Gone to Her Grave (Rogue River Novella Book 2) (3 page)

“Who knows?” Stevie lifted a shoulder. “It’s hard enough to be a teenager
without
an abusive drug dealer for a father. You can’t save them all, Carly. Sometimes kids just spiral downward, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. Happened all the time when I worked for the LAPD.”

“But this isn’t LA.” And Carly didn’t want to admit defeat.

“Unfortunately, hard-core drugs have arrived in Solitude. Drugs change everything.” Stevie shrugged. “When we brought Russ in, we found a couple of joints in his pocket.”

“Ugh.” Carly put a hand to the base of her neck, where the muscles protested this morning’s barn labor. “Remember the good old days, when all we had to worry about was kids sneaking beers after dark at O’Rourke’s Lake?”

“Longingly,” Stevie said.

“When should Loretta get here?”

Stevie checked her watch. “Soon. She was at work.”

“Hope she doesn’t get fired.” Jobs weren’t plentiful in town, and women with Loretta’s reputation rarely got the few that became available. She’d gotten pregnant with Russ in her freshman year of high school. Carly moved toward the steps. “I’ll go inside and sit with Russ. He shouldn’t be alone.”

“Zane is in there with him.”

“You know what I mean.” Carly pushed open the door and went inside. The temperature hovered near sauna.

“Hey, Sheila.”

“Hey, Carly.” Behind the reception desk, Sheila looked up from her computer screen. Fiftyish, the police department admin was as thin and energetic as a whippet. Skinny fingers hovered just above her keyboard. Her bright-yellow nail polish matched her eye shadow.

“How about turning on the air conditioner?”

“It is on.” Sheila nodded to the ancient brown unit in the window next to her desk. She raised a sweating can of Diet Coke to her forehead. “This isn’t right. If I wanted to live with this kind of heat, I’d move to frigging Arizona.”

“Amen.” Carly turned into the wood-paneled interview room, which was also the break room, lunchroom, and storage closet. An oscillating floor fan blew a stream of hot air in her face. She pointedly did not look at the old pictures of her dad hanging on the walls. Her mom spent her nights with the family albums in her lap, turning pages and touching her favorite photos as if she could feel him. But Carly wasn’t ready.

Her father’s replacement as the chief of police, Zane Duncan, sat in one of the folding chairs that surrounded a scarred table. He was a good-looking man. Nice, regular features. Hot body. She should probably feel some sort of attraction to him. But she didn’t. Maybe there was something wrong with her. Maybe the sting of her failed marriage was just too raw yet for her to move on.

Across from Zane, Russ stared at the floor with angry, shell-shocked eyes. The teenager was a bony kid, with the edgy and feral look Carly saw too often. He hunched over in the plastic chair, arms tight to his sides, fingers gripping the edges of the seat. His rigid posture and pent-up energy suggested he could shatter into a million pieces, like a sheet of tempered glass.

Carly went to the mini-fridge in the corner and pulled out two bottles of water. She put one on the table in front of Russ. He didn’t look up and he didn’t say hi.

“Where is he?” Loretta shrilled from the outer room. She burst through the doorway a second later. Her denim miniskirt, baby T, and platform sandals belonged on a teen and made her look older than thirty. Mascara lines tracked down to her chin, and the humidity had frizzed her bottle-blonde hair into a fright wig that was a poor advertisement for the hair salon where she worked. “You okay?” she asked Russ.

He nodded. His jaw shifted as he fought for control.

Stevie followed Loretta into the room. Instead of taking the empty chair next to Zane, she closed the door and leaned on it. Tension bounced between Stevie and Zane, but then, between the heat and the anxiety level, the room had reached pressure-cooker status.

Loretta zeroed in on Zane. “What’d he do?”

“I didn’t do nothing.” Russ surged to his feet. The chair screeched as it slid a few inches back on the linoleum.

“Russ, sit down.” Zane’s tone sharpened. “You too, Loretta.”

“I took my lunch hour early. I gotta get back to work. I can’t afford to get fired.” She dropped into a chair, pulled out a lighter and a pack of Marlboros, and tapped a cigarette out of the pack. Zane pointed to the No Smoking sign on the wall. Her frown lines deepened. She put the lighter down but kept the cigarette between her fingers.

Zane laid out the situation.

Loretta turned to Russ. “You do it?”

