Page 29 of Honest Neglect

“Leroy, this is Frank. He’s a police officer in Oakville,” I explained. “One of the ones on our side. Well, the only one, actually.”

Frank and Leroy shook hands firmly.

“And this is Barry, my mom’s friend,” Lily added. Diane came back into the living room with a tray, and I took it from her without thinking.

“Diane, please, sit down,” I told her. “You’re supposed to be resting up, remember?”

“How am I supposed to rest with everything that’s going on?” she replied, raising her eyebrows at me as though daring me to give her an answer.

“Let me pour the coffee, at least,” I offered, and she sank into her favorite armchair and smiled in agreement. Silver curled up at her feet, glad to be home, and Lily perched on the edge of a couch, still tense.

The room was filled with silence as I served the coffee. I didn’t know what to say first. I could tell Leroy was still wary of the other two men, but we needed to be on the same page. We didn’t have a whole lot of people batting for us, and so it was imperative that the ones who were trusted each other.

“So what happens now?” Barry asked. I wondered how much Diane had told him. It was hard to believe a guy like him would have willingly put himself in the middle of something like this, but maybe he just really cared about her. It was something I could understand, having gotten so attached to Lily myself.

“I got in touch with Paul,” Leroy explained. “He says he’ll be coming in to town later tonight, but I’m not sure what the chances are that he’s actually going to show up.”

“Paul?” Diane asked, frowning in confusion.

“Marcy’s dad,” Lily interjected. “He said he’s willing to talk to us about what happened with his daughter—what he knows, at least.”

“I need to be there for that,” Frank told me urgently, leaning forward to emphasize his point. “I’ve been trying to get my hands on the evidence in the other cases against Tony, but nobody is handing anything over. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but every cop in the department is willing to play along with the McCarthy game, as long as they keep their pockets padded in the process.”

He shook his head, sighing as though he could hardly believe what his fellow officers were willing to do for a quick buck.

“Which Mark McCarthy is more than happy to do,” he muttered. And then he looked back up at me.

“But this could be the evidence I need to put together some pieces I’m trying to connect to Tony,” he explained. “There isn’t anything connecting Tony to this girl on paper except the restraining order, and they’ve made it out like she was just some crazy ex who was trying to get back at him. If I can get a statement from her father saying that she and Tony were involved, they’ll have to pay attention to it.”

“You really think that’ll work?” Lily asked.

“It has to,” Frank responded with a firm nod. “I’m sure of it. I just need someone to go on record saying she and Tony were actually together and that he treated her badly—I need something to explain that the restraining order wasn’t just a vindictive more.”

I could see Lily’s face paling, but she didn’t say a word. I knew she was torturing herself with thoughts of what might have happened if he had gotten to her first. If she had been found there, just a body in the woods. I had to make sure that never happened—I had to make sure she never had to fear that again.

“So you think you can get him to talk to me?” Frank asked, looking between Leroy and me.

“I really don’t know,” I admitted. “He seemed unsure about coming here. He wants to put his daughter’s case to bed, of course, but he’s still scared of Tony and his father. He might not want to talk to a cop, especially knowing how many of them they’ve got in their pocket.”

“Good point,” Frank muttered, and he checked his watch. “When did you say he was supposed to get here?”

“In a couple of hours,” Lily replied. “If he comes at all.”

We glanced at each other, and I gave her a meaningful look.

“He’s going to come,” I replied, more to her than anyone else. “He has to come.”

She stared back at me as though she wished she could believe me.

The rest of the evening was spent catching up on everything that anyone had missed. We all had different strands of information, and coming together to share them like this was a vital way to keep ourselves updated. It was all such a huge, sprawling mess, though, sometimes it felt way beyond my comprehension. Just how long it had gone on for, how deep the roots of this corruption went. And the worst part was I knew there were dozens of other small towns out there with a similar set-up—families like the McCarthys ruling the roost and nobody having the nerve to stand up to them for fear of being snuffed out.

The time ticked on, and soon, the hour Paul was supposed to arrive had come and gone. I could see Lily squirming nervously in her seat, and I went to sit beside her, putting my arm around her shoulders.

“He’s going to be here,” I promised her softly. I wasn’t sure if I even believed it, honestly. I just had to keep clinging to the hope that there was a way to keep the case against Tony and his father moving forward...

But they might have been keeping tabs on Paul to make sure he didn’t spill the truth of Tony’s relationship with his daughter. They could have been watching him and intercepted him before he even got close to Oakville. If he hadn’t lost his nerve or just changed his mind in the meantime.

“I’m going to make some more coffee,” Lily announced, and she sprang to her feet and hurried to the kitchen. I got up too, planning to follow her, but before I could, something caught my eye—a light in the darkness outside. Headlights.