Sherry Lewis - Count on a Cop

by Her Secret Family

  Jolene spotted the salad dressings one aisle over and started moving in that direction. “And trying to make your dad mad?”

  “No. I’m not trying to make him mad. I don’t like it when people are mad at me.”

  Jolene slipped an arm around Debra’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Well, sweetie, if that’s the case, you’re going about it the wrong way. I wish you could see what drugs do to people. I see it every day, and it’s heartbreaking. Before I got hurt, I had to interview a mother whose son lives on the streets, never takes a bath, stinks, scares people and steals money from his own parents. If you don’t want people to be mad at you, playing around with drugs is not the way to go.”

  “I’m not going to use drugs,” Debra said quietly.

  “Are you trying to see what your dad will do if you’re in trouble? You think he’ll just pack you up and ship you off again?”

  Debra said, “No,” in that tone of voice that really means yes.

  “Do you really want to go back?”

  “Yes. No.” She kicked a metal shelf and said, “Ever since Bill came along, my mom yells at me for no reason, just because I have my stereo on or talk on the phone or watch TV.”

  “I take it Bill also likes things quiet.”

  “He can’t stand noise.”

  That must make life rough with a teenager around—especially one who liked to rattle the walls with her CDs. “Does your mom mind the noise?”

  “She didn’t used to. She used to come into my room and sing and do this dorky dance, but now all she does is yell at me to turn it down.”

  “What about your dad? What does he do?”

  “Sometimes he asks me to turn it down.”

  “Does he yell at you?”

  Debra seemed reluctant to admit it, but she shook her head. “No.”

  “One mark in the good-guy column.”

  Debra smiled grudgingly. “Yeah, I guess he’s okay about that.”

  Jolene felt so encouraged, she not only bought the makings for French toast, but she decided to take a chance on pancakes, as well. The directions on the back of the muffin mix didn’t look so hard…

  By the time they called for a cab and wheeled the cart outside, Jolene had more groceries than her apartment had seen since she moved in. Probably more than she’d ever bought at one time. Her mother would be so proud.

  But they weren’t even halfway back to her apartment when the bottom fell out of the fantasy world. One minute the cab was idling at a stoplight while she and Debra laughed over some song lyrics on the radio. The next, she found herself looking at a large man in filthy khakis and a plaid shirt. He was on the other side of the road, too far away for her to be sure it was Red, but the thick red hair hanging in greasy waves to his shoulders looked familiar, and he limped slightly—as someone might if he’d taken a tumble down a set of stairs a few nights ago.

  She lunged forward to get the cab driver’s attention. “Slow down. Turn around and drive back along the street slowly.” She sat back and dialed Ryan’s number on her cell phone. “I want you to lie down on the seat, Debra, and don’t sit up until I tell you it’s okay.”

  The cab driver took so long finding a place to turn around, Jolene was ready to jump out of her skin. Ryan’s cell phone rang four times before he bothered to answer.

  “Hey, Jo-Jo. What’s this? It’s not seven o’clock in the morning. I don’t even get up this early, and I’m still punching the clock. I thought you were supposed to be taking it easy.”

  “Well wake up, because I found him.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m watching Big Red walk down Memorial Drive.”

  “Where?”

  She craned to see the coordinates and rattled them off. “Come on, Ryan. If he leaves the street, I’m going to lose him. There’s no way I’ll be able to follow him on foot.”

  “Has he seen you?”

  “Not yet. I’m in a cab. He’s not paying much attention.”

  “Okay. I’m on my way. Call in and get some uniforms on the way. I don’t want him getting another shot at you while you’re alone.”

  “I’m fine,” she snarled. But she wasn’t fine at all. She had one arm in a cast, a leg that was already aching from pushing a shopping cart around a grocery store and, worst of all, a child lying on the seat beside her.

