Mending Fences

by Sherryl Woods

  “What a wonderful idea!” Grady told him. “I’ve read some articles about how difficult it is to get physicians to go into practice in areas like that. There’s a huge demand for doctors willing to do that.”

  Emily studied her son, wondering why she hadn’t noticed that his new-found maturity went well beyond the way he was handling the situation with Evan. She was more eager than ever to meet the young woman who was likely responsible for it.

  “I don’t want to throw a damper on your enthusiasm,” she told Josh, “but it’s a tough program. I know you have the grades for it, but are you sure you have the commitment and dedication it will require?”

  “Absolutely,” he said enthusiastically. “I’m up to the challenge, Mom. I really am. Jenny’s real focused. She studies all the time, so she’ll be on my case if I slack off at all.”

  “When I met her, I was very impressed with her clear thinking and her ability to remain calm in a crisis,” Grady chimed in. He turned to Emily. “Have you met her yet?”

  “No, I’ve encouraged Josh to bring her home sometime. Lauren, too.”

  “Who’s she?” Dani asked, sounding miffed that they were talking about someone she’d never even heard of.

  “That’s Jenny’s roommate,” Josh said, his expression guarded.

  Emily decided now was as good a time as any to ease into the subject of Evan and the accusation against him. “She’s the young woman who filed the charges against Evan,” she said quietly. “I think she’s incredibly brave and strong.”

  “Me, too,” Josh said. “I really admire her.”

  Dani’s expression froze. Suddenly she backed away from the table. “Don’t bring her here,” she said adamantly. “How could you even think about bringing her here, either one of you, when Evan lives right behind us? It would be awful.”

  Startled by Dani’s vehement reaction, Emily couldn’t help wondering if she was more worried about Lauren running into the man who’d harmed her or if she simply didn’t want his accuser in the house. Of course, there was also the possibility that she didn’t want to meet a young woman who’d had the courage to do what Dani herself had been unable to do: hold Evan accountable for his actions. Emily increasingly feared it was the latter.

  “Sweetie,” she began, but Dani was already pushing back from the table as if she couldn’t get away fast enough. Obviously the transition to talking about Evan’s case hadn’t been nearly as smooth as Emily had hoped. She’d thought that the natural flow of conversation from discussing Josh’s girlfriend to mentioning Lauren was subtle, but she’d clearly miscalculated.

  “I’m not hungry anymore. I’m going to my room. I’ve got homework to do.”

  “Dani, sit down,” Emily ordered, but her daughter ignored the command and ran from the kitchen. She turned to Grady apologetically. “I’m sorry. I thought we could ease into the subject and finally get somewhere. Things seemed to be going so well.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I got some good insights into your daughter tonight.” He turned to Josh. “Maybe it’s for the best that she’s gone upstairs, if you have information for me.”

  Josh nodded and reached into his pocket. “I have a few names. It’s not much, but maybe they’ll help.”

  “At this point, any leads will help.”

  Emily frowned. “Were there girls from the high school who said Evan had raped them?”

  Josh shook his head. “None of them went that far, but there were four who said he didn’t know how to take no for an answer, so they’d stopped dating him.” He gave Grady a look filled with regret. “I know that’s not the same thing.”

  “It does establish a pattern, though. And maybe if Naomi contacts them, they’ll say just how far he pushed things. They might be more forthcoming with her than they would be with you or with me. Girls in this kind of situation respond well to her.”

  “Naomi’s your partner, right?” Josh said. “I saw her talking to Jenny that day you were on campus.”

  “Right,” Grady confirmed.

  “Jenny likes her. She says she was really, really good with Lauren.”

  “I’ll tell her you said that,” Grady said. “It takes a lot of compassion to be able to do what she does.”

  Josh gave him a speculative look. “She’s pretty hot, too. Is there anything going on between the two of you? Because if there is…” He glanced meaningfully at Emily, proving he hadn’t been as oblivious to the undercurrents as she had hoped.

