by JoAnn Ross
So he’d never really liked cops. But the sheriff was cool. She was pretty, which was a surprise. And she’d told him, while she’d been showing him how handcuffs worked, that she had a son the same age as Angel. She’d also said that maybe she’d bring her kid to the camp so he and Angel could swim together during the free swim.
He’d figured that was just another false promise, like adults were all the time making, but then the next day she’d shown up with this freckled-faced blond kid, Trey. Later that night, before she’d finally fallen asleep, Angel had told him that she was going to marry Trey Conway when she grew up.
Although some of the older kids talked about Sheriff Conway having caught a killer in Shelter Bay, which meant she had to be tough and knew how to use that gun she wore in a black holster on her belt, he’d never seen her not smiling.
Until now.
She was talking with the DHS lady, the two of their heads so close together he couldn’t read her lips. Every so often the fireman would add something. Then they’d look over at him and Angel. Then talk some more.
He could tell that it was serious and worried that they thought he’d started the fire. Lots of angry foster kids tried to get back at the system by setting fires.
Johnny might be angry, but he’d never been one of those kids.
But that didn’t mean that the sheriff knew that. And the DHS worker, who was the third he’d had in eighteen months, didn’t know anything about him, either. None of them ever did. The few caseworkers who actually tried to become personally involved mostly burned out after a couple years, because the system was nearly as depressing for them as it was for the kids they tried to help.
Maybe his mom had been arrested again. Maybe the voices had taken control. From the furrowed brows, he could tell that the social worker hadn’t come to announce that everything was peachy keen, that his mother had conquered the whisperers once and for all, and he and Angel were going to move into that apartment in town with her and they’d all walk on the beach, eat saltwater taffy, laugh until their sides ached, and live happily ever after.
No. That was not going to happen. Because the more he thought about that surprise meeting with Crystal, the more he realized that the only thing that had changed during all their years apart was that she’d gotten better at lying and hiding what was really going on in that buzzing wasp nest of a brain.
Whatever it was about, it was getting worse. Because now the three of them were in that room talking to Charity and the Marine.
Johnny braced himself for the worst when Charity lifted a hand to her mouth, which had the Marine putting his arms around her. You’d have thought someone shot that big white dog of hers. But then they were looking through the window, straight at him, and he knew.
A nurse pulled the white curtain shut around his bed, closing him off from Angel, who, exhausted from all the stress, was dead to the world. First he’d worried she might be unconscious again, but a pretty nurse wearing pink scrubs had assured him that she was fine. Just sleeping.
Which was a good thing. She’d already been through enough today.
It was the Marine who came through the curtain. Which had Johnny winning the bet he’d made with himself while waiting to see whom they’d choose to break the news.
“Hey, kid,” he said. But not in any fake cheery way, which Johnny appreciated. The only thing he hated more than the system was some of the people in it who always pretended that his life didn’t suck. That being a foster kid was actually a good thing.
“Hey.” Johnny waited.
“The doc said you’re doing okay,” the Marine said.
“Yeah. Thanks.” He tilted his head over toward the other side of the curtain. “For saving my sister. And me.”
“No problem.”
The Marine shrugged broad shoulders that reminded Johnny of Paul Bunyan. He’d read a lot of the stories about the mythical lumberjack when they’d lived in Akeley, Minnesota, where Paul Bunyan was supposed to be buried and there was a huge statue of him wearing a black and red checked shirt, jeans, and lumberjack boots, kneeling down and holding his oversized ax.
For a long time he’d carried the photo of his mom sitting on the statue’s hand, but then it had disappeared from his duffel bag. Which had taught him never to keep anything he cared about, because somebody would steal it.
They’d moved to Akeley after Crystal had taken them off in the middle of the night from Nevada, crying the entire drive. It was where Angel was born, but they hadn’t stayed long because his mother claimed snow could freeze a baby’s blood.
More silence as the Marine looked down at him, and Johnny looked back up, focusing on the scar to keep from seeing the trouble in the guy’s eyes.
“I’ve done this more times than I’d want to count,” the Marine said. “And there’s no way to do it easy, so here goes.”
Johnny decided to help him out. “It’s my mom.”
“Yeah.” The Marine cursed beneath his breath. “I’m sorry, kid. But she died in the fire. No one knows what she was doing there, but—”
“She was trying to keep us alive.” The irony wasn’t lost on him. Surprisingly, the news didn’t hurt as bad as he would’ve guessed. Maybe because he’d lost his mother a long, long time ago. He met the Marine’s eyes as he said out loud what he’d never told anyone before. “Because God told her to.”
Instead of the pity he’d expected to see, Johnny viewed empathy. Like just maybe the guy knew something about what he was feeling.
Which for some weird reason triggered something inside him, like breaking open a rusty padlock. And for the first time since that long-ago night that Buck had stabbed Crystal and got shot himself, the night that his and Angel’s already very bad life got really horrible, Johnny put his face in his hands and bawled like a damn baby.
60
It rained the day they buried Crystal Harper. Charity stood beside the grave in the hilltop cemetery, beneath a huge black umbrella, with Johnny and Angel, who were temporarily staying with her, at her side. She’d already begun the process to get certified to be a foster parent and been assured that the paperwork was merely a formality.
