#7-9--The O’Connells

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  There it was, the million-dollar question of where Harold’s loyalties lay.

  He gave everything to Marcus. “And have Suzanne kill me? No, I love that woman. But I told her, and I’m telling you, I can’t do secrets. What happened to the knife Rita Mae gave Owen?”

  Tessa’s small compact had pulled up the street, with Owen behind the wheel. His brother had never been this happy.

  “Cleaned up, never to be found,” Marcus said. “I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”

  “Then I guess we have nothing to worry about.” Harold gestured with his head to the house just as Owen stepped out of his girlfriend’s car. Tessa was laughing. He slung his arm around her shoulder.

  “What are you two doing out here?” Owen said.

  Marcus felt as if he’d betrayed him, and he dragged his gaze back over to Harold. “Just some work stuff, finishing up,” he said, then watched as his brother and Tessa strode into his house. He took in Harold, who was trying to wrap his head around what he’d said.

  “A word of advice, Marcus,” Harold started when he said nothing. “If I’m wondering what’s going on, knowing you and your siblings have a secret, I guarantee you I’m not the only one in this family doing so.”

  Marcus shook his head. “No one else can know, Harold. This is the kind of thing that could blow up in everyone’s face. My mom and Owen would be the ones with their heads on the chopping block,” he stressed, hoping he understood.

  “You forget about yourself, Marcus.”

  Maybe it was his expression that had Harold saying, “You’re the one who will get burned, being sheriff, coming up on election. If there’s any hint of you covering up a crime, hiding a crime like this that’s tied to your family, it will be you who’s hung out to dry. Not only will you lose your badge, and the job of sheriff, but this could destroy everything you’ve worked for, and your family.”

  There it was, that stress of knowing something was hiding, waiting to bite him in the ass. Maybe that was why he felt that uncomfortable tension in his chest again, because he’d just given Harold the one thing he could use against him. Harold reached over and slapped his shoulder.

  “Yeah, like Eva,” Marcus said. “We could lose her.” He took in his house and the man before him, whom he’d known for a long time.

  “You’re not going to lose her,” Harold said. “You think I would do that to you? I’ve got your back. Stop worrying, but I’m going to say something, only because I’m looking from the outside in. You’re a sheriff and a damn good cop, but if this were anyone else, not your mom, who told you that story, would you believe her?”

  “Are you calling my mom a liar?” he snapped.

  Harold said nothing for a minute and glanced back to the house. “Didn’t say that, but, Marcus, you’re a good cop. This is too close to home, but I’m telling you, if anyone else tried to tell you that story, you’d be asking the same questions I am. There’s something here that doesn’t jive. A note, a bloody knife, and no body? Because that’s what you’re saying.”

  He looked at the door to the house. He could hear everyone inside. He understood, but at the same time, this was his mom, who’d been there for all of them. “She’s my mom, Harold. You know what? You’re right, but I’m asking you to leave it alone.”

  Ryan had pulled in across the street and was getting out of his park ranger’s pickup. Marcus turned back to Harold, who had a way about him that could get under a man’s skin. It made him a damn good cop.

  “I’m just saying, Marcus, if I’m asking these questions, you can be sure I’m not the only one. I’ll see you inside.” Then he started back to the house.

  Marcus took in Ryan, who was crossing the street over to him.

  “What was that about?” Ryan asked.

  “Just told Harold,” he said. “Seems everything is coming to a head.”

  Ryan said nothing for a second. “Do you think he’ll say something?”

  He considered it for only a second. “No, no, he won’t. But I don’t think Mom’s telling us everything.”

  Ryan squinted in the sun and then shook his head. “Yeah, well, I kind of figured that one out.” He took a step toward the house. “Got some news to share, too.”

  “Yeah, about the ring on the finger of the girl you’ve been living with?” He took in the hint of a teasing smile on Ryan’s face.

  “She finally said yes,” Ryan said as he started up the steps, then strode through.

