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“An offer.”
Narrowing his eyes, he sipped from his coffee, and said nothing.
“I’ll charge the Lorna Zeidel case and prosecute to the fullest extent of my ability.” Even though that meant starting from scratch on a cold case, a wild goose chase that—unless she pulled off a miracle—would cost the state and ultimately hurt her reputation.
“Shit.” He put down his cup with careful deliberation. The muffin she’d bought him remained untouched. “In exchange for what?”
“I need you in court a week from Monday, 8:30 sharp.”
“Why?”
She didn’t look down, as much as she was tempted to. “An evidentiary hearing to establish the validity of your confidential informant in the Hall case.”
“They want me to testify that it’s valid?”
If it was that easy, she wouldn’t have needed Lorna Zeidel. Jan waited.
Ruple threw himself against the hardwood chair, almost tipping it backward. “You want me to expose my source.”
She nodded.
“Knowing it’s the kiss of death for a cop.”
She nodded again, saying nothing as he stood.
“Do I look like a fool to you, Ms. McNeil?”
“No, Danny,” she said, still seated. “You look like a cop who’s really in it to get the bad guys—no matter what the cost.”
She had him. At least for a second. And then, leaving his coffee unfinished, he stalked out.
Would he be in touch? Or would she have to attend Hall’s hearing still wondering if her key witness—her only witness—was going to show?
“Can we not talk about our court stuff right now?”
With an effort, Jan’s smile remained intact as she fell silent. Fork in midair over her blueberry pancakes, she watched the eight-year-old across from her consume a plate of French toast without a care in the world.
“Have you changed your mind about us, Hailey?” she asked softly, holding her breath. “Because it’s okay if you have. All you have to do is say so. I won’t be angry with you, I promise.”
Heartbroken, but not angry.
The child’s short, dark curls bounced as she shook her head. “’Course not,” she said, her mouth full. “Next to Mrs. Butterworth, you’re the nicest person I ever met. Being your kid would be almost as good as there really being a Santa Claus.”
Jan wanted to hug Hailey so tight, keep her so close that no harm could ever come to her again. “You just don’t want to know about the legal proceedings?” she asked, just to be sure, respecting the little girl’s reserve.
Hailey shrugged, her shoulders bony looking beneath the blue T-shirt she was wearing with a pair of faded jeans. Her sweater was wadded beside her on the bench in the booth of their favorite diner on Route 66.
“You planning to tell me what’s bothering you?”
“Nothing.” Hailey peeked up at her. Swallowed. And did not immediately shovel another bite of food into her mouth. “I just don’t see why I should hear about the actual adoption, when they aren’t going to let it happen anyway.”
“Who isn’t?”
Had the Ivory Nation connected her to Hailey? Threatened the child? Jan’s body temperature dropped, until she realized that, once again, she was falling prey to paranoia.
“You know, the court people,” Hailey said, frowning. “Judges and CPS and all that. Derek says they probably won’t give me to anyone, but they especially won’t give me to you.”
Derek Lincoln, the twelve-year-old biological son of Hailey’s foster parents.
“Why not?”
“Derek says no one wants kids like me to have regular homes, ’cause we won’t fit in. They just keep moving us around from foster to foster, till we’re old enough to live alone.”
As quickly as Jan’s blood had frozen, it burned. “Derek’s wrong.”
“He says he’s seen it. He says it always happens that way. They talk about adoption, but every foster kid in his house just gets moved to other foster houses. He says most people don’t want us kids, ’cause we’re troublemakers and ’cause we’re too old. He says even some foster homes aren’t good, ’cause people do it for the money. He says they aren’t all like his mom, who just loves any old kid.”
“First off, you’re not any old kid, and you’re the farthest thing from a troublemaker there is, young lady,” Jan said in a voice left over from her days in juvenile court, where she’d first met and fallen in love with Hailey Miller.
Then, sensing the debilitating fear beneath the young girl’s bravado, she immediately softened. “No matter how old you get, I’m going to want you and love you,” she said, leaning over so the child could hear her clearly in the busy restaurant. “I’m not adopting just anyone, you know. I’m adopting you. Specifically you.”
Hailey’s chin puckered.
“I’ve always wanted kids some day.” Jan told the child something she’d never said out loud before. “But ever since college, I’ve worked so much I’ve lost touch with all my friends. And I never met a man I felt safe enough with to marry—you know one I believed would love me forever and ever.”
She grinned at Hailey, and felt a little better when the child smiled back.
“I was beginning to think I’d never have my family,” she continued, her voice lower as she opened her heart to this precocious and oh-so-strong child. “I don’t know why, but I never even thought about adoption—maybe because I always thought marriage would come before the kids.”
Hailey nodded, her gaze serious and on target, as if she could fully understand the complexity of the adult emotions Jan was laying before her.
Jan reached out a hand, covering Hailey’s. “Until I met you,” she continued. “Then, I could think of nothing else.”
Hailey stared at her.
