by Maggie Marr
“Are you asking me if it’s true?”
Tulsa nodded.
Cade crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his chin toward her.
“He’s losing his mind,” Cade said, just above the din of the noise. “Dr. Bob diagnosed him with dementia. Said it will only get worse.”
Tulsa’s mind lingered on the thought of an incapacitated Hudd. She didn’t like him and more than a tiny part of her—a part she wished didn’t exist but a part she couldn’t deny—had wished ill on the man that she believed responsible for her mother’s death. But she didn’t wish ill on Cade—had never wished ill on him.
Her eyes wandered over his face. The worn look in his eyes, the expression that represented too little sleep and too much worry. She wanted to hug him—help him—she wanted the facts to be different so they were on the same side and she could help Cade through his pain. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head to the side, her face an expression of calm.
“Where’d you find him?”
The skin across Cade’s jaw tightened. He stared beyond her, toward Bobby and Ash, a distance in his eyes. Cade pressed his lips together. He didn’t look at her when he answered and his usually loose-limbed body was held tight.
“Yampa Valley Road.”
A shiver raced up Tulsa’s spine and tingled out into her arms and fingers.
“Far from the house?” Tulsa pressed.
“He got to the Dobson place, not far from mile marker—”
“Seventy-eight Tulsa finished Cade’s sentence. The back of her throat tightened with the words and the noise of the arcade for an instant seemed to drop away, dulled by the thoughts pounding through her head.
“Why would he go to that spot?” A rhetorical question, except she wanted an answer. Needed an answer. At the very least she wanted Cade to consider what she thought to be the truth. A truth that Cade fervently denied was anything more than the wisps of rumor he believed them to be.
“Because he’s losing his mind.” Cade’s words ground out hard and sharp-edged. His eyes held no empathy, no doubt—his eyes held only solid seriousness when he turned his gaze toward her. And anger.
Her heart jolted with the expression that simmered in Cade’s eyes. His jaw was angled down, his neck tight.
“He’s merged rumor with reality.”
Tulsa pulled her arms tighter across her chest, across her heart. A heart she’d fought once before to rebuild after it shattered.
“Or he can’t remember how to lie anymore,” Tulsa said. She braced herself against Cade’s words, his anger, against the past, against the future, against the world. “Did he say anything when you found him?”
Something hard and hidden flickered in Cade’s eyes. The shiver passed through Tulsa again.
“Nothing important,” Cade finally said.
And in that moment, Tulsa McGrath knew—beyond any reasonable doubt—she knew that Cade Montgomery lied.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Midmorning light glimmered through the beveled glass in the French doors that led to the backyard. The light spotted the kitchen table with wobbly squares. Earlier that morning, when Ash exited the front door for school and Savannah exited the back door for her workshop, Tulsa felt more than the simple hints of crisp chill in the air. The cold was not yet bitter, but it bore down on the warmth of the sun, nearly ready to eclipse the heat until next summer.
Tulsa clasped her warm coffee cup tighter in her right hand and twirled her pen over the knuckles of her left. She’d listened to the entire morning conference. She’d even added comments, but her mind was barely present. She couldn’t roust Cade from her thoughts.
His demeanor at the arcade after Hudd had turned up wandering down Yampa Valley Road, in the same spot where almost two decades before Connie had been found nearly dead, cast a stain upon her. Cade’s mood had felt like a solid mass of anger—displeasure—something that was cold, hard, and impenetrable. Maybe what she felt seeping from Cade was his denial. Denial that sat like a monolith in his mind—cool and smooth, dark and solid—a giant block that Cade used to deflect past events. Events that seemed so clear to Tulsa. Events that Tulsa wanted confirmed. Events that clamored through her mind and grew louder with the need for the truth.
