Finding Her Dad

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He realized he was eating, and that Terry was right—the spaghetti was good. If his schedule wasn’t so unpredictable, it might have occurred to him to ask if Sierra would take on some cooking chores at home. Would that have helped? He wished it had occurred to him.

  “You must have come here right after school,” he said.

  He saw a flash of pale eyes from beneath her hair. She shrugged.

  “It was nice of her to make dinner as a surprise.” Lucy narrowed her eyes at him, but her voice was even. “Mom and I were both tired. We were going to flip a coin to see who had to cook.”

  Nice? Sierra had cooked dinner to make a statement. See? I’m comfortable even in the kitchen. I belong here. She was trying to make it as hard as possible for Lucy to bundle her into the car and take her back to him.

  Jon kept eating. Conversation flowed around him, all conducted by Terry and Lucy, although Sierra was coaxed into an occasional response. His headache was easing, he realized. The food helped. Throttling back on the rage probably did, too.

  Now what?

  He had no more idea than he’d had when he sat down. You could grab a toddler, buckle her into her car seat even if she was in the middle of a screaming tantrum and haul her ass home. You couldn’t do the same to a teenager, as much as he wished he could. He detested feeling so helpless.

  “Coffee?” Lucy’s mother asked him.

  “Yeah, thanks.” He looked down to realize his plate was empty. Lucy had eaten too, and even Sierra had polished off part of her dinner.

  “I’ll leave you three to talk,” Terry said, and smiled at him. “Thank you for eating with us, Captain Brenner.”

  Now he felt like an ass. “I appreciate you calming us all down. You missed your calling. You should have been a hostage negotiator.”

  She chuckled and left the kitchen. Jon sighed and looked first at Sierra—head down again, hair swinging in place to hide her face—and then Lucy, who stared back at him. He almost smiled. Terry might have a talent for mediation, but her daughter didn’t. She was still mad, and didn’t mind him knowing.

  “All right, Sierra,” he said finally. “Has living with me really been that terrible?”

  “Yes,” she cried, then hunched her shoulders and mumbled, “No. I mean, it’s not terrible. But it’s lonely, and I miss the cats, and you don’t talk to me. You never listen.”

  Guilty, he thought bleakly. Aloud, he said, “In fairness, I don’t think you’ve been listening to me very well, either.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  He sighed and turned his attention to Lucy. “Tell me how unreasonable I’m being.”

  “I think if you’d taken Sierra to live with you because it was time, that would have been different. What you did was snatch her away from the only person she trusted, implying that I wasn’t trustworthy. You hurt me, but that isn’t the point.”

  Yeah, it was. He lay awake nights knowing how much he had hurt her and longing for a redo. But he knew what she was saying. Sierra was the issue here. He nodded.

  More tentatively, Lucy said, “Maybe I shouldn’t be speaking for you, Sierra…”

  “It’s okay.”

  Lucy’s eyes, dark with emotion, met his. “Losing a parent would have to be horrible for any kid. But losing your only parent…” As if she couldn’t help herself, she reached across the table and touched Sierra’s hand, which turned to grip hers.

  It was a sight that twisted Jon up inside. This was where they’d begun—him moved more than he wanted to admit to see the flow of trust and love between this woman and this girl.

  “Sierra found me. Or I found her. And yes, she found you, too. You do matter to her, Jon. Don’t think you don’t.”

  He risked a glance at his daughter and met her teary, entreating gaze. His heart did an uncomfortable bump.

  “But when you took her the way you did, what you were doing was undermining the all-too-precarious stability she’d found. You were saying, ‘Lucy isn’t trustworthy,’ and maybe even, ‘Your judgment is faulty.’ Can’t you see that?”

  He swallowed. Yeah. He could. That was what he’d been saying, despite all the times he’d commented to Lucy on what an extraordinary young woman Sierra was, for all that he’d admired and even envied the bond between them.

  Had he been jealous? he wondered, appalled, then shook his head. No. He’d felt included. They’d let him become part of their family, and nothing had ever meant more to him in his life.

