For the Right Reasons

by Kara Lennox

  She was starting to come out of her shell now that she had her father back, but she had a long way to go. For one thing, she was excessively clingy and wanted to know where Eric was every minute. He’d warned her that he wouldn’t be home until after five o’clock, that he’d started a new job, but she’d still had a meltdown when she’d arrived home from school and found him gone. Elena, who was watching MacKenzie after school, had called Eric, and he’d been the only one who could calm her down and reassure her that he wasn’t back in prison and that he would be home soon.

  It almost killed him that he had to leave again—and all because he’d been suckered by a pair of eyes as deep as the ocean. Philomene Switzer could say whatever she wanted, but Eric wasn’t going to change his mind.

  He told himself he’d agreed to Bree’s proposition because it was the only way to get her out of his hair. She’d promised to back off if he did this one thing, and he was going to do it. He couldn’t afford for Daniel to devote any more time, attention and effort to the Ralston case. Because if he looked into it very deep, he’d find out Eric was lying. Daniel’s investigator could talk to other prisoners, cell mates, friends and relatives on the outside, and he’d discover that Kelly had never confessed his crimes to anyone. In fact, tough and mean as he was, he’d always vehemently proclaimed his innocence.

  Eric still believed he’d done the right thing. And the proof was this little girl, clutching his hand with complete trust. Ralston had said he could get to her even from prison—that if Eric ratted him out, he could count on never seeing his daughter again, one way or another.

  Eric hadn’t said a word to the warden. He hadn’t even sought medical treatment for the cut, not until the infection got so bad that a guard found him unconscious in his cell. Still, when questioned, he’d refused to name Kelly Ralston.

  Somehow, though, the warden had found out, and Ralston had gone into solitary for a week, pretty much guaranteeing that his upcoming parole hearing wouldn’t go well.

  So far Ralston hadn’t made good on his threat. But if he were free, taking his revenge against Eric and his family would be child’s play.

  MacKenzie dragged Eric into the kitchen. “Daddy’s home,” she said proudly, as if she had personally caused him to appear. In a way, she had. If not for her, he probably would have just headed for Tuckerville right after work.

  Travis grinned. “Hey, how was your first staff meeting? Did Daniel kick your— Um, did he give you any trouble?”

  Travis and Daniel Logan had a rocky past, but they’d come to terms.

  “I only saw him on a video screen. How much damage could he do?”

  “Plenty,” Elena answered. She had been Daniel’s personal assistant until recently. “I’ve seen him reduce a grown man to tears over video conferencing. But he wouldn’t have any reason to be on your case.”

  Oh, wouldn’t he? How about if he knew Eric had told a big fat lie?

  “Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes,” Travis said. “You want a beer?”

  “Maybe later. Unfortunately, I have to leave again.”

  “What?” MacKenzie shrieked.

  “I have to go out. It’s important, or I wouldn’t.”

  “But you just got home! I haven’t showed you the picture I colored or my homework papers I got an A on.” MacKenzie was in a near panic.

  “You can show me later, okay?”

  “When?”

  “I should be home about nine-thirty.”

  “I have to go to bed at eight-thirty. No, Daddy, don’t leave.” She was about to have a full-blown tantrum. Already little tears were squeezing out of her eyes, and she was holding on to him with the grip of a lumberjack on his ax.

  “Where are you going?” Travis asked. “I mean, not that it’s my business—”

  “It’s work-related,” Eric said.

  “Daniel’s making you work late your second day?” Elena was incensed. Then she whispered, “He knows MacKenzie needs you.”

  “You can go out later,” MacKenzie wheedled, “after I go to bed. Don’t leave, Daddy.”

  When she looked up at him with those big blue eyes, it was impossible to deny her. But he’d given his word to Bree that he would meet Philomene. She’d said he could bring MacKenzie with him....

  “MacKenzie, how would you like to go for a drive with me?”

  “What?” Travis and Elena said at the same time.

  But MacKenzie clapped her hands together gleefully. “Are we going to get ice cream?”

  “You can have ice cream if you want when we get there.” He couldn’t imagine any diner that didn’t serve ice cream. “But it’s a long drive. About two hours. We’ll have to take a snack with us.”

  “Where are you going?” Travis asked again.

  “To talk to a reluctant witness.”

  “You think it’s okay to bring a child to—”

  “I have a babysitter lined up.”

  Travis looked as if he wanted to say more, but he resisted.

  “I’ll make her a peanut-butter sandwich,” Elena said.

  “Great. I’ll go change clothes.”

  Ten minutes later Eric was in the car with MacKenzie snug in her car seat with a sandwich and his iPhone, where she was watching cartoons. She was quiet for a long time, leaving Eric far too alone with his thoughts.

  He couldn’t stomach even the thought of anyone hurting his little girl. Though Ralston’s threat had been issued years ago, when Eric was a green convict, Eric recalled every word as if it were an hour ago.

  You better not rat me out, Riggs, or your life won’t be worth the ink on your fancy law degree. You may leave here. You may think you’re safe. But vengeance will come when you least expect it.

