Convicted (8 page)

"I know."

What should have been a compliment became an insult with Allegra's sneer. She shook her head, as though she just couldn't believe Lisa's stupidity. Deacon physically pushed past her, and Allegra laughed as she stepped out of his way.

After he shut the door, Deacon thought about Allegra's words. Lisa had to do what she thought was right. It was something he admired about her, something he liked. Until, of course, her honest nature had sent him to jail.

But could he blame her? He'd seen the surveillance tapes. If he hadn't known he was in the bathroom while the real criminal stole his helmet and committed the crime, Deacon would have thought himself guilty, too. There was no denying the similarity in build, dress and demeanor between him and the real perp--not to mention the guy was wearing his cycle helmet. Deacon knew Lisa really believed him to be the man on the tapes who helped himself to the cash register. What he didn't understand was how she could have believed her eyes and not her heart?

There was no use dwelling on the past. Their relationship was long over and cold in the ground. He should just let it stay dead.

Deacon nonchalantly hung his denim work shirt over the camera lens.
Let them try and see through that!
Then he spread out the file's contents carefully.

The project, an expansion of the already spacious Memorial Park recreation area, called for a special children's garden. Kid-friendly plantings like sunflowers, marigolds, corn and pumpkins were to be interspersed with a series of flowers chosen specifically to bloom all season long. The city council had also outlined plans for a water garden section. Deacon's job was to choose the sorts of plants that would work in the setting, design a pond and waterfall, the paths, benches and specialty areas. He settled into his chair and lost himself in the work.

A knock on the door coincided with his growling stomach and he realized it was lunch time. "Come in."

"Looks like we'll be working together." Lisa paused in the doorway, looking fresh in white slacks and a light denim shirt. Again, she had her hair pulled up. He wondered what she'd do if he reached out and tugged it down to tumble around her shoulders.

"Yeah." There was more he could say, but small talk didn't appeal to him.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay with that."

"Why wouldn't I be?" He got up from his desk, stiff from the hours of sitting. His back crackled and popped as he stretched, and so did his neck. "I'm just about ready to head out for lunch."

"May I join you?"

He hadn't expected that. Deacon gave Lisa a hard look. "Why?"

"Because I'm hungry, too."

He shrugged. "All right."

He didn't ask her where she wanted to go, but she followed him out through the greenhouse and into the back parking lot.

"Do you want to follow me?" He asked pointing at his bike.

"Let's ride together."

For a moment, he thought she meant on the Harley. In a flash, his mind recalled the way she felt straddling the cycle behind him, her arms tucked firmly around his waist, her cheek pressed against his back. She'd always laughed when riding, saying the wind tickled her.

Then he saw she meant for him to go in her car, and he realized she was waiting for an answer. He wanted nothing more than to be on his motorcycle in the warm summer sunshine, feeling the wind on his face, but he nodded instead. Something about Lisa always had him saying yes.

"What are you hungry for?" Lisa was a careful driver, eyes on the road, hands planted firmly on the wheel. It occurred to him suddenly that he'd never driven with her before. They'd always gone on his bike.

"Fried chicken," he said, because all at once that was all he could think about. "Biscuits, slaw, the works."

She laughed lightly, but her humor sounded strained. "Okay." She hesitated. "I thought we'd go over to the park and check out the site. We can eat there."

For a minute he'd thought she wanted to talk to him about the things that had happened. "Sounds good."

She swung through the drive-thru window at Fred's Chicken and Cream and picked up a bucket of the fresh, delicious fried chicken and all the sides. Deacon's stomach rumbled as he held the grease-spotted paper bucket. In the past three months since he'd been home, it seemed that he craved spicy, flavorful food. Jail food had provided his body's basic needs, but nothing more.

In just a few minutes, they arrived at Memorial Park. Today, with the sun shining, the playground teemed with hordes of children running and jumping along the huge castle play structure. Lisa parked in the lot and helped him gather up the bags of food.

"It's going to be over here." She pointed past the pool and beyond one of the baseball diamonds. "It's going to replace that old field, which will be rebuilt on the other side of the park."

