Chapter 3
I woke as the mattress shifted beside me.
Nick sat up abruptly, his bare chest silhouetted by the faint pink light creeping through the blinds.
I opened my mouth to ask him what time it was, but he held a finger to his lips.
He slid silently out from between the sheets and retrieved his pants from the floor.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him in a hushed voice.
“I heard something downstairs,” he whispered as he dragged them on.
Then I heard it, too. A quiet creak, like a door opening. But it was too early for Zach or Delia to be awake yet.
I tipped my head and heard the distinct sound of the front door clicking shut.
I bolted upright. Nick gestured for me to stay where I was as he unsheathed his gun from its holster and peered between the blinds.
“It’s Javi,” he said, his voice rough from sleep. “His car’s parked outside.”
I sagged with relief. “What’s he doing here at this hour?”
“More important, why is he letting himself into your house?” Nick didn’t bother putting on a shirt. I didn’t like the hard set of his jaw, or the fact that he hadn’t paused to holster his gun as he opened the bedroom door.
“Nick, wait!” I hastily pulled on a T-shirt and chased him into the hall.
I found him face-to-face with Javi at the top of the stairs, in front of the children’s bedroom doors.
Javi wasn’t dressed in the paint-spattered blue coveralls he usually wore for work.
He was wearing dark jeans, boots, and a leather jacket.
A large duffel bag was slung over his shoulder.
“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you,” Nick said in a low voice. “I thought someone was breaking in.”
Javi looked at him with unfiltered disgust. “I have a key,” he said, holding it up as evidence. He took a step toward Vero’s room, but Nick stood in his path. Javi glared at him. “What do I have to do, say Officer, may I?”
“More like Finlay, may I.” Nick’s voice was a strained whisper, as if he was gritting his teeth to keep it down. “It’s quarter to seven, Javi. You let yourself into Finlay’s house while her kids are asleep.”
Javi’s eyes flicked to me, a fraction more apologetic than they’d been a moment ago. He lowered his voice. “I just came to get Vero’s things,” he said, stepping around Nick and into Vero’s room. He unzipped his duffel and began filling it with the contents of Vero’s closet.
I put a hand on Nick’s shoulder and handed him his shirt. “I’ll handle it,” I said quietly.
Delia began to stir. Zach babbled to himself as he thumped out of bed.
Nick tucked his gun into the back of his waistband and shrugged on his shirt, drawing it down just in time to cover the grip as Zach and Delia came bursting into the hall.
I pulled Vero’s door shut so they wouldn’t notice Javi packing her things.
Nick gritted his teeth. “I’ll go make some coffee.” He kissed my temple and turned to the kids. “Who wants pancakes?” Delia and Zach cheered and followed him eagerly to the kitchen.
I rapped quietly on Vero’s door before nudging it open. I leaned on the frame, watching Javi as he grabbed an armful of Vero’s sweaters.
“Does Vero need something?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She still hasn’t called me.”
“Why don’t I drive all this to her mother’s house for you? I’ll check on her and—”
“I can do it,” he said, taking Vero’s photo album and jamming it into the bag.
“I thought you weren’t welcome at Norma’s.”
“I’m not planning on staying.”
The key fob to his Camaro rested on the bed, and I had the horrible sense that I knew what he was planning.
“You can’t leave with her, Javi. She’s on house arrest. Her ankle bracelet will alert the police the minute she steps foot outside of her mother’s property. They’ll find her.”
“Not if I drive fast enough.” He zipped up the bag and carried it to the door.
I stood stubbornly in front of it until we were nearly eye to eye. “If she goes to trial, there’s still a chance that she’ll come home. But if she violates her house arrest and leaves the state, she’ll be running from those charges for the rest of her life. And you will be an accomplice.”
“She can’t stay where she is, Finlay! Everyone thinks she stole that money because she was the only poor Latina living in a sorority house full of white bitch princesses with rich daddies and their goddamn trust funds. And Vero looks guilty because she got scared and she ran.”
“So your answer is to convince her to run again?”
“They’re going to put her in prison!” His voice broke.
“I’ve been behind bars, and that shit stays with you!
It stays on your record, for the rest of your life.
On every job application. Every rental form you fill out.
It stays with you here,” he said, jabbing his chest with a finger. “I can’t let her go through that!”
“Then we’ll just have to make sure she’s acquitted.”
Javi scoffed. “Have you seen the guy who’s representing her?
He’s barely got a pulse.” I couldn’t say I disagreed.
The public defender assigned to her case was tired and jaded and long overdue for retirement.
He certainly didn’t have Julian’s youthful energy or a single ounce of fire in his prominent belly.
But when I had offered to help pay for someone better, the only criminal defense lawyers I could afford looked as professional as the ambulance chasers on billboards on I-95.
And Vero’s mother certainly didn’t have the money for a fancy attorney.
By the look on Javi’s face, he knew it, too.
