Текст книги "Sinful Desire"
Автор книги: Lauren Blakely
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 20 страниц)
Chapter Eighteen
An elderly woman with curly gray hair opened the faded red door of the ranch-style home and waved goodbye to the man inside. “See you at the recital.”
“You’re going to be great. Your ‘Für Elise’ is fantastic.”
The voice blasted Ryan back in time, like a slingshot to the end of junior high. Luke Carlton, older, grayer, and paunchier, turned to Ryan as the woman ambled down the steps on the way to her car.
“Ryan Sloan,” Luke said and extended a hand. He wasn’t surprised to see Ryan, nor should he be.
Ryan had made an appointment for a piano lesson. He hadn’t used the name he’d had growing up—Ryan Paige-Prince—but Luke clearly knew who he was. He suspected that was a result of the reopened investigation.
Even so, Ryan’s legs felt wobbly and his stomach plummeted. It was as if he was having an out-of-body experience and someone else was grasping the palm of this brown-eyed man in khaki slacks and a sky blue Tommy Bahama shirt.
His mother’s ex-lover.
“Come in,” Luke said, letting go and gesturing to the home he’d lived in for the last five years. Before this meeting, Ryan had run a security check on Luke Carlton. He was only a few years older than Dora Prince, and he’d bought this home with his wife. Ryan didn't know how long Luke had been married, though.
“My kids are at camp,” Luke said as they walked through the living room. Okay, he’d been with her long enough to procreate. “Wife’s out grocery shopping. I take it you’re not really interested in a piano lesson?”
Ryan shrugged a shoulder. “Sometimes I think about taking it up.”
“Lots of adults do. Half my business these days is from adults who decide they’ve always wanted to learn how to play.” He guided Ryan through the kitchen. The sink was stacked with plates. Eggs had been served for breakfast. A loaf of rye bread was on the counter, a twist tie keeping it closed. An odd sense of the surreal descended on him. Everything about Luke’s home was so…normal. From the blinds that hung on the living room windows, to the beige couch with an indentation on it in front of a large TV screen, to scattered pictures of his kids and his wife, many of them on a beach, playing in the sand and surf.
Luke led him to an office area, with a baby grand piano, a couch, a chair, and a writing table.
“We might as well chat here,” Luke said and claimed a spot on the piano bench. He gestured to a wooden chair.
Ryan hardly wanted to sit. He didn’t want to stand. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He stuffed them into the pockets of his pants. He was used to talking to clients, to pitching the need for security services, to giving orders to troops in Europe during his days in the army.
But talking to his mother’s former lover from eighteen years ago gave uncomfortable new meaning. His throat was parched, and his tongue barely worked. But somehow, he found the ability to speak. “My dad’s case was reopened. The detective asked me about you and your relationship with my mom.” Ryan jumped right in, hitting the key points without mincing words.
Luke nodded. “I am aware of that. I met him, too. Winston. Seems sharp.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said, simply to say something. “What does he know? Did you tell him how you knew my mom?”
“I told him we were in love, yes. And that it had been a mistake, since she was married,” Luke said, clasping his hands together. “I still ask God every day for forgiveness for having fallen in love with a married woman.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Ryan said, because he wasn’t here to talk about contrition for cheating. “I’m talking about her drug problem. The cocaine. That she got it from Stefano. Do they know?”
This was the first time he’d said those words aloud in nearly twenty years—drugs. Cocaine. That Stefano was her dealer. When he was in seventh grade, a year before the shooting, Ryan came home early from school on a half-day that his mom had forgotten about. He found her cutting lines at her sewing table. With a rolled-up dollar bill, she’d leaned in and inhaled a line of white powder off her Singer machine.
He stood in the door, his jaw hanging open. “Mom?”
She raised her chin. Her green eyes were glassy, but the stunned look in them said she hadn’t expected him home.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” she said and started crying. She stood up and clasped her arms around him. “Please, this is my last time. I’m trying to stop. I swear I’m going to stop. I promise.”
At that age, you believed your parents. You believed your mom even if she had powder up her nose. What else was he supposed to think? He was barely thirteen then, and all he knew was that his parents had been fighting, they barely had any money, and they lived in a shitty neighborhood.
She’d clutched him as if her life depended on it and begged him to never breathe a word.
