know it has something to do with Evan, but I came at it from every angle I could think of to give her an opportunity to open up, and I got nothing.”

  “I could try talking to her,” he offered. “Unbiased third party. Who knows, she might tell me something she wouldn’t tell you.”

  As annoyed as she was by his sneaky attempt to get the interview he’d been after from the start, she had to chuckle. “Detective, you really, really don’t get teenagers, do you?”

  A shadow darkened his eyes, but he shook his head. “No,” he said, the response and his tone terse.

  “Well, trust me, if there’s one person they’re less likely to open up to than a parent, it’s a cop, especially a cop who’s trying to put someone they care about in jail.” She stood up. “Your ten minutes are up, Detective.”

  He dutifully stood and Emily thought she was home free. She’d have him out of here with no harm done, not even to her emotional equilibrium. Then his eyes met hers again and this time the warmth and concern she saw was more personal.

  “Call me Grady,” he said. “I have a feeling you and I are going to get to know each other really well before all this is over.”

  The tone in his voice made her tremble and she knew it didn’t have a thing to do with his attempt to weasel information about Evan from her. She caught sight of his olive-skinned hands and suddenly she could practically feel them on her skin. This wasn’t good, she thought, jerking her attention away. This wasn’t good at all.

  “You okay?” he inquired, a knowing glint in his eyes.

  “Just peachy,” she said, an edge of sarcasm in her voice.

  “You and your daughter will be out of town this weekend?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Then I’ll see you again the first of next week.” Once again, his eyes locked with hers. “You change your mind about letting me talk to Dani, let me know. If that boy did hurt her and she’s keeping it bottled up inside, it can’t be good for her.”

  For once, Emily totally agreed with him, though she didn’t intend to give him the satisfaction of telling him that. “You do your job, Detective. I’ll worry about my daughter.”

  “Normally I’d say that’s a reasonable request, but unfortunately, in this instance, something tells me the two objectives merge.”

  Emily was very much afraid he might be right. She turned away before he could see the fear in her eyes. It wasn’t until he’d walked away and she heard the front door close quietly behind him that she sank down on a chair and buried her face in her hands.

  Was she wrong not to try to force Dani to talk? She thought she was handling it the right way, the only way that had ever worked to get Dani to open up, but maybe this crisis deserved a more aggressive approach. Maybe her questioning needed to be as direct as Detective Rodriguez’s had been just now. Dani might not answer, but Emily had learned a lot over the years by reading her daughter’s body language. Maybe that would tell her what she needed to know.

  Emily was making a halfhearted attempt to fix a chef’s salad for dinner, when Dani walked into the kitchen. Her eyes were red rimmed from crying, her cheek imprinted with the pattern from her vintage chenille bedspread that she’d claimed after Emily’s mother had died last year.

  She bypassed Emily and went straight to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of pop.

  “Dinner’s almost ready,” Emily said. “I thought we’d have a salad. We could eat on the patio. It’s a nice night.”

  “I’d rather eat in my room.”

  “Not an option,” she told her.

  “Why not? If we eat together, we’re only going to fight.”

  Emily grinned. “Only if you insist on it. I don’t want to argue with you, sweetie. I really don’t.” She pushed a block of Monterey jack cheese across the counter. “Here, shred this for me.”

  “You can buy cheese already shredded, you know,” Dani grumbled, but she found the shredder in the cabinet and started grating the cheese.

  “You can find cheddar and mozzarella shredded,” Emily told her. “But you like jack cheese, right?”

  “Why don’t they shred that? It’s dumb.”

  “I agree, but that’s the way it is. Deal with it.”

  Dani eyed the salad skeptically. “Dinner’s not very exciting. Are we gonna have dessert?”

  “We have ice cream and some of the brownies Marcie baked. Seems sort of counterproductive after a nice, healthy meal, though.”

  Dani grinned. “But we’re having it, right?”

  Emily grinned back, responding to the slight improvement in her daughter’s mood. “It would be a shame to let those brownies go to waste. You carry the dishes and drinks outside and I’ll bring the salad. You want ranch dressing or Italian?”

  “Ranch.”

  When they were settled at the glass-topped patio table, Dani dove into her salad with enthusiasm. “Who was here before?” she asked, her mouth full of food.

  “Dani!” Emily protested, gesturing toward her mouth.

  Dani swallowed. “Sorry. Who was it?”

  Emily hesitated, not wanting to spoil the moment. Unfortunately, Dani would only persist until she told her. Besides, this might be the opening she’d been hoping for.

  “Detective Rodriguez,” she said finally.

  Dani’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “The guy who’s investigating Evan came back again?”

  Emily nodded.

  “But you’d already talked to him. What did he want this time?”

  Emily debated telling her that he’d had a conversation with Josh today that had sent him back here. If she suggested that Josh had pointed the detective in Dani’s direction, though, Dani might never forgive her brother. Taking the coward’s way out, she shrugged. “You know the police. They always think you know more than you’re telling them.”

  “Was the other cop with him? The woman?”

  “Not this time.”

  Dani’s expression brightened unexpectedly. “Really? Are you sure he was here on business,
Mom? Maybe he likes you.”

  Emily felt herself blush. “He has a job to do. That’s all.”

  “You think he’s cute, don’t you?” Dani gloated. “I can tell.”

  “Cute isn’t the word for Detective Rodriguez,” Emily insisted.

  “Sexy? Hot?” Dani supplied. “Go for it, Mom. You haven’t been on a date since you and Dad got divorced.”

  “Sweetie, the man has not asked me on a date. He’s here for one thing—information.”

  “Do you flirt with him?”

  “Dani!”

  “Well, do you? How else will he know you’re interested, if you don’t flirt a little?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, I am not having this conversation with my teenage daughter,” Emily sputtered. “I’m going in to get dessert.”

  “Chicken,” Dani called after her. “And bring me two brownies with my ice cream. I’m starved.”

  If it would distract Dani from the subject of Emily’s relationship with the sexy detective, she would give her every brownie left on the plate Marcie had brought over. Sadly, though, she knew her daughter. She was just getting warmed up.

  Still, Emily would gladly subject herself to a few more uncomfortable questions if it meant that Dani would keep a smile on her face and a sparkle in her eyes for a while longer. Those had been in short supply around here lately.

  For once Marcie had brushed off all of Ken’s objections to her taking a trip at this time.

  “Caitlyn and I need a break from all the chaos around here,” she said flatly. “We’re going. Besides, you’re totally absorbed with work and spinning this whole mess in Evan’s favor. You’re hardly ever home anyway.”

  “But how’s it going to look if his mother and his sister take off when he’s in the middle of a crisis?” Ken said. “It’s going to look as if you’re running away because you don’t believe in him.”

  “Then you can be sure to spin that, too. Blame it on the media hounding us, so that we’re practically prisoners in our own home. That ought to win us a little sympathy.”

  Ken glowered at her. “You don’t need to get sarcastic. My job pays the bills around here.”