The Distraction Read online

  “Stay with me,” he said, as I’d once told him.

  And we stayed just like that, for a long time.

  Five

  At nine a.m. I parked my totally-used-but-new-to-me electric blue Ford Fiesta on the street in front of the courthouse downtown. The Kia had sadly succumbed to its injuries after I’d run it into a concrete pylon to escape Bobby three months ago, and when insurance had sprung for a new car, I’d gone with something that stuck out in a crowd. Not because I liked being in the spotlight, but because I wanted to be easily recognizable in case someone tried to, I don’t know, abduct me again. So what if it was a little paranoid. No one in their right mind was jacking a neon blue car.

  It was a double-shot espresso morning, and even that couldn’t break through my sex hangover. After the shower, Alec had ordered Chinese food—the pizza having become a little questionable after spending so many hours on the kitchen counter. There was post-Chinese food sex. Then middle of the night sex. Then Good Morning sex, and of course, an after breakfast quickie on the back of the couch.

  The man clearly intended to kill me.

  I grinned into the plastic lid of my paper cup, thinking death by orgasm might be an all right way to go.

  We’d agreed to meet near the salon for a late lunch between my clients. He had some things he needed to do—checking in with his parole officer and father being the most pressing. He didn’t talk about it, but I knew returning to the real world after three months in prison couldn’t have been easy. His situation had changed considerably. Before, Alec’s work as Maxim Stein’s bodyman had consumed most of his life. Now he didn’t even have a job.

  But he had me. And I wasn’t going anywhere.

  It felt strangely liberating to think that way. Before, I’d believed wholeheartedly in keeping things light, simple, not getting too attached to anyone or anything. My feelings for Alec were anything but light and simple—they were deep, confusing, sometimes absolutely crazy-making—but they felt more real than anything I’d ever known.

  A woman outside screaming at her two teenagers snapped me out of my thoughts. A defensive edge rose up within me, but before I had gotten out of my car they were already inside. Despite the balmy temperatures I shivered, standing before Lady Justice with her sagging blindfold, and hoping the blind truth she saw wasn’t my fear, but my strength. I smoothed out my black pencil skirt and white ruffled tank, and adjusted a little sweater over my shoulders. My long hair was wrapped in a loose knot at the back of my neck. I’d been shooting for conservative, but all Alec had seen was naughty librarian.

  “Anna?” A familiar voice behind me had me turning toward the side of the street where the police officers parked.

  “Hey, Terry.” I smiled warmly as my dad’s friend, Terry Benitez, approached, wearing a beige suit that didn’t quite fit right around the middle. Terry and my dad had worked together in Cincinnati before they’d both become detectives. He’d been the first cop on the scene when Bobby had abducted me, and a crucial part of the team supplying evidence to the prosecution.

  He gave me a hug, patting my back in a friendly way. “Did you hear the news?”

  “What’s that?”

  As if trying to temper a smirk, he stroked one hand over his short, graying beard. “Robert Calloway pled guilty. The prosecution is settling.”

  Automatically, my jaw locked, and I had to concentrate to work it back open. The memories were still right there under the surface. Bobby, cornering me in the empty restaurant while I waited for Alec. The feel of his hand striking my face. The friction of the bindings around my wrists and ankles as he drove me toward the bridge.

  “He did?” I took a deep breath. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  Bobby was Maxim Stein’s nephew and therefore had access to Maxim Stein’s bazillion dollar attorneys. He’d skirted around the law more than once before; I just assumed they’d fight to do the same now.

  A sympathetic look passed over Terry’s face. “I didn’t either. Came across my desk early this morning. My best guess? Stein’s people figured out he was a sinking ship and decided to cut him loose before the big trial.”

  The big trial. Maxim Stein’s trial. Where Alec would testify that he’d stolen Green Fusion’s clean fuel plane engine design, and conspired to kill the president of the company, Charlotte MacAfee.

  The coffee suddenly tasted like rusty nails.

  “So what does that mean for us?”

  Terry edged me into the shade under the statue.

  “It means you’re off the hook,” he said. “Robert Calloway will be sentenced for your abduction and Charlotte MacAfee’s murder and sent to prison. I take it the other part of us is Alec Flynn?”

  I nodded, my throat too thick to speak.

  “Isn’t he still locked up?”

  I shook my head. “He got out early on good behavior.”

  To Terry’s credit, he didn’t look surprised.

  “Keep him off Davis Island.”

  I was 99 percent sure Alec wouldn’t try to confront Maxim Stein, especially where he lived. Maybe 98 percent sure. That would have been bad for everyone.

  But that didn’t mean Maxim wouldn’t try to contact Alec.

  My frown etched deeper. That would be just as crazy. It would totally jeopardize the upcoming trial. But Maxim had been desperate enough to protect himself that he’d allowed Bobby to kill someone to prevent his secrets from getting out. I didn’t put it past him to try something.

  “Nothing’s changed for Alec,” Terry continued. “He’ll still be the key witness. The only witness, unless Calloway has a change of heart and flips in prison, which I doubt will happen.”

  “Why?” I asked. Bobby didn’t exactly seem like martyr material.

