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Thatch faced forward in his seat again and got out to meet him. Lyric got out, too, though she kept her distance to give them some measure of privacy.
“Hey, man.” The kid looked surprised to see them. “What’re you doing here?”
“I have a question for you, and I need you to answer it honestly,” Thatch said.
Lyric watched Franco carefully under the streetlight. The kid suddenly looked pale.
Thatch didn’t give him too much time to squirm. “Have you ever snuck into the clinic after hours?”
Silence droned between them for what felt like an hour.
“Yeah. I have,” Franco finally said. “Only because Elina asked me to. She asked me to go in when no one was around and borrow money from the safe.”
“Borrowmoney?” Lyric hadn’t meant to intrude on the conversation, but sneaking money from the safe was notborrowing.
“She needed groceries.” Franco mostly looked at Thatch. To his credit, he wasn’t cowering. “Her mom hasn’t been working much, and they were low on food. Elina wasn’t going to get paid until this week, so she asked if I would take some money from the safe. Only until she could pay it back.”
“So you were going tostealmoney from the clinic.” Lyric heard the restraint in Thatch’s voice again. His tone was firm but also carefully controlled.
“No.” The kid raised his hands. “Not steal. I told her I wouldn’t steal it. She was going to pay it all back. I swear.” Franco nervously ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I just spent my paycheck on my new summer league basketball uniform, or I would’ve given her my money.”
The ache in Lyric’s heart forced tears into her eyes. God, poor Elina. She was only a kid. She shouldn’t have to be the one worried about feeding her family. “It’s okay, Franco.” She walked to him and rested her hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for telling us the truth.”
“If anything like this ever happens again, you come to me first,” Thatch added. “You come to me with the truth. You got that?”
The kid stared at the ground, nodding.
“You can get in real trouble pulling shit like this,” Thatch informed him sternly. “The police were going to find you and interview you.”
That news made Franco’s head rise. “I told her it was a bad idea, but she was so upset. I didn’t even think anyone was around, and then I heard you two. So I took off. Are you gonna tell her I told you? She’ll be so mad at me.”
“We won’t tell her,” Lyric assured him. Thatch looked like he wanted to argue, but she squeezed his hand. “I don’t want her to be embarrassed. We’ll forget it happened. Okay?” They were only kids, and Franco looked scared enough that he’d probably never do anything like this again.
“I’m not fired, am I?” the kid asked. “’Cause I love the job. I don’t want to lose it.”
“You’re not fired,” Thatch muttered, though he wasn’t making this conversation easy on the kid either. “But this won’t happen again.”
“Hell no. I swear.” Franco unlocked his car like he couldn’t wait to get out of there. “Next time, I’ll come to you.”
“All right. I’ll see you next week then.” Thatch waved him away. After he’d gotten into his car, they climbed back into the truck.
“I think maybe I was the one who was wrong about Franco.” As much as she hated to admit it, her previous experience made her suspicious of people. She tended to see the worst. “He’s a good kid. I let my own memories cloud what I saw between them.”
Thatch started the engine but let it idle. “I hope you can make new memories.” He found her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “Maybe they won’t be enough to fully erase the bad ones, but they might help you move forward.”
“I think I’m ready for new memories.” Or at least she was ready to try building some. Maybe this weekend would be the perfect time to start. With Thatch. In a romantic cabin.
But right now, she couldn’t breathe past the ache in her chest. “I wish I knew how to help Elina. It breaks my heart to think she’s the one who has to worry about food for her siblings when she’s only fifteen years old.”
Thatch released her hand. “Do you want to go talk to her about what Franco told us?”
She didn’t know what to do. “I don’t have that kind of relationship with her yet. She’s still pretty standoffish with me.” With everyone, really, from what Lyrichad seen. Elina hadn’t taken to her the way Franco had taken to Thatch. “I don’t want to humiliate her or make a big deal about what happened.” Especially knowing the break-in had been out of sheer desperation.
Thatch nodded, his eyes narrowed in a thoughtful expression. “Why don’t we go to the store to get her some groceries and drop them off on her doorstep anonymously?” he finally asked. “That will at least solve her problem in the short term, and then you can figure out how you want to deal with this moving forward.”
And just when she’d thought the man couldn’t prove himself to be more compassionate. “I love that idea. But the grocery store is already closed, and we’re supposed to leave for the big friend-cation in the morning.” There’d be no time for shopping.
“Give me a minute.” He grabbed his phone off the dash and dialed. “Hey, Craig. You think you could open up the store for Lyric and me? All we’d need is half an hour. We know of a family who’s down on their luck and could use a secret grocery delivery.” He paused. “Yeah. That’d be great. Thank you so much.” Thatch pocketed his phone. “Craig’ll open back up for us, but we’d better get over there now.” He started the engine.