Angel had settled into the princess-decorated guest room Amanda had fixed up for her as if she’d been born in the big sprawling house. Granted, Johnny—whose room shared a Jack and Jill bath with his sister’s—would take a little longer to feel at home, but Charity had no doubt she’d be able to wear him down. Eventually.
The next step, to her mind, was adoption, but Crystal’s children had already been through so much that she wanted to give them time to adjust before springing the idea on them.
After that brief breakdown in the hospital, when he’d talked with Gabe and her about his mother’s mental illness, he’d barely spoken. He wasn’t sullen. Just distant. And troubled, which was understandable, given that Crystal had died in such a horrific way.
What Charity had no way of knowing was that the fifteen-year-old boy, who’d already taken on so many burdens, was blaming himself for his mother’s death.
It wasn’t a large turnout, but more people showed up than she’d expected. Sedona and Kara were there. As were Sax, Cole, and Kelli Douchett. And Adèle and Bernard, their son, Lucien, and their daughter-in-law, Maureen, and Amanda, who’d proved a rock during these days, fussing over the children as if they were her own grandchildren. Which, if Charity had anything to say about it, and she hoped she did, they soon would be.
Although she would have liked to believe that he was still in Shelter Bay because he couldn’t bear the idea of a future without her, Charity knew that Gabe had stayed to help Johnny achieve closure. Though, from what the case file had told her about the children’s unstable life with their mother, she wondered if that would ever truly be possible.
Out at sea, draped in a shimmering pewter mist, a tall-masted fishing boat chugged its way along the horizon, reminding Charity that the world kept spinning, and life continued, even in the face of death.
Due partly to the weather, but mostly due to the tragic circumstance of Crystal Harper’s death, the graveside service was brief, lasting less than ten minutes, ending with a bagpiper from the VFW playing “Amazing Grace.”
“I want one of those,” Angel said to her brother.
“A bagpipe?” Johnny asked.
“No. A purse like that.” She pointed toward the black leather bag with silver thistle top and three tassels the bagpiper was wearing on his belt. “It’s pretty.”
Her high child’s voice carried on the breeze, drawing a ripple of laughter. Charity thought she saw just a hint of a smile twitch at the corners of Johnny’s lips.
A long black limo glided up to the black wrought iron gates of the cemetery. A moment later, a man climbed out of the backseat.
“Oh, fuck,” Johnny muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Charity asked. Gabe’s arm, which had been around her waist, tightened. The energy radiating reminded her of a guard dog on alert.
“It’s that dickhead car dealer.”
“Car dealer?”
“My mom worked for him for a while when we lived in Nevada. Before Angel was born. He didn’t like me, which was okay, because I felt the same way about him. He fired my mom. Then we moved to Minnesota.”
The car dealer was not alone. He was accompanied by a younger man and one of the women Charity had met yesterday when she’d been jumping through all the hoops the state required for temporary custodial approval.
Sharon Greene, Angel’s caseworker.
Seeming not to notice, or care, that he was interrupting the service, the car dealer strode between the mourners and the open grave, stopping right in front of her.
“You would be Charity Tiernan,” he said flatly. His gaze skittered over Johnny’s face, lingering for a brief moment. Then he stared at Angel in a way that sent alarm bells ringing inside Charity.
“I am. And you would be?”
“Jack Craig.” He gestured toward the younger man, who was wearing a Burberry raincoat. “This is my attorney, Kenneth Cunningham. And, of course, you know Mrs. Greene.”
“Of course.” The social worker looked decidedly uncomfortable. As if she’d rather be anywhere but here. “May I ask you what you’re doing here, Mr. Craig?”
He cleared his throat. “I’ve come for my daughter.”
A sound, like what might have been ripped from a wounded wolf, came out of Johnny’s mouth. Before Charity or Gabe could do anything to stop him, he launched himself at the interlopers.
He hit Jack Craig in the middle of the chest, knocking him off-balance on the wet, rain-slick grass.
As the onlookers gave a collective gasp, boy and man tumbled into the open grave, landing with a horrible thud on the casket Amanda had insisted on buying.
61
“I don’t understand,” Charity complained.
Seeking neutral territory, Charity, Gabe, the social worker, the lawyer, and Jack Craig had gone to the courthouse. Amanda had taken both children back to the house, but only after Johnny had sworn to Gabe that he wouldn’t do anything rash, like try to run away with his sister until they could get things settled. Charity thought Johnny’s reluctant willingness to make that deal reflected how close Gabe had managed to get in such a short time.
Which, she considered, as she turned down the coffee the court clerk had offered, made sense since it sounded as if the two of them had more than a little in common.
“It’s very clear,” the lawyer said. The voice, which he might use to speak to a particularly slow kindergartner, was the same one Ethan had always used on her. That superior attitude had annoyed her then. She hated it now.
“Mr. Craig has every reason to believe that he’s Angel Harper’s father. And now that her mother has died, he’s come to take custody of his daughter.”
“She’s not an item that can be traded, like some velvet Elvis paintings on eBay,” Charity snapped. She shot the car dealer a skeptical look. “She’s eight years old. If you’re that concerned about playing the role of her father, where have you been all this time?”