  “I do understand you have a problem because of the election. And…that I let you down, not telling you about Mom.” Lucy sounded unhappy. “I’m sorry, Jon.”

  “No.” He heard his own gruffness. “I’m sorry that I didn’t talk about this with you. It’s— Hell. I don’t know what the answer is now. Do you really want me to throw the election?”

  Her eyes, like Sierra’s, beseeched him. “Of course not. But nobody has found out about us. Have they?”

  “I think it’s safe to assume Rinnert knows I’m dating you. He simply hasn’t learned anything about you yet that he thinks he can use.” Jon paused. “But he’s looking, Lucy. Don’t kid yourself. And yeah, that sounds paranoid, but—what’s the saying?—even paranoids have enemies?

  “Sierra.” Jon looked at his daughter. “Come home with me. The election is only a few weeks away. Give me that long.”

  “And then what?” Sierra’s eyes flashed. “You’ll let me live with Lucy? What will people think then?”

  His head had begun to ache again. What would people think? Did it matter? He couldn’t seem to make his brain function.

  Lucy stood. “It’s time for me to leave you two to talk. This isn’t about me.”

  “No.” He pushed back his chair. “You’re wrong. It’s about you, too.”

  Her expression was remote, neither warm nor angry. She shook her head. “It’s really not,” she said with a finality that scared him. She smiled gently at Sierra. “Let me know what you decide, honey.” Then she left the kitchen.

  Jon had no trouble hearing what she didn’t say. This was about Sierra because Lucy and he were done. He’d blown it; there was no going back.

  He’d loved two women in his life. He’d held himself accountable for Cassia’s death, and he knew he was, but only in part. This loss, however, was on him. One hundred percent.

  Sierra turned a stricken gaze on Jon, and he saw that she’d heard the unspoken, too. They stared at each other for what had to be a minute.

  Then he reached out and took her hand, grateful that she let him. “Okay, honey,” he said. “Tell me what you want. I’ll listen this time.”

  JON WAS IN A MEETING regarding budget overruns when his phone rang. With the intention of muting the ring and letting the call go to voice mail, he glanced at the screen. Lieutenant Stevens, head of SWAT.

  He excused himself, stepped out in the hall and answered.

  “You like to know when we’re going to be on the evening news, right?” Stevens said.

  He had to laugh. That was one way of putting it. “I do like a heads-up,” he agreed. “What’s happening?”

  “Guy got out of prison maybe a month ago for attempting to kill his wife. Now he’s holding her, their kids and a neighbor woman hostage. He’s waving around some serious weaponry. We’ve evacuated the block.”

  Jon opened the conference-room door, signaled that the meeting was over and started walking rapidly to his office. “Names?”

  He swore when he heard the man’s. Leonard Ullman had been released the same week as Terry Malone. Jon remembered noticing the name above hers and shaking his head because Ullman’s wife was apparently—and inexplicably—taking the guy back.

  “All right,” he said. “Anybody succeeded in talking to him yet?”

  “Bettinger’s trying.”

  “Good.” Ronnie Bettinger was one of the best negotiators they had. “How old are the kids?” They, of course, were the newsworthy part of this scenario.

  “Neighbor’s husband says four
and—” A siren temporarily drowned him out. Jon next heard, “—thinks the youngest is four. That one’s a little girl. Jessica.” His voice was tight. Stevens had two daughters himself, one about that age. “Older one’s a boy, just started first grade.”

  Their worst nightmare. Young, frightened children held hostage. “Keep me informed.”

  Jon considered driving over there. Being there to make the major calls. Maybe he should. But if he won the election in two weeks’ time, he intended to promote Curt Stevens to his current job. This was a trial by fire, he thought.

  Instead of sitting down behind his desk, he went to stare out the window, although he didn’t see a thing. Damn it, damn it. This was why he shouldn’t have left Sierra at Lucy’s.

  Groaning, he rolled his shoulders in a futile attempt to relieve tension. Frustration gripped him. He’d known when he saw Ullman’s name that he would be hurting his wife again. It was a given.

