AFTER A LONG DAY of patrolling Holly Heights and the highway in and out of town, Luke was glad to be away from the patrol car. He and Davy had written a few speeding tickets and answered a domestic call to break up a fight over too many late nights out, but all that was left now was paperwork.
He hated paperwork. Marcus, his old partner, would have filled out forms in his spare time if he’d had the chance because he’d loved it so much. They’d made a good team. Luke had the hunches; Marcus dotted every I, crossed all the T’s and grinned like a maniac over a properly filled out incident report. After years of handing over all his reports to Marcus, being forced to sit and painstakingly weigh his words and spelling was the worst.
And judging by Davy’s grumbling under his breath, Luke was going to be looking at a fair distribution of all paperwork while he was with Holly Heights. Since every glance Davy had given him that day seemed to be an evaluation—like a disappointed father hoping for better behavior—Luke was pretty sure he’d get zero help from his partner.
Great. If the excitement got to be too much for him, he could look forward to dying slowly, one paper cut at a time.
When his cell phone rang, Luke nearly sighed with relief, but his mother was only supposed to use it in emergencies while he was at work. Luke yanked the phone off his utility belt. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Joey. He’s in trouble at school.” His mother’s voice was weak. “Principal held him off the bus and gave him detention, so he needs a ride home but I don’t feel...well. Camila got the job waiting tables in Austin, so she went to work today and didn’t answer her phone. The principal called again because she would like to go home now. Can you...”
She didn’t finish the request, so Luke said, “Sure, Mom, I’ll pick him up. Don’t worry.”
“Thank you, baby,” she said before she hung up the phone. He’d expected her to be a little low. This would have been his parents’ anniversary. They should be celebrating forty-one years together today.
At some point, she’d be strong enough to handle these calls again. Wouldn’t she?
Wishing he was on better terms with Davy, Luke stood. “Okay with you if I take a quick break?”
The older man pinched the bridge of his reading glasses and dropped them on his desk. “More info, please.”
Luke tilted his head back to study the ugly ceiling. “My brother’s had some trouble at school, needs a ride home. I’ll be back in twenty.” Probably. Maybe. If Joseph was hurt or sick or whatever, it could take longer. And then there was his mother, whatever shape she was in.
Adams studied the clock. “You go. There’s only an hour left, I’ll cover the rest of the shift. Like a friend might do.” Then he waggled his eyebrows, slid his glasses back on, and stuck his nose into the tiny notebook from which he’d been transcribing notes.
Relieved, Luke dug in his pocket for his car keys, trotted through the small parking lot and slid into his car. Conscious of that urge to hurry that would make him do something stupid unless he controlled it, Luke drove cautiously by the town square and turned off at the middle school. All the buses were gone, the long pickup line had receded and there were only two cars left in the large parking lot. He pulled in to the nearest open spot and turned the ignition off. Whatever this was, his mother would handle it. He was only transportation. He wasn’t the parent.
No matter how many times he told himself that, that he wasn’t the parent, every single day he felt the weight of responsibility tighten around his shoulders one more notch. Maybe it was time that he finally talked to his mother about the topic he’d been avoiding, explain how worried he was about her and the depression that was dragging her away from them.
If only she’d get a little stronger or look a little more like the feisty Connie Hollister who’d picked him up from child protective services all those years ago.
She’d seemed formidable then.
When he’d told her she’d be sorry if she took him away from his parents, she’d bent as low as she could so that there was no way he could avoid her stare and said, “Not as sorry as they will be.” Her sweet smile had confused him, but she’d never once shown him anything other than patience.
Some people were meant to be parents. Connie and Walt had been those people.
Him? He was meant to keep those people safe. And he wasn’t accomplishing much of that here in Holly Heights.
As he yanked open the door, the school’s safety officer met him, one hand up. “Sir, the school is closed.”
“Yeah, I’m here to pick up the kid who’s keeping everyone from going home for the day,” Luke said as he tapped his name badge. “Kid’s name’s Martinez, but I’m here on behalf of his mother, Connie Hollister. She’s under the weather.”
The guy studied the badge. “We’ll have to check to make sure you’re on the list.” He waved vaguely at the front desk as if that was the general area where the list was kept.
Of course they would. They better.
