by Katie Ruggle
“Yes, please.” He gave his mug a small nudge in her direction. The beige stranger had a voice as unremarkable as the rest of him. “I’m Norman Rounds.”
“Jules,” she replied automatically as she poured his coffee. Although she hadn’t blurted out her last name, she still mentally reprimanded herself. Julie Jackson. Julie Jackson. Julie Jackson. Juliet Young was no more, and her family’s safety depended on her remembering that.
Norman’s voice brought her out of her head. “I’m visiting Monroe for the first time. Is there anything in particular I should see while I’m here?”
“Sorry.” With an apologetic grimace, she held her arms out in an I’ve-got-nothing gesture. “I just moved here, so I’m not much help. You could ask them.” Without actually looking at the cops, she tilted her head toward their table.
Ignoring her suggestion, he asked, “You’re new here? Where’re you from?”
“Arkansas.” The lie rolled off her tongue, and she resisted the urge to smile proudly. That was better. Now she just had to learn to do that when faced with a cute cop.
“Really?” Norman’s tone barely changed, but the faintest note of skepticism made all of Jules’s inner alarms began to blare. Why would he question that? Norman’s manner had been just a little bit too casual, his voice carefully disinterested. She stared at him, as if her gaze could strip off his overly normal exterior and reveal his true intentions. Had her stepmother hired him? Was he a private investigator? He couldn’t be—right?
Jules took an automatic step back, trying to calm her racing mind and think of how to answer, what to say to keep the stranger from being suspicious—unless it was too late. Norman shifted ever so slightly, his body tensing as the mild mask slipped, revealing a focused expression that had her blaring alarms going into overdrive. What if he already knew? Although she tried to tell herself she was being paranoid again, it didn’t work. Her instincts were telling her that this man was off, and she needed to listen to them.
She opened her mouth, still unsure of the best way to reply, when a growly voice interrupted. “What’s going on here?”
Her head whipped around. Theo was standing right next to her, so close that his arm was almost touching hers. This time, however, Theo’s glare wasn’t directed at her. Instead, all of his angry attention was focused on Norman.
“Are you bothering this woman?” Theo demanded, shifting so that he was ever so slightly in front of Jules, as if shielding her from harm.
A rush of relief and gratitude hit her. Theo’s take-charge manner was exponentially more attractive when he was defending her, rather than when she was the target of his interrogation.
Norman’s bland expression had returned, which upped Jules’s suspicions even more. A normal person would at least flinched. As she knew from first-hand experience, Theo was hugely intimidating. “Of course not. Jules and I were just getting to know each other.”
With Theo’s back to her, Jules couldn’t see his expression, but there was disbelief in the tight lines of his shoulders. His very broad shoulders. Jules quickly shook the thought out of her head. Now was not the time. In fact, there was never a good time for her to be attracted to a cop.
“Why don’t you just let her do her job?” Theo’s voice was even and calm, but there was a menace to him that would’ve left her shaking if it had been directed at her.
Instead of looking worried, though, Norman sounded almost amused. “Of course. Carry on, Jules. We can talk later.”
“No,” Theo clipped. “No talking later. Just eat your breakfast peacefully and then leave.”
There was a tense silence before Norman said, “Sure.”
After a long second, Theo turned to face Jules, and she was startled by his proximity. It wasn’t nearly as scary as it had been earlier, though, when Megan had saved her from Theo. Now Theo had turned into her hero…and the oddness of that made her smile. Theo’s gaze lowered to her mouth, pausing there for a moment before he abruptly turned and headed back to his booth.
Jules watched him join the other two cops, who were eyeing Theo with curiosity. Looking up, Hugh caught Jules’s gaze. His expression changed before she could get a bead on what he was thinking, and he widened his eyes in an exaggerated pleading expression. “Can we order now? Please? We’re so hungry it’s possible we might die if we’re not fed soon.”
Residual relief made her smile. The third cop whose name she didn’t know looked amused, but Theo’s scowl had returned, even more ferocious than usual.
“Be right there,” she called, her voice only slightly shaky. Turning back to Norman, she gave him a quick, insincere smile. “I’ll be back in a minute to take your order.” Before he could respond, she darted away toward the counter.
She returned the coffeepot to its warming station and pulled her notebook and pen from her pocket. As she hurried over to take the cops’ order, she marveled that she was relieved to be at Theo’s table when, just five minutes earlier, she’d been anxious to leave it.
In this new life of hers, pretty much everything was a threat. She tried not to glance at Norman three booths over as she smiled at the three cops—including her crabby, reluctant hero. “Sorry about the wait. What can I get you?”
It was all a matter of what—or who—was the biggest threat.
* * *
“Viggy, here!”
The Belgian Malinois huddled in a forlorn heap on the far side of his kennel. He didn’t even turn his head at the command. As Theo stared at the dog, guilt and grief churning inside him, chewing away at his carefully constructed wall of numbness, he resisted the urge to punch the concrete wall dividing the enclosures. Damn you, Don.
“Can’t really blame him.”
Hands fisting, Theo whirled to face Hugh.
