Finding Her Dad

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He felt sick as well as angry. Why in hell was Lucy even thinking about taking this woman in? Did she not have the courage to say no?

  A guttural sound escaped him. Did she really think for a minute that he’d let her expose his daughter to this piece of scum?

  He reached for the phone, but didn’t dial. No. He had to talk to her in person.

  How could she not tell him about this? Had she intended to introduce mom with some lame story about how she’d decided to move to town to be near her daughter? The idea that Lucy would deceive him like that fanned the flames of his rage. His skin hurt, so much fury was moving through him. Not only fury, but a sense of betrayal. He’d convinced himself he was in love with her and that she must be falling for him, too. He’d felt something he hadn’t in fifteen years…. Longer. Admit it. He’d never felt anything like this. The emotions welling up had tied him in knots inside, but in a good way.

  He bowed his head and dug his fingers into his hair. Eyes closed, he remembered how he had felt after making love with Lucy. Holding her in his arms. The glory and the peace.

  Oh, shit. I’ll have to tell Edie.

  Asset or detriment?

  He’d trusted Lucy.

  This wasn’t just about Sierra. It was also about what a scandal involving Lucy would do to his chances of winning the election.

  Apparently she didn’t care.

  He wouldn’t call Edie until tomorrow. He’d give Lucy a chance first. Maybe her mother had given her address without Lucy’s knowledge. Lucy might not be aware her mother thought they were going to have an affecting reconciliation and that, oh, surely she had a spare bed. Maybe Lucy had a plan that didn’t involve introducing Terry Malone to an innocent sixteen-year-old.

  He’d have given anything not to be obligated to give a talk to a veterans’ group this evening, but there was no getting out of it. At least they were likely to provide a sympathetic audience. He’d get through it, and then he would go to Lucy’s.

  JON’S PHONE CALL that afternoon was beyond terse.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Really?” The door shut behind Mr. Henricks and his grossly overweight, elderly pug, Sebastian. Closing the cash-register drawer, Lucy said in surprise, “Well, I don’t have any customers right now—”

  “No.” Jon’s voice was completely expressionless. “I want to come over tonight. Say, nine o’clock?”

  “I… Yes, I guess that’s okay,” she faltered.

  With barely an “I’ll see you then,” he ended the call.

  Lucy was on tenterhooks for the rest of the day. Could he have found out about her mother? But how on earth…? Her worries raced and collided in her head like bumper cars.

  He’d called and talked to Sierra last night. She’d taken the phone in her room. Without being able to make out words, Lucy had heard her artlessly chattering. Had she slipped? Asking her to keep a secret hadn’t been fair, Lucy silently acknowledged. But…Sierra was honest enough to have admitted she’d opened her mouth and said something she hadn’t meant to.

  Maybe this wasn’t about her mom at all. Had Jon’s opponent found out about Sierra? Maybe he was planning to make some kind of statement and force Jon’s hand. If so, the timing couldn’t be worse.

  I could still call Mom and say, I’m sorry, but you can’t come here.

  No. Steadier now, she accepted that she’d made the only decision she could. Accepted the risks. She was in love with Jon. Loved Sierra. Had come to love Sierra so quickly and easily in part because Lucy, too, had been the child who lost her mother. But unlike Sierra, Lucy had another chance, and she had to take it.

  If Jon loved her, he’d understand. He’d look past his own prejudices and help. If he didn’t… Pain squeezed her chest. If he didn’t, well, what would she really have lost?

  Sierra looked surprised when Lucy told her over dinner that Jon was coming over.

  “He said he wants to talk to me. He sounded serious.”

  The teenager frowned. “Like, mad serious?”

  “I don’t know.” No matter how many times she’d turned their brief phone conversation over in her mind, she still couldn’t read his emotional state.

  When he showed up finally, at almost nine-thirty, Sierra let him in. Lucy, trying to look casual, was curled on one end of the sofa with a book. Even as he spoke to his daughter, his gaze found Lucy.

  The uncomfortable thump in her chest wasn’t close to a regular beat.