If there was any doubt that he and Joseph were connected, though, the kid’s reaction should have cleared that right up. “No way! Brought out the big guns.” His sneer was normal. The spooked look in his eyes was not. Neither was the red mark on his cheek, right under his eye.
“You been fighting?” Luke asked as he stepped closer to Joseph.
The safety officer and the tall gray-haired woman who stepped out of an office both joined him, the three of them pinning Joseph in.
“Not that he’ll tell us,” the woman said with a sigh. “Principal McKelvy. I expected Joseph’s mother.” She studied his face and uniform very closely. “We’ll have to check the list.”
Luke nodded. “Fine. One of you do that while the other tells me what’s going on.”
She raised an eyebrow and stepped behind the desk. Luke couldn’t quite make out what she was muttering as she shifted through stacks of files, but it wasn’t complimentary. “We’re a bit shorthanded, so things are...” She gripped a file and yanked. “Jumbled.” She handed the safety officer a file. Then she crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “Joseph here decided to skip his last two periods. Officer Huertas was checking the bathrooms to be sure we were clear to lock up when he spotted his backpack.”
“Mom said you got detention,” Luke said as he tried to make sense of the different stories. “Is that what you told her? How were you planning to get home?”
Joseph didn’t meet his stare. One lazy shrug was his only answer.
“Why are you lying to Mom?” Luke wanted immediate answers.
Adams’s advice about trying another way than applying pressure was still fresh enough that it was easy to remember.
“Name’s here, Principal,” the safety officer said and plopped the file down on the counter. “He’s got permission to pick up.”
She smiled and offered him her hand. “I hope we won’t be meeting like this often, Officer Hollister.”
That was all she had to say?
He motioned with his head to get her to follow him out into the hallway.
Before he could get a word out, she shrugged. “He’s not talking. I don’t know what happened, how often he’s been skipping class or what he planned to do to get home. Believe me, I’ve been asking.”
“Can’t you threaten him with... I don’t know, a real detention?” Luke ran a hand down his nape and turned to stare back at the doors that led to freedom. If this turned into one of those Afterschool Specials where he had to be all understanding and wise, he and Joseph were both in trouble.
“I’m not big on threats. I’m not very good at them and they don’t seem to work consistently.” She patted his shoulder. “He gets a warning for this first offense. That’s to give you the opportunity to straighten this out. If it continues, he’ll get proper detention. Eventually, we’ll go to the next step, which will be on his record. The record that will follow him to high school. I don’t want that.”
Luke wanted to be grateful for her understanding, but more than that, he wanted her to fix the problem.
“Kids who move to new schools often take time to adjust. Did you have any trouble like this in his old school?” the principal asked. If he lied, she’d know. Those were the kind of eyes she had, like she could see the truth way deep down inside.
“A little. We moved here to avoid trouble.” Luke would never be comfortable with school authority figures. As a kid, he’d always been on the wrong side, never the honor roll or special awards. He’d done his share of skipping class.
Until Walter Hollister found out and threatened to take his car keys away. Since they spent nearly every weekend tinkering on the Mustang, Luke had been in deep solid love with that car. That made it easier to turn his back on his wild ways. Then Alex had been shot and nothing but the safety of home made sense for the longest time. Until he’d met the policeman who arrested his brother’s killer and decided to become a detective.
The decision had kept the grief and guilt away for years.
Knowing what he was meant to do had made all the difference to Luke’s future. They had to help Joseph make it there.
“Moving was a big step. It’s clear you’re committed to Joseph, but you’re going to have to do something else. Geography didn’t magically solve your problem. It hardly ever does.”
Luke realized that was true for both Joseph and his mother. He’d thought new scenery would lift her spirits, restore her to her old self. Apparently, he was going to have to do more on both fronts.
Principal McKelvy wrinkled her nose. “From what I understand, you’re going to need to look into some tutors. In English, Joseph is a solid C student, but math... He needs some help.”
Luke rubbed the ache in his temple. “Yeah. Got a list of people my mother should contact?”
She tilted her head to the side. “If you can convince her to take on another student, the high school geometry and algebra teacher, Jennifer Neil, works with younger kids. Or she did. Now that she’s rich, I don’t know if the satisfaction is worth the extra time with surly kids.”
