Six #3
“Okay,” I replied, folding my hands. “Mr. Duchesne, I?—”
“Luke, please. You’ve been taking care of my kids, and I was an ass before, and your lesson to Griff is well taken. I normally take a beat myself, as I work with big strong guys all day long, so tempers can flare.”
I nodded. “Okay, so Griff was beaten by the chief of police, Gerald Wilson. He was then taken into custody until such time as a guardian showed up to get him out.”
He did exactly as he said he would and took a breath before he spoke. “Beaten?” he rasped, and I saw the pain all over his face. “I was wondering about the bruising.”
“Yeah. All that, compliments of the ex-chief. There was some misinformation that added fuel to the fire, but as far as I can tell, and by things I’ve seen printed in the local paper as well as online, the man is a bit of a sadist.”
“Without me here, how did you?—”
“As a fixer, my mandate is to take care of the kids, as well as you, and I can’t do that if I don’t have said kids in my custody.”
“So because my ex-brother-in-law hired you, you were able to get my son released from police custody?”
“Yes.”
“How? He has no rights where my kids are concerned.”
“No he does not, but as you weren’t here—I was given temporary guardianship due to an absentee parent.”
“Absentee parent,” he repeated in a whisper.
I remained silent.
After a moment he exhaled sharply. “I’m sorry but that can’t be legal.”
“As I was unable to reach you, and your ex-wife is in WITSEC and therefore, cannot be contacted, and no one was stipulated as caretaker in case of emergency—guardianship fell to Mr. Roarke as the person who hired us.”
“I––”
“As part of our standard paperwork, Mr. Roarke signed a waiver with Torus that then gave me temporary guardianship.”
“That doesn’t seem right.”
“And yet the document in question allowed me to help your son.”
“I’m not debating that, I’m just––”
“It boils down to this, my boss is a scary man, and he has even scarier lawyers on retainer, so our paperwork did what it was designed to do in this instance. Of course normally there would be family services involved and intervention from the police, but since the police were, in fact, the problem in Griff’s case… we went around them.”
“I get it.”
“And Eena has no child protective anything as far as I know.”
“You’re right. That’s all done in Newcastle.”
“I’m sorry that––”
“No,” he murmured. “Without you, God knows what would have happened to Griff.”
He sounded so sad and hurt. My heart ached for him. I wanted to make it all better but I wasn’t sure how. “Well the good news is, I was able to get Griff––”
“Sprung from the big house,” Tatum threw out.
“Yes, correct,” I said, shaking my head at her. “And because other arrangements had to be made, like securing a therapist—which I understand you approved of? Is that right?”
“What?”
“You wanted the kids to see a therapist, did you not?”
“I did. I do. Yes.”
“Great. That’s great,” I said, pleased with him. We were on the same page, which was excellent. “So yeah, we will amend the guardianship paperwork tomorrow. All we need to do is call the lawyer and have him file?—”
“Just…wait,” he husked, raking a hand through his thick dirty-blond hair. “Please.”
I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me. Maybe the best thing was if I gave him some space to breathe. “Perhaps I should let you––”
“No don’t go,” he rasped.
Still unsure, I glanced at Tatum.
“Tell him something else,” she suggested, smiling at me.
“Okay, well, so you know, Griff chose not to sue the city of Eena, but they are paying for his therapy until he turns eighteen,” I explained, “and he did receive a small cash settlement that is in a trust for college.”
His eyes welled with tears, but none spilled over. “How bad was he hurt?”
“I have pictures. I can show you. But keep in mind, Gerald Wilson has been removed as chief of police of Eena. Wilson has relocated to Seattle, and I have no concerns that he will return, as his wife and daughter are no longer here in town. Now, because of all that, I told Chief Higheagle in Newcastle that we no longer need the police officer patrol she originally provided.”
Griff chimed in, “We don’t need it because you hit Wilson so hard, he flew off the fuckin’ porch like?—”
“I noticed you didn’t change your number on the board to zero, and now, with the swearing, you’re at negative one.”
“Oh, man,” Griff grumbled, walking over to the dry-erase board above the new hooks to the left of the sliding glass door.
“I see their backpacks hanging out here now. Why not keep them in the mudroom?” Luke asked me.
“Because that’s the place for wet coats, boots, etcetera. The kids normally need to get back into their bags, and we don’t want them to get musty or wet from hanging under a wet rain poncho. Am I right?”
He nodded.