  He stuck his thumbs into the front of his belt. “I’m sure there’s some deal in the works where he gets a cushy cell and a weekly conjugal so long as he keeps his trap shut. Stein would have made sure to take care of him in exchange for his silence.”

  So Alec was still going to have to testify, but I was safe. I didn’t feel safe. I felt like I needed to find the nearest storm shelter and curl up into a tiny ball.

  “Maxim Stein had a secretary,” I said. “Ms. Rowe. Surely she would know something.” She might be able to help corroborate Alec’s story, take some of the pressure off of him.

  “Missing,” said Terry. “Disappeared the night of MacAfee’s murder. I think the FBI put a search out for her.”

  I pictured the shapely brunette with her flawless appearance and icy demeanor. She’s been cool under pressure and well organized, and I had a hard time believing she’d split without a specific plan in place.

  Before I could stop myself, I imagined Bobby running her off the bridge, the same way he’d done to Charlotte.

  “Cheer up,” Terry said. “This is good news. Once the trial’s over, you can put this all behind you.”

  “The date hasn’t even been set yet.” It was out there looming before us, this vague, ambiguous thing that was supposed to fix everything. I wanted to believe it would, but I couldn’t help but feel doubtful.

  Because Terry was starting to look a little worried, I forced a smile, but it probably looked a little scary.

  “So if you’re not here for that, what brings you to the courthouse today?” he asked.

  “I’m volunteering.” My voice sounded small. Terry was right, Bobby’s confession was good news. I should have been doing cartwheels down the middle of Florida Avenue.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m volunteering,” I said more clearly. “For CASA.”

  “Court-appointed Special Advocates?” he asked. “Hard work. You ever done that kind of thing before?”

  “A while ago,” I said, referring to a previous career in social work and a burned-out stint in child welfare.

  When Terry said the work was hard, he didn’t
mean the hours or that it was particularly complicated. He meant that it came with an emotional burden, the kind that was hard not to take home at the end of the day. I knew this, which was why I had decided to start out slow, take one case at a time. If I did well, I’d look into re-upping my social work license. If not, I could finish out my one client—the one I was meeting for the first time today—and move on.

  “Well good for you,” said Terry. “Your dad’s proud, I’m sure.”

  I’m sure he would have been, if I’d told him. The truth was, I hadn’t told anyone, not even Alec or Amy. I wanted to make sure I could hack it first.

  Terry held the door open for me as we stepped through the glass doors into the busy main lobby. Signs for different specialties pointed right and left, just beyond the metal detector manned by two security guards. My eyes immediately fell to Juvenile Court, where I had been told to go this morning.

  “Thanks Terry,” I said before we parted ways. “For all of it.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Glad I could help. And really, call me if you need anything, all right? I’ll check in from time to time.”

  Under no prompting from my dad, I was sure.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  After I had stripped all the metal from my body and gotten a stern reprimanding from the security guard about not bringing my keychain Mace into a courthouse, I headed down the hallway toward the family wing. I didn’t go into a courtroom, but a small office filled with crying children and mothers who looked beyond overwhelmed.

  “I’ll be back to get you,” one woman was telling a boy, who looked to be about five. His eyes were red with tears, and by the quivering of his lower lip I could tell he didn’t believe her.

  How many times had my birth mother told me that when she’d left me somewhere? She’d said it the last time, too, when she’d taken me to that fast-food playland and overdosed in the parking lot.

  “Can I help you?” called the clerk over the crying.

  I was still standing in the doorway. I hadn’t even let go of the metal handle. My grip tightened. What was I doing here? I’d wanted to make a difference in a child’s life, help someone like Alec when he’d been young and lost, but now I wasn’t sure that I could.

  “Ma’am?” called the woman.

  “Don’t be a baby,” said one little girl to her sibling.

  “Yeah,” I said under my breath. “Don’t be a baby, Anna.”

  I put on my best smile and walked to the counter.

  “I’m Anna Rossi,” I said, showing the ID they’d given me in the training course I’d taken two weeks ago. “I’m working with CASA.”

  A hard-nosed woman with tortoiseshell glasses and a million flyaway hairs looked down at a list on her desk.

  “I’ll buzz you through,” she said, nodding to a door to my right.

  I stepped over the wooden puzzle pieces and dented plastic stacking rings strewn across the floor, and pushed through the door into another hallway. The woman was already there, and without a word she led me to a closet-sized office crammed tightly with two chairs. I sat and waited, and waited, and waited, my anxiety growing by the second, until a man in his forties with a buzzed head popped in.

  “Anna?”

  I jolted up. Smiled brighter than a five-hundred-watt lamp. “That’s me.”

  “This is Jacob. And I’m Wayne.”

  I shook Wayne’s hand, but didn’t see Jacob until I stuck my head out into the hallway. There, a boy about ten or eleven was leaning against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his dirty jeans. His T-shirt was two sizes too big, and his skin was the color of cinnamon.

  “Hey Jacob,” I said. He didn’t answer.

