The Prodigal Girl

by Evan Ronan

  “He’s a jealous man.” Neeson thinks it over, decides to share the rest. “Rasheed was angry with Shannon for not moving in with him already. Mom got in the way of that.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Kids these days.” He nods at me. “We need you to stay on the bench, Owen. We have an understanding?”

  “Yeah.”

  He gives me a look. “You’re a bad liar.”

  “Thanks.”

  Detective Neeson heads out. I backtrack to Shannon’s area. The uniformed police officer Neeson mentioned is already stationed in the hallway across from Shannon’s curtain. He steps in front of me before I get there, but Tarika pokes her head out.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “He’s with us.”

  The police officer, hands on his hips, steps out the way and puts his back against the opposing wall.

  “Tarika,” I say, “can we talk?”

  “You can come in,” Shannon says in a mangled voice.

  “You sure?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  I slide the curtain aside just enough I can enter the space.

  And try to hide my shock.

  Shannon Lahill’s face is twice the size it normally is. There is already bruising around her eyes and they’ve got her hooked up to a couple machines.

  “Shannon,” Tarika says. “This is my friend, Greg.”

  One of Shannon’s eyes only opens halfway. The other gets a little wider.

  “I’ve seen you before.”

  “At Starbucks,” I say. “In the mall. I was following you.”

  There’s no reason to lie now. Olivia probably burned me. And more to the point, I want Shannon to know we’re all on the same team now. She needs to understand that.

  Shannon nods ever so slightly and her one-and-a-half eyes drift over accusingly toward Tarika.

  I jump in, “Your mother was really worried about you and hired me. She loves you more than anything, Shannon, and she was afraid.”

  Tarika’s lower lip is quivering. “I’m sorry.”

  “Bitch,” Shannon says.

  “I’m here to help,” I say, looking from one woman to the other. “Let me help.”

  Shannon turns from her mother. “The cops got this.”

  “Shannon,” Tarika says, “Greg is good at what he does, and I’ve hired him to help us. He’s not the police.”

  Tarika steps closer to her daughter and bends at the waist. She speaks in a low voice.

  “He works for us.” Tarika leans heavily on the word us. “If there’s anything you don’t want the police to know, but you think needs being said, you can tell him.”

  Shannon, keeping her eyes away from her mother, says, “If the police can’t get Sheed for this, can you kill him for me?”

  “Shannon!” Tarika says.

  I think the question rhetorical, but then the young woman looks fiercely at me. Tears escape her working eye.

  “Will you?” she asks.

  “That’s not what I do,” I say. “Why’d he bang you up?”

  “He’s crazy jealous,” she says, looking away again. “I already told the cop this.”

  “He’s jealous about who?”

  “He think Marcus and I are running on him.”

  “I saw you at the mall,” I say. “You and Marcus looked very much together.”

  She shakes her head. “I called him the next day and told him it was over.”

  “I’m not saying it makes sense, but there must be some reason Rasheed thinks you two still have something going.”

  “Because we talk. We have to, about Aisha. He’s the father of my little girl,” Shannon explains. She shifts uncomfortably on the bed. “And Sheed don’t like my mother. I don’t blame him. Mom’s trying to get between us, don’t want us living together. He said he was gonna bust you up too, Mom.”

  I get a bad, bad feeling. “Hold on, Shannon. It’s over between you and Rasheed now. You get that, right?”

  She looks away. “I need to shut my eyes again.”

  “Shannon, Greg is here to help.”

  I say, “It’s over between you and Rasheed now. Right, Shannon?”

  “Man, I’ll fucking do what I want. Now get your ass outta here.”

  “Shannon!” Tarika says.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “Shannon, I want you to know I’m here to help.”

  “Yeah, whatever. The cops got this.”

  I slip back into the hallway. The uniformed police officer eyes me suspiciously. I ignore him and head down the hallway, Tarika in tow. We find a quiet corner in a mostly dark waiting area, where Tarika slumps into a chair and puts her face in her hands for a moment.