Many times in her mind, Tulsa constructed the night her mother died. Recreated the deep green weeds that ran beside Yampa Valley Road in the spring. The chill of a night late in April that, after a rain, contained the tiniest hint of damp in the air. The earth squishy beneath Connie’s brown leather boots as she stumbled down the highway in the darkness. Tulsa watched the glimmer of headlights round a curve. The bright lights from the car bounced off Connie’s fair skin and the black curls that fell down her back. Her sharp-cut jaw turning on her long neck, her hands cupping up over her eyes to see the car. The sudden screech of rubber on pavement. The inevitable jerk of the wheel. Then silence.
“Right, Tulsa?”
Tulsa jerked her head up, her movement scattering her thoughts. She looked straight into her computer screen where Sylvia, Emma, and Jo waited for her response.
“Sorry guys,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She cleared her throat. Her mind thick with speculated memories, she shook her head the tiniest bit. “I got distracted.”
“Settlement conference?” Emma asked.
Tulsa nodded. She didn’t want to discuss Cade, finding Wilkes, or Hudd wandering to the exact spot that her mother’s body was found—not yet.
Jo flipped closed the cover of her iPad in acknowledgement that the staff meeting was finished.
“That will be tough.” Emma slipped her gaze toward Sylvia. “What’ll you do while they’re at the conference?”
“Work on the Fuentes brief.” Or go visit the Powder Springs DA.
Jo clasped her hands in front of her on the table. “Is there anything we can do?”
Tulsa rested her temple on the fist of her hand. “Hope that the tentative agreement gets signed and approved. If Bobby agrees to Savannah keeping sole custody then she’ll agree to Ash getting every other weekend and every Wednesday with Bobby.”
“Your sister has come a long way since you got there,” Sylvia said.
“He’s good with Ash,” Tulsa said. “I’ve told Savannah that.” Tulsa turned her now-empty coffee cup in her hand. “I think eventually they could have a really solid father-daughter relationship.”
Her heart fluttered with her words. She hoped. She prayed. Tulsa, even with all her success, still felt the bottomless absence of a dad—a father in her life. A man who loved her and protected her. A man who thought she hung the stars and the moon. She wanted that for Ash. Tulsa wanted the security that came with knowing that there was always one man in the world that loved you no matter what.
“He must be doing a good job for you to say so,” Sylvia said.
“Anything new with…” Emma’s words drifted off. She left her question open-ended so that Tulsa might fill in the unspoken words about any topic she wanted.
A weariness drifted through Tulsa. A fatigue that weighted her limbs. Was this grief? Grief that she’d not allowed herself to feel because she’d been too busy slogging uphill, first through school and then in a career? She could let Emma’s open-ended question slide by. She could shut them out. She could, as she had done in the past, not tell her friends about her family and her personal life.
But their eyes were so alert, their faces so tuned in, all three of them. Their brows crinkled with concern, eyes intense with warmth and caring, mouths pursed with waiting words to be offered in support.
These three women, Sylvia, Emma, and Jo, waited to help—they waited, she knew, for her to let them. In the past, she now realized, she’d been too fearful to let them too close. Unwilling to make herself vulnerable to them and their potential judgment of her family, of her mother, of her. But these three sets of eyes weren’t filled with judgment. These three sets of eyes were filled with kindness, love, and concern. This time she
would engage, this time she would reach out, this time she would open herself to these three women she trusted.
Tulsa pressed her palms flat onto the table. “I found the only known witness to my mother’s death.” The words rushed out from her like water breaching a levee.
“You found Wilkes Stevenson.” Jo’s words skipped out fast.
Jo was a former ADA, a brilliant prosecutor, and a protective friend. By now Jo probably knew Connie’s case forward and backward. Jo’s restraint, evidenced by the fact that she hadn’t called Tulsa and set forth a plan to go about investigating Connie’s case, was testament to Jo’s love and respect for Tulsa, because once Jo determined something that she was after she was like a hungry leopard looking for a kill. Unshakable.
“I found Wilkes’s daughter,” Tulsa said. “I still haven’t heard from Wilkes.”
“I could call the DA in Powder Springs,” Jo jetted out. “Would it be easier for you if I made that call?”
Easier? Yes. But while Tulsa wanted to include her colleagues, her friends, she didn’t want them to take over her battle.