Some trees shaded one of the benches away from the hustle and bustle of the playground. Deacon sat down on one end and Lisa at the other. They spread the food between them, opened paper napkins, popped the tabs on soft drinks. The cole slaw and potato salad were perfectly tangy and the biscuits as flaky and buttery as he'd dreamed. The chicken, under its crispy exterior, practically melted in his mouth. The food was so good it wiped nearly every other thought from his mind.

"I didn't bring you here just to see the site," Lisa said quietly. She hadn't even taken a bite. "I wanted to talk to you about what happened that night."

Here it was--his chance to ask her why. Deacon looked at her clear gray eyes, at her honey hair, at the way her full mouth pursed with trepidation. All at once, he wasn't sure he wanted to ask her anything at all.

Lisa came straight to the point. "Why did you do it?"

Deacon carefully set down the handful of biscuit and chicken, then wiped his fingers on his jeans. "I didn't."

Had she really expected a different answer?
"I saw you," Lisa said in a low voice.

"You saw someone." Deacon began wrapping the food. "If that's all you have to say, I think I'm done."

Lisa didn't want it to be done. She reached out her hand, desperate to talk to him, to figure out why he'd done what he did. To learn why, even now, he continued to lie.

"Deacon, if it wasn't you, who was it?"

He didn't pull his hand away--not at first. Then he removed his fingers from her grip and wiped them again on his jeans. Like her touch had made him dirty. The action made her want to cry.

"I don't know. Someone who lifted my helmet while I was in the bathroom."

"The police didn't find anyone else, and they were there within ten minutes," Lisa said. "They searched the whole place. They found the money in your pocket...."

"I wasn't wearing the jacket," Deacon said. "Or the helmet. I was washing my hands in the bathroom when they busted in and grabbed me. I know what you saw on the video, Lisa, and I can't explain it any more than you can. But it wasn't me."

"Why won't you stop lying?" she cried.

"Why won't you trust me?" he countered.

"Because I know what I saw," Lisa told him. She slurped at a soda to quench her dry throat, thought the sweet beverage made her feel slightly nauseous.

"I'm done," Deacon said, dismissing her. He stood, tossing a crumpled napkin onto the remains of his half-eaten lunch. "I'll meet you back at the office."

His story hadn't changed. He looked at her with a gaze gone stormy, but Lisa did not look away. She had to know.

"Was it all a lie then?" she asked quietly.

Her question stopped him from going. Deacon stood over her, fists clenched. She watched him physically force himself to relax. He flexed his fingers, and she saw he'd pressed half-moons into his palms from the strength of his grip.

"I can't say I've never lied in my life," Deacon said. His gaze pinned her like a bug on a piece of collector's velvet. "But I've never lied to you, Lisa. Not about that night. Not about anything."

Now she did cry, the tears hot and stinging in her throat. Burning drops slid down her cheeks, and she was helpless to stop them. His response was what she'd waited three years to hear, but even now, she couldn't believe him.

"You know what hurt the worst?" he asked her, almost hypothetically. "That you never even tried to find out why I'd do such a damn stupid thing. That you just took what you saw at face value without asking yourself if you really believed it could be me."

"I had no choice," she cried. "They asked me to make a statement, Deacon. I couldn't lie!"

"You never spoke to me after that night. You never called. You never came to see me. You never even wrote," Deacon told her. A casual observer might have missed the tremor in his voice, but to Lisa it was entirely too clear. "You just wrote me off like a bad investment."

His words stunned her. Lisa wiped her cheeks, shaking her head. "But...but I did! I did write you!"

His mouth twisted. "Now who's the liar? I never got any letters!"

"I sent you one letter," she said. "You didn't answer. I thought that was the end of things."

"I never got it."

"I sent it," she insisted. She could see he didn't believe her.

"Catch-22," Deacon said. "Seems neither one of us can trust the other."

"We had something once," Lisa said. "We almost had something wonderful."

"You think so?" Deacon raised his eyebrow at her. "Something so wonderful you were willing to send me to jail?"

"I wasn't willing!" Furiously, she began bundling the food into the containers. It gave her hands something to do to keep them from slapping his face. "For God's sake, Deacon, it tore me apart to do that to you!"

