by Anna Adams
The rowdier twin snatched the door open. Tall and skinny in the way of adolescents, he had the eyes of an old man.
“My grandmother’s not here.”
Josh had asked her not to tell the boys he was coming. They might have taken off.
“I’m looking for you.” What would help him reach two kids who were nearly twenty years tougher than he’d been at their age? “And your brother.”
“Too bad. You’re not coming in. My grandmother says you and your wife might be helping the cops.”
She could have altered that story before she’d asked him for help. Josh pushed his keys into his pockets. “I work as a defense attorney, but I was born in this town and I had some problems here. Your grandmother thought I might be able to talk to you.”
“I need to see some ID.”
Behind him, another kid, this one’s carbon copy, showed up, worried as he eyed Josh. “Who is this guy, Mitch?”
“Do ya have to sound so scared?” the first kid asked with an ugly snarl. “Why don’t you just admit we commit every crime in town? Thanks to this dude’s wife, everyone thinks we do.”
“Shut up. I told you I wouldn’t testify against you.” He shouldered Mitch out of the way. As he turned his face, Josh noticed the discoloration beneath his left eye. “I don’t care how many cops or lawyers or women Chambers sends after us.” He glanced back at his twin. The kid was losing his grip. “They aren’t going to waste money prosecuting. You know what they said about court costs in Government class.”
His injury and his naiveté tugged at Josh. He’d been that stupid once, but he’d never been stupid enough to blab in front of strangers when he should have kept his mouth shut. The first kid, Mitch, who’d probably hit his brother, obviously didn’t appreciate protection from one of his victims. “I don’t know what anyone said in some pointless class.” He gave the boy who must be Luke a shove that bounced him into the doorjamb.
It was all too damn familiar. He’d seen it dozens of times. Luke and Mitch were trying to brazen it out. Mitch, bullying his less belligerent brother into line.
“Luke, as I told your brother, I’m an attorney,” Josh said. “My mother is your grandmother’s client. My name is Josh Quincy. Do you two need representation?”
“Shut up, Luke,” Mitch said before his brother could utter another reckless word.
As if they’d planned it, both boys planted their hands on their hips.
“Fine.” Josh had fulfilled his promise to their grandmother. He felt no compunction about leaving another puffed-up drunk, no matter what his age, to sort out his own problems. “I’m wasting my time.”
“Wait.”
That would be Luke.
Josh turned back. Mitch rammed an elbow into Luke’s ribs. Luke hardly flinched, which troubled Josh a lot more than anything they’d said.
“What else have you been up to, Mitch?” he asked with a quick glance at the other boy.
The thug just laughed. Josh understood being last on a parents’ list, wondering why you weren’t good enough for love. But he couldn’t find empathy for a kid who beat up his brother to get back at his mother and father.
“Look, my mom offered your grandmother a favor. I had some problems and I ended up in a foster home, milking cows for my supper.”
“So you’re going to talk some sense into us,” Mitch said, all mockery. His hand was white where he gripped his brother’s arm.
“I don’t see how I could.” The kid knew nothing and wanted to know less. Maybe a little punishment would be just the anvil he needed on his thick skull. Too bad about the fine Geraldine would have to pay on this brat’s behalf, but the commission she was about to receive from his mother’s business would no doubt arrange her finances.
At his car, Josh looked back, concentrating on Luke. “Give me a call if you need anything. I’m at Bart and Evelyn Quincy’s.”
Mitch shoved his brother back inside and slammed the door. Josh swore, climbing back into the car. Couldn’t he just stop?
Indeed he could not. He called his mother so she could report his lack of progress to Luke and Mitch Dawson’s grandmother.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TWELVE DAYS LATER, JOSH’S mother took possession of Barker’s Café. The Barkers had been as eager as she to tie things up.
Happily, Lydia had been too cautious to hope Josh’s visit with the Dawson boys would change his attitude toward his hometown. He’d said nothing except that his mother and the boys’ grandmother had been wrong. Mitch and Luke hadn’t needed him.