And then, pulling her hand away, she stiffened. “They aren’t going to let you.”
Because she was single? She’d already crossed that hurdle, received the legal go-ahead. “Why do you say that?”
“You put away the bad people.”
Jan blinked. “Yeah. So?”
“I am the bad people.”
“Hailey Ann Miller! You are not bad!” Jan lowered her voice. “Don’t say such things.”
“Why not?” the child asked, her eyes wide and clear. “It’s true.”
“It is not true.”
“You put me away.”
Oh, God.
After all this time, all the times I prepared for this, why did it have to happen now?
“The court took you from a place that wasn’t good for you,” Jan finally said. A place worse than hell for a vulnerable little girl. Jan lost her appetite, just thinking about what she’d found at the duplex rented by Hailey’s mother. Dirty walls, rotten floors—a hole the size of a basketball in front of the only toilet, open to the foundation and dirt beneath. Mold everywhere. And a constant stream of horny men who paid Hailey’s mother, a prostitute, a pittance for the use of a body that had once been beautiful but was now weathered and ragged.
“You took me because I stole too many times and got arrested and brought to court to be punished.”
“You stole cold medicine because you were too young to buy it, and you had to help someone who’d taken care of you,” Jan said decisively. “Mrs. Butter-worth loved you. No matter how old or tired or sick she was, she took you into her side of the duplex whenever your mom was out too late or had…visitors.”
In spite of state-ordered counseling and Jan’s personal attempts to gain the girl’s total confidence, no one knew if Hailey fully comprehended what her mother was—what she’d done with the various men who’d come and gone from their home. A medical exam had shown that the child had not been molested, but no one knew what she’d witnessed during the first seven years of her life.
“Till I got taken away.” Hailey took a small bite and chewed slowly, no pleasure evident. When she’d finished, she put down her fork and looked up at Jan, her eyes glistening. “I am bad,” she said with quiet conviction. “It wasn’t just that once. I stole before, too, when Mrs. Butterworth’s checks didn’t come, but I wasn’t that good at it and I kept getting caught. And I took candy, once, just for me. It’s just that the last time they already told me no more or else, and I did anyway, and it was medicine, and now I’m taken away because I’m a troublemaker.”
“You were caught, and yes, there was some punishment because stealing is against the law…” Although, in Hailey’s case, Jan had recommended the punishment, probation, only as a scare tactic—and a safeguard, a way to keep close tabs on the little girl. It was highly unusual for an eight-year-old to be on probation.
Hailey was nodding, pushing a piece of French toast that was swimming in her syrup.
“But, Hailey, you weren’t taken away because of that. You were put in a different home because after the court found out the kind of conditions you were living in, they had to provide a better place for you, a safer place, where there were people who would shop and cook for you and not leave you alone at night. The other times, they’d called your mother and she’d cleaned up enough to satisfy the authorities when they brought you home. But the last time, they didn’t call and just went to your house. It was obvious, then, that your mother couldn’t care for you as the law requires. And the judge couldn’t leave you there, honey, especially after Mrs. Butterworth died.”
Hailey had been pretty resigned about leaving her mother. And hadn’t asked about the woman since. On the other side, Karen Miller hadn’t responded to a single one of the state’s attempts at reconciliation or visitation, and had, in fact, allowed severance proceedings to go forward without any objection whatsoever.
Jan got up from the table and switched sides, sliding in beside the little girl.
“You did some things you shouldn’t have done, Hailey, but more important than what you do is why you do it. You don’t do things to be mean or selfish. You don’t lash out in anger or turn away when you think someone needs your help. That’s what a troublemaker does. You’re kind of like Mrs. Butterworth. You want to take care of things, even when you really can’t. She should have moved to a nursing home where the government could have taken care of her, but she didn’t want to leave you. And you took things that weren’t yours because you weren’t old enough to go to work to earn the money she needed. That means you have a good heart. Not a bad one.”
“You really think so?” The little girl’s eyes were so big and blue they seemed almost jewel-like.
“I know so.”
Hailey ate a couple of hearty bites. And then, shoulders drooping, she laid her fork in the middle of her plate, the handle sinking into the syrup.
“I’m on probation,” she said. “Derek says only bad kids are on probation and they don’t ever get out of foster care.”
Maybe the sentence had been a little harsh, but even in the beginning Jan had seen the potential in Hailey and also the determination, and she couldn’t think of another way to get the point across that continued stealing was unacceptable. Telling her it was wrong hadn’t worked, because in her mind her reasons had always been right and stronger. Telling her no hadn’t stopped her. Threats hadn’t stopped her. Eventually the habit would have ruined her life.
“Derek’s pretty smart, but he’s just a kid, too, and he doesn’t know everything yet,” Jan said, careful not to malign the boy. For now, Hailey was part of the Lincoln family, and her need for stability, a sense of belonging, were the most important factors in the child’s life. The October 23rd court adoption date felt far too distant.