Hearing Jen’s name reminded him of catching her watching him from the safety of her front door, framed like a beautiful, expensive picture by her house. He should have seized his chance that day, asked for her help, but there was something about her that made him hesitate.
Almost as if he knew getting too close to her was dangerous. To what? If he knew the answer, he’d feel so much better. Sometimes a man just understood he’d met the fork in the road that could change everything.
Uneasy again, Luke asked, “Surly. Has he given you a lot of attitude?” His mother would not go for that. She’d worked in schools for so long that disrespect to teachers and staff was a hard line her kids learned not to cross.
The principal shook her head. “Any kid forced to do extra work with anyone is a surly kid, no offense to Joseph. He’s been perfectly well behaved this afternoon. I gave him some filing to do. Other than the rhythmic kicking of one sneaker against his chair, he did it without complaint.”
Luke tried to imagine that, his brother elbows deep in manila folders but the picture wouldn’t come. Instead, he could see Joseph riding his bike in circles before finally putting it away, like he’d been asked to do.
The kid had a good heart. They had to figure out what was going on before that good heart was twisted or injured in a way that he’d never recover from.
“Don’t guess you’d like to tell me about any drug or gang problems you have here.” Luke waited for her to deny in a huff that lovely Holly Heights had such a thing.
Every cop knew better.
And this principal was in no mood to pretend.
She sighed. “Well, they’re both isolated and connected. We don’t see much of either but we have had dealers picked up near the school grounds. Low-level players from Austin.” She smiled grimly. “We rely on our friends on the police force to warn us to be on the lookout.”
Luke nodded. He tried not to think too much about Eric, Mike and the Red guy who was clearly connected to something else. His contact on the Austin Gang Task Force hadn’t hesitated when he’d given him the nickname.
“Please tell me Joseph hasn’t had that kind of trouble.” Principal McKelvy’s voice was soft but firm. If he said yes, the way she looked at Joseph would change.
“No, but there was some activity in his old school and one of his buddies from the neighborhood got picked up on possession of marijuana.” Not a big fish, but each tiny step could add up and take a kid to a cliff he had no choice but to jump off.
“I guess we can count on you to keep an eye out. For the school and for Joseph, then.” Principal McKelvy checked her watch and gasped. “Oh, man, I am so late. I wanted to get everything refiled but... It’ll have to wait. Let’s get this place shut down.” She bustled into the office. “Tomorrow. The ad for a new secretary goes in the paper or else.”
The safety officer was handing Joseph his backpack when Luke stuck his head around the corner. “Let’s go, J.” He didn’t wait to see if the kid followed him. The principal and the safety officer would sweep him out in their wake if he didn’t make tracks fast enough. When they were both settled in the car and buckled in, Luke glanced over at Joseph and shook his head.
“They were worried you were there to kidnap me, right?” Joseph said in a fake, happy voice. “Good to know the security is top-notch at Holly Heights Middle School.”
Luke tightened his grip on the steering wheel before he backed calmly out of the parking space. When they were on the road that would lead them directly home, Luke said, “What happened?” He was trying for patient. That would be his first tactic. If that failed, he’d go for hostile witness.
“I hate math. I’ve said that, remember?” Joseph didn’t look his way but picked at a small hole in his jeans that would no doubt grow.
“That doesn’t mean you can skip it.” Luke was so unprepared for this kind of conversation. He tried to imagine what Walt would have said in the same situation but the voice wouldn’t come. “What’s with the red mark on your cheek?”
If someone had hit the kid, they were going to have to get to the bottom of this fast. Skipping class was one thing. Violence was something that would keep Connie Hollister awake at night. And Luke was determined to get rid of all those things as fast as possible.
“Bumped the stall. I was in a hurry when I heard the door open.” If he’d had a chance to watch Joseph’s face when he talked, Luke might have a better feeling about whether or not that was the truth. The kid’s voice sounded right, but they’d all had a lot of practice making lies sound like truth before they were lucky enough to find the right foster parents.
Luke stared hard at the empty lots at the front of the subdivision as the car rolled slowly down the street. “What are we going to tell Mom? The truth or the handy lie you’ve already passed her?” He wasn’t sure the right way to go.
Joseph shrugged. “Not much difference, is there?”
“Why do you think it’s the same to let her believe you got in trouble instead of... I don’t even know what you were doing.” Luke grimaced. “Were you going to walk home?”