“That was all Griff,” I let him know, then pulled up the pictures, flipped my phone around, and slid it across the table to him.
“Oh my God,” he said under his breath as he scrolled through, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Why would he do this?”
“Some of it is because, again, he’s a sadist and likes hitting people less powerful than himself. The rest of it, in Griff’s case, is because his daughter lied to him and said Griff was the one leaving her bedroom at whatever time it was in the morning.”
“What made her do that?” he asked as Tatum brought over a box of tissues and put them down in front of him. “Thank you, Tate.”
She watched him like a mother hen as he pulled a couple and wiped his eyes.
“Fear of her father, but Griff suffered because of her lie.”
“He clearly did,” he murmured, going through the pictures again. “You must have taken him to the hospital.”
“Of course.”
“Was his nose broken?”
“No, just bruised, along with his face, and you can see the black eyes then and now. He also had a lot of blood in one eye, but that’s healing as well.”
“Okay.”
“He had bruises on his body too, but they were minimal.”
His head lifted, and he met my gaze. “And you made him pay.”
On his children, the blue-green eyes were beautiful. On him, they were warm and alluring and making it a little hard to concentrate. “Griff did, yes, and his lawyer.”
“I don’t really like that lawyer,” Tatum said, sounding quite judgmental.
“Oh?” I teased her. “And why is that?”
“He likes you too much.”
“What’s that now?” Luke asked his daughter.
She groaned. “He was all call me for anything .” She made it sound far more torrid than it actually was.
“She’s right,” Griff said, putting a plate of eggs and bacon and sliced tomatoes down in front of me. The tomatoes had a light dusting of garlic salt on them and a bit of fresh mozzarella.
“Now we’re talkin’,” I said excitedly. “This looks great, Griff.”
He grunted.
I gave him my attention. “What? It does.”
“Mr. Kinney was hitting on you,” Griff told me.
I squinted at him before taking a napkin and a fork from the wicker caddy on the table.
This was yet another recent purchase. It was lined in fabric that appeared to be from a really ugly Aloha shirt, but there were places for forks, spoons, and knives.
Plus, you could easily carry it by the handle to and from the kitchen to refill.
“Could you please concern yourself with your father’s plate? ”
He scoffed, added a disgusted, dismissive sound on top of it that made me smile, and when my gaze lifted from my plate, Luke was staring at me.
“Your kids are a bit too observant,” I commented. “It’s annoying.”
“It’s true about them being observant,” he agreed softly, grabbing a napkin and fork. “They miss nothing.”
I started eating, and he admired the caddy.
“It makes it easier, and we all like it,” Tatum stated, taking a seat beside me, smiling at her father as she put her elbows on the table and then rested her chin on the backs of her hands. “So, Dad, I have something to tell you.”
“Okay,” he said as Griff set a plate in front of him with eggs and bacon, but instead of tomatoes, he’d added cubed fruit. He glanced up at his son. “I love fruit, but why don’t I get any tomatoes?”
Griff smiled at him. “I didn’t know you liked tomatoes.”
“I do,” he assured his son.
“Okay, then,” he said and left us.
Luke returned his attention to his daughter. “Okay, baby, hit me.”
She cleared her throat. “We’re normalizing talking about Mom.”
Fortunately, he had swallowed a blueberry.
A piece of cantaloupe might have required me to get up and give him the Heimlich.
As it was, he still nearly choked to death.
Darwin quickly brought him a large glass of water, and one for me as well, and once the man could breathe again, we all waited on him.
“I’m sorry, love,” he rasped, his eyes watering, this time not in grief or regret, but having narrowly escaped death. “What did you say?”
She giggled. “I like your voice like this.”
He coughed again and took several sips of water.
“I just wanted you to know that once Mom left, we all basically treated her like she died, and that’s really terrible.”
It was so interesting to hear words I used filter into their vocabulary. I said terrible a lot, and now, so did the kids.
Luke nodded to his daughter because it was true. He’d been treating his wife like she died and so had the kids.
“We’ve all been super worried about talking about her, and one of the reasons is because we didn’t want to make each other sad.”
“That makes sense.”
“But we’ve talked, and we’re all fine bringing her up. And yeah, I get sad, so do Griff and Dar, but that’s okay.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed.
“But we all hope you won’t be sad.”
“Oh no, sweetheart, I won’t be. I’m not sad now and won’t be in the future. I was mostly angry, but you’re right, you should talk about your mom.”
“And you’ll be okay?” she asked him, leaning forward like an interrogator.