“My client has been in Las Vegas,” the lawyer began.
“I was talking to your client,” Charity snapped. Oh, yes, he was reminding her of her former fiancé more with every word. “Who, I would think, could speak for himself.”
“I didn’t know where my daughter was,” Craig asserted.
“So you did know there was a daughter.”
“Crystal mentioned something about being pregnant.” The lobes of his ears turned as scarlet as a boiled crab, giving Charity the impression that Angel’s mother had done a lot more than merely mention it. The poor woman probably would have felt desperate. “But then she left town and I couldn’t find her.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you looked really, really hard, too,” Charity muttered. “How did you find her now?”
“I hired a private detective, who saw Crystal’s obituary online, on your local newspaper’s Web site. Naturally, I got on the first flight I could book out of Las Vegas. To come here, meet my daughter, and bring her home.”
Damn. Charity suddenly hated the Internet.
There was more to the story. More he wasn’t telling her. Charity exchanged a look with Gabe, whose expression told her that he was thinking the same thing.
“Do you have any proof Angel even is your child?”
“Ms. Harper listed my client as the father of record on the child’s birth certificate.” Once again answering for his client, the attorney reached into an alligator briefcase and pulled out the piece of paper, which bore an official-looking state seal.
“From what your client has said, the woman wasn’t exactly a credible witness,” Gabe entered the conversation. “She was mentally ill. According to what Johnny told us, she seldom stayed on her medication.”
“She firmly believed God spoke to her,” Charity added.
The conversation with Johnny Harper about the years he’d lived with the woman had been one of the most difficult of her life, making all those announcements from her own mother that their family was breaking up again seem practically benign.
She suspected he’d just skimmed the surface of what he’d survived, but refraining from weeping in front of the boy, who, although he was nearly as tall as her, was still just a child, had taken every ounce of her self-restraint.
Yesterday, the day after the fire, inspectors had ruled that the blaze that had destroyed the cabin had started from a cigarette in the cushions of the sofa in the communal living room. Which verified Johnny’s claim about his mother believing God had instructed her to protect them from evil.
The thought of the tortured woman, who’d been fighting her own demons for what sounded like most of her life, chain-smoking as she’d held vigil over her children to the very end broke Charity’s heart.
“Unfortunately, that’s true about her hallucinations.” The lawyer’s cool voice broke into her unhappy thoughts. “Which is why my client also didn’t believe her when she told him that she was pregnant. She was, after all, known to be a habitual liar. Even by those who’d been given the responsibility to protect the children from her.”
“She was ill,” Charity repeated, more sharply this time. Crystal Harper had died in a misguided, confused attempt to protect those same children. There was no reason to attack her when she wasn’t here to defend herself.
“Whatever.” The lawyer shrugged and reached into the monogrammed case yet again. “We also have an order for a blood test.”
“Blood tests aren’t conclusive,” Gabe said.
“Which is why we’re also requesting a DNA test.” Craig’s attorney was starting to remind her of a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat as he revealed yet another document. “Meanwhile, Mr. Craig’s wife is staying at an inn in Shelter Bay, where the girl will join them until the blood test results are in. Then, unless it negates the possibility of paternity, they’ll be taking the girl back to Las Vegas.”
“The girl has a name,” Ch
arity said. “It happens to be Angel. And how can you just take her out of state without a hearing?”
“Mr. Craig’s credentials are very strong,” the social worker finally spoke. “He’s a respected member of his community. We have no problem giving him temporary custody while this matter is sorted out.”
“I don’t believe this,” Charity flared. “These children have already spent too many years in a system that offered benign neglect at best. They’ve been apart for most of Angel’s life. Now not only could they have died—they lost their mother. This is no time to uproot them.”
“Yet isn’t that precisely what you were planning to do?” the lawyer asked. “Mrs. Greene here”—he nodded toward the social worker, who looked as if she’d spent her morning sucking pickles—“tells me that you’ve applied to foster the children, which would involve taking the girl, Angel,” he corrected at her glare, “from her current home.”
Although she’d never hit a person in her life, as Gabe straightened out her fingers and smoothed his hand down the back of hers, Charity realized she’d actually made a fist.
“So Johnny and Angel could be together,” she said between gritted teeth. “You’re threatening to permanently separate them.”
“The boy isn’t my son,” Jack Craig said. “I don’t see where I have any responsibility toward him.”
“How about a moral responsibility?” Gabe asked.
When the man’s face turned blank at that question, Charity swore that there was no way in hell she was going to let this horrid man separate those children yet again.
“My mother just happens to be married to a judge,” she said. “A Washington State Supreme Court justice with powerful friends in Oregon legal circles.”
She had no idea if that was true, but surely after all these years on the bench, Benton had connections he could call upon. “One phone call and he’ll stop this travesty of justice from taking place.”
“Do your best.” Not appearing all that intimidated, the lawyer closed the briefcase with a decisive snap. “Meanwhile, Mrs. Greene will be at your home to retrieve the girl and take her to my client and his wife at three this afternoon. Please have her packed and ready.”
