Mending Fences. Sherryl Woods

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СКАЧАТЬ Sometimes when she saw him like this, it caught her by surprise. In her heart, he was still her little boy, not a full-grown man with broad shoulders and muscles toned by hours of training at the gym. His cheeks were stubbled with a day’s growth of beard and his blond hair, usually so carefully groomed, stuck out every which way. Seeing him reminded her of the way Ken had looked when they’d first met, way too handsome for his own good.

      “Evan,” she murmured, her hand on his shoulder. “Wake up! Evan!”

      He only moaned and buried his head under the pillow, just as he had for years when she’d tried to wake him for school. Marcie knew the routine. She yanked the pillow away and then the sheet, averting her gaze from his naked body as she did so.

      “Wake up!” she commanded, shaking him.

      “Wha…? Go ’way.”

      “Get up now,” she said urgently. “There’s someone here to see you.”

      He blinked up at her. “What? Who?”

      “They’re police officers, four of them. Two local and two from the Gables.”

      “Shit, oh shit,” he muttered, raking his hand through his hair.

      Something in the panicked expression that flitted across his face terrified Marcie. Had there been an accident? Had he left the scene? Or drugs? She knew there were kids at college who used them, but Evan had always been smart enough to steer clear. He’d wanted his football career too much to risk messing it up by experimenting with drugs or steroids. Ken had hammered that lesson home years ago.

      “Do you know what this is about?” she asked. “Should I get your dad?”

      “I’ll handle it,” he said, grabbing a pair of jeans and yanking them on, then snatching up a T-shirt from the end of the bed and pulling it over his head. “Don’t come downstairs, Mom, okay? I’ll take care of this.”

      Marcie fought to stay calm. “I don’t like the sound of this, Evan. I think someone should be with you. Do I need to call a lawyer?”

      “I said I’d handle it,” he snapped. “Go to bed.”

      Marcie winced at his tone. She should have been used to it by now. Ken used that exact same tone when he spoke to her, but it was relatively new coming from Evan.

      “You’re not going down there alone,” she insisted. “Now either I come with you or I get your father.”

      “Whatever,” he said belligerently.

      Marcie followed him downstairs. At the bottom of the steps, the two detectives stood in his path.

      “Evan Carter?” Detective Rodriguez asked.

      “Yes. What the hell is this about?” he demanded, his voice radiating antagonism.

      Again, he sounded so much like his father, it gave Marcie goose bumps. Instinct kicked in. She was about to try to smooth things over with the detectives, but realized they were oblivious to his attitude and totally focused on their own mission.

      “You’re under arrest for the rape of Lauren Brown,” the woman said quietly. “Anything you say can and will be used against you…”

      Rape! Marcie was incredulous. This simply couldn’t be happening. As the detective read Evan his rights, Marcie fought back the bile rising in her throat and ran upstairs to wake her husband. She couldn’t shake the sound of the word rape. It kept echoing in her head.

      “Ken, get up now! The police are arresting Evan. They say he raped somebody.”

      She didn’t have to say it twice. Ken bolted out of bed with a curse and ran for the stairs, Marcie right on his heels. She heard Caitlyn’s door open and knew that her daughter had been wakened by the commotion as well.

      “Mom, what’s going on? Why is there a police car outside?”

      Marcie couldn’t bring herself to explain. “It’s all a terrible misunderstanding,” she said. “I’m sure that’s all it is. Your father will straighten everything out, but I need to go with him.”

      “Go with him where?” Caitlyn asked, her eyes wide. “It’s the middle of the night.”

      “To the police station. I’m going to call Emily and see if you can go over and spend the night at their house, okay? I don’t want you here alone.”

      “Who’s been arrested? Is it Dad?”

      “No, sweetie, it’s your brother, but like I said, it has to be a mistake.” Her hand shook as she picked up the phone and hit the number on the speed dial for Emily.

      Her friend and neighbor answered on the first ring, instantly wide awake. “Marcie, is everything okay? I saw the flashing lights on a police car turning onto your street, but I never heard a siren. What’s going on?”

      “I can’t explain now. Can Caitlyn stay with you?”

      “Of course,” she said at once. “Send her over. Is there anything else I can do?”

      “Pray,” Marcie said, her voice catching on a sob. “Pray that the police have made some horrible mistake. My boy…” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

      “They came for Evan?” Emily said, sounding as shocked as Marcie felt.

      “Yes. Please, just watch out for Caitlyn. She’s on her way. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”

      “Go. Don’t worry about anything here. Just promise that you’ll call me if there’s anything else I can do.”

      Marcie sighed as she hung up. She wondered if Emily would sound half as supportive once she found out what Evan had been accused of doing. There were some things even a best friend could never understand or forgive.

      And if there was any truth, any truth at all to the charges, Marcie wasn’t entirely certain she’d ever understand it, either.

       Chapter 2

       Ten years earlier

      Dinner was going to be another rushed affair. Emily Dobbs had spent two hours in a tedious, unproductive teachers’ meeting after school, then picked up her husband’s dry cleaning, run by the post office for stamps, stopped by the drugstore for her prescription for birth control pills—not that she’d needed them lately—and spent fifteen minutes at the market trying to figure out what she could fix for dinner in the twenty minutes she had left after she’d picked the kids up from the sitter’s. Spaghetti with salad and garlic bread had been the quick and easy answer. She supposed that was a step up from stopping for fast-food burgers or ordering pizza, something she’d resorted to way too many times recently.

      Every week she vowed to come up with nightly menus and a shopping list, rather than improvising every meal at the last possible moment. So far, she’d failed to follow through, despite her good intentions.

      Lately everything in her life felt as if she were doing it on the run. Maybe she should have waited СКАЧАТЬ