The Good Fight (Time Served Book 3) (22 page)

The second time he calls he tells me a window was broken, but doesn’t think anybody got inside. It’s irritating, but again I chalk it up to vandals. We only keep a few pieces of equipment in the gym at night, the rest are hidden upstairs on the second level where we’ve removed all the light bulbs and locked all the doors, so anyone looking for an easy score will have to work for it. A couple hours and a couple hundred bucks later, we’ve got a new window. Problem solved.

I’m working out with Lupo the third time it happens. Oreo’s cell phone rings and he blows his whistle to order us apart. “You got a phone call, Oz.”

“On your phone?”

“It’s that gardener kid of yours. Says he tried your cell but couldn’t get an answer. He’s saying it’s urgent.”

Neither Lupo nor Oreo makes any effort to hide the fact that they’re eavesdropping, and since I can’t imagine Wyatt phoning to confess any big secrets, I let them. “Hey,” I say, taking the phone. “Wy. What’s going on?”

“You’ve gotta get over here,” he says. “The security company called me when they couldn’t reach you. The alarm went off at the building. We’re lucky they got here quick, or the fire could have spread.”

The fear and fury that roll through me are like an anesthetic. Every growing bruise from tonight’s bout with Lupo is forgotten as I climb out of the ring and jog toward the locker room to get my things. “What kind of fire?” I ask as I grab my bag, not bothering to change.

A sigh. “It looks like they threw something through the new window.”

“A fucking Molotov?”

“Could be. The fire department’s here, but they aren’t saying much, just that we’re lucky.”

“Someone tried to burn down the building. How lucky can we be? I’ll see you in five minutes.” I toss Oreo his phone as I pass, Lupo right on my heels. “You don’t have to leave,” I tell him. “Keep training.”

“No, I’ll come.”

I don’t bother to argue, just drive over to the Green Space, Lupo strumming his fingers anxiously against the window.

“Why are you so worked up?” I ask. It’s close to 10:00 p.m. on Thursday night in Camden, and the streets are dark and quiet, making the already short drive even shorter.

“Why?” Lupo echoes. “This has to be Alex. Or the guys that are after him.”

“Alex?” I look over sharply. “Jade’s brother?”

“Yeah. She didn’t tell you?”

“She said he was in trouble.”

“Dude, he’s in more than trouble. He promised some Russian guy he had twenty kilos of coke hidden away and if he helped get him out early, he’d split it.”

“He didn’t split it?”

“He didn’t have any coke. Never did. And now the Russian wants payback for the time and money he spent arranging his early parole.”

“You think he’d target the Green Space to get to Jade?”

A shrug. “I think no one has seen Alex in weeks, and Jade’s the next best thing. Why do you think she hasn’t been sleeping at home?”

I think about dropping her off each night, watching her go inside. Believing her when she said she was safe there. “Where’s she sleeping?” I ask, gripping the wheel too tightly.

“Different places. She’s mixing it up. She didn’t tell you?”

“Obviously not. I told her she could stay with me if it got bad.”

“She knows you’ve got a lot of shit on your plate.”

“Did she stay with you?”

“A couple times.”

I glance at him and he holds up his hands defensively. “No funny business, man. I have a girlfriend now.”

“You do? With that face?”

“Ha ha. Fuck you.”

The gravel lot is blocked by a fire truck and three police cars, so I park across the street and Lupo and I head over. The lights are on inside, the front doors propped open, police officers and firefighters milling around. Wyatt’s mid-conversation with a man in a suit when he spots me and waves us over. I introduce myself and Lupo to the detective, then order Lupo to recount his story about the Russian. The detective makes a few notes, then turns to me.

“What about you?” he asks, looking me from head to toe. “Anyone you’re having problems with?”

Dressed in my workout gear, sweaty and bloody, I don’t suppose I look like an upstanding accountant. “No,” I say. “Nobody.”

He gives an unconvincing nod. “All right. You got insurance?”