  He looked…haggard. And hard, too. No, worse than that. Blank, the way he had when Sierra first told him she thought she was his daughter. Absolutely no emotion was allowed to leach out. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was going through his head.

  He’d wrenched his tie loose and it hung askew. The suit coat had been left in the car. The white shirt was wrinkled, the sleeves rolled up. His hair was as rumpled as hair that short could get. Lucy would have sworn new lines bracketed his eyes and mouth. And—most shocking—he wore a big black pistol in a holster at his waist. Had he forgotten to take it off and lock it in his glove compartment? Or was he making some kind of point? Asserting authority in a horribly visual way.

  She wrenched her gaze from the gun and started to get up. “You look tired. Would you like a cup of coffee? Or we have leftover lasagna if you haven’t eaten.”

  “No.” His expression didn’t soften. He looked at his daughter and said, “Sierra, I have things I need to discuss with Lucy. Would you mind?”

  “I guess I should go to bed anyway. I mean, I have school tomorrow.” Nervous glances flicking between the two adults, Sierra backed toward the short hall. “Night, Lucy. And, um, Dad.”

  “Good night,” he said. He didn’t move until they heard her bedroom door shut. Then he walked over and sat on the easy chair a few feet from Lucy, whose fingernails were biting into her palms.

  “Tell me about your mother.”

  All the oxygen in her lungs escaped in a rush. Dots swam before her eyes. She had to remind herself how to breathe. Finally, around an enormous lump in her throat, she said, “How did you find out?”

  His mouth thinned. “Tell me.”

  Lucy looked down at her hands. “You know she’s being released from prison.”

  He said nothing.

  “She’s been in for eight years this time. That’s the longest ever. I’ve lost track of how many times she’s been in. I was a baby the first time. I mostly grew up in foster homes and haven’t lived with her for more than eighteen months at a stretch.” Lucy paused. “She’s, um, an addict.”

  “Heroin?”

  She shook her head. “Opiates. Downers of any kind. She drinks if she can’t get anything else.” She bit her lip until it hurt. “She tries. Really she does. She’s been through every kind of drug treatment program there is. But…wow. Once she’d been out scarcely two hours when she’d conned a doctor into giving her a prescription for painkillers.”

  “Did she prostitute herself?”

  Lucy had to look up at that. “No. Where did you get that idea?” She thought over their conversations and the details of her early life she’d shared, wondering what she might have said that would give him that impression. “Oh. It was what I said when we talked about people in desperate situations. No, that wasn’t Mom. I told you, we lived in some really awful places. Once we lived for three or four months in one of those motels where you can rent rooms by the week. It was near Sea-Tac Airport, on the Pacific Highway.”

  She knew she didn’t have to tell him what a problem prostitution was there. The Green River killer had picked up many of his victims on that strip.

  “Mostly the motel was where women—and some teenage girls, too—took their johns. I was—” she struggled for enough air to fill her lungs “—like, eleven or twelve. I could tell those girls weren’t that much older than I was.” She shivered and discovered she’d wrapped her arms tightly around herself, a bandage on a wound she rarely let herself acknowledge. She wished Jon was holding her instead, but he
hadn’t moved. Lucy risked a glance at his face, and regretted doing so.

  He stared at her incredulously, his eyes so cold they looked like shards of ice. “Mom? You still call her Mom?”

  Lucy’s spine stiffened. “She is my mother. For better or worse.”

  “Obviously it’s for worse.” He uttered an obscenity that shouldn’t have shocked her but did. “Tell me you’re not opening your door to her.”

  “I— Not exactly.”

  “She listed your home—this address—as the residence where her parole officer could contact her.”

  “I’ve found her another place to live.”

  “Where?”

  “An apartment. It’s a few blocks away.”

  “A few blocks away.”

  “Yes. I can help her get a job and…” She’d begun to rock slightly. Not enough for him to notice. Please. Only enough to help her contain the painful swell of emotions that wanted to burst out of her. “Just help her.”