  At that point everything about prison had scared Eric. He still didn’t know where he’d come up with the courage to try to stop a fight. But when Ralston and the other man had squared off, each of them brandishing a homemade weapon, Eric had been naive enough to try to calm them down.

  Stepping between them just as the second man struck hadn’t been his sharpest move. Ralston’s vicious countermove had cut Eric stem to stern.

  Reflexively, he rubbed his chest again. The scar still throbbed when he was nervous.

  I don’t care what happens to me. That was what Eric had retorted, because at the time, he’d thought death might be preferable to the hell of prison.

  No? What about that cute little girl of yours? What’s her name? MacKenzie? When I get done with her, there won’t be enough left to identify at the morgue.

  Eric’s gut twisted as he recalled Ralston’s threat. He’d wanted to tell Ralston to back off, that if he touched one hair on his daughter’s head, Eric would kill him. Painfully.

  But the words hadn’t come. It had been all he could do not to puke.

  Ruthlessly, Eric shoved the memory aside and focused on the upcoming meeting. This shouldn’t be a big deal. He would listen to Philomene’s story, then politely tell Bree that he was sorry, but his decision stood. Then he’d buy MacKenzie an ice cream and come back home. MacKenzie would probably go to sleep during the drive home. She loved riding in the car.

  “Daddy, when are we gonna get there?”

  “We’re more than halfway there. Are you tired of your cartoons?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You can look out the window. We’re going to a new place you’ve never been before. Tuckerville.” What a name. He could only imagine what kind of backwater wasteland Tuckerville was. Why a woman of Bree’s obvious intelligence and sophistication chose to live there was a mystery. He couldn’t imagine wanting to live so far from any big city, so far from shopping and fine restaurants and...good haircuts. That was one thing he’d really missed in prison—getting a decent haircut. Sometimes it was the small things.

/>   “It’s dark out there,” MacKenzie said. “I can’t see anything.”

  “Look off to the right. There’s a radio tower. See those red lights?” They were driving through farm and ranch land. Not much to see at night. “When we listen to the radio, that’s where the sound comes from.”

  “Oh.”

  At least MacKenzie was talking again. When he’d first gotten out of prison, he could barely get two words out of her. But more than two months later, she was starting to open up a little. The foster home she’d lived in during his incarceration had been a pretty bad place, though no one knew how bad until Travis had realized the foster parents were selling MacKenzie’s clothes and toys on eBay.

  “Now look up at the sky.”

  He heard MacKenzie give a little gasp of surprise, and he smiled. It was a clear winter night, and they were far enough away from the city now that the sky was blanketed with stars. When Eric was a kid, he’d loved the stars, even though he hadn’t been able to see all that many in the city. He’d checked out book after book on astronomy and had even thought he might make that his life’s work. He remembered dragging Travis up onto the roof of their apartment building and pointing out the constellations—the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, Cassiopeia’s Chair.

  “There’s so many stars,” MacKenzie said softly, almost to herself, a tinge of awe in her voice.

  “Some weekend we’ll go camping, and we’ll get a telescope and look at the stars and the moon and the planets. Would you like that?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said almost absently, her head leaning against the window as she took in the blanket of diamonds overhead. She remained quiet for the next thirty minutes, just looking at the night sky. It warmed his heart to think maybe she’d inherited his love for studying the heavens.

  “Are we almost there?”

  “Almost. Suzy says ten more minutes.” Suzy was the name they’d given the female voice on his car’s GPS.

  MacKenzie sighed.

  “What flavor ice cream do you want?”

  “Pineapple,” she said decisively.

  “They might not have pineapple ice cream. We’ll just have to see. Did you finish your sandwich?”

  She held up what was left of the half sandwich Elena had made for her. She’d eaten a few bites, at least. At her foster home, MacKenzie had developed the unfortunate habit of hoarding food. She seldom ate very much, choosing instead to save her food for later. No matter how many times Eric reassured her that she could eat as much as she wanted, she obviously was still fearful about going hungry.

  “I’m going to have dinner at the diner before my ice cream,” he said. “How about you?”

  “Do they have grilled cheese?”

  “I imagine so. Maybe soup, too.” She loved soup, and it wasn’t something she could hoard.

  The momentous decision of what to choose for dinner occupied her until they crossed the city limits of the great metropolis of Tuckerville.

  It was a little bigger than he’d expected, with a quaint main street boasting old-fashioned streetlights, a theater showing last year’s movies, an antiques mall and a quilt shop. Most everything except the theater was closed, the sidewalks deserted. Then he spotted the Home Cookin’ Café, right where Bree had said it would be, at the corner of Main and Maple.

  The café was like something out of an old movie, all chrome and rounded corners and an Art Deco neon sign advertising Shakes, Malts and Sodas. He wondered if it was the real thing or someone’s retro fantasy.

  He pulled into the small parking lot, which was nearly full. Clearly the place was doing a brisk business.

  MacKenzie was more than ready to be released from the confines of her child seat.

  “What is this place?” MacKenzie asked.

  “It’s a diner. Or a café. Have you ever been to one?”

  “Is it like McDonald’s?”