“Yeah.”

“One bookshelf burned before the fire crew got here, otherwise it’s just smoke and water damage. Pretty minimal. You’ll need a new window.”

I sigh. “I’ve got them on speed dial.”

It takes another hour before everyone’s gone, and just Lupo, Wyatt and I are left behind to tidy up. I want the place in decent shape before the kids arrive tomorrow morning; the whole point was for the Green Space to be an escape from the shit show that is Camden, not a target for idiots with too much time on their hands and revenge on their minds.

We’re nearly done when Jade arrives in a taxi, hurrying across the gravel in silver heels and a little black dress, her hair twisted on top of her head, big hoop earrings and red lipstick making her look far too glamorous for our little corner of hell. “What happened?” she demands, looking around at the garbage bags stuffed with the wet remains of books and charred shelves. “I heard there was a fire.”

“You heard right,” I tell her.

“Who the—”

“Hey,” I interrupt sharply. “Go upstairs to my office.” Because it’s the only room that gets used, it’s the only one with a light bulb—not that there’s anything worth stealing in there, anyway.

“Wha—”

I silence her with a look, and she glares at Lupo and Wyatt before stalking off. “You got everything down here?” I ask the guys.

“Yeah,” Wyatt replies. “It’s fine.”

I find Jade pacing in my cramped office. She stops moving when I close the door and fold my arms over my chest.

“What?” she snaps, though I see through the bratty façade to the scared girl beneath.

“Were you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“That you’re afraid to sleep at home, Jade!”

She scowls and looks away. “I’m not afraid, Oz. I’m being cautious.”

“Being cautious?” I echo incredulously. “Caution is not the same as feeling unsafe in your own bed. I told you you could stay with me. Why didn’t you say something?”

She swipes at her eyes, bright with tears. “Because I didn’t want to,” she mumbles.

The words hit me like Lupo’s right hook. “What?”

“I don’t want to ruin...this,” she says, gesturing between us. “You’re my boss. You’re my friend. And I don’t want the shit that’s going on in my life to interfere. It’s not your problem. You’ve got a lot going on. You have a business, and this place, and a girlfriend, and I don’t—I don’t want—” She breaks off as huge tears roll down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she sobs when I hug her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think they would come here.”

“Jade,” I murmur, stroking her hair. “Have they tried anything else?”

She shakes her head. “Just some phone calls. Drive-bys. They said they’re looking for Alex and I have to tell them if I hear from him, but I’ll never hear from him. He’s gone. Smartest thing he’s ever done was disappear from this place.”

Smartest thing everyone who’s left has ever done.

“You’re staying with me,” I tell her.

“I can call Rian,” she replies. “That’s who I was with when I got the call. Maybe he’s mad I left early, but—”

“Hey.” I catch her chin and make her look at me. “He’s a grown up. He’ll get over it. And if he doesn’t know you’re worth waiting for, he’s an idiot. In fact, he is an idiot, and you should stop seeing him.”

She smiles sadly. “Is there a curfew at your house?”

“It’s very reasonable. Eight o’clock.”

“Oh God.”

“And we eat vegetables at every meal, and wash our dishes right away.”

“Wait. Am I going to your house or prison?”

“Ha ha. The bars are for your own good.”

This time her laughter sounds real.

Chapter Fourteen

“Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you or should I not ask?”

I glance over at Susan, silhouetted by the hazy night sky as she stands in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in her apartment. I pop off the top of my second bottle of beer and take a swig as I look at her, shorts, tank top, lots of bare skin. It’s Tuesday night and I haven’t seen her in over a week, busy schedules keeping us apart. I guess the fact that I called last minute and invited myself over then
didn’t
jump her has got her worried.

