Brenda Novak - No One But You

“You’d like to turn me into your babysitter, wouldn’t you?” he said.

Not really. But she had to make the offer. No judge was going to deny Sly visitation rights. He was a police officer! And it wasn’t as if she could claim he was physically abusive. “I’m saying it’s an option.”

“So you can go off and make money you’ll use to keep our family apart? Screw that! Why would I help you when I haven’t done anything to deserve what you’re doing to me?”

“You’ve never done anything to cause the divorce?” she echoed, shocked that he could even make such a statement. “What about the day you nearly ran me over with your squad car?”

“For the millionth time, I didn’t nearly run you down. I didn’t see you standing there.”

That was what he said, but she was fairly certain he had seen her...

“Besides, I’ve apologized for scaring you.”

“So that makes it better?”

“What else can I do? I didn’t know you were there, yet I apologized anyway. That’s nice, isn’t it? I’ll make everything else up to you, too. I’ve told you I would, but you won’t give me the chance!”

“Because I’m done, Sly. I can’t do it anymore.”

“This time will be different. I promise. You’ll be happy. I’ll make you happy. You don’t need to work for some murderer!”

He couldn’t make her happy. Any chance of that had been extinguished long ago. “We don’t know he’s a murderer.”

“Who else killed those people? The mysterious hitchhiker he claims he met earlier in the night? The one he claimed was tweaking and acting irrationally?”

“Maybe. Was his story ever really checked out?”

“His story was ridiculous! What are the chances that some stranger—a drug addict—he had an altercation with is going to be able to find the Reed farmhouse and kill the Reeds before Dawson can even get home?”

His story did sound rather far-fetched... “I don’t know. But his attorney claims the homicide detective settled on Dawson right away, that he never even looked at anyone else.”

“Dawson told you this?”

Jayden was laughing with the little girl who was sharing her bucket. He didn’t seem to notice that Sadie was on the phone, let alone having an argument, which brought some relief despite her frustration. “No, I saw it on the news, like everyone else,” she told Sly. “But maybe he was right. Maybe they focused the investigation too soon.”

“No, they didn’t! I’m part of the police force, Sadie. Are you saying we don’t do our jobs?”

“You weren’t involved in the investigation, Sly.” He hoped to reach detective; his superiors just hadn’t promoted him yet. She’d heard him fume when another officer was promoted ahead of him. “So that comment had nothing to do with you.”

“You’re talking about my friends and work associates.”

“I’m telling you the truth—that we don’t know!”

“Does that even matter?” he cried. “Do we have to know? Why take the chance?”

For the sake of freedom! She’d do almost anything to escape him. She’d gotten involved with Sly when she was still in high school. It didn’t seem fair that a decision made when she was so young and naïve could have such long-reaching consequences. “It’ll be okay. Dawson seems nice.”

“Are you a total idiot? Ted Bundy seemed nice!”

Sadie stiffened. He treated her like she was stupid whenever she didn’t agree with him. “There’s no point in fighting about it. I’ve accepted the job. I’m going to work there. You have no say.” She considered bringing up the fact that he’d tried to sabotage her by visiting the Reed farm ahead of her and all but threatening Dawson, but she knew that would only cause the argument to explode into something uglier, even more emotional. His attempt to intimidate Dawson hadn’t been successful. She’d leave it there to protect Dawson from any backlash he’d receive for telling her.

“You’d rather work for a murderer than come back to me,” he said.

“I’d rather accept a job that will enable me to remain independent.”

“God, you’re such a selfish bitch!”

There wasn’t any way she could be more selfish than he was. That much she knew for sure. “I don’t have to listen to this, Sly.”

“Someone needs to knock some sense into you.”

Squeezing her eyes closed, she drew a deep breath. “Who? You?”

“Someday, you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

She recognized that tone, associated it with the afternoon he’d nearly run her over. He had the capacity for violence. She could sense it—and it frightened her as much or more as going to work for a man suspected of murdering his parents, maybe even more because it was directed at her. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

“Don’t hang up on me! We’re not finished yet.”

“I don’t have to put up with your abuse anymore.” She saw her son coming toward her, so she hit the button that would end the call. But she knew what she’d just told her ex-husband was a lie. She did have to put up with his abuse. There wasn’t any way to avoid it. She’d been fighting that battle for years.

All the power was on his side.

* * *

Dawson Reed was so tired by the time he finished working in the fields that he skipped dinner. Hungry though he was, the thought of trying to prepare a meal was too overwhelming when he could hardly climb the stairs to reach his bed. Bottom line, he needed rest more than food. His body was no longer accustomed to long days of physical labor, not after sitting in a jail cell for more than twelve months. Trying to salvage what he could of the artichoke plants he’d been helping his folks grow before they were murdered, and preparing a large section of land for new plants—which he had to get in the ground before spring, since artichokes needed a period of vernalization—was more than any one man should attempt on his own. But if he was going to bring Angela home, he couldn’t hire farmhands. He’d be spending what disposable income he had, what his defense lawyers hadn’t already taken of his parents’ estate and what was left of the money he’d borrowed against the farm on Sadie Harris, the caregiver he’d hired this morning for his sister.

He hoped he’d done the right thing. After Officer Harris had left, he’d almost decided to get the farm up and running—and turning a profit—before bringing Angela home. He’d figured, by then, maybe people would’ve had time to cool off, wouldn’t be so angry and determined to persecute him. But Angela wasn’t happy where she was, so he couldn’t wait. He was too stubborn to let the arrogant ass who’d threatened him tell him what to do, anyway.

Once he reached the top of the stairs, he paused, as he always did, to stare at the closed door looming at the end of the hallway. The two people he’d loved most in the world had been murdered behind that door. When he thought of his parents, of what he’d encountered the night they were killed, he felt so much anger and grief he didn’t know what to do. He tried to funnel it into his work, in the promises he told himself about the future and how he’d eventually find justice. But sometimes, the loss still hit him like a tidal wave, made him want to fight someone, anyone. Or he had to contend with a debilitating sadness that stole over him like wisps of fog, chilling him to the bone.

He reached for the knob, made sure the door was still locked, then dropped his hand. Aiyana Turner, the administrator of New Horizons, the boys ranch here in town where he’d gone to high school, had done her best to board up the place—as soon as the police gave her permission to come onto the property. She’d offered to clean up the blood for him, too. She was the only one, it seemed, who still had a kind word for him, who believed he was innocent. But he’d told her to leave the scene exactly as it was. He felt there might be some clue, some piece of evidence the police had missed that he could use to find the man who killed them—and he wouldn’t rest until he did. After everything he’d lost, everything he’d been through, he’d find justice eventually.