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He rinsed the stir-fry pan, then pulled the plug. “Does Dr. Morningstar still give you a hard time about that?”
“She transferred to another clinic a couple of months ago—just after the Sanders adoption case hit the headlines.”
“That was a nasty one, wasn’t it?” He wiped around the inside of the sink as the water swirled down the drain.
“I’m not sure it’s over yet.” She put the pan away and folded the towel. “Now Robbie Logan—” She paused.
“My cousin,” he told her.
“Okay. Robbie has resigned and apparently disappeared, and there are still rumors that the agency might close.”
Despite her boss’s reassurances that they would weather this latest scandal, Alicia was concerned. Not just for the patients who desperately needed the hope the clinic offered, but for herself personally. If the Children’s Connection shut down, she’d lose not just the job she loved, but her means of supporting herself and her brother’s children.
“I thought LJ’s campaign had turned things around.”
“LJ?”
“The PR guy who was brought in from New York to help spin things for the media—LJ Logan,” he explained. “Another brother of mine.”
“How many of you are there?” she wondered aloud.
“Four. LJ’s the oldest, then there’s Ryan—he’s an architect—then Jake, and myself.”
“Four,” she echoed. “I’ll bet you kept your mother hopping.”
“She blamed us for every one of her gray hairs.”
She smiled. “What is it like, being part of a big family?”
“It’s crowded,” he said. “And noisy. But it’s fun, too.”
“You’re close to everyone?”
“Mostly,” he said, and left it at that.
“Joe and I have always been close,” she said, turning on the tap to fill the coffeepot with water, then dumping it into the reservoir. “And now—” she shook her head “—I just can’t believe any of this is happening.”
He didn’t offer any platitudes, for which she was grateful. There was nothing anyone could say that would make her current situation any easier to accept. There was no way anyone could understand what it was like for her brother to be locked away in prison, knowing he shouldn’t be there.
Still, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “What would you do—if it was one of your brothers in jail?”
Scott started to shrug off the question. After all, he knew his brothers, and he knew that none of them would ever end up in the kind of situation Joe Juarez was in. Except he realized that Alicia felt the same way about her brother as he did about his, and that was why she was such a passionate advocate for his cause.
He also knew, from his years on the police force, that human beings were inherently volatile and anyone was capable of almost anything given the right motivation.
Could he imagine LJ smashing the window of an electronics store to lift a new stereo system? Or Ryan going door-to-door to scam people out of their savings in the name of home improvements that would never happen? Or Jake stealing cars to sell on the black market overseas? Of course not—the idea of any of his brothers involved in such criminal activity was ridiculous. On the other hand, he didn’t doubt that they were all capable of inflicting serious bodily harm on anyone who threatened someone they cared about.
“I’d do exactly what you’re doing,” he finally responded to Alicia’s question. “And leave no stone unturned in trying to prove his innocence—or at least understand why he’d done whatever it was that landed him in jail.”
“Joe didn’t take the engine or those plans.”
“I know you believe that, and you might be right. But maybe you should think about what circumstances might have forced him into a situation where he decided to take them.”
“Joe wouldn’t sacrifice his integrity under any circumstances.”
“What if his integrity demanded he do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if he believed the emissions of this alternative fuel were carcinogenic?”
“That isn’t what happened here.”
“What if something like that did happen?”
“Then he would have urged the company to scrap the project.” She handed him a mug of coffee. “Cream? Sugar?”
He shook his head. “No, thanks. And what would Joe do if the company refused?”
She frowned as she sat across from him, obviously considering possibilities she hadn’t before and not appreciating the implications. “Can we stick with the facts as they exist?”
“Okay,” he said. “What we know is that Joe had taken the prototype and the engine plans home to make some alterations on them over the weekend. On Saturday morning, he couldn’t find them.
“According to the statement he later gave to police, he tore the house apart looking for them and, when he still couldn’t locate them, put in a call to Gene Russo, his boss. A review of his phone records confirms that the call was made, although he didn’t leave a message on Russo’s machine.”
“Of course he didn’t leave a message,” she said, a little defensively. “He wanted to talk to his boss in person so he went to track him down—”
“—at the garage,” Scott interrupted to continue, reminding her that this was his recitation of facts. “Russo went back to Joe’s house with him and they called the police from there.”
“And Joe admitted to Mr. Russo and the police that he’d taken the engine and plans home on the weekend, which he wouldn’t have done if he’d had something to hide.”
That had occurred to him, too. But he’d worked a lot of cases where suspects had unexpectedly admitted to incriminating activities, and he’d found such confessions usually allowed the investigation to be wrapped up quickly. Which is exactly what had happened here.
Had it been wrapped up too quickly?
That was a question he couldn’t answer without more information and a close look at the transcripts.
“Other than the fact that Joe was the last person in possession of the items that were stolen, what evidence did the prosecution have?”
“There was a five-thousand-dollar deposit made to Joe’s bank account on Friday before the plans went missing.”
“Five thousand?” It seemed a paltry amount to risk prison for, but he’d known people who did crazier things for less.