In the months that had followed, she’d seemed determined to prove herself to him. She’d told him she was getting help, that she was going to Narcotics Anonymous, and that she had a sponsor for counseling and guidance. “Please, Ry. I’m trying so hard, baby. I’m trying so hard to fight these demons,” she’d say to him at night as he got under the gray cover in his twin bed. “Don’t tell your daddy please. He’d just worry. And don’t tell your brothers and sister. I’m so ashamed, and I want to get well again. I’ve got a sponsor and I’m going to meetings, and I swear I’m going to kick this habit. I owe some money to the guy I used to buy from, and I’m working extra for the local gymnastics team to earn enough to pay him back. Once I do, I swear I’ll be free of this.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” Ryan had said, battening down the hatches, locking up his brain, some sort of self-preservation kicking in. It was all he’d been able to do. Zip it up, keep it quiet, and never speak of what he saw.
He never said a word.
Even when she met Luke at those meetings. Even when she fell for another recovered addict. Even when she was first questioned by police, and it all came to light that she’d not only been having an affair with that former addict at the time of the murder, but that she’d made a string of phone calls for two months to a man named Jerry Stefano. Why was she talking to him so much, the cops wanted to know?
She’d begged Ryan again to stay quiet. She’d shut the door to his room, planted her hands on his shoulders, and given him instructions. “They haven’t found the person who shot your daddy. And they’re asking me all kinds of questions, and I’m petrified they’re going to try to frame me for his murder. You know what we talked about?”
Ryan had nodded as fear rippled through him.
“If the police know I used drugs, if they know I bought them from Jerry Stefano, it will look so much worse for me. They know I’ve been on the phone with Jerry for months. I’m going to have to tell a lie about all those phone calls. He’s been calling to collect money, and if they know I was buying from him, they’ll paint me as a druggie, murderer wife.”
“But wouldn’t they see you’re innocent if you tell them about the drugs? Won’t it be better to have them know you bought drugs than to have them think you planned a murder?” he’d asked, trying desperately to understand why she didn’t confess her secret.
She shook her head. Vehemently. “No. Never. Trust me. It will look worse, and I have to beat this rap. So I have no choice but to lie about Jerry. Luke is the only other one who knows the truth about those phone calls.”
Luke and Ryan.
That was all.
Now, years later as an adult, Ryan was asking the only other person who knew if he’d broken their silence. “Did you tell the detective that Stefano was her dealer?”
Luke shook his head, rose, and turned up the air conditioning in his piano room. The sound of the whirring grew louder, as if Luke was using it as a buffer to cover up this conversation. Ryan bristled inside, because he so often did the same thing. He’d cranked up tunes in his car when he’d told Shannon details of the case.
Luke held up his palm, as if he were swearing in court. “I did not say a word. Her last wish before she went away was for me to keep that secret,” he said, his voice trembling. “She was terrified of Stefano. You never met him, Ryan, and I pray you never do. You bump into a guy like Stefano on the street and you run the other way.” There was rabid fear in his eyes as he offered this strange piece of advice.
Ryan crossed his arms. He didn’t want advice from his mom’s lover. Besides, he wasn’t afraid. Not of Stefano and not of men like the scumbag who’d killed his father. “I’m not scared of men who deal drugs to fucking mothers and children,” he said, practically spitting out the words.
Luke’s gray eyes widened, and he grabbed Ryan’s arm. “She was petrified of what would happen if people knew she was connected to him,” he pleaded.
“But their plan didn’t work. Their cover-up failed,” Ryan said, reminding him that the lies his mom had told didn’t save her from jail. The truth would have tethered her more closely to the Royal Sinners, so she’d fashioned a fable. She’d said all those phone calls to Stefano were for tree trimming, and he’d said the same. That was Stefano’s day job—a laborer at a tree-trimming company, so when she was asked about the string of calls, she’d claimed she’d hired him “under the table” to clean up some overgrown branches. It was the kind of work she couldn’t have her teenage sons do since it required specialty saws and tools. That was all true and completely plausible.
And the tale seemed to work at first for both Stefano and Ryan’s mom. For a brief while, their story did the trick. Botched robbery—that was how the murder looked to authorities, and Stefano seemed clean.
Until the detectives found Stefano’s fingerprints on the gun he’d disposed of, and the man started singing about how he’d been hired for much more than tree-trimming.
Stefano served it all up, and the lie unraveled.
He told the cops he’d been contracted to kill. He said the calls to Dora weren’t to cut overgrown branches—they were to plan the murder and to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. He alleged he’d been promised ten percent of Thomas Paige’s life insurance policy if he pulled it off.
