19. Conditions
Conditions
KNOX
Nora was sitting on a bench against the wall. Her hands were folded in her lap, her back straight, her eyes fixed on the floor. She was still in her scrubs from her shift. She looked like she'd aged five years since I dropped her off that morning.
She saw me and stood. I was already moving toward her. She was halfway to me before I reached her. Her arms went around my neck. I pulled her in, and she broke.
"Knox, I'm so sorry." Her voice cracked. "I didn't want you involved in any of this. This is my family, this is my problem, and I—"
"Stop."
She looked up at me. Her eyes were red, her face wet.
"This isn't your problem. This is our problem." I pulled her back into me. "We're going to figure this out. Together."
She held on, her fingers tight in the fabric, her body pressed against mine.
Her breathing went uneven, then steady, then uneven again.
I kissed the top of her head and kept my arms where they were.
When she finally pulled back, I wiped her cheeks with my thumbs and held her face until her breathing settled.
A door opened down the hall and a woman in a Clark County lanyard came out with a clipboard.
"Miss Avery? We're ready for you to sign the release paperwork."
Nora stepped back. She wiped her face with both hands, pulled her shoulders back, and turned. I watched her walk down the hallway toward the woman with the clipboard.
While Nora was down the hall signing paperwork, I found Andy.
"What's he looking at?"
"Juvenile charges. VIN tampering, possession of stolen vehicle parts. Felony-level, but he's seventeen, first offense, no priors, no weapon. He's not getting certified to adult court."
"What happens next?"
"He gets released to Nora tonight. Conditions of release: curfew, juvenile probation officer assigned, court date within a few weeks. And a no-contact order with every name on the arrest sheet." She paused. "Jesse. Wayne. All of them. He can't see them, call them, text them. It's court-ordered."
I nodded.
"Adjudication hearing comes later. If he's found delinquent, he's probably looking at probation, community service, restitution.
For a first-time nonviolent offense with a stable guardian, the judge isn't sending him to a facility.
" She shifted her weight. "He got lucky, Knox.
Wayne's an adult. He's facing years. Jesse's in the same boat as Ian, but Wayne's the one who brought them into it. "
"Does Ian know that?"
"He knows." She looked at me. "How's Nora?"
"Holding it together."
I leaned against the wall beside her and ran the math.
Ian was coming home with us. There wasn't another option.
Nora was his legal guardian and she was living with me, and a seventeen-year-old on juvenile probation needed to be in the same household as the adult responsible for him.
That was the sofa for tonight. Tomorrow I'd start looking at two-bedrooms. We'd need to move fast. The kid needed a door he could close, a room that was his, not a borrowed cushion in someone else's living room.
I didn't think about whether I was ready for it. It didn't matter whether I was ready for it. Nora needed this, and Ian needed this, and I had a lease I could break and enough in savings for first and last on a bigger place.
"Thanks for calling her, Andy."
Andy nodded once. "Take care of them."
Ian came out through a side door with a probation officer and a manila envelope with his personal effects.
He was taller than I expected. Still filling out, shoulders broadening under a T-shirt that didn't quite fit him, the rest of him catching up.
Dark hair like Nora's. Same jaw. I could see her in his face before he even looked at me.
Nora put her hand on his shoulder as we walked to the truck. He let her, but barely. His body stiff under her palm, his jaw set, his gaze fixed somewhere past the parking lot lights.
I unlocked the truck and held the passenger door open for Nora. Ian climbed into the backseat without a word, pressed himself against the far door, and stared out the window.
Nobody spoke on the drive home.
I glanced in the rearview. Ian had his forehead against the glass and his arms crossed over his chest. He looked exhausted and furious and young. So young it made my chest tight.
I knew that kid. I'd been that kid. Sitting in someone's car after the worst night of his life, convinced the whole world was against him, too angry to see that the people in the front seat were the only ones who gave a damn.
I turned onto the boulevard and drove us home.
The apartment was dark when we got in. Nora turned on the kitchen light and stood there for a second, looking at the sofa like she was trying to figure out where to put everything that had just happened.
"I'll grab sheets and a pillow," she said.
"Nora." I touched her arm. "Can I talk to him? Just me and him."
She looked at Ian, then at me. Something moved across her face. Not quite relief, not quite fear. Both.
"Okay."
She went down the hall. The bedroom door closed quietly behind her.
Ian was standing by the kitchen counter with his arms crossed, his weight on one leg, looking at everything in the apartment except me.
I pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down. Pulled out the other one.
"Sit down."
He looked at the chair. Then at me. He sat.
"I'm Knox. I'm with your sister."
His jaw tightened.
"You don't know me. You don't have a reason to trust me, and I'm not going to pretend I've earned that. But I need you to hear a few things, and then we're done for tonight."
His eyes moved to me.
"I had an older brother." I kept my voice even.
"His name was Gage. When I was a kid, I did something stupid and reckless, and he paid for it.
He died because of a choice I made." I let that land.
"I spent the next twenty years trying to make up for it, and I couldn't, because that's not how it works.
You don't get to earn back the thing you cost someone. You just carry it."
Ian's arms loosened.
"I look at you and I know exactly who you are. You're not a bad kid. You're a kid who wanted somewhere to belong, and the place you found wasn't what you thought it was. That's not the worst thing a person can be. I've been worse."
He swallowed.
"But here's what I need you to understand.
" I leaned forward. "Your sister has been carrying you since she was twenty years old.
She gave up everything. Not some of it. All of it.
She didn't date, didn't travel, didn't have a life outside of making sure you had one.
And I know you're angry. I know you think she wasn't there.
But you know, somewhere in there, you know, she wasn't gone because she was leaving you.
She was gone because she was working doubles so you could eat. "
A tear slid down his face. He wiped it with the back of his hand, hard, like he was angry at himself for letting it out.
"She loves you more than anyone in this world. And I know you know that, because you love her the same way."
Ian's chin dropped. His shoulders came down.
"I'm sorry," he said. His voice was rough. "I didn't mean what I said to her."
"I know."
He wiped his face again. Sniffed. Pulled himself together enough to look at me.
"Now here's how this is going to work." I sat back.
"You're living here. This is my home, and your sister is the person I care about most, and I'm not going to watch you hurt her.
Not with words, not with choices, not with silence.
You treat her with respect under this roof.
You follow the conditions the court set.
You don't contact Jesse, Wayne, or anyone else from that shop. And when school starts, you go."
He nodded.
"I'm not your enemy, Ian. I'm the guy who's going to make sure you and your sister come out the other side of this. But I need you to meet me halfway."
He was quiet for a long time.
"Okay," he said.
I got up and pulled sheets and a pillow from the hall closet. When I came back, he was still sitting at the table, staring at his hands.
"Get some sleep," I said. "Tomorrow's a new day."
I set the sheets on the sofa and went down the hall to the bedroom. Nora was sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands folded in her lap, waiting.
"He's okay," I said.
She looked up at me with red eyes and a face that had been crying quietly behind a closed door.
"He said he's sorry, Nora."
She pressed her lips together and nodded. I sat down beside her and pulled her into me, and she let out the breath she'd been holding since the precinct.