Truth be told, I don’t want to go home right now. I don’t want to be in Camden with its pressures and problems, its decisions and demands. I’m leaking money with the Green Space and its myriad issues, Jade’s dating Rian and driving me crazy, and I just want a break. But there’s no time for a break. No time to traipse off to a yurt in the middle of nowhere and pretend none of this is happening. And as much as I’d love to unload some of this weight onto Susan, I know that’s not fair. She’s a surgeon, for fuck’s sake. And a mom. She’s got her own issues to deal with; it’s not fair to saddle her with mine.

“If you’re not going to talk, at least come help me with this last panel,” Susan orders. She’d been midproject when I called, trying to restring these weird panel-type curtains she’s got. Apparently they haven’t been opening smoothly and she blamed the rope, so she’d gone out a bought a bunch and is nearly finished restringing everything.

I put down the beer and approach the window, stepping over bundles of new and old rope. Half the hardwood floor is covered, she’s got a coil slung over her shoulder, and a small piece stuck in her hair. I pluck it out and tuck it in my pocket. “You bought about eighty more feet than you needed,” I remark, surveying the leftovers.

She shrugs, a piece clamped between her teeth as she feeds a loop through an eyelet hole, ties it off, and gives the dangling piece a contemplative yank. The curtain folds up smoothly.

“Ta da!” she sings. “Thank goodness you were here to...supervise.”

I shoot her a halfhearted smile and crouch down to start tidying up. “Any time.” There’s a small stack of medical journals tucked beneath one of the end tables, but on top of the pile is a well-worn issue of
Chicago’s Finest
, a local magazine dedicated to highlighting the best Chicago has to offer. I’ve seen it around but never picked up a copy, and now I slide it out of the pile and stare at the woman on the cover. She’s curvy, blonde and gorgeous, dressed in a red power suit that’s designed to draw the eye. But it’s the headline that catches my attention:
Caitlin Dufresne—The Best in the Game
.

“Dufresne?” I read, standing with the magazine in my hand. “Is this the sister you mentioned?”

Susan glances at the cover, expression bland. “Yeah. The lawyer.”

“Wow.”

She makes an irritated sound and moves past me to throw away a fistful of leftover rope. “I know.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she’s the best. I know.”

“You’re not too shabby either, doc.”

Her smile is fleeting, then she turns her back as she reaches into the fridge and pulls out a beer for herself. “That’s what started it,” she says after a moment.

“Started what?”

“Why the hospital started looking at me, wondering why I wasn’t as great as my sister. They saw the magazine and thought, ‘We want that too.’ And then the shit hit the fan.”

I consider it for a moment, but I can’t imagine anyone looking at Susan and thinking they might want something else. Despite all the shit piled on my plate right now, she’s still the first thing I think of when I wake up every morning, the last thing when I fall asleep. She’s just not a woman who comes in second.

“Everything’s okay now, though, isn’t it?”

“Better than it was.” She shakes her head as though shaking off the memories of the board’s criticism, and holds up a hand as an idea hits her. “Actually, it’s good you’re here,” she says. “I wanted to show you my dress for the gala. I don’t know if you want to match your tie or anything, but just so you...have options.”

“Options?”

“You didn’t forget, did you? It’s in two weeks.”

“No, Susan. I didn’t forget.”

I hadn’t forgotten, but given everything else that’s been going on, I really haven’t given it much thought, either. But now that she mentions it, of course I want to see her dress. I’ve seen her a lot of ways, but never dressed up, and my interest is suitably piqued. She hurries out of the room and comes back with a pair of sparkly heels in one hand and a black garment bag in the other. She hangs it on the side of a bookshelf and opens it to reveal a long gauzy dress in pale green. I close the distance between us as she crouches down to arrange the shoes, and when I absently drop a hand to stroke her hair, she jerks away so fast we both lose our balance. I freeze, stunned, as she jumps up and composes herself, running a hand over her face.

“Oh God,” she mutters, standing and pacing in a small circle. “I’m so sorry. That wasn’t your fault.”