  “Josh!” she protested, mortified.

  Grady grinned. “Message received,” he assured Josh. “Naomi and I are partners. We’re not involved. It would be too complicated. Besides, she prefers guys who are a whole lot younger and less jaded than I am.”

  Emily couldn’t believe her son felt he had the right to meddle in her love life and ask such an intrusive question. Not that she even had a love life with Grady, or any other man, for that matter. Tonight was the first time since the divorce she’d even seriously considered including a man in her future. Up until that kiss, it had been little more than a fantasy.

  And, fantasy or reality, she most certainly didn’t want to dwell on it now, not when she was increasingly worried about her daughter’s state of mind.

  “Look, I hate to cut this short, but I really need to go upstairs and spend some time with Dani. Josh, do you have any more information for Detective Rodriguez? If not, I’ll show him out on my way upstairs.”

  Naturally Grady took note of her suddenly formal tone and the abrupt dismissal and gave her a mocking look. Josh studied the two of them curiously.

  “I’ve already told him what I know,” Josh said and drew a rumpled sheet of paper from his pocket. “Here are the names of the girls who answered me, plus their contact information. I really hope it helps.”

  “Thanks, Josh. I’m sure it will.” Grady stood up and his amused gaze locked on Emily. “After you.”

  Emily led the way to the front door. When she turned back to face him, he was still regarding her with tolerant amusement.

  “Can’t get me out of here fast enough, can you? Do I make you nervous?”

  “Of course not,” she lied.

  He touched a finger to the tip of her nose. “It’s growing, sweetheart. You might want to watch those little white lies. They add up. Next thing you know you’ll be like Pinnochio with a nose out to here.” He held his hand a foot away from her face.

  “Not funny,” she said. “I do need to check on Dani.”

  His expression sobered at once. “I know you do, but I would have happily helped your son clean up the kitchen while you talked to her.”

  She caught herself smiling. “I think you’re giving my son more credit than he deserves. Any cleaning up that goes on around here, I’ll be doing.”

  He frowned at that. “All the more reason to let me stay and help out, maybe encourage him to pitch in.”

  She shook her head. “I know you really just want to stick around in case I find out anything from Dani.”

  He shrugged. “That, too.”

  “There’s another reason?”

  His gaze caught hers and held, then drifted to her lips. Only after she was all but sizzling with anticipation did he lean down and press a chaste kiss to her forehead.

  “I think you know the reason,” he chided. “Call me, okay?”

  Flustered once again, Emily could only stare. “You mean if Dani says something.”

  “That would be one reason,” he said, his lips twitching. “Or just to say hello and make my day.”

  “You’re a very disconcerting man, Detective.”

  “And you’re a very intriguing woman, Emily,” he said just as seriously. Then he winked at her. “Good night. Thanks for dinner and for the company. I like your kids. Tell Dani I’ll call to set up an appointment for our landscaping project.”

  “You don’t have to go through with that.”

  “If you could see my yard, you’d know that I do.”

  Emily stood in the doo
rway as he walked down the driveway to his car. A very disconcerting man, indeed. She couldn’t quite make up her mind how she felt about that.

  On his way home, Grady stopped in Little Havana for some Café Cubano. Sometimes coming to the neighborhood along Eighth Street—Calle Ocho—reminded him of what it must have been like for his father and uncle growing up in Havana. The rapid-fire exchanges in Spanish, the businesses catering to Spanish-speaking customers were like a taste of home for the thousands of Cuban exiles who’d fled the island in the sixties and more recently during the Mariel boatlift and other, less organized flights from Castro’s rule. The neighborhood had also proved to be a draw for immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and other countries in Central and South America.

  After chatting with some of the elderly men playing dominoes in the park across the street from the coffee shop, Grady found an unoccupied bench and dialed Naomi on his cell phone.

  “This better be important, Rodriguez,” she said, sounding breathless.

