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Social worker. I glanced down at the card in my hand. Nora Sullivan. Child Welfare Investigator/Counselor.
Miguel, I’m so sorry.
So much for this ludicrous plan working. I felt the consequences of my decisions like a two-ton rock rolling downhill right at me.
The girders were back, my brain being squeezed to mush by the metal bands.
“My car is here, so he’s on foot,” Tyler said. “We should leave now—”
“I think I know where he is. Give me a second,” I said, and pulled out my cell phone. My first call was to the friend with whom Louisa was staying. Miguel wasn’t going anywhere without Louisa.
“Patricia,” I said, and switched to Spanish when the older woman answered. “Has Miguel picked up Louisa?”
“No, Chief Tremblant. Louisa is here alone.”
“When Miguel comes, please keep him there until I come get him,” I said. “It’s very important that you don’t let him leave.”
“Sí, señorita.”
I hung up and contemplated the card in my hand. Nora Sullivan. I took a deep breath. I didn’t need to be forced to be accountable. I’d gone into this situation with my eyes wide-open. The mistakes were mine—so, then, would be the punishment.
I dialed the number and—thank God—got an answering machine.
“Hi, Ms. Sullivan,” I said, keeping my voice tight, “this is Police Chief Juliette Tremblant over in Bonne Terre. I’d like to make an appointment with you to discuss Miguel Pastor at your earliest convenience. Please give me a call Monday morning at this number. Thank you.”
I hung up and rubbed at my forehead. The pain was killing me. I wished I could just go home, pull down the shades and find a dark corner to lick my wounds.
But that wasn’t my style. Not anymore. Not since Tyler had left.
Tyler.
I turned, all my frustration and anger searching for a vent and a worthy victim.
And there was none so worthy as Tyler O’Neill.
9
TYLER
I could tell Juliette’s fuse was lit and she was a live bomb looking for a place to explode.
And it’s gonna be all over me. And fair enough, I lost the kid, after all.
“Miguel’s going to be fine,” she told me. “But is there anything else you haven’t told me?” she asked in full-on cop mode, putting my teeth on edge. “Something you might have forgotten?”
“Miguel and I were talking,” I said. “And the social worker just showed up—”
“What were you talking about?”
“What in the world does that have to do with anything?”
“She probably overheard you—”
“She didn’t,” I insisted. “I’m telling you, as soon as her car rolled up Miguel must have left.”
“What were you talking about?” she demanded in a way that gave me no out.
I sighed, bracing myself for the blowup. “Cards. We were talking about gambling.”
“You are not teaching this boy to gamble.” She practically shook with anger.
“Is that really what’s important here?” I asked, but it was obvious she didn’t care.
“I didn’t bring him here to learn how to play cards.”
“The boy is interested, Juliette. That’s all.”
“The boy,” she snapped, her eyes shooting sparks, “is in need of good influences.”
I blinked, a little stunned at her viciousness. “I’m just doing what you needed me to do.”
“No, what I need is for you to babysit this kid, not teach him how to gamble.”
“I was just talking—”
“I don’t want you to talk to him! I don’t want you to look at him. If I had my way, he’d never have met you.”
Her words echoed in the silence.
That I was surprised was stupid. That I was a little hurt was even more stupid. I knew what she thought of me, but her words had blown a hole through my chest.
I’d just been trying to help.
I took a step back and then another, the anger rolling off her just a little too painful.
“Tyler,” she sighed, as if she was about to offer an apology she wasn’t even close to meaning.
“No, no, of course. You wouldn’t want me to rub off on your kid. God forbid I teach him—” he shrugged “—what? Car theft?”
“No,” she said. Her eyes narrowed and I knew she wasn’t done. She had something she was dying to get off her chest. She stepped closer and the air sizzled and crackled, as though there was a stick of dynamite between us.
Here it comes. I should never have accused her of being cold.
Juliette was fire. She always had been.
“How to not give a shit about anyone but himself,” she spat. “How to hurt people. How to walk away when someone cares about you, when someone has invested themselves in you.”
I held up my hand, stopping her tirade. “I get it. You’re scared I’m going to teach him to be like me.”
She paused before nodding. That little nod, the play of light in her hair, in her eyes—the reflection and refraction, a world upon a world—destroyed me.
Juliette was close enough to smell, close enough to touch if I really wanted to watch her explode. And her standing there, thinking the worst of me, counting the minutes until I left made me want to lose my mind.