  The same way it was a given that, sooner or later, Terry would take that first drink or pop the first pill. Then the part-time job at the bookstore wouldn’t be enough to pay for her habit. She’d start conning money out of Lucy. Then stealing from the till at Lucy’s store and the bookstore. But that wouldn’t be enough. She’d have to escalate somehow, and it would be ugly.

  Jon squeezed his tense neck muscles. He had to be fair. Terry wasn’t going to hurt Sierra. Despite her having been involved in the armed robbery, she wasn’t a violent criminal. Terry hadn’t been the one holding the gun. Yeah, she was there. But there was one thing in the police report that Jon hadn’t told Sierra because he hadn’t wanted to feel any softening at all for Terry. It was in the interview with the eighteen-year-old clerk, who’d talked about being scared to death, about the crazy look in the guy’s eyes and the way his hands shook. But what she’d also said was that the woman had pleaded for him not to hurt anyone.

  “She was crying,” the clerk said. “When they left, he grabbed her hand and yanked her with him. She was looking over her shoulder at me….”

  The typed text hadn’t interjected expressions. The officer conducting the interview hadn’t pursued the subject. He didn’t care what expression Terry Malone had had on her face. She’d been a participant in the armed robbery. Her tears might have bought her a plea bargain if her rap sheet hadn’t been so lengthy, but it was. Nobody cared.

  But Jon found he did now.

  He pictured the woman with the gentle face so like Lucy’s and tried to reconcile her with someone who could, in any stretch of the imagination, be involved in holding up a convenience store. He couldn’t.

  Two days ago, after leaving Sierra in Lucy’s care despite his better judgment, he had called Terry’s parole officer and asked how she was doing. Better than good, he’d been told. She was attending Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings daily, was working, reporting in, had a positive attitude.

  Now that he’d met her he knew: she was doing her best. He remembered the real glow of pleasure on her face when she’d talked about her new job. The sharp reproof in her voice when she said, “There is a child here.” He had been failing Sierra and Lucy both; still was. She, he suspected, was honestly trying to redeem herself.

  So who was the better person?

  His cell phone rang.

  “We’ve got the kids safe,” Lieutenant Stevens told him. “The boy boosted his little sister out the bathroom window, then followed her.”

  “Good for him.” The kids’ escape put the remaining two adults in greater peril, though. Ullman would be enraged.

  “Bettinger has him on the phone. He doesn’t know the kids are gone yet. He’s threatening to kill the neighbor.”

  “Has he said what he wants?”

  “He doesn’t want anything we can give him. The wife was leaving him. Now she says she didn’t mean it, but he’s not that dumb. Hold on.” He muffled the phone, finally came back. “Guess I was wrong. He does want something. We’re delivering pizza and beer.”

  “Good,” Jon said again, although the beer was a risk. Alcohol lowered inhibitions, the kind that kept a man from pulling the trigger. It could increase his depression. But it could also make him sleepy, careless.

  Two hours later the whole thing was over. Leonard had drunk his six-pack and collapsed weeping. The neighbor woman wrenched the gun out of his hand and fled the house; SWAT members stormed in. His wife, also sobbing, had tried to protect him from the big bad cops.

  Hell, she’d probably take him back again when he got out of prison next time.

  Jon made a statement to the press lauding the courage of the children and the neighbor woman, praising the professional conduct of his officers and the skill the negotiator had employed in talking Mr. Ullman down. Then he returned to his office and called Sierra.

  “I saw stuff on TV,” she said. “Were you there?”

  “No. I spend most of my time behind a desk these days.”

  “Were you ever on the SWAT team?”

  “Yes. I did a few years.” Going in, it had seemed glamorous, but he hadn’t liked the job. He wasn’t into the adrenaline the way some cops were. Homicide had suited him much better.

  “I’m glad you’re not doing it anymore,” Sierra told him. “It looks scary.”

  They talked a little. He told her about the intense training and planning, the teamwork, the bulletproof vests, but admitted she was right. Being the first one through the door was risky.

  “Leonard Ullman just got out of prison a month ago,” he said.

  Sierra caught on right away and said indignantly, “And you think because he did something like this that Lucy’s mom will.”