“I could. I walked that far...before. When I lived at home. I could do it here. There I had to watch for traffic and stuff. Here, what’s going to get me? A runaway cow or something?” Joseph snorted at his own joke.
“Bad people drive cars, you little jerk. They can go anywhere. Get on the school bus. Ride to the end of the street. Get off the school bus. It’s that simple. Or am I going to need to set up some door-to-door service to guarantee you make it home.” Luke squeezed his eyes shut. “And why wouldn’t I have to make sure you actually go to school?”
As soon as Joseph straightened in his seat as if a bright idea had hit him, Luke muttered, “Never mind. The school will call us to let us know you didn’t make it to homeroom. Don’t you even think about it.”
Joseph collapsed against the seat and picked up his backpack, half a second from sprinting from the car as soon as it rolled to a stop.
“We’ll stick with your story. You’ve been tardy too many times but you’re going to straighten up your act and if I have to come pick you up again because you missed the school bus, the ride home is going to be very different. You will be walking, me rolling right beside you, all the way through town. Get it?”
Joseph rolled his eyes. “When are you going to let me drive this thing anyway? Someone should be teaching me so that I can get my license, buy a car and get out of this place as soon as I turn sixteen.”
“Right. Because it’s that simple to buy a car, one that starts and goes and stops like it’s supposed to.” Luke parked in the driveway and clamped a hand on Joseph’s backpack to halt his ejection from the car. “I worked for a full year before Dad said this car was safe to go out on the road, and that was with him helping me every Sunday. You think you’re going to write a check for a new model with all the bells and whistles?” Luke watched his face. “Where’s that money going to come from, J?”
If the kid was dealing drugs, money might seem like no big deal. But that was impossible. In a place like this, everyone would know and after everyone else in town knew, the police were sure to catch on.
The fact that Joseph might not be as disconnected from his old friends as his mother hoped was a concern. Should he tell her?
“I’ll get a job,” Joseph said slowly. “Can’t be that hard. Renita’s got about twenty, all at the same time.”
“Yeah, and you’ve seen the fancy car she bought with all that cash. Seems like I put away the two-wheeled model lying on the driveway. You were there.” Luke let go of Joseph’s backpack. “Go do your homework without forcing Mom to raise her voice and I might show you how to change the oil on this car...in case you ever get one of your own.”
Joseph studied his face, to weigh whether or not he thought Luke was making a promise he’d keep.
He shrugged again to show he couldn’t care less, but still nodded as he slid out of the car.
Luke watched him go inside and then turned to stare at the house across the street. The shiny SUV he’d seen the tiny redhead in was parked at the end of the driveway. Jen was home.
He should go in and reassure his mother that Joseph was fine. Instead, he headed across the silent street and down her long driveway. A large porch stretched across the front of the house. It had no furniture, no plants, no nothing to indicate anyone lived there.
“Not the type for clutter, I guess.” Since his house was all clutter, all the time, this was refreshing. Bare bones, a little sterile, but spacious. Luke stood in the spot where a welcome mat should live and pressed the doorbell.
A split second later, there was barking loud enough to cause a burglar to bolt in the dark of night. He could hear her say, “Good, Hopey. Good dog” in such a goofy voice that he wondered if maybe she had a twin. There was the bad twin he’d always met in person and the good twin who sounded sweet enough to welcome a man home every night with a happy smile and a sweet kiss.
When the dog immediately quieted, Luke was impressed.
When the door swung open, he realized there was no twin. The familiar frown was in place, even if her hair was sleek and stylish to match the ruffled skirt and denim jacket. He was no fashion icon, but her Texas chic was sharp, right down to her cowboy boots.
“What do you want?” she snapped. “I’m making Hope’s dinner.”
The dog tilted her head at him and sat on top of one expensive cowboy boot. In her bandanna, the dog was the perfect accessory for Jen’s millionaire cowgirl look.
He had a feeling this wasn’t going to go well, but he’d come this far. “I have a favor to ask. Can I come in?”
Maybe she wore a frown more often than not, but there was no denying Jen’s face was expressive. She must be a horrible poker player. Surprise melted into curiosity before the hard mask of cynical disbelief settled again on her face. Then she held the door open wider and stepped back.
She was never going to win an award for hospitality, but he needed her help. This had to work.