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Pendale, Texas
Monday Evening
Naomi was finally home.It had been an extraordinarily long day to start out her week. She walked in the door and kicked off her shoes, and headed straight for the kitchen and the bottle of chardonnay that she knew was waiting for her in the refrigerator. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but her old neighbors had given it to her as a goodbye gift when she moved. Tonight, she was really glad she had it.
As she pulled open the bottle, she remembered that she hadn’t unpacked her wine glasses yet. She looked around the kitchen; it was full of cardboard boxes. She had no idea which one they were in. Sighing, she pulled a paper cup out of the cupboard and poured herself a drink. As she took the first sip, she willed the warmth of the golden liquid to course quickly through her body and rinse away the stress.
She had been at the courthouse for exactly three hours before Special Agent Gomez had approached her. She’d already been given two new cases and had been heard on one parole violation and on two other bail hearings. When she’d finally gotten a break, she’d been on her way to run out and grab a much-needed latte, until Gomez caught her.
“Good morning, Miss Ward,” he’d said.
Naomi thought he looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place where she knew him from. “Good morning,” she replied with a smile, hoping to continue her rush to the Starbucks across the street.
“Could I speak with you for a moment?”
Naomi looked longingly at the front door of the courthouse. She had been so close…
“What is this about?” she asked, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice.
“I’m not sure if you remember me?” he queried. When she didn’t respond right away, he explained, “I’m Special Agent Antonio Gomez with the DEA. We met on a few court cases over the last year or so.”
“Yes, of course, Agent Gomez. What can I do for you?” she asked reluctantly.
“I have a… prospective client for you in conference room number two. I was wondering if you had just a few minutes to meet with us.”
“This is a bit unusual,” she said. She should have just said, “No,” and walked away.
“Ayden Styles referred him,” he added.
Shit!That name haunted her wherever she went these days. She looked at her watch. “I have a few minutes.”
And then he had led her tohim! That arrogant, self-worshipping mass of muscle with very little brain, Corbett Lindstrom. She wished she could get just one do-over and never have gotten out of bed that morning.
She carried her wine glass into the living room. Searching amongst the boxes, she found the remote control and turned onNancy Grace. As Nancy’s self-assured voice droned on in the background, Naomi cleared a spot on the couch and sat down. Taking another sip of her wine, she thought about Ayden.
She had lied to Corbett. Ayden was more than just another client. She often wished that wasn’t the case, and she prayed for the strength to cut ties and walk away someday. Corbett Lindstrom, however, would probably be the last person on Earth who would understand her motivations for not doing so.
Naomi had had a fairly normal childhood with a daddy who first worked in and then owned a motorcycle shop and a mama who stayed home and baked cookies. She was an only child for the first six years of her life, and then her brother had come along, uninvited as far as six-year-old Naomi had been concerned. Naomi had been sullen throughout her mother’s pregnancy. Suddenly, all conversations and activities any adults in the house undertook seemed to be about the new baby. He wasn’t even here yet, and already he was stealing all the attention. She was sure she wasn’t going to like him at all.
Naomi reached for the scrapbook on the table in front of her. It had been the first thing she’d unpacked when she moved into the house. She opened it to a picture of Justin. He was only eight or nine months old in the picture, but he already had that disarming smile that sucked her right in.
Despite her reservations at first, Naomi had quickly fallen in love with her little brother, and he with her. Naomi’s mom had given birth to her at the age of thirty-five. She and Naomi’s father had tried to get pregnant for years before, and about the time they gave up, Naomi had come along. She was their first miracle; Justin was their second. But by the time Justin was born, her mother was forty-two, and the pregnancy had been high risk. He was born premature and had a lot of health problems as a kid. Because of that, he was abnormally small for his age and wore thick, coke-bottle glasses. He was shy and withdrawn with people other than Naomi, and he didn’t have many friends. Naomi found out later in life that he had been bullied… a lot. He hadn’t ever told her, and her parents had only found out by accident. Then he wouldn’t talk about it; he had just internalized it.
Naomi loved her family, but her dream throughout high school had been to go to college in Boston, at Harvard. She wanted to major in political science and, with hope, be a U.S. Senator someday. She had worked hard and found out towards the end of her senior year that she had gotten a full academic scholarship. Justin had freaked out when she’d first told him. He had cried and begged her not to leave, telling her that she was the only one who loved him, the only friend he had.
Naomi wished now that she’d had a crystal ball. She would have never left him, and he would have never fallen in with the people that he had. But she hadn’t been able to see the future, so she told him, “I’ll come back often. I promise. And you can come visit me too.” She had really meant it then, but life had a knack for getting in the way of good intentions.
Naomi flipped the scrapbook forward to a picture of Justin when he was about thirteen. The bright smile from his earlier school pictures had faded to one that was forced. She should have noticed it then. She thought now, as she had a thousand times before;if I had been there… If I had been paying more attention…But she hadn’t been, and when she came home for Christmas that year, she could already see the changes taking place.
Justin was sulky and quiet, even around the family. He seemed almost disinterested in her, although she knew now that it had been his way of punishing her for leaving. She asked her mother about his moods. That was when her mother had told her that Justin was being bullied at school. He had come home a few weeks earlier with a black eye and busted lip. Her mother and father had called the school about it, but Justin refused to give them the names of the boys who had attacked him.
Naomi had gotten an internship in Boston over the summer the following year, so she didn’t go home. She kept in touch with her mother and Justin when he cared to return her calls. He had told her he was doing fine, but her mother sounded anxious every time she called. She never gave Naomi any details; she just said she was worried about Justin.
Her father had taken on a business partner, who her mother also said “worried her.” She never told Naomi why, other than to say the man “attracted the wrong kind of customers.” Her father, on the other hand, didn’t care what kind of customers they were, as long as they were, in fact, customers. He told Naomi that his motorcycle shop was more profitable than ever. He had hired ten new employees, and they were doing so many repairs and restorations, they actually had to turn people away for lack of time. Naomi’s mother was a worrier; always had been. Naomi wrote it off to that and moved on.
The following winter, Naomi’s mother died. She had a heart attack at the age of fifty-four. Naomi came home for the funeral. Justin was angry. Naomi thought it was a normal part of grieving for a then almost fourteen-year-old boy who had lost his mother. She asked her dad to call her if Justin needed her, and she would come home right away, and then she went back to Boston.
Her dad didn’t call. He had thrown himself into work to assuage his own grief, unfortunately leaving Justin to deal with his on his own. That spring, when Naomi came home over break, Justin barely came out of his room. When he did, his dull emptiness scared her. She thought that he almost seemed suicidal. He still wouldn’t talk to her about how he was feeling, so Naomi did something that seemed like such a good idea at the time. She told her dad they were losing Justin. She told him he needed to snap out of his own grief and take care of his son.