  “No,” he admitted. “I don’t think that. I didn’t say that. This is your turn to listen. What I’m telling you is that this is the kind of thing that gives me a certain bias.”

  After a moment his daughter said, “Okay.” Just that. One word. Thoughtful. And then, “Are you coming over tonight?”

  “No, I’m speaking to—” he couldn’t even remember and had to glance at his calendar “—a youth advocates group.”

  “Oh. Tomorrow night?” she asked hopefully.

  “Jaycees.” Jon rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Sierra. I’ll call.”

  “Okay,” she said again, but this time he heard her vulnerability.

  A now familiar wave of inadequacy washed over him. “I really am sorry.”

  “No, Dad, I meant okay,” she said more sturdily.

  He promised one more time to call tomorrow, then hung up.

  He was tied up every night this week until Saturday. Tomorrow was going to be a bitch, but…what if Wednesday he showed up at Lucy’s store with lunch in hand? Would she give him the time of day?

  There was only one way to find out, wasn’t there?

  His depression didn’t lift.

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON, Lucy felt good about the day when she flipped the sign to Closed. Receipts were way up from the past couple of Tuesdays, and she’d adopted out the young mother cat to a nice family who had just bought their first house. They’d come looking for a kitten, but fallen in love with Ellabelle.

  Her mom wasn’t working today, and Sierra would be home from school. One or the other would have started dinner, thank goodness. That was the best part of no longer living alone. Lucy liked to cook, but not when she’d had a long day at work.

  As long as she didn’t think about Jon, everything was fine and she had no excuse for feeling down. It wasn’t as if she and Jon were serious before the blowup. Maybe they wouldn’t ever have gotten serious. She’d always known their relationship had developed partly because of good old-fashioned proximity. He wanted to spend time with his daughter—ergo he spent time with Lucy, too. And the idea of the three of them being a family was seductive.

  She was the foolish one, letting herself fall in love so fast. Live and learn, she thought, but wasn’t sure she’d actually learned a thing.

  She was half a block away from her house when, horrified, s
he abruptly focused on the TV truck parked in front. No. Two TV trucks from competing stations.

  Her cell phone rang. She fumbled for it as she continued past her house and turned the corner to circle the block. She managed to get the phone open as she reached the alley.

  “Lucy?” Sierra’s voice was small and scared. “Are you coming home soon?”

  “I’m here. I saw. You haven’t talked to them, have you?” Lucy turned into the alley.

  “No. I mean, I started to open the door and then freaked and closed it as fast as I could.”

  “We need to call your dad.” She stopped the car behind her back fence. Another car could squeeze by if need be, and this wasn’t garbage day. Usually she wouldn’t leave her car there, but it would be fine for now.

  “I tried, but it kicked right to voice mail.”

  “Okay.” Getting out of her car, she felt dizzy. Don’t hyperventilate. “I’m sneaking in the back way.”

  A voice shouted, “Ms. Malone. Are you Ms. Malone?”

  An attractive blonde woman with a microphone was racing down the alley, a cameraman lumbering behind. Every instinct urged Lucy to run, but that would look guilty. As if she had something to hide.

  She whisked into her yard, closed the gate in the picket fence to give herself a barrier however puny and waited until the breathless reporter reached her. Then she said, “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “Ms. Lucia Malone?”

  Heart drumming, she said, “That’s right.” Although she didn’t look at it, she could see from the corner of her eye that the camera lens was trained on her.

  “Records indicate you have a foster daughter, Sierra Lind.”

  “I do.”

  “We understand that Sierra’s father is, in fact, in the picture. That he’s a regular visitor to your home.”

  Lying wasn’t an option. Jon would now have to come clean, Lucy presumed. But that was up to him. As mad as she was at him, she wouldn’t do anything to hurt him—or to damage his chance of being elected.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sierra is a minor and entitled to privacy. I don’t know where you got your information, but I’m not going to confirm or deny it. Please excuse me.” She turned and hurried toward the house, spinning around only when she heard the squeak of the gate latch behind her.