He and Lydia spent their evenings searching the Internet from Josh’s laptop for real estate listings. Josh had actually suggested Boston, but he’d given up so quickly in the face of her dismay that she doubted his seriousness.
Thus far, they couldn’t agree on a town. Their truce had grown semitouchy as they both found reasons to knock one location after another off their list.
On the morning his mom started moving her things into the café, Josh drove his parents to their attorney’s office to seal the real estate deal. Lydia shopped for provisions for a surprise meal of lobster and corn and potatoes. She added fresh garlic bread and a crisp salad of field greens and greenhouse tomatoes to her New England celebration.
Josh and his parents were already home when she got back. She carried the groceries past Evelyn’s SUV and climbed the steps to the porch. Evelyn met her in the mudroom, her arms laden with a mop and broom and a box of cleaning supplies.
“What are you doing?” Lydia asked.
“I can’t wait. It’s all mine and I’m going to make it shine. The sooner I open, the better I’ll like it.”
“Bart was going to hire someone.” Lydia grimaced, remembering too late that Bart had planned to surprise his wife.
“What?” The idea offended Evelyn’s natural austerity. “Why would we waste that kind of money?” She eased around Lydia’s armload. “Do you want to come? Josh and Bart are helping.” She stopped, shaking her head. “No. No. You shouldn’t overdo it.”
“I’m fine.” It was true. Her body felt stronger each day. In a terrible irony, healing made her strangely sad because it seemed to distance her from her baby. On the other hand, with more energy, she began to hear life calling. “I’d love to help out. Where are the guys?”
“Bart must be upstairs calling off his cleaners. Josh went up to change.” Evelyn tiptoed to peer at Lydia’s bags. “What all did you buy?”
“Lobster and corn and stuff.” She set it on the counter, but then took the lobster out and maneuvered it into the full fridge.
“I appreciate the thought, honey, but we’ll be too tired to cook tonight. Why don’t we drop off the lobster for Geraldine?”
“Are you sure? I thought you’d want to celebrate.”
“She worked so hard for me,” Evelyn said. “And she could use some luxury.”
“Sounds good.” Lydia lowered her voice. “I’d like to see Mitch and Luke eye to eye without Simon Chambers pressuring me to identify them.”
Evelyn glanced up at the sounds of Josh walking overhead. “Geraldine hasn’t said a word about them except to thank Josh for trying. I don’t know what’s going on. He didn’t seem too pleased with the results.”
“That’s why I haven’t had the courage to ask him anything else. He was disappointed, but he also seemed a little annoyed.”
He came down the stairs, pulling a sweatshirt over his head. “What are you two whispering about?”
“Geraldine’s boys,” his mother said. “Have you heard anything from them?”
“I don’t expect to. Mitch is too angry to care about advice, good or bad, and Luke won’t go against his brother.”
“Go against him?” Lydia moved close to Josh, where she liked to be these days. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know the specifics.” He looked at his mother. “Has Geraldine told you anything she didn’t mention to me?”
Evelyn shook her head.
Josh went on, �
�I’d bet Mitch keeps his brother in line with physical force. Geraldine either knows, or she refuses to see.”
“He’s hurting him?” Lydia, too familiar with violence, made Josh face her. “We have to do something.”
“I tried to give Luke an opening to tell me what his brother’s done. He refused.”
“We have to make him talk.”
“Who are you all of a sudden?” he asked.
“A changed woman and, whether you like it or not, part of this town for now. If Mitch is hitting Luke, he’ll move on to someone else. And Luke needs protection.”
“Wait, both of you,” Evelyn said. “Did you ever wonder why Children’s Services never came to take Josh and Clara away from us?”
“Mother—”
“Yes,” Lydia said. “Why?”
“Because Josh hid the truth, and Clara, being home most of the time, had no opportunity to let the truth slip.”
“I know children protect their abusers,” Lydia said, “but responsible adults step in when children need help.”