I’ve known since the beginning that she doesn’t like me touching her head during, well, head, but I thought we’d been working through that, and this is the first time she’s ever reacted to it during non-sex. Just as soon as I have the thought I realize what’s different: she was on her knees. “Susan,” I say, doing my best to sound calm, and not like I’m ready to kill somebody. “You have to tell me what happened. If you don’t want me to touch you, I won’t, but what—Why?”

She shoots me a pleading look, like,
Please don’t ask
, but I don’t want to keep feeling like an asshole when I slip up and touch her without negotiating it first.

“You have to promise not to...not to make anything of it,” she says eventually, curling and uncurling her fingers at her sides.

The sight makes my stomach clench. “Make anything of what?”

“Promise,” she insists.

“I promise,” I say, even though I think we both know I might be lying.

She massages her temples and avoids my stare. “Stephen,” she says quietly.

My pulse quickens. “What about him?”

“Toward the end, we...he...I...” She exhales heavily. “Look, for a long time, we really loved each other. We met at college and it was love at first sight. We were both going to be doctors, everything would be perfect. But then we had a baby and I had to work longer and harder than everybody else to compensate for the time off, and Stephen and I started to...come undone.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No, he...I mean, we hurt each other, I suppose. We grew apart, but we stayed together because we had Dorrie and we wanted things to be okay. But they weren’t. We tried for a long time, but two years ago we just couldn’t do it anymore. Dorrie was nine and she was starting to ask questions about why we were always so unhappy, and I could tell Stephen didn’t want to keep up the charade anymore. We weren’t talking, we weren’t having sex...” She swallows and picks at an imaginary thread on her top. “I tried to fix it. He said I was distant and cold and...frigid...and I tried to be a better wife. I tried to fix it with sex. It wasn’t romantic, it was just two people doing what they thought had to do—textbook, like you said. And then one night, I don’t know, he just lost it. I was going—” she looks at me nervously “—going down on him and he just grabbed my head and forced himself down my throat. Over and over again. He kept saying, ‘Do you feel that? Do you feel that?’”

She wipes away tears.

“I was choking and crying and I thought it would never stop. Afterward he apologized for hours and said he didn’t know what had come over him. He was angry that it felt like I had to force myself to be with him. And by that point, it did. I mean, the job, a kid and a husband—it was hard. I just did whatever I had to do to get through each day, not really feeling anything. I couldn’t afford to or I’d never get anything done. And I think eventually it became more than a coping mechanism—it became who I was. I suppose it still is, even when I try not to be.”

“Susan.” I’m stricken. I’m flashing back to the first day on her balcony when I told her to get me off and she chose the blow job. I’m thinking about how I thought she was forcing her orgasm and I could do it better. I was just reinforcing everything her ex-husband had told her: you’re not good enough. You can’t even do
this
right.

Fuck. Even in the yurt, holding her down, I did the same thing.

She doesn’t need my instructions. She’s not cold or distant or textbook. She’s self-conscious.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, frozen in place. “All those times I made you—”

“You’ve never made me do anything I didn’t want to do,” she says quickly. “In fact, you’re the first person in a long time to make me want anything at all. To make me just...feel.”

“Feel terrified,” I counter.

“Not terrified,” she replies, stepping forward, cautiously linking her fingers through mine, even though I don’t have the courage to hold her back. “Feel wanted. Feel open. Feel good.”

“Oh, Susan,” I murmur, carefully folding her in a hug. “I’m so fucking angry. At him. At myself.”

“It’s in the past,” she replies, nudging me back so she can look into my face. “And this is the present. This is where I want to be.”

Too many emotions are swirling through me right now, anger, sorrow, pity, love. But I can’t express any of that the way I want to, so I settle for another truth. “Me too.”

Abruptly she pulls back. “Dammit,” she says.

I frown. “What?”

“Something is obviously bothering you, but instead of helping you, I just unloaded my own stupid problems.”

“Your problems aren’t stupid.”