  “Greg.” She shakes her head. “Greg, what am I supposed to do?”

  “Shannon’s right,” I say. “The cops got this.”

  “Can you make sure they do?” she asks.

  “On the best of days, cops don’t let anybody look over their shoulder while they’re working a case. They won’t let me anywhere near this, and for good reason. Too many cooks in the kitchen.”

  “There must be some way you can help.”

  She’s so desperate.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Twenty-One

  “It was two days after Shannon told me about the baby. She said she’d met someone at a party. I had no idea she’d been to a party. She said she’d gone with Marcus, but only as a friend, and got introduced around to some new people, including Rasheed.

  “I could tell right away it was serious. Shannon just had this look in her eye. I’d seen it before, back when I found out about Marcus. I could see it all happening again. I wanted to call you. God, I should have.”

  “What could I have done, though?”

  She won’t look at me when she says, “Maybe you could have scared him off.”

  I say nothing.

  Tarika resumes her story. “The next weekend I met him. I didn’t like the boy from the moment I laid eyes on him. Surprise, surprise, he was too old for Shannon. He looks early thirties to me. It was happening all over again, Greg. All over again.

  “He wouldn’t shake my hand, he wouldn’t look me in the eye, you know, he just had no manners. That says a lot about a person, that says a lot about how they were raised and who they are. I didn’t like him at all. Shannon was about to take him up to her room, and I had to put my foot down. I told her that was not allowed so long as she was under my roof, I didn’t care how damn old she was.

  “You know what she did? My daughter called me a fucking bitch. That girl never said a bad thing to me before. They had a good laugh about that. Can you believe it, Greg? Right in my own damned living room, my daughter calls me a bitch in front of her new boyfriend, who doesn’t have the manners to shake my damned hand!”

  Just when I think Tarika can’t be any more sympathetic …

  “You know what they do next? They go right upstairs, like I don’t even exist. I pitched a fit, Greg! I started screaming my head off and pushed Rasheed out of the way on the steps and grabbed her arm. I’ve never laid a hand on that girl in my life, but it was like I couldn’t control myself. I tried yanking her down the stairs, but Shannon wouldn’t budge. Rasheed put a hand on me—and I smacked him as hard as I could.

  “Shannon ran out of the house with him. I’m so embarrassed by it all now. I chased them out onto the street and screamed at them after they’d gotten in the car and drove off. Damned fool nearly ran my foot over!”

  Tarika is almost hyperventilating.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Shannon didn’t come home that night. I can hardly blame her. I mean, the girl is twenty years old and a mother herself. I should have let them go up to her room. What was I so afraid of? It’s the middle of the day, I’m downstairs, what did I think was going to happen? And even if it did … well, hell, what am I going to do about it anyway?”

  “You knew what was going to happen,” I say. “And you knew Rasheed was no good. You were trusting your gut
.”

  “Yeah? Where did it get me?” She shakes her head. “Shannon came home a day later. No explanations. No apologies. No nothing.”

  “Where was Aisha for this?”

  “Still with the Tanners!” Tarika says. “She was supposed to bring my granddaughter home ever since she told me about her. But that still hasn’t happened. God, I just finally met her last week. Marcus brought her to a playground nearby and Shannon allowed me to meet her for the first time. I’m the damned girl’s grandmother!”

  Nothing about this makes sense.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shakes her head. “Shannon stayed upstairs all day. I could hear her on the phone, talking to that good-for-nothing. If it wasn’t Rasheed, it was Marcus, and … Greg, why does she surround herself with bad people?”

  I have no answer for this. Some people are like this. They’re decent and honest but they get in with the wrong crowd and suffer for it.

  But, and I don’t voice this, maybe Shannon is more like them than we both think.