  But Marcus hung back. There was just something in the breeze, in the air, in that moment. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that he had left something unsettled, something that could change everything for his family.

  Chapter Five

  Marcus took in the wire and concrete, thinking of the prison life Reine was stuck in. Nothing about any of this was sitting right with him.

  The private for-profit system seemed to be taking over. The corporation that owned this prison owned too many in the country, from juvenile to adult facilities that paid a huge chunk of profit back to the state. He’d never considered it before, but it seemed that tossing people away was big business, and Reine was stuck right in the middle of it.

  The system was known for abuse, understaffing, and so much violence. How could anyone locked up come out of there ready to step into society and walk the right road?

  He stepped out of the cruiser, taking in the parking lot, only half full. He hadn’t told Charlotte he was going to see Reine. He knew she wanted to be there, but then, so did Eva, and the kind of talk he wanted to have with Reine was one on one.

  He didn’t even know if Reine would see him. He had sent off a quick text to Karen to tell her he was there at the prison, hoping she’d pull whatever strings he couldn’t. He stepped inside the building and took in the window and the guard behind it.

  “I’m here to see one of your prisoners, Reine Colbert,” he said, then showed his sheriff’s badge. The man behind the glass slid a clipboard his way. Marcus was well aware he had implied that the visit concerned some type of police business.

  “Sign here, Sheriff. You’ll have to leave your gun and belt.”

  He hadn’t expected it to be this easy. The man was letting him walk right in, and he hadn’t even checked to see whether he was on the list of people Reine wouldn’t see. Maybe he was new or didn’t care.

  “I’ll let the guards know,” the man continued. Then he heard the click, the buzz of the locks, and the door opened, leading further into the prison, a place he was all too familiar with. He was escorted to a tiny room where he knew lawyers would wait for their clients.

  There was no window, just a steel table and chairs. He considered, just for a second, the possibility of losing a little girl he loved more than his next breath. Everything about the shitstorm he could feel himself drowning in seemed to converge in that moment.

  He heard the door and turned, taking in Reine, who was led in by one of the guards. Her jumpsuit was baggy, her hair was cut short, and he didn’t miss the tattoo on her arm. He wondered whether she’d turn and walk out of there, tell the guard she wouldn’t see him.

  “Reine, I need to talk with you about Eva,” he said before she could say a word—and there it was, a mother’s love.

  Thankfully, the guard left, and the door was pulled closed. Reine stood for a moment, her eyes filled with so much emotion. Everything about her made Marcus’s feeling of unease, which had been building, reach a peak.

  “How did you get in here?” she said. “I’ve specifically asked for you not to be allowed.”

  So she had been trying to push him away.

  “Apparently, it’s not that hard to get in when you want to. I need to talk to you about Eva.”

  “How is she?”

  He took a step closer and gestured to a chair at the table, but she only shook her head. Yeah, there was a problem.

  “She’s happy, she’s loved, she keeps asking to see you. You’re still her mother, Reine. But I hope you know Charlotte and I love
that little girl. She’s part of our family.”

  She didn’t nod. “I am her mother, and I believed you would keep her safe.”

  “She is safe,” he said. “Bad things happen, and you know that, but I won’t let anything happen to her.”

  “Was there not a gun to her head? Did a man in your house try to hurt my daughter? I had to hear from one of the guards about what happened…”

  So there it was.

  “You refused to see me, Reine—and it wasn’t quite that way. Yes, there are bad people out there, and I won’t lie to you. There was a break-in. She was there with my mother. I got her out. She’s okay; I’m making sure of it. So is that why the adoption seems to have come to a standstill? The social worker is stalling, and now I’m hearing that your dad wants to see her. Is this what you want?”

  The way she looked at him, so intently, he could feel the anger simmering. “You say she’s okay? I want my father to see her, someone I know will tell me the truth. I want to make sure she’s okay. I need to know that I made the right choice. I trusted you, Marcus, you and Charlotte, but it seems as of late that trusting the wrong person has left me here, in a life without my daughter.”