She gets an alarmingly determined look on her face. “Your turn,” she announces.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s your turn,” she repeats. “You listened to me, I can listen to you. Tell me why you called tonight. What’s got you so stressed.”

I don’t even know where to begin. “My whole life is stressful.”

She blinks a couple of times and looks away, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that she’s stung by the evasive reply. Another knock down. I don’t want to be the guy who does that to her, especially not when she’s trying so hard.

“I can’t stop thinking about the fire,” I hear myself say.

She looks back at me. “What about the fire?”

I scratch my arm, hoping I don’t sound too paranoid. “It doesn’t add up,” I say, uncomfortable uttering the words out loud for the first time. “I mean, why would someone try to burn it down?”

“I thought they’d just chalked it up to vandals.”

True. The police hadn’t found motive, and Camden being what it is, they said it was most likely some neighborhood kids messing around, trying to entertain themselves on a rainy night. Compared to the stuff we used to do, a small fire is relatively harmless.

“They did,” I admit. “I just...I don’t know.”

“You think there’s more to it?”

I hesitate. “If I tell you something, do you promise to keep it to yourself?”

She straightens dutifully. “Yes.”

I smile at her fervent sincerity. God. She just wants to be let in somewhere, so badly. She can save a person’s life, and they still tell her it’s not enough. But she’s more than enough for me.

“It’s Jade,” I say cautiously, then fill her in on Jade’s sad back story, how her mom left when she was a baby, her dad died when she was a teenager, and she was raised then abandoned by her two older brothers. I tell her about Alex and his prison troubles, the drive-bys, Jade couch surfing because she doesn’t feel safe at home.

“Wow,” Susan says when I’m finished.

“And it’s just...”

She waits for me to continue.

“What if the Green Space isn’t the target? What if it’s Jade?” I feel my face heat as I mutter the words. It sounds stupid and farfetched.

“Jade wasn’t even there when the fire started,” Susan points out.

“I know.”

“Do you think that maybe...” She studies her fingernails before glancing up at me. “That maybe everything else that’s going on has you looking elsewhere for problems, so you don’t have to think about how much is on your plate?”

There’s an embarrassing ring of truth to the words. “I think I’m going crazy,” I say, rubbing a hand over my heated face.

“No crazier than anybody else,” she assures me.

I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night. The last time I didn’t wake up in a cold sweat, certain some giant disaster was lurking right around the corner. When we first opened the Green Space, the sight of the kids walking through the door made me feel proud. Now I just feel panicked. Like the pressure is piling on and I know there’s only so much longer before something has to give.

I know Susan just bared her soul and I want to give her something, but there’s no way I can give her all that shit. So I hedge a bit, give her part of the truth. “I just feel like maybe I’m taking on too much, and at the same time, not doing enough.”

“Hey.” Susan comes close enough to stroke my arm. “You’re doing enough.”

“Suze—”

“I’m not just saying that,” she says. “You know how many people say they’re going to do something and never even try? It takes guts to do what you’re doing. It takes guts to care the way you do. Trust me, Oscar. The way you care about things is the sexiest thing about you. It’s the thing I admire most.”

I stare at her, lost for words for a second. Before I came back, I was doing all right. I had a good job, a nice apartment, a great girlfriend. But then I moved back here and I got stuck in the messy quagmire of Camden, its rundown grit and generations of depression, and I became part of it. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been someone worth admiring, if I ever was.

“You don’t have to say that.” But my hands are trembling. She’s half my size and twice as much as I can handle, and I don’t know if I should run away or kiss her. But kissing Susan always wins out, and even though she’s surprised when I curl my fingers around her nape, she lets me draw her in. We’ve kissed a hundred times, but somehow this is different. Like I’ve seen one more layer of Susan and she’s seen one more layer of me, and here we are, a little more exposed, but not afraid. Not running from the messy stuff. But she cuts people’s brains open for a living, doesn’t she? I’ve always known she wasn’t afraid of a little gore.