  “She went out, wouldn’t tell me where. I knew it was to see Rasheed. She’d been supposed to start looking for a job, and she was going to find a daycare for Aisha, and all these things. But it was like her life just stopped, you know? What little good there was in her life went right back on hold again, because there was this new man in the picture.”

  “What’s this about moving in with Rasheed?” I ask.

  Tarika shakes her head. “I had to put my foot down, Greg.”

  “She’s an adult now,” I say. “She’s allowed to make mistakes.”

  “She’s doing a great job, then! Shannon wanted me to take Aisha while she moved in with this clown. Can you even believe she asked me to do that?”

  I think the question rhetorical, but she waits for an answer.

  “No.”

  Tarika shakes her head. “I told her no way. I told her I’d love to have Aisha live with me but not if Shannon went off to live with that thug.”

  I grimace. “What happened tonight?”

  “Damned if I know!” She stands, furious with Shannon but probably more furious with herself. “They were at some party. Rasheed heard Marcus was coming and flipped his lid. At least, that’s what Shannon says. But who knows? How can I trust a word that comes out of that girl’s mouth?”

  She can’t.

  “Rasheed threatened her. Shannon got out of there as quick as she could, but the man followed her out. She says he wailed on her in the parking lot outside the apartment complex where the party was. Somebody saw it happening and called 9-1-1. Rasheed took off before the cops got there.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She sighs, looks out the dark windows to the street beyond. It’s started to rain.

  “Can you believe this?” she says, but she’s not really asking me. She’s asking herself. A moment later, she chuckles ruefully. “You know what she said to me the other night?”

  Uh-oh. “What?”

  Tarika folds her arms. “Shannon told me she loved Rasheed. She loves him, Greg. Loves him.”

  I keep having to tell myself that Shannon is only twenty years old. There is such a thing as love at first sight, there is such a thing as falling head-over-heels, and when you’re young you don’t have the experience yet to exercise any caution.

  But Shannon is an old twenty. Running off with Marcus should have wised her up beyond her years.

  Tarika says, “That good-for-nothing already has three kids from three different mothers and then tonight, he tans her hide and now it sounds like Shannon still wants to spend her life with him. You believe she blamed me for this? She won’t move in with Rasheed unless I take Aisha.”

  It makes no sense.

  “So this is all my damned fault. Sheed got mad and banged her up, and it’s my fault somehow.”

  What happened in Mexico that would have messed Shannon up so?

  What happened before Mexico, Greg?

  Shannon’s life looked like it was headed in a certain direction before she ran off with Marcus, but that had to just be surface-level appearance. There had to be other signs. Nobody comes off the rail like that.

  Nobody.

  “Three kids, three different baby mamas, between jobs.” Tarika looks to the heavens. “Why would she choose that life for herself?”

  I say nothing.

  “It makes no sense.” Tarika shakes her head. “Didn’t she learn anything when she was, wherever the hell she was, with Marcus? I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but even damn Marcus would have been better than Rasheed.”

  “Different symptom, same disease,” I say.

  “I know you’re right.”

  “I can get some juice on Rasheed,” I offer.

  She speaks like she hasn’t heard me. “She told me she loved this man, if he can even call himself that, and they were going to get married.”

  I shake my head.

  “I tried forbidding her.” Tarika looks down. “She just laughed. Laughed right in my face, Greg. Told me I had no business telling her what to do. She’s twenty, she’s an adult now. She’s been around the damned world, and what the hell did I ever do with myself?”

  I feel like I’m watching a stray dog about to run through a busy intersection.

  “It made me so mad. I’ve spent all these years looking for her, worrying about her, I’ve given up on my own life, Greg! All I did was get up, go to work, and wait for her. I paid these PIs to find her. When I took time from work, I spent it looking for her. I didn’t even tell you this, but one time I flew down to Mexico. Had no damned idea where to go or where to start. I just wandered from one place to the next, it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I blew through my savings and came home with nothing, Greg. Nothing!”

  I can’t speak.