“Just saying,” Hugh continued in his calm voice. “He’s lost Don. It’ll be hard for him to trust that you won’t leave him, too.”
Although Hugh pretended to be talking about Viggy, Theo knew the words were directed toward him, were about him. The well-meant but heavy-handed platitude made Theo want to punch Hugh in the throat. Theo should be used to that urge, though, since he’d been feeling it pretty much constantly—about everyone with whom he came into contact—for almost two months. Closing his eyes, Theo took in an audible breath through his nose, grasping for calm. It wasn’t in him anymore, though. There was no serenity, no peace. All he had to offer was guilt and rage and grief and barely leashed violence. He took a second breath, determined to fake it.
“I know.” That sounded almost calm, although the way Hugh’s mouth tucked in at one corner showed that his friend knew Theo was faking it. Giving up on convincing Hugh that he wasn’t a raging mess, Theo turned back to the dog.
“Viggy.” There wasn’t even a twitch of an ear. “Here.”
“Calling him isn’t working. You need to go get him, or he’ll just keep ignoring your commands.”
Although Hugh’s tone was even and not judgmental at all, a surge of anger flashed through Theo. He knew too well how Viggy felt, the bone-deep sadness that made it impossible for anything else to matter. If he went and forced Viggy out of his corner, it wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t bring Don back. It wouldn’t make Viggy accept that Theo was his partner.
“No,” he snapped. It sounded harsh to his own ears, so Theo tried again, attempting to moderate his tone for the second time in as many minutes. “Thanks for the advice, but there’s no point.”
“The point is that you have to figure out a way to get through to him or you’ll never be partners.”
Partners. His insides flinched. Partners died, leaving Theo and Viggy behind to try to scrape together what remained of their battered souls. Partnerships were overrated. It’d be better—safer—to continue to walk a solitary path. He glanced at the huddled dog, the very picture of misery. Viggy had already figured that out. Why was Theo even trying to bon
d with the dog? He could never replace Don, especially now that Theo was a hollowed-out, useless shell.
Unable to say anything or even look at Hugh, Theo turned and stalked out of the kennel. Alone.
Chapter 4
Five Days Earlier
As the School Resource Officer led Jules to the office, she shivered. Although she tried to blame it on the cranked air-conditioning, she knew the cold air wasn’t the reason. This was it. These were her last few seconds to change her mind, to not go down the road of crime. Even as she thought it, though, she knew there was no turning back. Sam, Tio, Ty, and Dez needed to get out of that house.
With the SRO’s attention fixed on the hall in front of him, Jules forcefully rubbed her eyes, trying to generate some redness. Her acting skills were minimal, and tears-on-command were way beyond her abilities. There was a reason she’d been stage manager rather than the female lead in her high school’s production of Bye-Bye, Birdie.
“Thank you,” she told the SRO as she stepped through the office door he held open for her. He gave her a nod acknowledging her thanks and then left. Mrs. Juarez was behind the high counter, just as she’d been for the three years Jules had attended Lincoln High School and probably twenty years before that.
“Hi, Mrs. Juarez.”
Recognition lit the older woman’s face. “Juliet Young! How good to see you again.”
“You too.” Despite the circumstances, Jules felt a flicker of nostalgia. “How are you?”
Mrs. Juarez rolled her eyes. “It’s the usual zoo here. There are always those few troublemakers, but I suppose they make life interesting. Not that you would know anything about being a problem child, since you were always an angel. What brings you in here?”
It wasn’t hard to put a quaver in her voice. “My dad…isn’t doing well. Courtney is with him, so I told her I’d pick up the kids and bring them to the hospital.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Mrs. Juarez hurried around to the front of the counter and enveloped her in a hug, sending a wave of guilt crashing over Jules. “You poor things.”
“Thank you.” She forced a smile, feeling like the worst scum in the universe. The thought that Mrs. Juarez might be blamed for releasing the kids to her occurred to Jules, and she forced the fresh surge of guilt from her mind. “Could you get the boys out of class?”
After a final squeeze, Mrs. Juarez released her and bustled behind the counter to sit in front of her computer screen. “Of course. Let’s see…Sebastian is in Mr. Hendrick’s class first period, Horatio is with Ms. Garnett and…sorry, dear, what’s your other brother’s name?”
Jules was impressed she knew two out of three off the top of her head. “Titus.”
“How could I forget that little scoundrel?” Mrs. Juarez chuckled, tapping at the keyboard. Ty must not have done anything too bad, though, judging by her amused tone.
As Mrs. Juarez made the calls to the three classrooms, Jules caught herself before she could start to fidget, to shift from foot to foot and play with her fingers. She forced herself to be still, not wanting her twitchiness to give away her nerves. If her father really had been hospitalized, it would be understandable for Jules to be upset, but there’d be no reason for her to be nervous.
It was just a few minutes before Tio arrived, quickly followed by Sam and Ty. Only Tio opened his arms for a hug, but Jules wasn’t surprised. Sam didn’t care to be touched, and Ty was at the stage where he found public hugs embarrassing. She squeezed Tio, pulling his lanky body close and getting a momentary release from the tension that gripped her insides.