  Wayne handed me a file that had been tucked under his arm. “I’m Jacob’s caseworker, and he just got done in court. Looks like the judge approved foster care, so I’m going to go look at getting him a placement for tonight. Would you mind taking him for an hour or so? You can go for a walk or something.”

  And so begins the child welfare shuffle.

  “No problem,” I said. A few years ago, I would have been the person finding Jacob a home. It was a little jarring to be in a different role.

  “You can get what you need out of the file. Let me know if you catch any special circumstances I need to know about. Allergies to dogs or whatever.”

  Jacob was twisting the heel of his worn-out shoe into the buffed linoleum.

  Clearly Wayne had a packed schedule, so I moved around him to Jacob’s side.

  “I think we’ve got it from here.”

  Still nothing from the kid. This could be interesting. But already I could feel myself rising to the challenge. I’d worked with tough kids before. Hell, I’d been a tough kid before. Parents were the hard part, but kids I could manage.

  Wayne nodded gratefully and left us in the hallway.

  “I’m Anna,” I said.

  Nothing.

  “Tough morning in court?”

  Nada.

  “How old are you? Ten?”

  Zilch. The kid’s lips were sealed tighter than a waterproof safe.

  “I feel like tacos,” I said. “Want to get out of here for a while?”

  He glanced up at me to see if I was bluffing, then looked away, but not before I saw the anger in his pretty brown eyes.

  “It’s not even lunchtime,” he mumbled.

  I scoffed. “Wait,” I said. “Wait. Are you telling me you’ve never had tacos for breakfast?”

  “Nobody makes tacos for breakfast.”

  “Huh,” I said. “I guess we’ll just have to see if they’re open.”

  I walked past him toward the entrance, as slowly as I could without looking like I was waiting for him to follow. A few seconds passed, and when he pushed off the wall and came plodding after me, I grinned.

  * * *

  “Why don’t they just call it pork if it’s pork?” he asked.

  “Carnitas is pork.” I laughed. “That’s the word for it in Spanish.”

  I sat across from him in the wooden booth at the Taco Bus across from the police station, picking at my black beans and rice while he polished off his third taco. Clearly the kid hadn’t eaten in a while. That, or he didn’t know when he’d eat next. I made a mental note to place a to-go order before we left. His hungry days were in the past, as far as I was concerned.

  After a while, he glanced up at me, reluctant to stare too long.

  “So are you my new social worker or something?”

  I shook my head, thinking back on the suspicious-eyed kids that had asked me that over the years. “I’m just a friend.”

  “You got another job?”

  “I give massages.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Like a hooker.”

  I choked on the soda I’d been drinking. “Not like a hooker. Nothing like a hooker.”

  “My dad went to get massages at the Asian spa sometimes. My mom said it was ’cuz the girls there were hookers.”

  Well. He had me there.

  “I can tell you that I am definitely not a hooker,” I said. I was relieved that it didn’t appear he knew what a hooker actually did.

  “Tell me about your dad,” I said.

  Jacob’s little mouth pulled into a tight frown. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Anything,” I said. “I’ll start. My dad likes to work on cars.”

  He wrapped the straw from his drink around his finger.

  “My dad’s an asshole.”

  I tilted my head, thinking about the file I’d glanced through before handing it back to the receptionist at the front desk in the courthouse. It was so similar to countless files I’d seen before. Abusive father. Drug-addicted mother. Parents were given three strikes before custody was lost. What stuck out was that Jacob had been flagged for a psych eval due to violent ou
tbursts. The kid didn’t look violent to me, but there was definitely a lot going on under the surface.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Nope.”

  “How about your mom?”

  He flinched. “She’s sick a lot.”

  I nodded, remembering my own birth mother passed out on the bedroom floor, shirt soaked with her own vomit. Moving in that slow-motion way and slurring her words, and then gradually ramping up faster and faster until she was scratching at her skin and so agitated you couldn’t even look at her without her thinking she was getting sassed.

  “My mom was sick like that, too,” I said.

  He looked up at me, again for confirmation. Can I trust you? that look seemed to say. Or are you full of shit just like everyone else?

  “Sammy’s staying with me,” he said assertively. “I don’t care what you or anybody else says.” He shoved his empty plate away.

  “Who’s Sammy?” I asked.

  “Sammy,” he said. “My sissy.”

  The word made him sound so much younger than the tough expression on his face suggested.

  “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  “She’s six,” he said.

  “Where is she now?”

  He shrugged, then began kicking the leg of the table.

  Was this what Alec had been like years ago? A kid who’d been hardened by life, staying loyal to the people he loved because they were all he had?

  “Why does your file say you’re violent?” I asked. It was a big question for a kid so young, but he seemed old enough to handle it. I wondered if Sammy had been taken away because he’d hurt her in some way.

  “I didn’t hit her,” he said. “I told them that. He hit her. I hit him.”

  “Who hit her?”

  “My dad,” he said. “So I hit him back with a plate.”

  “A plate.”

  “Yeah,” he said, as if challenging me to defy him. “A plate, all right?”

  “You were defending your sister?”

  He shoved out of the seat and stood, but didn’t go anywhere. “She’s staying with me, all right? I take care of her.”