Whatever Remains (36 page)

             
“But Griggs was supposed to get custody of those girls. I’ve seen the paperwork.”

             
“I didn’t say anything about a moral obligation,” Ben said, an idea sparking with a sick jolt of anticipation. “What would Griggs do? If you told him exactly what happened to Heidi and where he could find Alicia and Grace?”

             
Trey thought about it a moment; and then he
thought
about it, brows knitting together. “He’d contact her. He’d come here, probably. And he – ” He met Ben’s gaze with a startled one of his own. “Alicia would bolt.”

             
“Or try to. Have you talked to Rice about her? Riley?”

             
“Some.” His face went little kiddish. “Riley thinks I should be focusing on nailing down Redding so the department doesn’t get sued. Rice agrees with that.”

             
“What about you?”

             
“Ben, dude.” He sighed. “What are you doing to me here?”

             
Ben wasn’t sure himself until he said it. “This case is personal for me; I have a personal interest in locking away whoever scared the ever loving shit out of my family. And you’re my eyes and ears inside the investigation. I trust you. I just wanna know what you think, not what you think I wanna hear.”

             
It washed over him, sparkling and awesome and dearer than any true compliment. He suppressed a smile and nodded. “’Course. You’re my partner.”

             
That was sounding better and better all the time. Who knew his mother had been right all along: a woman was a home like he’d never let himself know. He wondered what Paula would think about the untried kid watching his back.

Trey twitched a grin. “A week ago, I didn’t know Jade and Clara existed. Today, they’re your family.”

             
“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that.”

24

D
riving back to Canterbury was…a relief. It was the biggest relief in the world not to go back to his empty ranch house and experiment with whatever was left in the fridge. Turning into the farm drive, oaks lined up like sentries whirring past, unlocked the tension across his shoulders. He took a deep breath and the air coming through the cracked windows tasted like leaves going crispy around the edges, and horses, and home. In a week, it had become home.

             
He was definitely losing it.

             
A fast glance over toward Alicia’s house revealed dark, curtained windows and a patch of shaggy yard. It hardly looked a house of horrors…and the innocuous plain-faced front of it gave him a tight stomach nevertheless. He didn’t want to think about it. Until Trey came through with the next development, until he had something to worry about, he was going to shove the place, and its owner, from his mind. The muddy gray clouds overhead had a dampening effect on his energy level. Maybe he’d see if Clara still wanted that tea party. Lure Jade onto the sofa and force her to watch a bad movie with him in her invalid state.

             
But when he walked through the backdoor, those hopes were dashed.

             
There was a wheeled suitcase tucked up to the kitchen’s center island and Clara stood with a hand on the counter, eyes liquid with tears, mouth drawn up in a tight, quivering bow.

             
He heeled the door shut hard, hackles going up. “What’s wrong, love?”

             
She squeezed the edge of the counter until her tiny knuckles went white. “Uncle Remy,” she whimpered in a voice devoid of all its usual chirp.

             
He reached her and settled a hand on top of her head; her hair was silky-soft, her skull the most breakable thing under his palm. “What about him?”

             
“Mommy hates him,” she said with a sniffle.

             
Footfalls pulled his attention. Jeremy and Jade spilled from the back hall into the kitchen, Jade clearly giving chase. She hugged her cracked ribs with one arm and reached for him with the other, fingers closing over empty air as he whipped his shoulder out of reach. She was crying, glistening wet streaks coursing down her bruised cheeks.

             
“Remy,
don’t
.” Her voice didn’t sound much better than Clara’s. “I didn’t mean it.”

             
Jeremy pulled the handle out on the suitcase and rocked it back on its wheels. He smelled like too much rich-boy cologne; his hair was damp; he’d traded barn clothes for a white oxford tucked into khakis. The look he turned on Jade was polite and detached, but Ben saw a muscle in his jaw clench. “Yes, you did. We both know that.”

             
“Mommy,” Clara whined. “Don’t make him go!”

             
“I’m not – ” Jade sucked in a fast breath and darted a glance to Clara, pleading through her tears. “I’m not making him go, baby.” To Jeremy she said, “Can you at least tell her that? That no one’s throwing you out?”