“Thank you, Mrs. Juarez,” she called over her shoulder as they left, trying to resist shoving the boys out the door. Their presence made the plan seem suddenly plausible, and she wanted to grab all three and tear out of the school.
“Of course, dear. Please tell your father I’m thinking of him.”
“I will.” Giving the receptionist a final, forced smile, Jules closed the office door behind them and hurried after her brothers. They obviously felt the same need to flee, since she had to jog to keep up with their long strides. That could’ve also been because even the twins, at fifteen, were significantly taller than she was.
All four of them were quiet as they pushed through the exterior doors and stepped into the muggy heat. When Ty opened his mouth, Jules shook her head. Even outside the school, she felt the creeping sense of being watched. She wondered if she’d feel secure when they were in her car, or when they had left Florida, or maybe when they were ensconced in their new lodgings. Something told her that she’d never feel completely safe again, but she quickly slammed the door on that thought. This was getaway time. She needed to concentrate on that.
She opened the trunk with a press of the key-fob button, and the guys tossed in their backpacks. Tio grunted as he swung his off his shoulder, and Jules’ eyebrows rose as she looked at his overstuffed pack. The zippers looked like they were straining to stay closed. As she shut the trunk, she just hoped he’d included a change of clothes along with whatever other must-brings he’d packed.
The silence continued until they were loaded into the car, the twins in the back, and Jules had turned out of the parking lot onto a quiet, residential street.
“T-thanks, Ju.” Sam’s voice was the first to break the silence.
Unable to resist, Jules reached over to squeeze his arm. She released him quickly, before he could get uncomfortable and pull away from her touch. “Sorry I couldn’t get y’all sooner.”
“That’s because you had to go all outlaw to get it done,” Ty said, bouncing in his seat. “That was awesome, like a prison break or something.”
When Tio didn’t say anything, Jules glanced at his tense face in the rearview mirror. “You okay, T?”
Several seconds passed before he answered. Jules bounced her gaze between the road and her youngest half brother’s face.
“It was difficult to decide what to pack,” he finally said.
Jules chewed on the inside of her lip. It figured that this would be hardest on Tio, since Courtney mostly left him alone. Change wasn’t his favorite thing. “I know. Are you in the middle of a project?”
He nodded. “Seed dormancy. I’m working on reducing pre-harvest sprouting.”
“Sorry you had to leave it.” Attempting to lighten his mood, she sent him a smile in the rearview. “Unless that’s what you have stuffed in your backpack?”
Although she’d been joking, his response was solemn. “No. I brought the data files, though.”
Her stomach lurched. “You didn’t bring your laptop, did you?”
“Course not,” Ty answered for him. “We didn’t bring any electronics that could be traced. T’s stuff is on a flash drive. Oh, and I turned on all our cell phones and hid them on the Gator the groundskeeper guy uses. That way, it’ll look like we’re at school if someone tries to track us with the phones.”
“Smart, Ty.”
He shrugged, obviously trying to look less pleased at the praise than he actually was. “It was Sam’s idea.”
Turning into the St. Francis School parking lot, she glanced at Sam. “Good thinking, Sam.”
His head was turned toward the window, so she couldn’t see his expression. “I saw it in a m-m-m…” His frustrated exhale was audible. “On TV.”
Frowning, she pulled into a visitor’s parking spot. The stuttering worried her, but so did grabbing Dez, and kidnapping trumped speech problems at the moment. “I have new phones for you. First, though, let’s get Dez.”
Ty whooped and reached for the door handle.
“Hang on.” All three boys looked at her. “Sad faces. Dad’s in the hospital, remember?” Sam and Tio already had their mournful expressions in place, and Ty tried to mute his excitement, with mixed results. “Hmm. Ty, maybe just keep your head down. You guys ready?” All three nodded. “Let’s go.”
Just like at the high school, silence fell over their group as they entered St. Francis. The office was right past the door, and they filed inside, Jules at the front.
“May I help you?” The woman behind the desk wore a dark suit and a crucifix. Her nameplate announced that she was Sister Mary Augustine. Jules randomly wondered whether lying to a nun was an automatic go-directly-to-hell card, and then pinched the back of her hand sharply to refocus her wandering brain.
“Yes. I’m Juliet Young, Desdemona Courtland’s sister.” She realized that she’d forgotten to redden her eyes before leaving the car. “Our father went to the hospital this morning, and my stepmother asked if I could pick up Dez and bring her there.”
This time, Jules didn’t get a hug. Instead, Sister Mary Augustine frowned at her before turning to her computer. After a few tense seconds with the only sound being the click of the mouse, she shook her head.
“You’re not on the list.”
Jules insides jumped. She’d been afraid of that. If Mrs. Juarez had checked her brothers’ approved-pick-up list, Jules wouldn’t have been on that one, either. If not for stealthy visits and burner phones, she wouldn’t have any relationship with her siblings at all. Ever since Jules had started her crusade to get custody, Courtney had gone from simply hating her stepdaughter to loathing her with the power of a thousand suns.
“Oh.” She feigned surprise. “Well, her brothers are all here. Are Sebastian, Horatio or Titus on the list?”