“Yes,” she said. “And, yes, Joe had unpaid bills.”
“What kind of bills?”
“Outstanding medical expenses from Lia’s tonsil-lectomy in the fall.”
“How much?”
“He’s been making regular payments, but there’s still about two thousand owing.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the mortgage, household utilities, that kind of thing.”
“Credit card bills?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t carry a balance on his cards.”
“Did he gamble—horses, slots, stock market?”
“No.”
“Do drugs?”
Her jaw tightened. “No.”
“What did he do?”
“He worked and spent time with his kids.”
“Did he have a girlfriend?” he pressed.
“No. He dated occasionally, but no one seriously or exclusively.”
“Who else had a key to the house?”
“Me.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“Not even Joey?”
“No. But he knows there’s a spare hidden in the ceramic frog on the back step.” She brightened at the implications of that. “Where almost anyone could have found it and come into the house to take the prototype and plans.”
“Anyone could have,” he agreed. “But there’s no evidence that anyone did.”
She sighed. “You’re right. I’m grasping at straws.”
“What did Joe say when the prosecutor asked him about the money?”
Alicia pushed away from the table and went to refill her mug with coffee. “Nothing.”
“He didn’t answer the question?”
“He didn’t testify,” she admitted.
“Why not?”
“That seems to be the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”
Or maybe, Scott couldn’t help but think, in this case it was only a five-thousand-dollar question.
Alicia listened to the metal doors clang shut behind her and fought to suppress the instinctive shudder that ran through her every time she heard the sound. She wondered if she’d ever get used to it and desperately hoped not. She didn’t want Joe to be stuck in this prison long enough for her to get used to it.
She followed the guard to the visitors’ room. It was mostly empty at this time of day, which filled her with both relief and sadness. She felt claustrophobic enough in here without the press of dozens of bodies around her, and yet, she knew that visits from family and friends were the only bright lights these men had, their only connection to the outside world.
She wouldn’t have expected to feel any empathy for these convicted criminals, except that her brother was now one of them. He spent his days locked up in this prison with no one for company but the other inmates who lived behind these bars and the guards who monitored their every move.
The thought made her stomach clench. Her brother didn’t deserve to be here. And yet, he was here, and she was scared to death that he wouldn’t be able to survive without the oppressive environment crushing his spirit.
Joe had always been a kind person, a gentle soul, a dreamer. He believed the best in people and always looked on the bright side, even when life threw him a curveball. And life had thrown him a lot of those, starting with Yvette’s unexpected pregnancy when they were both barely out of high school.
Joe had immediately proposed, wanting to marry her and give their baby a family. He hadn’t listened to the naysayers who’d warned of the difficult road ahead because he’d believed that their love was strong enough to triumph over whatever obstacles they might face.
And for a while, it looked as though he was right. Joe Jr. was born seven months after they married, then Lia came along four years later. During that time, Joe had worked two and three jobs to provide for his young family. When Yvette started making noises about feeling restless, Joe had done everything he could to make her happy, fought with everything he had to keep their marriage together. In the end, he’d let her go because it was what was best for their children.
Yvette had broken Joe’s heart. Alicia knew it because she’d been there for him when his world was falling apart and when he’d started to put it back together again.
She’d been the first person he called when he was hired by Russo’s Dirt Devils Racing Team. He’d been as excited as a kid, thrilled with the challenges and opportunities the job would present, and overjoyed to have a steady paycheck that would keep Lia in ballet slippers and allow him to get Joey that computer he’d been eyeing.
He’d worked hard for and with the team. He’d taken pride in their accomplishments while continuing to look ahead at what they could do to perform even better. And he’d been thrilled to be part of their secret project.
There was no way he would have compromised the work. No way he would ever have stolen the prototype or the plans. And she was furious that anyone who knew her brother could even suspect him of such crimes.
The injustice of it all continued to gnaw away at her as she moved over to the table she’d started to think of as her “usual” table and sat in the hard wooden chair waiting for the door at the other end of the room to open.
A few minutes later it finally did, and Joe was led inside.
He looked tired, was her first thought, and thin. He’d lost weight in the few weeks he’d been incarcerated, weight that he couldn’t afford to lose from his already slender frame. And the color had faded from his cheeks, leaving his skin pale, almost pasty.
He was little more than a shadow of the vibrant man she loved so dearly, and it broke her heart to see him like this after only five weeks in jail. How could he possibly survive five years?
“Hey, Ali.” He managed a smile when she rose to give him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek before returning to her seat in accordance with the strictly enforced rules of visitation. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”
But she could tell that he was pleased by her visit, grateful for the interruption of his mundane routine.
“I’m on my lunch break so I can’t stay long,” she told him. “But there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Are the kids okay?” he asked, immediately concerned.
“Joey and Lia are fine,” she said quickly, anxious to reassure him even while she recognized the falseness of her assurance.
Of course they weren’t fine—they were going through hell trying to deal with the repercussions of their father being in jail. On the other hand, there wasn’t any kind of medical emergency that she suspected Joe was worried about.