“I may.” Tulsa ran her tongue over her lips and looked at her whitened fingertips that still pressed against the wooden table, then looked back to her friends. “I mean, I am going by the DA’s office today.”
Once Tulsa saw Kyle Edwards, the Powder Springs DA, the reopening of Connie’s case became real—official.
“We’re here,” Emma said, “when you need us.”
Tulsa nodded. To need anyone, for Tulsa, was a dangerous thing.
*
Bobby and Savannah’s custody conference should have been easy. The conference should have gone smoothly. The conference should have been finished painlessly and with speed.
But that was before.
Before Bobby Hopkins showed up in Cade’s office early afternoon. Before Bobby told Cade about the changes in his life. Before this sick and sour feeling settled in the pit of Cade’s gut with the knowledge of what he had to do.
For a single second, Cade paused in the doorway of the conference room. Savannah sat beside Bradford. Her lips carried strain with the tight little lines that flared out from her mouth, but her eyes seemed softer, not filled with as much fury. Instead, a hint of resignation resided in her eyes. Bradford sat loose-limbed, pleased with the prospect of an agreed-upon settlement that saved Ash from testifying.
Yes, this conference should have been easy—but it wouldn’t be.
Cade slid into the room and reached across the table. He first shook Savannah’s and then Bradford’s hand.
“I had my office draw up the custody agreement,” Bradford began, “based on our discussions. “ He withdrew crisp white papers from his briefcase. “We’ll leave them with you; you can sign them and then we’ll get them filed.”
Savannah’s lips were no longer tight but her eyes held a resigned uncertainty.
“We’re pleased Ash won’t have to testify,” Bradford said, “and Judge Wilder will be pleased as well. No one wants a teenaged girl to have to pick a parent.”
Cade bit down on the inside of his right cheek and the tiny muscle in his jaw flinched. Yes, no one wanted a teenaged girl to make such a choice—to carry such a heavy burden as to choose one parent over the other. Cade too had been happy when it seemed Savannah and Bobby had an agreement.
“Things have…” Cade held the agreement in his left hand and glanced down at the white pages and then back up into Savannah’s eyes. “Things have substantially changed for my client.”
The smile on Bradford’s face, the smile indicating a happiness over the closure of this case, the smile that echoed his client’s confidence that they were doing what was in the best interest of Ash—that effervescent smile evaporated from Bradford’s face.
“How so?” Bradford asked.
“Mr. Hopkins has found a job,” Cade said. “In Alaska. A job that he’s accepted. “
Hope sprang into Savannah’s eyes. She didn’t see the kicker—at least not yet. Savannah thought Bobby would be gone, that life would return to how it had been before Bobby had come home to Powder Springs—that she and Ash and even Tulsa could return to the normalcy of their lives, but Bradford knew. Bradford lifted his brow. The hint of a smirk decorated the right side of his mouth. He knew what was coming—he’d read the tells—and steadied himself against the gut punch on its way to being landed.
“And my client,” Cade continued, “wants to take his daughter with him.”
The moment of silence after Cade’s statement felt all at once infinite and fleeting. Savannah’s face shifted. First her eyes and brows rose with her head cocked. Then a sense of confusion rolled off her. Slowly, as Cade’s statement registered, her mouth opened and with a quick gasp of breath her fingers clamped down on the tabletop as if she grappled for something to hold.
Savannah looked at Bradford, who had molded his face back to the steely, impenetrable, emotionless look of an attorney. Gone was the joviality of the moment where he thought that the best interest of both his client and her daughter would be served. When Savannah witnessed Bradford’s look—that this was no joke but a shift in reality that infringed on her and her daughter’s future—her face hardened and the surprise dropped from her eyes. Her confusion was replaced by the deeply etched hardness of McGrath will and the undercurrent of McGrath temper.
“That is completely unacceptable,” Bradford said. His tone held no edge, just a stark, simple hardness that conveyed a fact. “But you know that. There is no way my client will agree to allowing her fourteen-year-old daughter to move to Alaska with a man Ash has known for a matter of weeks.”