“That useless waste of space is going to push her to plead guilty. He’ll convince her it’s her only choice, but I can give her another one. ”
I pushed him back into the room and closed the door. I lowered my voice so the kids wouldn’t hear us. “You and I both know Vero didn’t steal that money. Which means someone else did. The police just need to figure out who.”
Javi barked out a laugh. “You think the cops in Maryland are working overtime on that? As far as they’re concerned, the DA’s case is open-and-shut. Vero was the treasurer of her sorority. She was in charge of the money. It was in her room, and then suddenly it wasn’t. Case closed.”
“The cops aren’t the only ones who know how to solve a case,” I whispered, certain Nick was listening downstairs between the clatter of forks and plates and the children’s chatter. “If the police won’t do it, maybe it’s time we should.”
Javi’s eyes met mine.
Up until now, I had trusted that Vero’s hearings would all turn out okay because I trusted Nick, Georgia, Sam, and Julian.
My sister, Georgia, was a good cop. Sam and Nick were good cops.
And Julian had the passion and determination to be an excellent public defender someday.
But Javi’s experience was different from mine and he brought up a fair point.
Our legal system was far from perfect, and maybe I had trusted that system for too long.
I didn’t know the detectives who’d been handling Vero’s case in Maryland.
I didn’t know her attorney personally, or if he even cared.
All I knew for certain was that Vero hadn’t committed this crime, and if we didn’t do something soon to help her, she was either going to jail or she was going to flee the state with Javi.
Either way, she wouldn’t come back to this bedroom again, and that was a thought I simply couldn’t stomach.
Vero and I had cracked a cold case less than a month ago. Before that, we’d solved a pretty damn warm one. How difficult could it be to figure out who’d stolen a backpack full of cash from some teenage girls in a sorority house?
“Finish packing and wait for me downstairs,” I said. “I’m going with you to Maryland.”
“Everything okay?” Nick asked when I came down to the kitchen and poured myself some coffee.
“For now.”
He came up behind me and put his arms around me, his dark scruff tickling my ear as I turned to face him. “Want me to drive Delia to school on my way to the station?” It had become part of our routine on the nights when Nick stayed over, and I had been glad for the help.
“Thanks, but I’m going to keep her home today.” Nick raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to Maryland with Javi,” I explained. “I won’t make it back in time for school pickup this afternoon. It’ll be easier if I take both kids with me.”
He frowned. “Is Vero okay?”
“I wish I knew,” I said, careful to keep my voice low. Delia had little ears and a really big mouth, and I’d been surprised by the conversations she had delighted in repeating lately. “Vero still hasn’t texted or called. Javi’s worried about her. And so am I.”
Nick nodded. “How long are you planning on staying?”
“No more than a couple of days. I’ll pack a bag for me and the kids and find us a hotel somewhere close to her mother’s house.”
Nick took my coffee mug from my hand and set it on the counter. He towed me gently into the next room where the kids wouldn’t hear us. “I have a better idea. Why don’t I stay with the kids for a few days. Then you and Javi can visit Vero without any distractions.”
I looked past him to the syrupy melamine plates on the counter, then to the living room, which had been ransacked with toys. He was right. It would be easier but only for one of us. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You don’t have to ask. I already offered.”
“But you have work.”
“They can come with me. I’ll stick close to my desk.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not?” he asked. “You work with them all the time.”
“I work from home. It’s not the same thing.”
“It’s not any different either,” he argued. But I wasn’t so sure.
I glanced back to the living room. Zach threw a wet Cheerio at his sister.
In a moment she would fire one back. It would inevitably escalate to hair pulling and biting.
I could easily picture the trouble they could get into at the police station—the trouble they could get Nick into.
He was already in hot water with his commander after what had happened when he took personal leave to keep an eye on us all in Atlantic City.
He leaned down to look me in the eyes. “Let me do this for you. I want to do this for you.”
“It’s harder than it looks.”
“Then I’ll ask your sister for backup. Sam and Roddy can help, too.”
I chewed my lip. My sister was competent and responsible, if not entirely skilled in the childcare department. Zach and Delia adored her girlfriend, Sam, and Officer Roddy had two teenage children of his own, which probably made him more qualified than the rest of us.
“Vero’s mother’s house is less than two hours away,” Nick assured me. “If anything goes wrong—and it won’t,” he rushed to add at my uneasy look, “I’ll call you right away if there’s anything you need to know.”
“You promise?” I asked.
“I promise.”
Delia’s voice called out from the living room, “Can we pleeeeeeease go to work with Nick, Mommy? We want to see Officer Roddy and Sam!”
I had been so preoccupied with Nick’s offer, I hadn’t realized how quiet the kids had become, or that Delia had been listening to part of our conversation. “Where’s Zach?” I asked her.
A giggle came from the pantry.
Nick took my face in his hands. “It will all be here when you get back, including me,” he said, as if he knew that scared me most of all.
“Okay,” I relented. Delia cheered. I surrendered the keys to my minivan so Nick could move the children’s car seats into his Impala. Then I went upstairs to pack.