  He stood suddenly, but not to come to her. Instead he swung away and began to pace. “Lucy, why?” Two strides to one end of her tiny living room, two strides back, each turn jerky. “This is so unbelievably stupid, I told myself you didn’t know anything about it. That your mother was trying to take advantage of you. So make me understand why you would do this.”

  “She’s my mother!” The cry came from her heart. “She’s all I’ve got. Why can’t you understand that?”

  He laughed, but without humor it sounded more like a snarl. “Because she forfeited any right to your loyalty or love the first time she used drugs when she had a baby who needed her. Did she use when she was pregnant with you?”

  She knew her rocking had become more pronounced; she couldn’t help herself. Her mom swore she had stayed straight throughout the pregnancy. Lucy had never known for sure. But she didn’t seem to be too damaged, so she wanted to believe.

  “I know she loves me. She was so scared for me when they took her away. I can still see her struggling, crying. And then…and then she’d write me every day, and cry when I came to see her. I really, truly believe she couldn’t help herself.”

  His gaze burned into hers. “We all make decisions. Every minute, every hour, every day. Brave ones or cowardly ones. Strong or weak. Smart or stupid. Those decisions aren’t easy, not for any of us.” His voice rose to a roar. “What possible excuse is there for someone who makes the wrong ones, over and over? For someone who will do anything for her next fix? Anything at all?”

  “When she was straight, she was a good mother. We laughed. She loved to garden. Wherever we lived, she had tubs of flowers even if there wasn’t a yard. That awful hotel, she had African violets. I still remember a row of them on the windowsill. I got that from her.” Lucy talked fast, the words spilling out. “And animals. I remember this time we saw a dog get hit by a car. It was going too fast and the driver didn’t stop. You could tell the dog was a stray. It was really skinny and mangy. It was a big dog. Mom hurt her back getting it into the car and we took it to a vet. We didn’t have very much money, but she told the vet she’d pay for him to treat it.”

  The dog had died. Lucy remembered her distraught mother pleading with the veterinarian to take care of the dog, and Lucy, who had been standing there watching the brown eyes film over, had known it was too late.

  “What did she do, hold up a liquor store to get the money?” Jon asked in that voice as hard and jagged as gravel.

  Lucy stared at him in outrage. “No. She’s not like that. She’s not!”

  He paused long enough to stare down at her, contempt twisting his mouth. “Who are you kidding? She was convicted of armed robbery.”

  “She held jobs. They weren’t very good ones, because once you have a record, no one wants to hire you. Mostly she was a waitress. But once she started using…” This was so hard to talk about. She’d never imagined telling him in the face of an expression so cold and forbidding. “She always found a man. She’d get, I don’t know, mixed up in what they were doing. Mostly selling drugs. The last one…she was with him when he held up a store. She didn’t know he was going to do it. But she was there, and she didn’t stop it, and she got in the car with him when they left.”

  “Just hanging with him, was she?”

  “She’s not excusing herself. I’m not excusing her.”

  “Where were you when she and her boyfriend were holding up this store?”

  Lucy was vaguely shocked to realize that she had drawn her knees up to her chest. She was all but in a fetal position, holding herself as tightly as she could. “I didn’t live with her anymore. Not once I graduated from high school. I was in school to become a veterinary technician.” She didn’t cry. She didn’t. She’d used up all her tears years ago. But her vision blurred anyway. In a whisper, she said, “Mom was at my graduation. She was so proud.”

  She thought his face contorted, although she couldn’t be sure. But if it had, he scrubbed away the emotion with a rough swipe of his hand.

  “Lucy…” His voice had become gentler, too, but maybe that was in her imagination, as well. “You must see that this is a mistake. Did you really intend to let Sierra get to know this woman? What if she starts using?”

  “I’ll know if she does.”

  “Are you going to welcome your mother’s next boyfriend to your home, too?” His tone hardened again the way his expression had. “Introduce him to my daughter?”