             
He stared at his suitcase handle. “The stalls are all clean. You’ll just have to bring them in and feed them. There’s five bales of hay in the feed room, so you don’t have to go up to the loft.”

             
“Remy – ”

             
He turned to Ben, still with an enviable detachment. His dark eyes were flat. “Guess that makes you man of the house. The good liquor’s up above the stove.” And without a backward glance at any of them, he went for the day.

             
“No!” Clara shouted, ducking out of reach before Ben could catch her. She threw herself at her “uncle,” wrapping both arms tight around his suitcase. “You can’t leave!” she wailed, the tears starting to fall in earnest. “No, no, no!”

             
“Clara.” Jeremy knelt, pried her arms from the suitcase and gathered her hands together in both of his. “Clarabelle, sweetie. Be a big girl, okay? Be tough for Mommy. I’m just leaving for a little while.”

             
Ben could only watch, dumbfounded. He flicked a glance to Jade and saw her crying silently, hand pressed over her mouth.

             
Clara sucked in a huge, shuddering breath, lips quivering. Jeremy reached up and wiped her face with the pad of his thumb. “I love you, okay? I’m not trying to get away from you. Or Mommy,” he added. “I just need a little space for a bit.”

             
She lunged against his chest, hugging his neck in a fast, choking burst, then fled, pink cowboy boots striking off the tile in sharp angry
clack
s.

             
Jeremy sighed, stood, brushed the rumples from his shirt, and left without a glance at either of them. The door shut without a sound behind him.

             
Jade watched him walk to his car through the window, dashing at her eyes with her fingertips, sniffling.

             
“Um…what the hell was that?”

             
She shook her head. “I have to go see Clara.”

             
“I asked a question,” he said, voice hardening, pulling her tear-bright eyes to his face. “What the hell was that?”

             
“I said some things to him…” Another head shake. “I didn’t mean to, but I did. And we argued.” She swallowed, muscles in her slim throat working. “He said he had to get out of here for a little while. And Clara thinks – ” A humorless, twisted smile streaked across her face. “She thinks it’s my fault. I hated her daddy, and pushed him away, and now I hate Jeremy, and I’m pushing him away.”

             
He sighed. “Let me talk to her.”

             
“You’re not even remotely equipped for this conversation.”

             
He scowled. “I’m her dad, Jade. I’ll figure it out.”

             
She lifted her arms in surrender, shaking. “Fine.”

             
Clara was in the den, in the corner of the sectional, face pressed into a mound of pillows, arms drawn up over her head. Gray, watery light filtered through the drapes and painted blue shadows in her dark mane. Her whole body quivered. When he sat down beside her, laid a hand in the middle of her back and she rolled over, he saw that she quivered with rage. Under the flood of tears, her face was red-going-purple; she breathed in ragged gulps, overcome by blind, impotent fury.

             
“Clara, sweet pea, come here.”

             
She rolled onto her back and cried to the ceiling, kicking the side of his leg with her boots. He’d never seen her throw a tantrum – in his absentee experience, she wasn’t even capable of them – but that’s what this was.

             
“Come on.” He leaned over and gathered her to him. She fought, but he sat back and pulled her into his lap.  “Jeremy isn’t leaving,” he said, not sure at all if that was true. “He’s just going on a little vacation.”

             
“It’s Mommy’s fault,” she said in a strangled whisper against the front of his jacket. “It’s all
her fault
!”

             
“Grownups disagree with each other,” he told her, stroking her hair. “But it doesn’t mean anyone’s at fault. They fight, and then they make up. Mommy and Jeremy will make up and things’ll be good as new.”

             
“They won’t,” she insisted. “Mommy makes you go away and Uncle Remy go away too!”

             
That hit him like a fist to the gut. He’d seen the photos, the old t-shirt of his that Jade had tucked into Clara’s crib when she was a baby. The woman went to extremes to ensure that Clara had a firm grip on her father’s identity.
“She won’t be like me
,” she’d sworn to him, nine months pregnant and hardly able to walk, furious as a twenty-three-year-old lioness.
“She will know who you are.”
And all Clara saw was men running away and she needed someone to take the blame, because at a week away from five, she couldn’t understand all the complicated ways in which adults hurt the people they loved the most.