Russ’s jaw jutted forward in defiance. “No. Don’t matter though. Pete says I did it. Everyone will believe him.”

“You got any proof?” Loretta asked Zane.

“We have Peter’s statement, and we know Ted was dealing this drug,” Zane said. “Did you know where your dad kept his supply, Russ?”

Russ shook his head.

“I told you a dozen times.” Loretta rolled the cigarette between her fingers as if she could absorb the nicotine through her skin. “Ted didn’t tell us nothing.”

“Where were you day before yesterday—Monday—after lunch?” Zane asked Russ.

Russ dropped his gaze back to the floor. “Home. Summer school ends at noon.”

“Alone?” Zane asked.

Russ nodded. His shaggy hair fell across his eyes. “Yeah, alone.”

Zane pounced on the boy’s hesitation. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah,” Russ said. “I’m sure.”

His statement sounded defensive to Carly, as if he protested too much. But why would he lie? If he had a ready alibi, why not tell Zane?

“I was working,” Loretta said. “I can’t watch him all the time.”

“Carly, can I talk to you outside for a minute?” Zane inclined his head toward the door. Carly followed him out of the interview room and through the station to the exit, leaving Stevie in the sweltering room to babysit.

Outside, the breeze hit Carly’s face, too warm but welcome.

Zane paced to the end of the walkway and back. “Look. All we have is one kid’s word against another’s. We searched the house and came up empty. But I want to send him to county anyway. We can use the marijuana possession and his history as cause.”

Carly bristled. “You can’t be serious. You want to lock him up for possession of less than an ounce of pot? It’s a misdemeanor. That’s hardly worth sending him to jail, Zane.”

He held up a hand. “Hear me out.”

She closed her mouth and crossed her arms. Kids didn’t have the same rights as adults in the legal systems, but law enforcement was supposed to keep the best interests of the child in mind.

“The kid who says he bought drugs from Russ is well liked. Russ isn’t. The Rollinses are a solid, churchgoing family. Beverly Rollins sings in the choir. Peter is an honor student. He’ll get a public opinion pass for one bad decision. Not Russ. He’s been in trouble before. And whether he’s guilty or not, people are going to blame him as an extension of his father’s crimes. Folks will be angry, and angry people are prone to stupid acts in volatile situations. Throw Russ’s temper into the mix, and it’s a bad situation all the way around.”

Carly knew Zane was right, but Russ wouldn’t understand. His emotional state was already precarious. “He has a right to be presumed innocent. It’s not fair.”

“I know it isn’t. Something is going on around here, and we don’t have a good handle on it yet. Loretta isn’t around to provide supervision. Russ spends a lot of time alone. Beverly Rollins is in a coma. Her chances are iffy. And someone local is making and distributing a dangerous drug. For now, guilty or innocent, the boy is probably safer in juvenile detention.”

“It’s a crappy place, Zane, full of kids who are actually violent and dangerous.”

“I know.”

She gave in. “Okay. I’ll call ahead and recommend a psychological assessment based on the recent traumatic death of his father. That should give you a couple of days. But you’ll have to charge him or let him go.”

“I know. Friday is a holiday. That might buy us some time.”

Carly agreed with a short nod.

“You know he could be guilty, right, Carly?” Zane asked quietly. “His dad was bad news. He was raised in a violent home. Russ and Loretta need money. Maybe he thought he’d sell off his dad’s stash and help out.”

But Carly couldn’t see it. “I believe him. I think he wants to be the polar opposite of his father, but he doesn’t know how.”

Zane’s doubtful eyes weren’t convinced. “I’m pretty sure he was lying about being alone. Makes me wonder what he was really up to.”

Damn.

“Where is Peter?” Carly couldn’t imagine being a teen, screwing up, and possibly getting your mother killed in the process.

“Peter is at the juvenile detention center on a forty-eight-hour suicide watch. He freaked out after admitting to buying the drug that might kill his mother. I have no idea what the judge will do with him.”

“The poor kid.” Carly sighed. “I can’t imagine what he’s going through.”

Her gut told her Russ was innocent, but was that just wishful thinking on her part? Why would Peter lie about getting the drugs from Russ? Why would Russ lie about where he’d been at the time of the drug buy?

She pressed her fingers to her temples. Teenagers were so damned hard to figure out. Impulsive and illogical behavior was their normal.