  They drew abreast of Big Red and the cab driver slammed on his brakes. Jolene shouted at him to get going, but it was too late. Red saw her and vaulted over a hanging chain barricade. Before she could even think of a way to stop him, he’d disappeared behind the building. “Is there an alley? Can we get behind these buildings?”

  “I don’t know, lady. I don’t think so.”

  “Well, could you try? This is a police matter. It’s urgent.”

  The cabbie stepped on the gas, and they shot toward the end of the block, but Red was gone by the time they found the alley—and the worst part was, Jolene wasn’t entirely sure whether she was frustrated, angry…or relieved.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE REST OF THE DAY passed uneventfully. Ryan took over the search for Big Red and sent Jolene home. She might have argued if Debra hadn’t been with her. But she couldn’t very well send Debra off by herself in the cab, so she swallowed her objections. At home, she made herself stay busy with household chores, hoping they would keep her from thinking about the job, leaving Debra to fend for herself.

  While Jolene started a load of laundry, Debra put away the groceries. Then Jolene skimmed through her cookbook, as Debra worked on the report for her history class. By the time Mason called to say he was on his way home at a few minutes after seven, Jolene was even more convinced that Debra felt displaced in her mother’s life and wasn’t convinced she belonged in her father’s.

  When Mason arrived, he invited Jolene to join them for dinner at their favorite Mexican restaurant. Debra seemed almost eager for her to join them, and even seemed to enjoy herself as she told Mason about seeing Big Red and their halfhearted attempt to chase him by taxi. And when Mason invited Jolene to come up to their apartment afterward, Jolene didn’t even hesitate.

  Debra had spent the day separated from her stereo, so it didn’t take long for her to shut herself away and start the music. Mason joined Jolene on the couch and pulled her into the crook of his arm as if they sat together after a shared meal every day of the week.

  “I had a good time with Debra today,” she told him. “I hope you’ll let her come back tomorrow.”

  He gave her a look that made her think about kissing in the moonlight. “Are you sure you feel up to it?”

  “Absolutely. My arm hasn’t hurt much today, and my leg feels a lot better. And believe it or not, Debra was a real help.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “We had a good talk this morning,” she said, shifting again so she could see into his eyes. “Did you know she thinks you work too much? She’s behaving the way she is because she wants your attention.”

  “She has my attention,” Mason said with a humorless laugh. “And she’s getting more of it every day.”

  “I don’t see you sitting down for a heart-to-heart talk with her, or even sitting in the same space and watching a movie.”

  Mason’s eyes clouded. “I’ve tried having a heart-to-heart with her, Jolene. She’s even less interested in sitting here with me and watching a movie. She’d rather be in there, listening to her stereo.”

  “That’s what she says about you. Not the stereo part, but she doesn’t think you’re interested in talking to her. She doesn’t think she’s important to you.”

  “That’s ridiculous. She knows she’s important.”

  “Does she?” Jolene knew she was in dangerous territory, but she cared too much about Mason and Debra to remain silent. “While you were gone today, she was like a different person. She even offered to help fold my laundry. She only used her portable CD player once, and then only for about fifteen minutes.”

  “I’m well aware she
’d rather be anywhere but here—”

  “That’s not what I’m saying, and I don’t think it’s true. Stop and think about it for a minute. She used to be number one in her mother’s life, and then Bill came along. Now she’s not only been bumped from there, she’s here with you and coming in second fiddle to your job.”

  “She said that?”

  “Not in so many words. She told me you still haven’t answered any of her questions about her grandparents. What are you so afraid of?”

  Mason shook his head. “Too many things to list.”

  Jolene watched him for a minute and wished desperately that things could be easier between them. “Were you embarrassed by your parents, Mason? Is that it?”

  He laughed sharply and stood. “Embarrassed? You have no idea.”

  “Why? What did they do?”

  His eyes flashed with fury. “Why is it so important to you?”