“I tried to step in,” Josh said, “but I can’t force Luke to let me help him, and Mitch would rather set the world on fire than be safe.”
“Are you talking about the school?”
“I’m certainly more willing to understand why Simon considers him a suspect. How much anger does it take to make a guy clock his twin brother?”
“What are you going to do?” Lydia asked. “I’ll come with you. I’ll flat out tell Luke he has to come clean about his brother.”
“You won’t go anywhere near them.” Josh’s voice pierced their uneasy peace. “I mean it.” He took her face in both hands. She felt the pulse in his wrist. “If Mitch touched you, I’d kill him. Seriously, Lydia. Kill him. You don’t want that.”
“Somehow I trust you more than you trust yourself. You know at least one of those boys needs help.”
“I’m warning you.” He took a deep breath, but he couldn’t seem to speak for a moment. “Or I’m begging you—don’t get any more involved with the Dawson kids.”
“I can’t stand by while some bully beats his brother, because I’m afraid. Violence makes me furious.”
Lydia caught sight of Evelyn, appalled, with tears making her eyes liquid. Somehow they’d become a family. She was responsible to the people in this house, too—no longer detached.
“Josh, we both knew we had to change when we came here. I won’t let that hoodlum scare me.” She closed her hands around his and eased his right palm to her lips. He shuddered at her kiss, leaving her uncertain. She let him go. “I won’t do anything,” she said. “But I can’t stand thinking Mitch is hurting his own brother. Can’t we talk to Simon?”
“That won’t do any good.” Josh gathered himself, avoiding his mother’s watery gaze. “They’ve already been arrested once for drinking. They’re out on bail. Don’t tell Geraldine I told you, Mom, but the system Simon’s so proud of will force Luke and Mitch to tell who did what.”
“I should make Geraldine talk about this.” Evelyn sounded miserable. “What good is a friend you don’t trust?”
“If she didn’t tell you the truth about the boys, she thinks you don’t know. Don’t force sympathy on her. How would you take that from her?”
She hitched her cleaning supplies tighter. “You’re pretty smart, considering the amount of help you had from your father and me.” She pointed toward the fridge. “Josh, Lydia put some lobster in there. Take it out. We’re going to give it to Geraldine and give her a chance to talk at the same time. She may not realize she’s safe with us. How she can think I’d judge her…”
Josh pulled the lobster out. “We don’t have to beat the dead past anymore. Let’s just let it lie and see where we go from here.”
Lydia took a step toward him. They’d handled their own problems the same way—never discussing them. And they weren’t safe yet. But he turned, his eyes tired, his mouth strained and thin. She couldn’t suggest yet again that he was making a mistake. He needed empathy.
“I’ll go with you to Geraldine’s.” She offered the bag she’d brought the meal’s ingredients home in. “Put the box in here.”
“No.” He stored the container in the bag. “You go nowhere near that family. I know you don’t like me thinking I know best, but I couldn’t help you with Vivian, and I do feel guilty. Please don’t let that kid close enough to hurt you.”
“What about you?” He wasn’t impervious. “Do you really think Mitch is dangerous?”
He considered. At least he didn’t try to put her off. “He is to Luke—his own twin—that’s enough evidence for me.”
“You’re so worried about what these boys will do, you’re scaring me, too. I don’t want you hurt.”
“I’ll be fine with clients who’ll never need to know you exist, but these kids know you and my mother and father. I’m not sure what’s going on with Mitch, but I get a bad feeling from him.”
“I’m coming with you. Don’t even consider arguing.”
“Thanks, Lydia.” His dry grin stopped her in mid-rant. Laughter, when she was trying to make him see sense might annoy her, but she could bathe in his affection. “I don’t know how to put this without being offensive, but what would you do if I was in trouble?”
She thought. “The same thing you’d do for me. Anything.”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Okay. We’ll drop off the lobster. Then we’ll meet you at Barker’s.”