  “Obviously your date is going better than mine did,” he commented dryly. “I’ll try to keep this short. You have a pen and paper?”

  “You want me to take notes?” she asked incredulously.

  “We both know you don’t have a head for numbers,” Grady retorted. “I have four names, some e-mail addresses and phone numbers for girls who dated Carter in high school and ditched him because he was a little too eager for sex. Interested?”

  “Two minutes,” she said tersely.

  When she came back on the line, she sounded more composed. Grady tried not to imagine the frustrated young stud she’d abandoned in her bed. Instead he gave her the information as briskly as possible.

  “Can you get on this right away?”

  “In the next half hour,” she said firmly.

  Grady grinned.

  “Stop smirking,” she snapped.

  “How’d you know I was smirking?”

  “Because you always do when you think you know what I’m doing with some guy. The truth is I’m coloring my hair and the stuff has to be washed out in twenty minutes or all my hair will probably fall out. I’ll make the calls after that.”

  Grady choked back a laugh. “I thought—”

  “I know what you thought. But I am not the horny broad you think I am.” She sighed. “At least not always. Good night, Rodriguez. I’ll fill you in first thing tomorrow if I find out anything.”

  Grady glanced at the tiny but potent cup of coffee in his hand. “Or you could call me at home later. Something tells me I’ll be up half the night.”

  If the coffee didn’t keep him awake, the memory of kissing Emily probably would.

  Dani retreated to her room the second she got home from school the day after Grady had stayed for dinner. With any luck her mom wouldn’t follow her again today as she had the night before. She’d just sat there, asking all sorts of leading questions, a hopeful expression on her face as if she expected Dani to open up and spill her guts about Evan.

  Maybe if she’d come right out and asked, Dani would have found some way to say the awful words. Instead, she’d danced all around the subject until Dani had finally claimed a headache and her mom had sighed, then turned out the light and left her alone.

  If it had been up to her, she wouldn’t have gone to school this morning, but her mom would have freaked if she’d claimed to be sick again. She’d gotten away with it for a couple of days after Evan’s arrest, but she knew better than to try for more.

  Not that claiming to be ill would have been a total lie. She did feel sick every time she heard something or read an article in the paper calling the girl who’d accused Evan of rape a liar. People had been digging around in her past, making all sorts of ugly claims about her. Dani hadn’t believed any of them, not even before she’d heard all the good stuff Grady and her brother had said at dinner. She was smart enough to recognize a deliberate smear campaign when she heard one. She had a hunch that Ken Carter, who was good at selling lies, was behind these. She’d never liked him and she really hated the way he ignored Caitlyn. Dani could tell it hurt her knowing that her dad only cared about Evan.

  Chilled by the blasting air-conditioning in her room—or maybe by her mood—she pulled the comforter off her bed and wrapped it around herself as she sat in the chair that Caitlyn usually claimed when she visited. She actually wished she could talk to her about some of this. Keeping it all bottled up inside was making her kind of crazy. Not that she could tell Caitlyn everything, not about this. She’d finally faced the fact that Caitlyn’s first loyalty was always going to be to her brother, even if he didn’t deserve it. She’d known that the first time she’d even hinted at what Evan had done to her. Caitlyn had called her a liar and fled.

  A knock on her door startled her.

  “Sweetie, may I come in?” her mom called out.

  “I guess so.”

  Her mom frowned when she saw her. “Are you okay? You’re not catching a cold or the flu, are you?”

  Dani shook her head, fighting tears. “Nope. I’m fine.” She thought she sounded pretty convincing, but her mother continued to study her with concern.

  “Don’t you want to come down and have a snack? Marcie brought over some brownies.”

  “She was here?”

  “A few minutes ago,” her mother confirmed. “She didn’t stay long.”

  Dani swallowed hard, then braced herself to ask. “Is there any news, you know, about Evan’s case?”