The life insurance company went next, supplying more evidence. They confirmed that Dora had called a few months before the death to make a “routine check” on the beneficiary information on behalf of her husband, then six days after the murder to try to liquidate the funds.
In her defense, Dora maintained her husband had asked her to check on the policy and that was why she’d phoned the company months before his death. For him, she’d said. He was busy working, and asked her to check up on various pieces of paperwork. As for accessing the payout, she pointed out that if she’d killed him for money wouldn’t she have called hours later for the cash? No, she’d waited a week.
A week. She hung her hope on time.
The jury didn’t buy it.
She could have admitted to the drugs then, but it was too late for her. The case was so far beyond drugs. The state had Stefano and his testimony, they had the life insurance proof, and they had circumstantial evidence—she was having an affair at the time of the murder.
They had her, beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury said.
Admitting to drug using and buying, to money owed to dealers, wouldn’t have done a damn thing to change the fate of either Stefano or Ryan’s mom.
“Don’t mention the drugs,” she’d begged Ryan before she left for Stella McLaren. “It won’t make a difference now. I will keep fighting to be free, and it will look worse for me if this gets out. I’ll try to find a way to get the guys who really did it. I have to take the fall now, but please know I will be appealing. I will do everything I can to be with my children again.”
But why was Luke still covering up?
Ryan shrugged off Luke’s grip. “The lies didn’t work. So why are you protecting Stefano?”
“I’m not protecting Jerry,” Luke said insistently, pointing to the door, waving wildly beyond. “I’m protecting my family—my wife and kids—from Stefano’s friends on the outside. His friends protected him, Ryan. That’s what a Royal Sinner does. The goddamn ink on their arms says that. Protect Our Own. He has friends who have been looking out for his interests, and I am not about to serve up any more details on him and have those friends come after my family now.” Luke rubbed a hand across his jaw, glanced away, then turned his gaze back to Ryan. His eyes were softer now. “Look, I made some mistakes when I was a younger man. I made some terrible mistakes. I left town to start fresh after Dora was gone. Moved to San Diego and met my wife there. We returned to Vegas five years ago. My job now is to protect my family, and Jerry Stefano is not a man to be messed with, so I never talked then and I don’t intend to now. He told us to never say a word, so I didn’t. He made it clear the people we loved would get hurt. That’s why your mother kept it quiet, and that’s why I did, too. I love too many people to take that chance.”
Ryan sighed heavily, a long, deep, frustrated sound filled with years of regret, years of anger, years of locking up all these awful secrets.
There wasn’t much else to say, so Ryan thanked him and headed to the front door. On the way, he spotted a framed wedding photo of Luke and his wife. The man didn’t look much younger than he did today. “How long have you been married?”
Luke glanced sheepishly at the floor. “Only a year. But we’ve been together for seventeen. Anyway, don’t tell the church I had kids out of wedlock.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Ryan said, wishing it was the only secret he shared with that man.
As he headed for his truck, a fresh wave of loathing rolled through him. He was in a pact with the man who’d fucked his mother behind his father’s back.
That was all kinds of messed up.
The one bright spot was the email on his phone from Sophie.
* * *
Red. Ripe. Juicy.
The peaches looked mouthwateringly good.
“One pound of peaches coming right up.”
“Thank you, Marietta,” Sophie said, flashing a bright smile at her favorite employee at her father’s former fruit stand at the farmer’s market.
“You will love these. They’re divine. My God, they melt in your mouth—and in a peach pie,” Marietta said, bringing her big fingers to her lips and pressing a kiss to them before setting to work bagging up Sophie’s fruit.
“Nothing is ever as good as a pie with summer peaches kissed by the sun,” Sophie said as she pushed her big, white sunglasses on top of her hair.
“How’s John doing?”
“You know John. He’s as busy as ever. Work, work, work. And he has these dang termites, so he’s been staying at my place. Talk about cramping my style,” Sophie said, in a faux whisper. “But he’ll be gone tomorrow night. So I think…” She trailed off to tap her nails against the red-checkered cloth that covered the table with baskets of peaches, cherries, plums, and all sorts of summer fruit. “I think I might invite over this man who I’ve been seeing.”
Marietta wiggled her thick black eyebrows as she wiped a hand across her apron. “You know that’s how your mom wooed your dad,” she said, winking.
“Oh, stop.”
The woman nodded enthusiastically. “It’s true. She lured him with the pineapple.”
“How many times did my parents tell you that story?”
“Countless,” she said with a laugh then tapped the counter. “This stand has some sort of magic to it. I met my husband here, too, and we’re going on twenty-five years.”