Seth was always telling her she was a dreamer, that most of these troubled teens were hopeless. She didn’t want to believe that. But if Russ was guilty of selling his father’s drugs, that meant there were more of them somewhere, and Russ knew where they were hidden. Even if he didn’t know, someone might think he did. That alone could put him in danger.

They went back inside.

“Can I take him home now?” Loretta tapped her cigarette filter on the table.

“I’m sorry.” Zane shook his head. “Russ is going to the county juvenile facility.”

Loretta snapped her smoke in half. Tobacco littered the table.

Russ leaped to his feet, fury and shock and horror all crossing his face at once. He glared at Zane.

“It’ll be okay, Russ.” Carly stepped in front of him.

“Fuck you!” Russ yelled, his eyes tearing. “Dad was right. Cops do nothing but lie. Fuck you all.”

“Are you sure you were home alone Monday afternoon?” Zane asked.

Russ clamped his mouth shut and crossed his arms over his chest, defiance radiating from every pore.

“Have it your way.” Zane ushered Russ to the front door. “I’ll take him over.”

Loretta stormed off toward her own car. “Thanks for nothing.”

Carly and Stevie stood on the walkway. The parking lot was silent except for the lazy hum of a bee.

“I’ll call her later, after she calms down, and make sure she knows what she needs to do.” Carly pressed a palm to her forehead. “Maybe I should have recommended he go into foster care after Ted died.”

“You made the best call you could at the time.” Stevie crossed her arms over her chest. “Loretta’s no charmer, but with Russ’s dad out of the picture, there wasn’t any reason to uproot him. She doesn’t beat him. She feeds him. The system is already overcrowded. Face it, he could get put in a good foster home, but there’s also the possibility he could end up worse off than he is now.”

“Then why do I feel so damned guilty?”

“Because you’re you.”

“Ugh. I’ll see you later. I have some phone calls to make, and I’m already behind schedule.” Carly climbed into her Jeep.

“Bye. See you at the cemetery Thursday night?”

“You bet.” She closed her door and cranked up the air conditioning. While the interior cooled, she called the juvenile detention facility and spoke to the intake officer. Satisfied Russ would be kept as safe as possible, she ended the call.

Now to make the call she’d dreaded all day: Seth.

A knock on her window startled her. She pressed a hand to her chest and looked up.

Speak of the devil.

Seth watched Carly roll down the window of her Jeep. Just like every other time he’d seen her since they’d separated—no, since she’d left him—a flood of regret in his lungs nearly drowned him. The space between her brows wore its usual harried and worried crease, but when she turned to him, the distrust that clouded the warm brown of her eyes smacked him in the face—as did the bruise on her chin.

Once upon a time, those eyes had been full of love and desire. But their story hadn’t ended in a happily-ever-after.

“I was just calling you,” she said.

“What’s wrong? Is Brianna all right?” Alarm pushed aside his hurt.
Carly
never called
him
.

“She’s fine.” Carly set her phone aside. “We can’t find her Fourth of July hat.”

“Oh.” Relief flowed through him. “I thought it was something serious.”

“To her it is.”

Guilt was a Ginsu to the gut, and no one could slice him like Carly. For once he held back a snappy retort and loosened his tie. Sweat dampened the back of his shirt. The heat wave crushing the Pacific Northwest was unnatural. He wasn’t acclimated to drastic changes in temperature—or in his life. All he wanted was for everything to go back to normal. “I probably won’t get home until late tonight.”

Carly’s eyes said
Of course you won’t
, but she didn’t say it. Carly didn’t like to fight. Apparently her parents had never fought, because they were fucking perfect. He didn’t mean that. Patsy was an incredible woman, and Bill had never treated Seth like anything other than one of his sons, even after Carly had moved out. But as a couple and as parents, the Taylors were an impossible act to follow.

“You have a key,” he said in a carefully modulated voice. One conversation. That was all he was asking. One conversation with Carly during which he didn’t yell, she didn’t shut him out, and he didn’t end up with his foot jammed down his throat. “I’ve told you before you can take whatever you want.”

“This isn’t about the division of our assets.”

He winced. Any time she started talking about the details of their pending divorce, he felt sick. So, as usual, he evaded the discussion. They’d spent the last couple of months circling each other and getting nowhere. “What are you doing here?”