that was just to see if he knew anything.”
Elliott shook his head. “You told, Mom. Kyle never saw anyone he knew so no one else could have told on him. It had to be you.”
She took a deep breath. “You said Kyle is in trouble,” she said. “What kind of trouble is he in?”
The little boy’s shrug was telling—most particularly to a mother who used to be able to read him like a book.
“He’s not in trouble, is he?” she pressed.
Elliott shrugged again and folded his arms against his chest as he stared out the front windshield.
“You’re a snitch.” The boy’s tone had softened considerably. His chin rested against his chest. “You snitched on my friend.”
“I told Chief Bristow that I recognized Kyle,” she said. She’d promised him the truth and she was not in a position to go backward on the climb to rebuild his trust. “But I did so for his sake as much as anything else,” she said. “I was concerned about him being out on the street where his father could have had access to him.” She didn’t figure then was the time to tell her son that officials believed the fire was part of a serial arsonist’s work.
Elliott looked at her.
She started the car and drove home, feeling his stare the whole way.
When she pulled into their apartment’s drive, he didn’t immediately reach to undo his seat belt.
“Look, Elliott. I’m not perfect by any means. But I did the right thing Friday night. And I would do it again.” They’d told her to be firm. To be consistent. To set boundaries.
He sat still, staring out the front window.
And she forgot counseling for a second. “You hate it that I didn’t tell on Dad for what he was doing.”
“So?”
“So, I wasn’t a snitch then. And it was wrong.”
His gaze swung toward her and she continued.
“Sometimes you have to tell,” she went on. “And if there’s a possibility that someone could get hurt, you have to tell every time. That’s something I know now.”
She’d known it then, too. She just hadn’t realized that the price of staying had been far greater than the one they’d paid for leaving.
She hadn’t known that Elliott had been affected by, or even known about, Frank’s abuse. She’d been trying to give her son a secure home, with nice things, all the bills paid, a loyal father who came home every night. She’d hoped that as Elliott grew out of boyhood into pre-manhood that Frank would take over—or at least take an interest in the child he’d fathered.
She’d thought a lot of erroneous things back then.
“Did you tell Kyle I told on him?” she asked now, wondering what kind of position her son had put himself in. Wondering if the bond with the older boy would pit them both against her.
“No. ’Course not,” Elliott said. He opened the door and got out.
He didn’t speak to her again as she settled him upstairs in their apartment with Suzie. Not even when she told him good-night and that she loved him.
But she heard Suzie’s voice behind her.
“That’s your mother. A good man responds when his mother speaks to him. And little boys who need their mother’s love are allowed to accept it. No matter what.”
She was smiling as she skipped down the stairs.
She might feel sometimes like she was facing her battles all alone.
But she wasn’t.
She should remember that.
THERE’D BEEN A house fire over the weekend. Reese completed his inspection report on Tuesday. Faulty wiring. No gasoline on the premises.
While he hated to see anyone go through the trauma of losing irreplaceable belongings, he’d been relieved to know that arson wasn’t involved.
On Tuesday, he got the report back from LA regarding Friday night’s fire. He’d been planning to process the evidence himself, but with the weekend fire he’d been unable to do so. The fleck of shiny white he’d pulled out of the small pile of burned ash turned out to be paint that had flaked off from something.
What kind, he didn’t yet know.
But it was something else to add to size-ten tennis shoes. Something else that taunted him, dangling just out of reach when he had trouble sleeping at night.
Still, thoughts of the arsonist were preferable to thinking about Faye Walker. Or her son.
On Wednesday, he ran into her in the station’s kitchen. He’d been leaving with a cup of coffee in hand. Dressed in black Lycra shorts, a black tank bra and a white muscle shirt over top, she’d clearly just come from the fitness room. Her hair was pulled back, her skin was flushed, her forehead covered with beads of sweat.
He was swamped with memories. Specifically, a vision of her after making crazy love with him on a pool table in a frat house. She’d been visiting him for the weekend. They’d found the house empty after a bike ride along the coast. She’d been dressed pretty much the same—she’d hoisted herself onto the table, scooted back and dared him.
In less than ten seconds, he’d pulled her shorts down to her ankles and had brought her to almost instant satisfaction.
Had he been nuts? Had she been?
“Did you find out where your son got the matches?” He blurted the words to cover up the rest of what was going on in his mind.
He didn’t want to know any more about the boy. Didn’t even want to think of him.
Pictures of what might have been, of Faye and her son at home, in the kitchen, watching a movie, on the sand at the beach—would only make life messy. And hard.
She’d been backing up, as though to turn tail and run. But stopped and looked at him.
He didn’t get her expression. Had never seen the doubt and uncertainty mixed in with her usual strength.
“No,” she said. That was all. Nothing else.
She turned to go. He wanted to call her back.
To say what? To what end?
They were strangers. Had nothing to discuss. House rule.
Because this was his house.
* * *
FAYE WAS STILL shaking inside from her encounter with Reese when she