“The magic of fruit,” Sophie quipped, then stopped for a second to gaze heavenward. “You know, maybe that’s why I have so many dresses with fruit patterns.”
“You’re trying to attract love,” Marietta said. “Draw it to you. I think that’s brave and hopeful. Do you want a pineapple? For an offering?”
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
Marietta shook her head. “Nothing is ever crazy when it involves love. Go,” she said, gesturing to the back of the sprawling white stand with the red stripes on the awning. Her dad had operated this fruit stand for many years, and Marietta had taken it over when her parents had died within mere months of each other.
In love until the day they’d died. Her mother had said it was because they followed the simple rules of love.
“Always talk. Always be honest. Never go to bed angry. Make time for kisses and meals, dance under the stars, and dream together.”
That was her mother’s advice to her, shared on many nights, especially on the ones where Sophie would peek around the corner to watch her parents dance with the lights drawn low. They were so in love that they’d become the very definition of it to her.
“I miss them,” she said, choking up as the images swirled faster in her mind.
“Of course you do. So go. Leave a pineapple at the kissing tree. As an offering.”
“Okay,” Sophie said conspiratorially, then walked behind the stand and placed the spiky fruit on the ground by the tree where her parents had their first kiss. It was so silly. But her parents had everything, and their everything was all Sophie ever knew and all she wanted.
She thought she’d had that with Holden. But the big difference was that her parents had both love and passion. They held hands, they sneaked kisses, and they took care of her and John together.
A lump rose in her throat, burning her with the sting of memories.
But at least the memories were beautiful ones. Hopeful ones. She was lucky like that. She wondered briefly about Ryan’s parents. He’d never said much about them, other than that his father had died when he was fourteen.
That must have been so hard on his mother.
“To love and pineapples,” Sophie whispered as a lone tear streaked down her cheek.
She returned to the front of the stand, and Marietta handed her a sturdy brown paper bag. “Go make a peach pie. It’s always the way to a man’s heart.”
Sophie wasn’t entirely convinced pie was the way to Ryan’s heart, or that she’d ever be able to travel that path in him. But it certainly couldn’t hurt to feed him.
from: [email protected]
date: July 17, 10:43 AM
subject: Know what’s really exquisite?
My peach pie.
So exquisite you should come over for dinner and dessert, and peaches and me. Friday night?
from: [email protected]
date: July 17, 10:48 AM
subject: You. Still you.
Yes, and yes, and yes, and yes.
Her phone rang as she turned on the engine in her car.
“Tell me more about these peaches,” he said, and his strong, sexy voice made her belly flip.
“They’re ripe, and juicy, and they taste like sin,” she said, taking her time with each word, letting them fall from her lips like sugar.
“Mmmm,” he said, in a sexy growl. “So just like you, basically?”
“I’ll have to take your word on that.”
“Oh, you can definitely take my word on that.”
“By the way, I fixed my dress, and I cleaned it myself.”
“Aren’t you little Miss Independent? Not even letting me help,” he said, and she could practically see his playful pout.
“Maybe I just wanted to assert myself in that way.”
“Maybe I’ll assert myself by getting you another dress. That one you said you wanted.”
She laughed as she pulled out of the lot. “I highly doubt you would even know where to get one. They are kind of specialty boutique dresses.”
“Oh, you challenge me, woman?” he asked, sounding all over-the-top tough.
She laughed, and gave it right back to him. “Oh, yes I do, man.”
“I am up to the challenge,” he answered, and a robotic female voice sounded from his phone. “You are two hundred miles from your destination in Hawthorne.”
She furrowed her brow. There wasn’t much in Hawthorne. That was a small town with a big prison. “What are you doing in Hawthorne?” she asked curiously, as she pulled onto the road. “Do you do security for the prison?”
He didn’t answer at first. “Yeah. Shit, Sophie, I need to pay attention to the road, but I can’t wait to see you Friday. I’ll be there. It’s the only thing making this drive better.”
He hung up.
Chapter Nineteen
Halfway there.
The sun glared at him as he played The National on repeat. His favorite band. Dark and moody. It suited him after seeing Luke then lying to Sophie.
He gripped the wheel tighter. What choice did he have? Was he supposed to tell her about his mom on the goddamn phone? He was flying blind when it came to sharing this emotional stuff, this family history. He’d had no training in how to open your heart, or your life, or your past. He wasn’t a practitioner of closeness or commitment.
But he couldn’t seem to stay away from Sophie.