  “I care about you. And about Debra. I want to know because it’s eating you up inside, but whatever happened with your parents makes no difference to me. It’s not going to change who you are, and it’s not going to change how I feel, but if you’re not careful it is going to cost your relationship with your daughter.”

  Mason looked away. “She’ll forget about all of this once she’s finished her report.”

  “If you think that, you’re really not paying attention.” Jolene hated feeling at a disadvantage, so she stood and put herself at his level. “You keep saying how important Debra is to you. If you mean that, stop worrying about how you feel and pay attention to what she needs.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, so still that the only sign of life was the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Jolene watched emotions crossing his face, and she wished she knew what he was thinking. When he finally spoke, his voice was so low she could barely hear him. “That was a low blow, Jolene. How will admitting that my mother was a whore make my daughter’s life better?”

  That knocked the wind out of Jolene’s lungs. She sat again, landing hard against the cushions.

  He sank onto the couch beside her, but he kept his gaze on his hands. “My father was a drifter. From one job to another, one bottle to another, one woman to another.” He glanced up at her, almost daring her to pull away.

  Jolene kept her face impassive.

  “I don’t know why he bothered to marry my mother. Sometime later, I came along. The old man was gone by then. Moved on to greener pastures, I guess. He came by to see us a few times, though, because I remember following him around the yard, wishing he’d talk to me.”

  Jolene could have sworn her heart broke, but she tried not to show it. Mason wouldn’t want pity.

  “But he didn’t?”

  “He was after money. That’s all he ever wanted. And my mother usually had a little.” The memories made him too jumpy to sit, so he paced to the other side of the room and stared out into the parking lot. “I don’t know when she started, but I was about six when I noticed an unusual number of male visitors stopping by the house. It didn’t take much longer to figure out that’s why my mother never left the house to work.”

  His pain was so raw Jolene could almost feel it. She knew he was watching her for anything he could read as a negative reaction. “Do you know why she did it? Was it because your dad left?”

  Mason shook his head. “She was an alcoholic. My dad couldn’t hold a candle to her when it came to the bottle. Welcoming male visitors didn’t require any special skill, she didn’t have to work when she didn’t feel like it, and most of her clients didn’t care whether she was drunk or sober. It was the perfect job for her.”

  “You must have hated it.”

  “I hated it, and I hated her. I learned how to fend for myself at a very young age. I was cooking hot dogs by the time I was six, and I made a mean bowl of soup by seven. Most of the time, the only food there was I’d stolen from the reservation store.”

  He wasn’t the first child Jolene had run into who’d been neglected, and he wouldn’t be the last, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear. “Why didn’t someone take you out of there? Didn’t you have family?”

  “A grandmother, dying of cancer. She’s the only family I know of.” He smiled halfheartedly. “I’m not like you, Jolene. Your big problem is not knowing what to do with two families. Mine is that I didn’t even have one.”

  “You had Henry, and he cared for you a lot.”

  “I had Henry.” Mason ran a hand along the back of his neck. “Thank God for Henry. Without him, I don’t know how I might have turned out.”

  “You went to live with him when you were eight?”

  He nodded. “Some idiot let my mother borrow a car. I guess she’d run out of booze or something. Anyway, she was on her way home from the city, but she never made it. It was a couple of days before anybody thought to come looking for me.”

  “Oh, Mason. All that time you were by yourself? You must’ve been so frightened.”

  “I didn’t matter a whole lot to the folks on the reservation. When they finally remembered me, they fought about who was going to take me. Nobody wanted Mary Blackfox’s kid around their children.”

  And that’s why he turned his back on his heritage. “That had to hurt. It’s no wonder you didn’t want anything to do with them.”

  “They had no use for me. I had no use for them.” Mason rose from the couch and moved away from her. Leaning one shoulder against the wall he looked her in the eye. “So now you know.”

  “So what are you afraid of, Mason? That Debra’s going to lose respect for you if she knows the truth?”

