“I will. Thank you.” Her narrow hand settled on his forearm and squeezed. “Really. Thank you.”
“No sweat.” It would have been so easy to lean over and set a kiss on her cheek. Not a pass, but something tender. He liked her. He admired her. He wanted her to know she was doing okay.
But he couldn’t, not with Zack glaring at him.
Taking a small, brain-clearing breath, L.C. rounded the desk and nodded a goodbye as he headed out to the truck Zack had parked in front of the office. Zack followed, quiet, and handed over the keys so L.C. could drive, but apparently he was just waiting until they were out of earshot before starting in on him.
“I thought we agreed you’d leave Mercedes alone,” he said as L.C. pulled into a break in traffic.
“I was just talking to her. I’m capable of talking to a woman without getting drunk and sleeping with her.” He could feel Zack staring at him and glanced over to see he wanted to believe him, but wasn’t there.
“So you haven’t tried to take her out?” Zack asked.
Oh, shit.
“Dad!” Zack said, too quick.
“Just because you became sexually active, I’m supposed to lose interest? Damn it, Zack, I like women. I’m more selective these days and I’m not boozing. That’s as good as you’re going to get.”
“Have you told her about Lindsay?”
L.C. tightened his hand on the wheel. “No.”
Zack waited and L.C. knew his son expected him to fill the silence with some kind of explanation that made sense. There wasn’t one. There was just a yawning cavity inside him that he did his best to ignore because if he thought about his daughter, he thought about the one who hadn’t survived. Then he started thinking about drinking.
“She’s totally healthy, you know. You don’t have to worry—”
“Leave it.”
Zack made an annoyed noise, shifted, waited a beat, then said, “Even if you won’t go see her, you should at least be up front about the fact she exists. Especially with someone like Mercedes.”
Because she was dealing with the fall out of absent parents. He knew that. But his situation was one hundred percent different. Lindsay had two very capable people looking after her with Paige and Sterling on the side. L.C. had no place there even if he wanted one.
“Dad,” Zack prompted.
“You offer your life history the first time you talk to a girl?” he challenged.
“If she asks.” Zack bit his cuticle.
L.C. waited for a glimpse into his son’s eyes, but Zack avoided it. Hypocrite.
“I’m just saying—” Zack began.
“I know what you’re saying and she turned me down, okay? Mercedes is a big girl and can take care of herself. Who are you not being completely honest with?”
“What? No one.” Still talking into his hand.
“Me,” L.C. guessed. He slowed for traffic. “What’s going on, Zack?”
“Nothing!”
L.C. mentally rolled through all the conversations he’d had with Zack since turning up here, but didn’t find any red flags.
“What were you really doing when you guys broke into the complex?” he asked, taking a shot in the dark.
Zack groaned. “I told you, the guys saw the break in the fence and went in. I followed to tell them to get them out. That’s totally the truth.”
“Whose idea was it to go in?”
“Geez, I don’t know. One of them. They were drunk.”
L.C. pulled into the lumberyard, noting how they had come halfway across town, but were still a good distance from Zack’s dorm. It was the first time he’d realized how far away the two places were for a group of young men on foot.
“What were you guys doing on this side of town anyway? Meeting someone? A drug dealer?”
“Are you kidding?” The way Zack sounded so dumbfounded was reassuring.
“It’s a long way from the school, Zack. What brought you?” He waited to hear about an underage bar or live music in a park.
“Nothing. We were just walking wherever. They were passing a bottle and goofing around. It wasn’t supposed to turn into anything stupid.” He left the truck as he spoke so L.C. couldn’t see his expression. “I didn’t expect a Spanish Inquisition,” he added, cutting a hopeful look across the hood of the truck.
L.C. was supposed to drop the subject in favor of picking up the next line in the Monty Python routine, claiming no one expected a Spanish Inquisition.
He only asked, “Why didn’t the other guys want to do community hours and stay in school?”