So he’d need to do it right. Tell her when they were sitting down, face to face, not over the phone.
As the road echoed its sameness for miles, he dialed his sister’s number. After a quick hello, he put her on speakerphone and jumped right into the matter at hand.
“Where do I find a dress? You know the kind the women from the fifties wore?”
Shannon cracked up, so damn loud that he thought his eardrum was going to split in half. “Something you want to tell me, Ryan? You’re taking up cross-dressing?”
“My, my. Aren’t you a funny lady? Anyway, you know the kind the movie stars wear? Like a pinup dress, I think it’s called?”
She stopped laughing and turned her voice serious. “Sure. I’ve got a super hot one that might fit you. I’ll drop it off at your house later tonight.”
He rolled his eyes. “Make sure it has a petticoat and all.”
“Consider it done.”
“Anyway, where do I get one as a gift? For a woman.”
Shannon whistled. “Is Mr. Always Single dating someone? Or is this like a gift for your assistant?”
“It’s for a woman I’m seeing.”
“Details,” Shannon said demandingly.
“I can’t get into them now. I’m driving. Just tell me where I can buy one. Is there a store on the Strip that sells them? She told me they’re kind of specialty items.”
“Well, they are very boutique-type dresses. You don’t really find them at the department store. But maybe Rockin’ Bette or Viva Las Vegas might have them. Do you want me to call around for you?”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “That would be awesome. But I want one with peaches on it.”
She scoffed. “You’re not going to find that off the rack, even at a boutique. You need to go to Etsy and hunt online for something that specific. I’ll look for you. Tell me what size to get.”
“Um…I don’t know what size she is,” he said.
“Well, what’s her figure like?”
“Perfect.”
“You’re going to need to be a little more specific. Perfect is in the eye of the beholder.”
An image of Sophie’s round, full breasts popped into his mind, and he nearly swerved off the road. “She has nice…” He began and then trailed off, not wanting to talk like that in front of his sister.
“Tits, Ryan? She has nice tits?” Shannon supplied.
He laughed. “Yeah. What you just said. But they’re bigger than—”
“Than mine? Is that what you were going to say?”
He laughed. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I like my tits. So does my husband. Anyway. What are we talking in the knockers department? C?”
“That sounds about right. Maybe a big C.”
“And is she skinny? Heavy? Average?”
“There is nothing average about her,” he said quickly.
“Oh my God, I do not need to hear you wax on and on, even though it is adorable coming from The Ice Man. Just tell me—is she skinny or curvy?”
“She’s not a stick. She has hips. She’s not heavy or anything. But she’s curvy.”
“Marilyn Monroe?”
He snapped his fingers as he drove. “Yes. That.”
“Fine. Done. I’ll see what I can track down for your girl with the nice tits. How’s her personality?”
He smiled, a grin that seemed to come out of nowhere, one that he had no control over when he thought of Sophie. “Brilliant, clever, sweet, fun.”
“That makes me very happy to hear. Brent and I are coming by on Saturday for lunch, so you can tell me all about her when I see you in person and, hopefully, drop off the dress.” She paused before she added, “By the way, have a good visit with Mom.”
“Thanks, Shan.”
He hung up and, an hour later, pulled past the gates and into the visitor lot at his mother’s home.
* * *
Talking to his mom was like trying to capture a hummingbird with a thimble.
“Focus,” he told her, as frustration surged inside him. “You’re all over the place. I don’t want to hear about how the guys in New York State broke out through a manhole, or why Kelsey in the cell next to you can’t eat bread because now she’s a fucking gluten-free inmate. I love you, Mom. But you gotta fucking focus.”
“Watch your mouth,” his mother said, narrowing her eyes as she chided him. She wore orange, as she always did, and they talked in one of the stark concrete visiting rooms, outfitted with only a table and chairs.
“Sorry,” he muttered. Then he tapped his watch. “But time is running out, and I want some details. I’ve held onto your pattern; I’ve held onto your secrets. Can’t you tell me a damn thing? The cops won’t say a word about the evidence they have. You’ve got to know, Mom. I’m sure they’ve been here to see you about the case being reopened.”
She nodded and pursed her lips together.
He held his hands out wide, waiting for an answer. “So?”
She shook her head.
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Mom, c’mon. I’m trying to help, but you’ve got to give me something. Does it have to do with Stefano’s kid?”
She snapped her head up. “What?”