Jan sat back, thoughts of her own inadequacies stealing some of her confidence. She suffered so severely from nightmares—and from a consequent lack of self-trust—that she’d slowly shut herself off from all relationships that weren’t work related. And now she was bringing a child into her life—a full-time resident, who would want friends to spend the night.
She could do it. She knew she could. But it wasn’t going to be easy.
Would Hailey suffer while Jan worked things out?
And even after the court made Hailey her legal daughter, how could she provide this precious and needy child with stability, while she was planning to expose herself to the possible retaliation of the Ivory Nation?
Yet how could she not follow through on a five-year commitment to save the people Jacob Hall would continue to hurt, possibly kill, if he were let go? How could she turn her back on this chance to send a clear and direct message to Bobby Donahue and the rest of the Ivory Nation?
Grunting as much for show as from any real need, Simon hopped from tire to tire, up the ragged edge of the mountain. A foot into each and every one, before shimmying up the tree at the end of the rubber trail. He’d been hard at it all morning—a bit of an alternative to his usual Saturday-morning regime of lying around bored out of his skull and not caring enough to do anything about it.
“Not bad for a first run.” Leonard Diamond, the most perfect specimen of manhood Simon had ever seen, nodded from the base of the tree. “Amanda was right to send you to me. You continue to work like that and I’ll have you ready to tackle any strength or skill exam they can give you—on skis or off—by the end of November, but it’ll cost you. I only work with the best and I don’t come cheap.”
Agent Scott Olsen, and his convoluted FBI expense accounting, was paying for this—so what the hell. The sweat felt damn good.
Simon nodded. And tried not to think about the young woman who—after he’d paid three more visits to the Museum Club—had put him in touch with this acquaintance of her boyfriend’s—who’d been an ex but no longer was, he’d discovered. If Leonard Diamond, the independent trainer, turned out to be providing his services to terrorists, as the FBI suspected, Amanda Blake was running with a very dangerous crowd.
With instincts that weren’t quite as dead as he’d told himself they were, Simon had garnered more about twenty-five-year-old Amanda than he’d wanted to. The girl was back with her too-mysterious boyfriend, but she wasn’t all that happy about the relationship. In fact, the beautiful young lady seemed more resigned than in love. And more than a little afraid, as well. Olsen, who’d received his tips from her through intricate channels, had had the same impression. Simon had practically had to give her his birth certificate before she’d agreed to get him this trial with Diamond. She said that his time was premium and he was hit on by every quack parent in the world who wanted his kid to be a star. Thankfully, compliments of Scott Olsen’s connections, Simon now had a fake identity. A guy with the same name, who had been born and raised in Alaska and was a first-time visitor to Flagstaff. His alter ego even had a new apartment. If he needed a place to receive visitors.
The fact that this new game might be dangerous didn’t faze him a bit.
Simon wasn’t afraid to die.
An hour and a half later, after showering, securing a locker and filling out a minimal amount of paperwork, Simon turned onto his street just in time to see Jan pull into her driveway next door. When she didn’t enter the garage, he wondered if she was still a bit gunshy from the brick incident earlier in the week. Then he slowed to a stop, gawking when he saw the elflike child who climbed out of the passenger seat.
Who the hell was she? In the four years he’d been living next door to Ms. Janet McNeil and in the three or so years he’d been meeting her at her mailbox, he’d never once seen or heard mention of a child in her life.
A widowed mother in Sedona, check. An unmarried salesman brother, right. No ex-husbands. No cousins or aunts or uncles or grandparents. No friends he knew of, with or without children.
The woman worked. Took care of her mother. Her home. Was friendly to her neighbors. And talked to him a few minutes every day.
She waved and Simon could feel the heat under his skin, a rare occurrence for someone who didn’t care enough about anything to get embarrassed. He waved back and continued on to his driveway, but stopped just over the curb and got out.
Jan was down at the mailbox, letters in hand, just standing. Almost as if she was waiting for him.
Not good. Not good at all.
He walked over, even though he knew it was a big mistake to do so. The woman, her welfare, her guests, didn’t matter to him, other than for the distant role she played in the passing of his days.
“Hey, neighbor,” he greeted her, including the girl in his grin. About seven, he’d guess, based on her size. And it’d been a hard seven years. The awareness in those eyes, the chin that held back expression rather than softening in response to a friendly smile—they told a familiar story.
“Simon, I wanted Hailey to meet you.” Jan’s voice was higher than it usually was. She was too perceptive to be humoring this child with false cheer. Which told him she was tense about something.
“Hi, Hailey.” He held out his hand. Her grip was tiny, but firm.
“Hi.”
“How old are you?” Wasn’t that what you said to kids you weren’t rescuing from hell—or arresting?
“Eight.”
A year off. Not bad for a guy who’d been off the streets for almost a decade.
“Hailey and I are in the process of becoming a family.” Jan moved a bit closer to the girl.
“She’s trying to adopt me, but I keep telling her they won’t let it happen,” the child said.