“I don’t know. I guess they don’t think it sucks quite as hard to go home and tell everyone they were kicked out. And they were okay with taking summer classes. I can’t. I’ll be working at the factory.”
It all sounded logical and Zack’s boredom with the subject was real, but L.C. couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing some backstory. It was one more reason to stay, one more reason to reconnect with his son.
One more reason to stay the hell away from Mercedes.
Chapter 9
The Coconino safe was mostly used for passports and dinner rings and could only be opened with two board members present. Mercedes chose carefully when she asked for assistance in tucking away her newly acquired custody papers.
Her witnesses, however, were ominously silent.
“You’re not saying anything,” she finally said.
“I’m still trying to remember when we cut off the water to that duplex,” Harrison said. “I forgot all about that. Constantine noticed the pressure in his hose was gone— That’d be his garden hose,” he clarified with a wink. “We decided the empty units didn’t need water anyway, so we shut off the valves. I guess no one thought to check if there’d been a leak inside the unit causing the low flow.”
“Mmm.” Closing the safe, Mercedes turned back to offer the key to Harrison.
He shook his head and nodded toward Mrs. Yamamoto. She accepted the key and opened her knitting bag, digging out an embroidered change purse.
Mercedes waited, trying to be patient even though she needed to circle back to her situation in a timely manner. She was due to pick up Ayjia in twenty minutes.
“I remember.” Mrs. Yamamoto nodded. “Constantine complained about his tomatoes all summer. That was two years ago.”
“Oh, hell, didn’t he?” Harrison skimmed his hand over what remained of his hair. “You know he’s fertilizing one as we speak? Could you eat a tomato picked off a grave? But his wife said that’s what he wanted.”
“A good man provides for his wife,” Mrs. Yamamoto said with an approving nod, her glance toward Harrison sly.
Harrison chuckled, and Mercedes tried, but couldn’t hold more than a feeble grin. They noticed and both sobered.
“I’m sorry,” Mercedes said, silently begging both of them to understand. “I know it’s not right to spring this on everyone, but I don’t know what else to do. Will I lose my job?”
Harrison took a big breath. “I don’t know, Mercy-girl. If Edith has anything to do with it, I’d say yes.”
“But didn’t that woman... What was her name? Two or three managers ago. I’ve heard you talk about her. She had a daughter, didn’t she?” Mercedes pleaded.
Mrs. Yamamoto fussed with the contents of her knitting bag. “Her daughter was older. Twenty-five?” Mrs. Yamamoto checked with Harrison.
“And they were Christians,” he said. “So Edith approved.”
“What am I? I attend service here.” Maybe only Christmas and Easter, but still.
Harrison held up his hand. “I’m only telling you what Edith will say.”
“I know, I know, but I don’t know what else to do. I really need this job. I put them in school. Surely that will help. And I’ll try to keep them out of sight, so...?”
Harrison shrugged. “I’ll be honest. I don’t care for brats cluttering the common area. Lots of folks flat out hate it.”
“And adding them to my benefits? That’s like asking for a raise I don’t deserve, isn’t it?” Mercedes moaned. This wasn’t her. She was never weepy and helpless, but she had never had two kids to worry about. Was this what Porsha was running from? If so, she could sympathize. She really could.
“Look here, Mercy. I’ll support you, you know that,” Harrison said. “Pete will, and some of the others, but I can’t speak for everyone.” He looked at Mrs. Yamamoto.
She was throwing stitches at a great rate. Without looking up, she said, “You can’t keep the children in that little apartment.”
“You want me to move out?” Mercedes’s heart plummeted. Where would she go?
Mrs. Yamamoto shook her head. “I mean we have two empty units and Mrs. Edith has been waiting for a ground floor apartment for a long time.”
Harrison felt for his cigarettes. “If Edith moves into Mercy’s unit, we can sell Edith’s and that pays for renovating the two at the back.”
“And the children would be in the back of the complex where not so many people would see them. I like to see them, Mercedes,” Mrs. Yamamoto said, her tone apologetic. “They are charming. But not everyone is of the same opinion.”