“He had a kid. His girlfriend was pregnant at the time of the murder. His friends were supposed to look out for the kid, but they apparently didn’t. I think that’s why the case was reopened. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve got a hunch she set it in motion. His girlfriend went to the cops because she’s pissed at his friends for messing up their end of the deal. That’s my take.”
His mom lowered her voice to a bare whisper, her eyes fixed on his. For the first time in a long time, he saw an intense need in her green gaze as she asked, “Who was supposed to look out for the kid?”
“I don’t know, mom. Who do you think is looking out for the kid?”
“Was it T.J. and K. who—?”
Then she smacked her hand over her mouth and dug her fingers into her cheekbones. Shit. She’d done this before. She’d done some variation of this nearly every time he’d seen her lately. She’d start to say something and then physically stop herself.
“Who are T.J. and K.?” he asked, reaching across the table to gently pry her hand from her face. She was a strong woman though, and she didn’t want to let go. He was stronger, and soon he’d peeled her hand away.
“Who? Who are they? Who are T.J. and K.? Are they Royal Sinners? Were they involved?”
She shook her head and the focused look vacated her eyes. “I’m tired. I’m so tired. I’m so incredibly tired.”
“Mom, c’mon,” he said, begging. “I’ve done everything you asked. I can’t help you unless you tell me. You begged me to never say a word about the drugs, and I never did. I never said a thing, just like you asked. I followed your word to the letter. For eighteen goddamn years. But, Jesus Christ, I miss my dad. Okay?” His voice rose as he pleaded with her. “I miss him every day. If you know something you’ve never told me, now would be a really good time to share it, since there’s a chance of getting justice served.”
Her lips curved down. She reached for his hand and clasped her bony fingers around it. “I have to protect you. I swore I’d protect you. I will ’til the day I die.”
His leaned back in his chair and shoved a hand through his hair. “I can protect myself. I’m not fourteen anymore. I’m not a kid. I’m a thirty-two-year-old man. So tell me. Who are T.J. and K.? Did they kill Dad?”
“I’m protecting you and your brothers and sister,” she said, sticking to her own party line.
He tried again, hoping to rattle her this time. Press her buttons. “Then did you do it? They all think you did. Everyone thinks you did. The state sure as hell does. Did you kill Dad?”
She narrowed her eyes. “No. I’ve told you I didn’t.”
“You better not have lied to me. For years I have believed in you.”
“Everything I’ve done is for all of you. I love you all so much.”
“You gave this to me—don’t you get it? You gave me this obsession over what really happened,” he said, grabbing the sides of his skull for emphasis. “It’s like a sickness now in me. You asked me to cover up when the cops were investigating my father’s murder, and the details and the secrets eat away at me. It makes it hard for me to have a normal fucking life. Tell me, who are they?”
Her eyelids started to close. “I need to sleep,” she mumbled. “I can’t sleep at night. All I do is lie awake and stare at the ceiling and wish for the light to come.” She rested her cheek against the table. In a minute, she’d fallen into slumber.
And he was hardly any closer to knowing why.
Ryan sat there in silence ’til the hour ended, and the sturdy, brown-haired corrections officer returned to the room.
“Hey, Clara,” he said to the woman in the beige uniform.
She smiled. “Hey, Ryan. How’s it going?”
“Keeping busy. Trying to stay out of trouble. How about you? How’s the family?”
“My oldest starts high school in another month. Time flies, huh?”
“I remember when you were telling me about him starting kindergarten,” Ryan said, because it had been that long that he’d known her.
Clara patted his sleeping mom. “C’mon, Prince. Visiting hour is over.”
Dora raised her head an inch. A line from the table’s edge was pressed into her cheek. Her mouth was open and saliva had pooled in the corner of her lips. She blinked. Then she rose and held out her arms to Ryan.
He hugged her. “Bye Mom. Get some sleep.”
“Come by again, please. And stay safe. Stay away from the Sinners. Just stay away and you’ll be safe then.”
“I will,” he said and kissed her forehead.
He gave a quick wave to Clara. “Take care of yourself, Clara.”
“You, too. Will we see you later this month? She earned some more visiting hours. End of next week, I believe.”
He nodded. “I’ll do my best. Can’t seem to stay away from this place,” he said with a wry smile, and Clara patted him on the shoulder.
As he left, he wished he could simply Google “T.J. and K.” and know what the hell his mother had been talking about. But as he closed the door to his truck, it occurred to him he could do something else with the information. He was grasping at straws, but maybe someone else could make sense of this. Maybe it was time for Ryan to ask for help, to turn to another person who was trying to solve this case.