  “I have no life left. Five years spent waiting, worrying. Then she comes home and she treats me like I’m nobody to her … damn it was so infuriating. I felt this small.” She holds out thumb and forefinger, leaving only a tiny space between them. “It was like I didn’t matter at all. I could have died and she would have just gone on like it was nothing. I felt betrayed. A child’s love never equals a parent’s, but damn, all I wanted was a little. All I asked for was a little, and if she couldn’t love me, at least she could have respected me. At least she could have recognized how much I loved her, how much I tried to help, how I tried to be the best mother I could be. All this damned time, and for what? What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong, Greg?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “This is on me. I’m her mother. She had nobody else. I made her like this!”

  Tarika is screaming.

  I step forward, but she moves away, not wanting any comfort from the likes of me.

  Tarika says, “So I just decided I’d had enough. I told her she could marry the good-for-nothing, you know, go ahead, what do I care? Go ahead and ruin your life. I can’t help you. I won’t help you anymore, you gotta take responsibility for your own daughter. I told her to go ahead and throw her future away with Rasheed. I told her all these terrible things, things I should go to hell for.”

  She lets out a frustrated scream and collapses to the floor, with her face buried once more in her hands. I step forward again, but she says—

  “I need to be alone right now, Greg.”

  I back away, ever so slowly to see if she changes her mind. But Tarika stays in that collapsed position, face still hidden away in her palms. She sobs. It is miserable and pathetic and heart-breaking.

  Back in the hallway, I text Shawn. I know he’s likely still in the movie with Lorelei, but I need his help. I need to do something for this woman, even if it’s just the token act of running a background check on Rasheed Barten.

  Need your help ASAP

  He calls me a few minutes later. “Greg, what’s up?”

  I give him the information. “I know I’m asking a favor, but can you get someone to run a background?”

  “Yea
h. One of my buddies will call you.”

  Twenty-Two

  “Aggravated assault,” I say. “He likes to hit people.”

  Tarika shakes her head.

  “Rasheed already has a warrant out for his arrest, for wailing on somebody else.”

  “How can he have a damned warrant out and nobody does anything? The man is at a goddamned party!”

  This happens. The police don’t have the resources to run down each and every warrant. They have to prioritize. Rasheed Barten beat the living hell out of some guy at a bar about a couple months ago. Reading cynically between the lines, the cops don’t care too much about this one, probably because the other guy is a no-good son of a bitch also, who might have brought this beating on himself.

  “He was inside,” I go on. “Served a couple years for armed robbery.”

  “Armed-damned-robbery!” Tarika explodes. “This is who she wants? This is who she wants to bring her daughter home to?”

  It doesn’t make sense.

  To us.

  But maybe it makes sense to Shannon. I have yet to figure out how.

  I slump in the chair beside Tarika, exhausted. Bang out a quick text to Ashlynn to let her know I’m going to be much later than I thought.

  Wake me up then, is her response.

  As much as I’d normally love to wake her up, I’m hardly in the mood for anything tonight. This sad story has cast a long, dark pall.

  “Ms. Lahill?”

  The uniformed police officer pokes his head into the waiting area. Tarika, as angry as she was a moment ago at her daughter, is now immediately panicked.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “Shannon would like to speak with you.”

  Tarika jumps out of her seat and rushes out. I stay put. I wonder what this is about. And wonder how I can even help here. The cops are looking for Rasheed Barten. Legally, I could look for him too, but there’s strategy at play here. If I talk to somebody the police aren’t talking to, word could get back to Rasheed and he might go to ground.

  “Come on, Greg,” I say. “Think of something.”

  But I got nothing.

  I need something to pass the time, so I take out my phone. Bernie has left a voicemail, but I literally have to listen to it three times before my distracted mind even takes it in. There was a huge group earlier, and we’re out of pretzels unexpectedly. They just kept ordering and ordering. I delete the voicemail. Bernie can figure out what to do.