"Did it?" he asked so softly she almost missed it.

Lisa stopped fooling with the lunch and met his gaze. "Yes. It did."

"Sure it did," Deacon said. "Tore you up so much you ran right into the comforting arms of Officer Friendly. Tell me, Lisa, did he ask you out that night, or did he at least wait until they sent me away?"

"Terry and I have only been dating for three months," Lisa replied stiffly. "Not that it's any of your business."

"Not unless your boyfriend keeps trying to make me responsible for every crime that happens in St. Mary's," Deacon said.

"Terry is just doing his job." Lisa gathered the containers and shoved them haphazardly back inside the large paper sack. "It has nothing to do with me."

"No?" Deacon scoffed. "You don't think Officer Hewitt might be a little jealous? That might be why he's always breathing down my neck."

"Terry is a professional. And he doesn't have any reason to be jealous."

Deacon reached out, startling her, and grabbed her hand. Lisa dropped the sack of food. Deacon stepped closer to her as he tugged her toward him. They ended up nearly touching, her face tilted up to see his.

"Doesn't he?" Deacon whispered.

Lisa watched the slow, lazy flick of his tongue across his lips and shivered. "Terry doesn't know," she whispered.

"Doesn't know what?" Deacon's grip wasn't painful, but it was tight. If she tugged, he might let her go, but Lisa stayed where she was. "That we dated? Or that we were going back to my house to make love for the first time that night?"

"He doesn't know that." She could smell him, the light scent of soap and musk. Of sexual attraction. She felt her own tongue sweep her lips and was rewarded by the sight of his gaze riveted on her mouth. "I never told him. He knows we dated, yes, but he thinks it was just casual. That we only went out a few times. That...that I didn't like you very much."

"And is that true?" Deacon asked.

"No," Lisa replied.

"No?"

She wanted to answer him. Wanted to tell him the truth. She had never told him that she loved him. To tell him now, three years after her love had been snuffed out like a flame in the wind, would be foolish. More than foolish, idiotic. If she hadn't told him when she'd been willing to give him her body, why on earth would she do so now?

So, instead, she just repeated her answer. "No."

"And now?"

Thinking of Terry had broken the spell. Lisa pulled away and Deacon let her go. She bent to the soggy paper bag and tossed it into the trash pail.

"There is no now," she said. "Whatever we had ended three years ago. I need to get back to the office."

Without waiting to see if he'd join her, Lisa turned and went back to her car.

Having Lisa avoid him was worse than having her jump when he spoke to her, but having to watch her get pawed by that blue-suited monkey made Deacon want to puke. If turning around and walking the other way wouldn't have been so obvious, he'd have done it. Instead, he was stuck trying to squeeze past them into the tiny lunch room.

"Hey, Campbell," Hewitt said, with a grin the size of Montana. He draped his arm across Lisa's shoulders, rubbing the bare skin with his fingers.

"Terry," Deacon said with a nod. He headed for the pop machine, jingling the coins in his pocket. With any luck, they'd be gone by the time he finished microwaving his leftover meatloaf.

He heard the scrape of chairs on the linoleum floor. So much for them leaving. Deacon grabbed the can of pop out of the machine and popped the button on the microwave. He could put his plastic food container inside and manipulate all the buttons without turning around, but he couldn't stay facing the wall forever.

Since their last conversation at the park, the only communication he'd had with Lisa was through inter-office memo, email and an occasional voice mail message which she was always certain to leave after she knew he'd gone for the day. Three weeks was a long time for partners on a project to go without physically seeing each other, especially in a work area as close as The Garden Shadd. In fact, he wasn't quite certain how Lisa had managed it, except with perseverance and dogged stubbornness. She was deliberately avoiding him without compromising the project.

"Here, babe," he heard Hewitt say. Lisa murmured something in reply, and Terry laughed. "So? We'll ask him to join us."

Bastard.
Deacon gritted his teeth, knowing Hewitt had it in for him. The microwave dinged and he pulled out the steaming meatloaf, then slipped in the small container of mashed potatoes. One more task to keep him busy while they talked about him behind his back. Of course, he could turn around and they could talk about him to his face, but that wasn't an attractive option.