  “Sort of. But they serve the food on real dishes and they bring it to your table.”

  “Oh, like Little Italy?” Little Italy was a neighborhood restaurant that Travis and Elena had introduced them to. It hadn’t been open when Eric had lived in the neighborhood, before Tammy’s death. Funny, that was how he thought of his life now, in three distinct segments: Before Tammy’s Murder, Prison and After Prison.

  “You’ll see what it’s like.”

  She grabbed on to Eric’s hand. New situations and new people made her nervous. No, more than nervous. Really stressed.

  “Will there be people there?”

  “Yes. We’re going to meet a nice lady named Bree. You’ll like her.”

  “No, I won’t,” she said decisively.

  Eric didn’t challenge her. He couldn’t make her like people and she certainly knew that not all adults were worthy of her esteem. Eric himself wasn’t sure he liked Bree—although he was looking forward to seeing her again. She wasn’t exactly all sweetness and light, and clearly she had a sharp tongue when she had a mind to use it. But he admired her passion. Passion was attractive, even if it was for a cause he didn’t agree with.

  Eric and MacKenzie entered the diner and stood next to a please-wait-to-be-seated sign. The place was busy, but there were still a few tables and booths available.

  A hostess with a mile-high beehive greeted them, fitting right in with the retro theme. “Two for dinner?” she asked brightly.

  “Actually, I’m meeting someone here. Her name is Bree. About so high, black hair, blue eyes you can’t miss—”

  The hostess was nodding. “That’s Dr. Bree.”

  “And a friend of hers, too. They’re not here yet, are they?” He scanned the whole seating area and didn’t see Bree, and she wasn’t the sort of woman easily overlooked.

  “No, haven’t seen her, but I’ll keep an eye out. Come right this way.”

  Eric started to follow the hostess, whose name tag identified her as Molly, but MacKenzie suddenly dug in her heels and wouldn’t move.

  “No, Daddy, let’s go home.”

  “What? We just got here.”

  “I don’t want to meet the lady! I want to go home!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  ERIC PRAYED MACKENZIE wasn’t about to throw one of her fits. “Why don’t you want to stay here?”

  “I just don’t.”

  “Well, we came a long way, and I’m hungry, and we’re not leaving until I get some dinner. Don’t you want your grilled cheese? And ice cream?” He knew bribing a child with food wasn’t the recommended way to get her to cooperate, but he didn’t want to risk a tantrum, not now.

  “I’m not hungry. I want to go home.”

  “I’m sorry, MacKenzie, we can’t go home right now. Daddy promised to be here, and I have to keep my word.”

  “You want a coloring book, precious?” Molly asked. “I have Goofy and Cinderella.”

  MacKenzie pressed her lips together in a mutinous frown.

  “Go with Cinderella,” Eric said to the hostess. Then he scooped up MacKenzie and carried her to their designated booth. He would lie down and die any day of the week for this child. But the psychologist had emphasized that he had to be firm, too, and not let her walk all over him. Just because she was troubled didn’t mean she couldn’t also learn to be manipulative.

  Once they were seated, he tried to get MacKenzie interested in the menu. She was a good enough reader that she could make out a lot of the words by herself.

  “It says this diner has been here for more than sixty years,” Eric read, pointing to the words. That answered his question about whether it was authentic.

  MacKenzie didn’t seem interested. She kept looking over her shoulder, as if she expected the bogeyman to be after her.

  “MacKenzie, what’s wrong? What are you afraid of?”

  “I don’t want a shot!” she said
, bursting into tears.

  “A shot? What makes you think... Oh.” Dr. Bree. “She’s not going to give you a shot. She’s just a nice lady.” A nice lady who was late. If he’d driven all this way for nothing, he was going to be more than irritated.

  “No shots?”

  “No. Just dinner. It says here they have a soup-and-sandwich special. How about a grilled cheese and tomato soup?”

  After thinking about it, MacKenzie nodded.

  A couple of minutes later Bree bustled through the door, looking a bit harried. Molly smiled at her and pointed toward their booth, and Bree hurried their way, waving as she caught Eric’s eye.

  The sight of her had a stronger effect than he’d anticipated. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail now, and several unruly strands had escaped to frame her face. She’d changed clothes since this morning, opting for a simple white blouse and gray pants. Again, he could tell at a glance that the clothes were high quality. Could a woman even buy clothes like that in Tuckerville?

  Didn’t matter. The sight of her made his mouth go dry. He couldn’t recall reacting that strongly to a woman since...well, since Tammy. Tammy, the supposed love of his life, who’d turned out to be aggressively unfaithful.

  You can’t trust a sweet smile. Bree had already proved she had a sharp side. During their very first meeting, no less.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said as she slid into the booth opposite them. “I got held up at work. I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

  “Just a couple of minutes.”

  Then Bree’s attention focused on MacKenzie, and her face was transformed with a look of such sweet maternal softness that Eric found himself struggling to breathe.

  “And who have we here?” Bree asked.

  MacKenzie ignored her.

  “This is my daughter, MacKenzie,” Eric said. “MacKenzie, this is Dr. Johnson.”