  “She doesn’t respect me now. There’s not a whole lot to lose, is there?” When he spoke again, he tempered his sharp tone. “Maybe I’m just afraid she’ll start seeing me as Mary Blackfox’s kid.”

  “The one who wasn’t good enough for anybody to love?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “You’re also Ike’s brother, my friend, an astute businessman, a gifted landscape artist and an incredibly sexy man, not to mention Debra’s father…”

  “Yeah, but it’s Mary Blackfox’s son I can’t get away from.”

  “You don’t need to get away from it. No one cares about that except you.”

  “Yeah. But I do care, that’s the thing. You’re Billy Starr’s daughter. I’m Mary Blackfox’s kid.”

  “But when you stay focused on that, you’re just about guaranteeing that’s all anybody else will ever see. There’s so much more to you, Mason. Let people see that.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I look at Debra flirting with drugs and all I can see is my mother falling down drunk, ruining every holiday, every birthday, every occasion. That kind of addictive personality runs in families, and I’ve passed it down to my daughter. How do you think that makes me feel?”

  “You haven’t sealed her fate. The choice is hers. You’ll do more for her by helping her understand why she needs to be so careful than you will by shutting her out.”

  “Shutting her out?” Mason laughed softly and lifted his face toward the ceiling. “My God, that’s what I’ve been doing, isn’t it? Just like my old man did with me.”

  Jolene got to her feet and closed the distance between them. She touched his shoulder gently, and when he didn’t pull away or stiffen beneath her fingers, she slid her arms beneath his and leaned her head against his chest. “You’re a great guy, Mason. I wish you could believe that.”

  Very slowly, his arms tightened around her and he leaned his cheek against the top of her head. “Maybe I will one of these days if you stick around and keep reminding me.”

  It was the closest thing to a commitment Jolene had ever come up against, and it made her unbelievably nervous. How could she make promises she might not be able to keep, especially to someone who needed consistency so badly?

  She drew away gently, hoping he wouldn’t think she was reacting to Mary Blackfox’s kid. “Let’s not worry about the future,” she said. “We both have en
ough to worry about today.” Needing to clear her head, she leaned and kissed him quickly. “It’s getting late. I should go.”

  “You can’t walk home. Let me drive you.”

  “It’s just across the parking lot.”

  “That’s still too far.”

  He started toward her but she held up her good hand. “No, Mason. Please. Stay here. I’m really not an invalid. I’ll be okay.”

  She shut the door behind her, wondering how long it would be before that last part was actually true.

  When he still hadn’t heard from Jolene by the following evening, Mason found himself in a foul, foul mood. He was doing his best not to take it out on Debra, but he was afraid she was getting some of the fall-out in spite of his best efforts. It wasn’t fair, and he wasn’t proud of himself, but he wasn’t a saint and he’d never claimed to be a perfect father. Just one who was willing to try hard. Maybe not hard enough.

  He’d burned the hamburger for dinner, dripped grease onto a burner and damn near set the apartment on fire, and now he was standing in his open doorway freezing his butt off and trying to wave at least some of the smoke outside. The rap music pounding from Debra’s bedroom did nothing to make him feel better.

  He should never have told Jolene the truth about his family. The horrified look on her face when he’d confessed had not only been hard on his ego, it had been downright humiliating. What made it all worse was that he knew she had feelings for him—at least he thought she did. If not, then she was a better actress than he’d given her credit for.

  But did she love him? Until that moment in the living room, he’d have said yes. Now, he realized how wrong he’d been.

  Forget her, he told himself as he watched smoke billow out into the night. Forget the deep caramel-brown of her eyes, the gold shimmer hidden in her dark hair, the soft curve of her cheek and the oh-so-satisfying swell of her hip. Forget the fact that she cared more about Debra than anyone except her mother—and there were times when he wondered about Alex. Forget the fact that he felt more comfortable with her than he did with any other human being, or that he could talk to her about anything.