Cade nodded and took a breath. He did know.
Bradford closed his briefcase. There was no anger—he was too much of a pro to be angry—but there was disappointment, on both sides. What had seemed to be a quick and easy settlement conference had, with the wishes of Cade’s client, once again become a highly contested custody battle.
“I’ll let the court know we’ve failed to reach an agreement.” Bradford stood and Savannah did, as well. Her gaze was steely, but she wobbled a tiny bit as though still dazed by Bobby’s blow. “You’ll make your client aware of the disruptive nature of this request with regards to Ash and her life here?” Bradford’s eyes flicked from Cade’s face to Bobby’s.
“Mr. Hopkins has spoken to his daughter.” Cade looked at Savannah. He knew the next words would wound—and for that very reason wished he didn’t have to say them. “It would seem this is something that Ash wants, too.”
The gasp of air from Savannah confirmed Cade’s suspicion.
“We’ll speak to my client’s daughter and be prepared for the hearing next week.”
Cade nodded. He didn’t move to open the door. Savannah wouldn’t meet his gaze. He simply stood and watched them walk away.
*
Tulsa didn’t expect the Powder Springs district attorney to welcome her. When she showed up at Kyle Edwards’s office in the middle of the day, without an appointment, she anticipated that Kyle’s assistant would unceremoniously toss her out on her ass and refuse her entry until she made a proper appointment.
Kyle surprised her.
He now sat across from her at his desk. He was a short man and in high school, an even shorter boy. He hadn’t received the perks reserved for Powder Springs athletes: no easy summer jobs, no beautiful teenaged girls to complete his homework, no back-slapping congratulations. Instead, Kyle worked hard for everything he wanted. He worked his way straight through college and all the way to a law degree. Then he returned to Powder Springs and worked his way through a campaign for district attorney that everyone told him he couldn’t win. Instead of believing the naysayers, he proved them wrong and won the election. Twice. Kyle had been the Powder Springs DA for the last seven years. So at least Kyle had a bit of pluck. An underdog who’d made good. Tulsa hoped she’d find an ally in Kyle Edwards.
“You need to reopen the Connie McGrath case,” Tulsa said.
/> Kyle’s mouth dropped open for a millisecond before he hid the surprise on his face. He leaned back in his chair and pressed together his fingertips.
“You have new evidence?”
“A witness.”
His eyes flickered with interest and his lips twisted the tiniest bit before he spoke. “This case happened way before my tenure as a DA, but it’s one of those cases that still bothers me. I read the file when I got elected, and Tulsa, I gotta say there wasn’t much to go on. There was Connie brought into the hospital where she…” His eyes jumped to hers and a sudden knowledge made him pause. He caught himself as though he suddenly remembered that he was speaking not just about any other victim, but in fact he was speaking about Tulsa’s mother. Kyle cleared his throat and his gaze flickered away from Tulsa’s face. When his eyes again met Tulsa’s, they were softer and his tone held a hint of reverence. “Where she never regained consciousness.”
Tulsa swallowed around the tightly clamped ball in her throat.
“Then there were the rumors,” Kyle continued. His voice got lower, almost as though someone might eavesdrop and hear his words. “About Hudd and also Wilkes Stevenson.”
Kyle moved forward in his chair. He placed his forearms on his desk and leaned over the calendar ink blotter where he’d scribbled illegible notes on the different days. “But Hudd?” Kyle nearly whispered. He tilted his jaw down and raised both brows so that the lines that formed on his forehead were like dunes in the sand. “Hudd had an airtight alibi. Wilkes? He up and disappeared before the sheriff could question him.”
“Wilkes is on the edge of Yampa National Forest.”
“Excuse me?”
“Wilkes and his family have lived in the same house for the last fifteen years.” Tulsa held her tone even but felt the tiniest tension in her lips. “I can think of only one reason why he wasn’t questioned.” She hardened her gaze as if daring Kyle to ask.