  He could see it in her eyes, her expression, her doubt as to whether Eva should even stay with them, but he wondered if that had more to do with what she was trying to survive in prison. He pulled his arms across his chest and took a step closer to her.

  “We love that little girl,” he said. “She’s part of our family, Reine. You’re the one who wanted us to adopt her. She knows we’re trying, and you should know that because of these sudden delays, she was asking my niece if we’d changed our minds because she’s too much trouble. That’s what she thought because of these sudden problems that keep cropping up. I tried to explain to her that this happens, but not to worry, because we are adopting her. It’s just taking longer than we expected. Are you going to make a liar out of me?

  “You know, when I heard from Alison what Eva feared, I pulled her aside and told her that Charlotte and I will never change our minds, that we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure the adoption goes through, because she’s our little girl, and we love her. I love her. Charlotte loves her. Don’t play with her heart or ours. I’m begging you, Reine. You want your dad to see her, I have no problem with that. I told you so before. But if this is some game you’re playing and you want to take her away from us, don’t do it.”

  He didn’t know how he would get through to her. She looked away, and he guessed that the one thing he didn’t want to be true was.

  “Reine, come on,” he said. “Be honest, here. This is the only way this works. Are you trying to take Eva away from us? Have you changed your mind now about us adopting her? Please, what’s changed for you? I need to know.”

  She stepped away, and he could see her considering. “I told my father what I heard about the danger she was in, the gunman. He wants to take Eva. She’s his granddaughter.”

  His heart squeezed. “She doesn’t know him, Reine—and where was he when you were in trouble, living on the streets?” He knew he was being an asshole, desperate, but he couldn’t lose Eva. This would kill Charlotte.

  “You already know the answer, Marcus. I never called him because he wasn’t in our life…”

  “You mean you cut him off, or rather, he cut you off, because you married a man he didn’t want for you. You want to give that same fate to Eva?”

  She shut her eyes. He could see he’d hit a nerve. “Look, my dad is trying to get me out of here. Don’t go there, Marcus. I believed I didn’t have a choice. Being in here isn’t easy. I never expected the choices I’d have to make in here just to survive.”

  He let his gaze drop to the prison tattoo, and she crossed her arms. “I know, Reine. If I could make it easier or change things, I would. But I don’t have any authority here.” For just a moment, he wasn’t sure she would believe him. “You asked us to take Eva, and we did. We love her, and she loves you. She still asks to see you. I’m having trouble, Reine. I need you to help me out. How do you think Eva will feel if she’s taken away from us now and goes to live with your father, someone she doesn’t know? I’ll tell you how she’ll feel: She’ll be angry and hurt, ripped away from us, from her family. We love her. Please don’t do this. She has aunts and uncles, a grandmother, a cousin. She’s never alone.”

  “Look, you think I want to hurt my daughter?” she snapped and jammed her hands through her short dark hair. “I want Eva safe, and yes, maybe my dad pointed out to me how hasty I was in telling you to adopt her, in giving her away. Then, hearing from that guard about how she was almost killed… I can live with a lot of things, but I can’t live without my daughter. If something happened to her…” She shook her head. She didn’t have to say the words. She wouldn’t want to go on living.

  “How can I reassure you, Reine? I don’t want to lose her. Charlotte is pregnant. We’re having a baby, a brother or sister for Eva.”

  “I want my dad to see her,” she said. “I need to be reassured that I’m making the right decision.”

  He knew this was coming down to a man he didn’t know anything about. “And then you’ll let us adopt her? I need to know, Reine.” He knew he couldn’t push. Could he win the fight in court? It was a crapshoot, the kind of gamble he couldn’t take, not with Eva.