             
“Sweetheart.” He tucked his chin on top of her head; her breath rushed against his neck, hot with tears. “I know this is hard for you.” Though he didn’t know how; he didn’t understand how to navigate the folds of her mind, not the way her mother did. “But it’s not your mom’s fault. Not Jeremy going away.” He sighed. “And definitely not me going away, alright? Your mom doesn’t ever chase me off.”

             
She pushed back with both hands on his chest, mottled, wet face tipped back and heavy with confusion, disbelief, and a struggle to understand.

             
He did what might damn him in her eyes, but he did it for the right reason, for Jade. “Clara, when I’m not around, it isn’t because Mommy told me not to come. She’s always inviting me to everything. I haven’t been here because…well, there’s no good reason. Maybe you’ll understand it when you’re older, but trust me, baby, that it isn’t Mommy’s fault. I’m gonna do better. I’m gonna be around now, alright? With you and Mommy. Won’t that be good? And Mommy and Jeremy won’t be fighting forever.”

             
She blinked hard, sucked in a breath, and started crying again, softly this time. She pressed her face to his jacket. “I don’t want him to
leave
,” she whimpered. Because Jeremy Carver was the man in her life, the man in Jade’s.

             
He sat, feeling stupid, while her shoulders shook and her tears wet his shirt. Finally, her breathing evened and sleep claimed her; rage was exhausting.

             
Jade appeared in the doorway in her stocking feet, hugging herself around the middle, eyes still damp and bright. She looked so much like Clara when she cried; the muscles in their faces pulled in the same way.

             
“I didn’t think you two ever fought,” Ben said, surprised by the softness of his voice. The air was still and thick and he almost wanted to whisper.

             
She twitched a non-smile. “Oh, we fight. Mostly about you. For the last five – almost six – years, anyway.”

             
“Is that what happened today?”

             
“Don’t take this the wrong way.” She propped a shoulder in the doorway. “But that’s not your business. In those six years, I needed those arguments; sometimes fighting about you was all that reminded me why I hadn’t cut you out of my life.”

             
Fair enough. “Did you guys…break up? Or something.”

             
“I don’t know.” Her head fell against the jamb, hair rustling. She looked too exhausted to keep her neck upright.

             
There was a soft hiss, a rustle, a shift in pressure, and raindrops slapped against the window as the heavens poured over the roof.

             
“It’s not easy, is it?” she asked after a moment. Her eyes were luminous in the dim light. “Promising her everything will be okay.”

             
He rubbed a slippery piece of Clara’s hair between his fingers. “No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”

He ended up with a girl curled beneath each arm, Clara’s face pressed to his chest, Jade’s cheek resting on his shoulder. Jade had the remote held loosely in one hand and
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
was on the TV, the volume low. The rain murmured softly around the house, cocooning them in together, his little family. Every so often, Jade would sniffle, her head stuffed up from crying. Guilt nosed at him.

             
He’d never liked Jeremy, and that wasn’t something he’d ever reflected on; it had been an instant, reactionary flare of dislike. It wasn’t the gay thing. He liked to give him hell about it, but it had never been a reason. The first time they’d met, shaking hands awkwardly while Jade beamed at them from the sidelines, Ben had sniffed the haughtiness in the guy. The you’re-not-good-enough-for-my-girl vibe. The aloof, practiced politeness of a wealthy kid with a chip on his shoulder and suspicious dark eyes. He hadn’t – and still didn’t – dwell on that first recoil. It had stuck, end of story.

             
But he couldn’t enjoy Audrey Hepburn’s eyebrows or Clara’s small shape at his side or Jade’s breasts against his arm because he was thinking of Jeremy. And that was a pisser.

             
Shannon showed up with the makings for chicken dinner and a tight, peeved glance for the three of them cuddled up together. A glance that melted and was forced back into place for his benefit. Shannon was easy: if he towed the line a week or two, she’d be a gooey mess of happy mother. But Jeremy wasn’t so easy to appease. He was going to be the sticking point.