Archer #3
“She knew we were wary of him,” Layla explains shakily. “She knew we were waiting for it to end. We worked hard to maintain open avenues of communication, so when it ended, she would feel accepted and safe talking to us about it.”
“And you were so sure it would end?” I question. “You felt it was a guarantee?”
“We felt their lives, their worlds, were too different,” Grant clarifies.
“This isn’t about thinking our daughter deserved better than a poor kid.
It’s not about money or breeding. God knows, I came from a similar world once upon a time.
” He softens his expression and looks over at his wife.
Years have passed, kids, life, stress. They’ve aged, and their relationship might’ve suffered simply from the passage of time.
But when their eyes meet, I glimpse who they are as a couple.
Not as parents. Not as working, professional adults.
“Some could say Ben and I are more similar than I’m comfortable admitting.
It’s a tale as old as time, right? The boy with no money.
The one with no family. Or maybe he has a family, but they’re beyond shitty.
” He brings his eyes back to me. “This isn’t about money.
It’s about Ben, himself. He was no good for her. ”
“She loved him.” Layla closes her eyes, exhaling a tired sigh.
“I think she might have even compared what she and Ben had to what her father and I had. When you’re raised listening to the stories of how Grant and I fell in love, it’s no wonder our daughter might’ve gone searching for her own.
” She wipes her cheeks and exhales a trembling breath.
“We do well now, Detective. Grant and I. We had grit. Tenacity. A stubborn streak a mile wide.” She tries to laugh.
Tries to smile. But all she manages is a sob.
“We worked hard and earned everything we have today, building our business and nurturing it just as surely as we nurtured our children. We taught them not to judge others by what they do or don’t have.
We taught them not to mock a child for being a loner.
Or cast judgment because they came to school dirty.
We taught them to befriend those who needed it most, and include those accustomed to exclusion. ”
“We set her up for this.” Grant drops his head back and groans up at the ceiling.
“We hammered home this ridiculous message of loving everybody and giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. She was drawn to him because of that bullshit we talked, and even when he showed his ass, proving why he should not be trusted, Molly refused to write the prick off.”
“What did he do that you consider showing his ass?” Fletch wonders. He, too, takes out a notebook and pen to catch notes I might miss. “Can you give me examples?”
“He treated school like it was optional. Until he didn’t. Which, I know…” Grant pinches the bridge of his nose. “I know that sounds dumb and meaningless in this context. But he was on the verge of expulsion because his attendance rate was abysmal. And then it wasn’t.”
“When wasn’t it? Why?”
“When Molly was in ninth grade, and he was in tenth—while they were dating—his attendance shot right up.” Layla pushes to her elbows, clutching her daughter’s hand between hers.
“His grades were getting better. Not wonderful, but better. It’s like he’d discovered a newfound love for academics, when really, we figure he simply knew being at school meant more time he could spend with her. ”
“And that… makes him a prick?” I lower my book and meet Grant’s eyes. “I’m not judging. I just want to understand—”
“If we hated him because he was a boy who liked our daughter, or if our reasons were valid.”
“Right.” I rub my jaw, trying, but failing, to understand how the kid was a dick based on what they’ve said so far.
If he was shooting up in her bedroom or knocking her around, that’s one thing.
Dragging her out of school, instead of him showing up more, would make it reasonable to dislike him.
But my best friend was the boy from the wrong side of the tracks, too, and hell if his grades didn’t get better because he wanted to impress a pretty girl.
“Did Benjamin do anything… specific? Anything tangible? Anything illegal? Give us something to work with here, so we can get to know him. So we can understand him. Because he’s lying dead at the morgue right now, and a poor kid bettering himself for the girl he loves… ”
“I can’t explain it to you, Detective.” Grant draws a long, deep breath into his chest. “Maybe it’s intuition.
Or judgment. Or maybe I’m full of shit.” He exhales again.
“I was that poor kid running the streets once upon a time. I was the guy fathers kept their daughters away from, and I was the boy who hung out at the bay when I shouldn’t have, relying on my instincts to keep me alive.
A bunch of the other guys I ran with back then…
some of them got out. Some didn’t. Some lived, and some died.
I got good at reading people, Detective Malone.
And I got damn good at manipulating folks to believe I was someone that I wasn’t.
When you have nothing but your wits and fast tongue to get you from one meal to the next, from one day to the next, you learned how to judge a person in a snap second, especially someone from that same world.
” He swallows and draws his eyes back to his daughter.
“You might say I recognized a lot of myself in Ben. The dark parts. I recognized his grift. His wit. I found kinship with the part of his soul that came from the streets, and I tried… I really, really tried to find the good in him, too. I’m the last person on the planet who’ll write a kid like that off.
I’ll search for the good long after I should, hoping my baby found herself someone to take care of her the way I do.
But he wasn’t it, and I have nothing tangible, nothing real to give you. I only have what my gut told me.”
“Mr. Freemon… Grant…” Fletch hesitates, dropping a blanket of tension into a room already bubbling with it. “We have to ask you—”
Grant chuckles. It’s watery and weak and sad, but he allows his lips to curl up on one side. “Do it. Ask me.”
“Do you have an alibi for last night?” I ask because, fuck, I’ve been thinking it. “Between eleven and midnight. Where were you, and who were you with?”
“I was at home.” He sits closer to Molly’s bed, dragging her hand across and cupping his face with her palm.
“I was with my wife, which, I know from a lifetime of experience, isn’t a very good alibi at all.
My two smaller children were in their beds asleep, and Layla and I…
” He lifts just one shoulder, shrugging and then dropping it.
“We made love around ten. Watched Jimmy Fallon at about eleven-thirty. Fell asleep about midnight. Half past, or so. Woke up to the phone ringing this morning and you…” He meets my eyes. “You on the other end.”
“Did you know Molly was not at home?”
“Molly was home at ten.” Layla twists in her chair and snatches tissues from the box on the table in the far corner.
“She was in her room, painting. She had headphones in her ears, which is something she does a lot. She was working on a landscape she’s been adding touches to for weeks.
I checked.” She blows her nose and squeezes fresh tears onto her cheeks.
“I checked, like I do every single night. I told her goodnight, and that I loved her, and I said don’t stay up too late.
I said how, even though it’s the summer and she didn’t have to get up for school, that she shouldn’t make a habit of late nights.
I checked.” Weeping, she drops her head again.
“My babies were home when I went to bed.”