  “If my dad is convinced this is best for Eva, that she’s happy and that I made the right choice for her, then yes.” She stood right in front of him and looked up, and he took in her sadness, the changes in her, and what it was doing to her, being locked away like this.

  “Will you let us bring her to see you?”

  She considered it for a second. He could see how much she wanted to see her, but she shook her head. “No, I don’t want her here. You appease my father, and he gives the green light that she’s loved, that’s she’s happy, that you’re giving her everything I can’t. Then I’ll sign off on all of this, on the adoption.”

  This was just one more thing that wasn’t going the way he’d planned, and it was the one thing he didn’t want to tell Charlotte and couldn’t tell Eva. He just hoped Mr. MacDonald was, in fact, a man who could be reasoned with.

  Chapter Six

  He watched as Charlotte set out a tray of veggies on the table in the living room. She wore a white silky blouse and dark blue capris, as well as makeup, which she never wore, and earrings. It all had her looking especially nice.

  He could hear his sisters and mom in the kitchen with Eva. He’d basically handed everything at the station over to Harold to deal with: the PJ thing, the issue with which kids had walked and which had gotten screwed. Then there was Rita Mae and her lawyer, who were making the kind of noise that could cast a shadow of doubt onto Marcus and his fitness as an adoptive parent. It could sink everything for his family, just one more scandal that would be the nail in his coffin and end with them losing Eva.

  “You know he’s just coming to meet Eva,” he said. “It’s going to be okay. He just has to be convinced we’re good people. He just wants to see who we are, meet us, and make sure that…” He looked up and over his wife, knowing his family was keeping Eva distracted in the kitchen.

  “He’s coming to judge us, Marcus,” Charlotte said. “You know that, and I know that. He’s going to pick apart everything, and who knows? He may be coming with his mind already made up.”

  The screen door squeaked, and he took in Harold as he stepped inside. Right, the whole family was coming over to make a unified front and show Duncan MacDonald that he was walking into the lion’s den, and he’d have to go through all of them to get Eva.

  “Marcus, you got a second?” Harold said.

  He slid his hand over Charlotte’s bare arm and down, feeling the tightness in his chest that never seemed to go away. “Yeah,” he said, then took in Charlotte, who was so tense. She didn’t have a clue about the family secret that Harold now knew. It was something she should know, but at the same time, there were just some things he th
ought it best she didn’t.

  “Try to relax, okay?” he said to her, then started over to Harold, who pushed open the door for them to go outside, down the steps.

  Marcus took in the cloudy day. He had chosen to dress down, casually, instead of making a point of his role as sheriff. He just had a feeling that the man coming to see him, Reine’s father, wouldn’t be impressed by that, though he couldn’t have explained why.

  “Thought you’d want to know that the sentencing for the other kids is tomorrow,” Harold said. “The DA is now handling it personally after my conversation with Eileen. You should know I’ve seen this before, judges taking kickbacks from prisons so they get their numbers, and it always comes down to those who can’t fight the system because they lack a good pit-bull of a lawyer. I guarantee you this judge is doing exactly that.”

  Marcus stared at his deputy. This was just one more thing he didn’t want piled onto his plate. So now there were dirty judges to add to the mix. “This isn’t about Jackson Moore anymore,” he started.

  Harold was already shaking his head. “Was it ever, really? No, sometimes justice works, and sometimes something like this happens. Belinda Lee got screwed big time, while Hunter received a slap on the wrist, and the difference is that the Lees don’t have what the Rowses do. Rita Mae got probation, and of the remaining kids, two were going to walk with nothing because they were basically in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to Judge Root. The remaining ones were going to get a mix of community service and five years, depending on whatever kickback the judge was getting.

  “I showed up with Eileen in Tibo Lewis’s office. I didn’t want to make waves, but I said that I wouldn’t stand for what was happening, that the sheriff’s office would open up an investigation into Judge Root, and we would follow any money trail from the prison to him. I said we’d take it to the Feds, wherever we needed to. You know what Tibo said?”