  “I think Mom desperately needs me. She’s changed, Jon. I really believe that. This is her chance. Her last real chance. It’s the first time she’s ever looked honestly at herself. When I’ve been to visit her, she hasn’t made excuses. She has so many regrets, it hurts to listen to her.”

  He was shaking his head, but Lucy plowed on.

  “I can tell she believes she can mend everything that’s ever been wrong between us. And she can’t, but I don’t know how to say that.”

  “Finally, a grain of common sense.”

  “Don’t disparage me!” Lucy lifted her head, and her arms loosened from their clasp around her knees. “Mom won’t make it if the hurt between us is still festering. Can’t you see that? I have to give her that, even if—” She couldn’t finish. Didn’t let herself say, Even if I don’t want to. Even if I sometimes wish she was dead like Sierra’s mother is.

  Jon would understand that, and Lucy couldn’t bear it. She hated the part of her that would even think such a thing, and she couldn’t love a man who would say coldly, “You’re right. Too bad your mother isn’t dead.” She didn’t want confirmation he was that man.

  “You know what Rinnert will do with this wonderful gem you’ve handed him? Can’t you imagine the editorials? Captain Brenner admits his lover’s mother was just released from Washington Corrections Center for Women after serving eight years for armed robbery.”

  “We’re not—”

  “We are.” His voice roughened. “We were.”

  Lucy went utterly still. She couldn’t have looked at him to save her life.

  She should have told him before she made love to him. It would have been bad, but not like this. Not agonizing.

  “You need to go,” she said, proud of herself for speaking almost levelly. “I knew—” Oh, damn. Now her voice had to break. “I was afraid to tell you, but I had myself convinced you were someone you aren’t. We both made a mistake.”

  “I’m going.” His hands were curled into fists at his sides. His knuckles showed white. “But I’ll be back, Lucy. I can’t forget my daughter is here, right down the hall.”

  She said nothing. After a moment he went to the front door and let himself out without saying another word.

  Had he ever left without a reminder to lock up?

  Lucy rested her forehead on her knees and let the tears soak into her jeans. Please, she thought. Begged. Please, Sierra, be in bed. Don’t come out to see what your father wanted.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “ALL RIGHT.” Edie pushed aside the remnants of her lunch. “We nee
d to think damage control.”

  Jon knew she’d rather be pacing, but they’d chosen to meet in a restaurant. A pancake house, safely anonymous, where they’d be unlikely to be noticed in a back booth.

  Damage control.

  He was almost numb today. Almost, yet not quite. When he relaxed his guard, pain sneaked in like a stiletto between his ribs. That sharp, that deadly. Most of the time, he kept himself in the altered state that allowed cops to see horrific things and keep working, heads clear and thoughts sharp. He wished he could find black humor in any of this to release some of the tension, but had failed so far. There was nothing funny in the fact that Lucy had let him walk into this completely unprepared.

  Almost kindly, Edie said, “You can’t let Sierra stay with Ms. Malone.”

  “No,” he agreed. He had to clear his throat. “I’ve already cleared my schedule so I can meet her when she gets home from school.”

  “Will Ms. Malone be there?”

  “No, but I can get Sierra packed up and then she and I can stop by the store. I can’t take Sierra without letting Lucy know.”

  “Of course not. Is the social worker supervising your daughter’s foster home aware of you?”

  “I don’t know,” Jon admitted. “I didn’t think to ask.”

  Edie made a note in front of her, as though they were putting together a plan of attack like any other. “You’ll need to get in touch.”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you be taking Sierra to stay with your mother?”

  At least she hadn’t said your daughter in that clinical way. She’d acknowledged that Sierra was someone. An individual. Jon hadn’t realized that he’d been bristling all this time.

  “I don’t see why she can’t stay with me,” Jon said slowly. “She wouldn’t have to change schools. If she were younger, it would be different, but she turns seventeen next year. She can make herself dinner evenings I can’t be home. There’s no issue with her being unsupervised. Sierra’s a good kid. She and I have developed a solid relationship.” That was the only thing he had to hold on to, to feel good about. “She’s close to Lucy. My mother is still a virtual stranger.”