“At Grandma Trudy’s.” Evelyn made no attempt to hide her pride, but her smile didn’t make it all the way to her mouth.
“Grandma Trudy’s. You two are driving me nuts.”
Lydia wanted to laugh for joy. She and her husband might be on a seesaw, but she was proud of him for the headway he’d made with his parents.
“What can be keeping your father?” Evelyn finished carrying her things out to the car and then honked. Bart thundered down the stairs and then ran through the kitchen, muttering a goodbye. “Gotta get the drill out of the tool shed. And a sander. That woman.”
Lydia buttoned her coat at the throat. “How do they stay so close?”
“It’s that or start drinking again.”
“What do you mean?”
Josh turned to the other shopping bags. “Mom said they got sober and talked their problems out. They could hardly split up with me to come home to. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they were responsible enough to try to make up to me for what happened to Clara. So they had to stick together. Imagine facing a reminder of that guilt every day.”
“Did you see them often in prison?”
“Never.” He looked inside the rest of the shopping bags. “I didn’t want to, and my foster parents had better things for me to do.” He eyed the milk jug as he took it from a bag. “Cows. Thousands of cows.”
“Thousands, huh?” As always, she burned at the idea of supposed caregivers forcing Josh to work so hard as a kid.
“I went from udder to udder, with a break in between to thaw out my fingers.”
“That bugs me every time I hear it.”
“Does it?” He stored another gallon of milk in the fridge. “I always wondered if every foster home required indentured servitude.”
“We should find out if it’s changed.”
Josh nodded at the other bags. “That’s everything that needs cold storage. Let’s go.”
“You don’t think Mitch would hurt Geraldine?”
“I looked at her pretty carefully this morning. She wore long sleeves, but winter is here. She didn’t seem to move as if anything hurt.” He picked up the lobster dinner bag and reached for the door ahead of her. “Speaking of which, you move as if you’re feeling better.”
Knowing he was watching her, she felt stiff. “I am.” Cold air blew in as he opened the mudroom door. “Do you think we’ll still be here for Thanksgiving?”
“That’s up to you. If you want to move we have to go back to Hartford and pack up the town house.” He looked down at
her, and he seemed taller. Or maybe more remote. “We have to agree on some place.”
“I know. Maybe we’ve been searching the wrong way. You should call around and see which towns have openings for a public defender.” She tried to open the car door, but it was locked.
“I’ve considered opening my own office.” He fumbled with the keys and punched the keyless entry. “I still wouldn’t make a fortune, because I’m not changing the type of client I’ve been defending, but maybe I’m tired of the Brice Deans of the world.”
“Brice had more of a clear-the-case mentality,” she said.
“You were listening when I complained.”
She shrugged. “I thought Brice should do more for his employees’ security.”
Josh didn’t answer. As time crept by, and she learned she’d have to live with loss that didn’t seem to lessen, Lydia realized neither Josh nor his boss could have stopped Vivian Durance. She’d decided Lydia should pay for her husband’s capital sentence.
It was a quiet drive to Geraldine’s. Josh parked and grabbed the shopping bag. “I’ll take it up.”
“We settled this. I’m going, too.”
“They’re not average kids, Lydia.”
“I’d like to say hello to Geraldine.”
“Uh-huh.” He opened his door. “With you guarding my back, I know no fear.”
Let him make fun. She marched up Geraldine’s steps at his side. At the top, standing in front of the small blue-painted box of a house, he took her hand.
Lydia knocked on the white door. She smiled absently at Josh as she glanced past him. This narrow street ended at the high school.
“They don’t live far from—”
Geraldine opened up. “Josh.” She widened her eyes at Lydia. It appeared neither guest was welcome. The boys must have been angry after their last visit. “What’s going on? Didn’t your mother’s keys work?”
Josh held up the lobster. “They worked fine, but she wanted us to drop these off as a thank-you.”
Geraldine took the sack and opened it. Everyone in town recognized Lender’s Seafood packaging. “Does your father know you bought lobster from a rival?”