  “No. Actually she was hoping you’d come over and spend some time with Caitlyn.”

  Dani didn’t want to go anywhere near that house, not if there was any possibility Evan might come home. “I’m grounded, remember?”

  Her mom smiled. “Of course, I remember, but I thought under the circumstances, it would be okay for you to spend a little time with Caitlyn, if you want to. She needs her best friend. This whole mess with Evan is really hard on her.”

  Dani stared at her mother incredulously. “Don’t you think it’s hard on me, too?”

  For once her mother didn’t get all crazy at her tone. Instead, she said mildly, “I’m sure it is. That’s why I thought it might be good for the two of you to get together. She can come over here, if you’d prefer.”

  More relieved than she wanted to admit, Dani shrugged as if she didn’t care one way or another. “Whatever.”

  “Then I should call and tell Marcie it’s okay for Caitlyn to visit? Or do you want to call her yourself?”

  “Mom, I’m not two,” Dani snapped. “You don’t have to arrange my playdates. I’ll call.”

  Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “Watch your tone, young lady.”

  Dani sighed. “Sorry.”

  “After you call, why don’t you go out to the pool to wait for her?”

  “Mom!” Dani protested, annoyed by the suggestion that they couldn’t plan their own afternoon.

  “I’m just saying I think you’ll both feel better if you spend some time in the fresh air, instead of closed up inside.”

  “Whatever.”

  Her mother looked as if she was about to say something more about Dani’s attitude, but instead she turned and left the room.

  Dani sighed. She knew she was behaving like a brat, especially since her mom was only trying to help, but she couldn’t figure out any other way to handle things.

  Suddenly the memory of the way Josh and Detective Rodriguez had talked about Lauren being so brave came back to her and she knew what she had to do. She needed to talk face-to-face to another one of Evan’s victims.

  She checked the hallway and saw that her mom’s door was closed. She eased past it, then headed downstairs and opened the front door.

  “Mom, I decided to go to Caitlyn’s instead,” she called out, then quickly closed the door behind her and ran down the block until she knew she was out of sight of the house. Then she cut through the neighborhood and walked out to U.S. 1 where she could catch a bus to the university. By the time her mom figured o
ut that she’d lied about going to Caitlyn’s, Dani hoped to be talking to Lauren Brown.

  The University of Miami campus started just west of South Dixie Highway along a street lined with palm trees. Dani didn’t know where most of the specific buildings were located, but she figured if she asked the right questions, she could probably find Lauren Brown easily enough. After all, she was the number one topic on campus, according to Josh. Someone was bound to know where she lived.

  Then she remembered that Lauren didn’t live in a dorm at all. She and Jenny shared an apartment somewhere off-campus. That meant they probably had a phone. Surely every girl in college had a phone just so guys could call to ask them out on dates. And a phone book might even list the address. She wished she’d thought all this through at home, so she could go straight to their apartment, but she hadn’t.

  Across from the school she actually managed to find a pay phone, an increasing rarity in this cell-phone era, and, miracle of miracles, it had an intact directory. Her heart sank when she couldn’t find a listing for Lauren, but then she found it under Jenny’s name. Her hands shaking, she used her cell phone to dial the number, but hung up in a panic the minute someone answered.

  She double-checked for the address accompanying the phone listing and jotted it down on an old receipt she found in the bottom of her purse. Maybe she should just show up there, see her in person. That way Lauren couldn’t slam the phone down the second Dani brought up Evan’s name. She convinced herself that made the most sense.

  She looked around, got her bearings and started to walk toward Granada Avenue. Her steps slowed as she came to the block of small apartment buildings. Could she really go through with this? Could she tell Lauren Brown that Evan had done the same thing to her? Would it make any difference at all, especially if she wasn’t quite ready to tell anyone else? Maybe it would help Lauren just to know that someone else believed her.

  Dani was standing outside the apartment building, still debating with herself when someone roughly grabbed her arm and whirled her around.