Diana Palmer - Night Fever

She closed her eyes and slept. The next morning, she got Mack off to school, but Clay wouldn’t get up.

“We’ll talk when I get home,” she told him firmly. “You aren’t going out with those boys again.”

“Want to bet?” he asked her, his eyes challenging. “Stop me. What can you do?”

“Wait and see,” she replied, mentally praying she could think of something.

She went to work worrying about it. She’d settled Granddad and asked him to talk to Clay, but he seemed to want to hide his head in the sand about Clay’s difficult behavior. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d failed so miserably with Scott, his son, and couldn’t admit that he was failing again with his grandson. The old man had a double dose of pride.

Maggie glanced at her as she sat brooding at her desk. “Anything I can do?” she asked softly, so that nobody else could hear.

“No, but thank you,” Becky told her with a smile. “You’re a nice lady, Maggie.”

“Just a fellow human being,” the older woman corrected. “Life has storms, but they pass. Just hang on to the tree until the wind stops, that’s all you have to do. After all, Becky, no wind blows forever, good or bad.”

Becky laughed. “I’ll try to remember that.”

And she did. Right up until that afternoon when the call came from the magistrate’s office, informing her that Clay had been picked up for drug possession. Mr. Gillen, the magistrate, told her that he’d called the D.A. and they’d both talked to Clay, after which they’d sent him over to the juvenile detention center while they decided whether or not to book him. He had a pocketful of crack when he’d been picked up, drunk, in the company of the Harris boys outside town.

The decision to press charges for felony possession was up to the D.A., Mr. Gillen said, and Becky could bet that if Kilpatrick had enough evidence, he’d go for a conviction. He was very hard on people who dealt drugs.

Becky thanked Gillen for telephoning her personally and walked immediately into Bob Malcolm’s office to ask for advice.

Mr. Malcolm patted her absently on the shoulder after he’d closed the door, to spare her any scrutiny by people in the waiting room.

“What do I do? What can I do?” Becky asked him miserably. “They say he’s got over an ounce and a half on him. That it could mean a felony charge.”

“Becky, it’s your father who should do something,” he said firmly.

“He isn’t in town right now,” she said. Well, it was true. He hadn’t been in town for two years, and he hadn’t been responsible for his children ever. “And my grandfather isn’t well,” she added. “He has a bad heart.”

Bob Malcolm shook his head and sighed. He said, after a minute, “Okay. We’ll go see the D.A. and try to talk to him. I’ll phone and make an appointment. Maybe we can make a deal.”

“With Mr. Kilpatrick? I thought you said he didn’t make deals,” she said nervously.

“It depends on the severity of the charge, and how much evidence he has. He doesn’t like to waste the taxpayers’ money on a trial he can’t win. We’ll see.”

He spoke to the D.A.’s secretary and was told that Rourke Kilpatrick had a few minutes free right now.

“We’ll be right up,” he told her and hung up. “Let’s go, Becky.”

“I hope he’s in a good mood,” she said, and glanced in the mirror. Her hair was neatly in its bun, her face pale even with its hint of pastel makeup. But her red plaid wool skirt showed its three years, and her black shoes were scuffed and scratched. The cuffs on her long-sleeved white blouse were frayed, and her slender hands showed the ravages of the work she did on the farm. She was no lady of leisure and there were lines in her face that should never have been noticeable in a woman her age. She was afraid she wouldn’t make much of an impression on Mr. Kilpatrick. She looked what she was—an overworked, overresponsible country woman with no sophistication at all. And maybe that would work in her favor. She couldn’t let Clay go to prison. She owed her mother that much. She’d failed him too many times already.

Mr. Kilpatrick’s secretary was tall and dark-haired and very professional. She greeted Mr. Malcolm and Becky warmly.

“He’s waiting for you,” she said, gesturing toward the closed office door. “You can go right in.”

“Thanks, Daphne,” Mr. Malcolm replied. “Come on, Becky, chin up.”

He knocked briefly at the door and opened it, letting Becky precede him. He shouldn’t have. She stopped dead at the face she met across the big wooden desk piled high with legal documents.

“You!” she exclaimed involuntarily.

He put down the thin black cigar he was smoking and stood up. He didn’t acknowledge the exclamation or smile or make any kind of attempt at a formal greeting. He looked just as intimidating as he had in the elevator, and just as cold.

“You didn’t need to bring your secretary to take notes,” he told Bob Malcolm. “If you want to plea bargain, I’ll stick to what I tell you after I hear the facts. Sit down.”

“It’s the Cullen case.”

“The juvenile.” Kilpatrick nodded. “The boys he’s running with are scum. The younger Harris boy has been pushing drugs in the local high school between classes. His brother deals everything from crack to horse, and he’s already got one conviction for attempted robbery. That time he walked in and out of juvenile hall, but he’s of age now. If I catch him again, I’ll send him up.”

Becky had been sitting stock-still. “And the Cullen boy?” she asked in a husky whisper.

Kilpatrick gave her a cold glare. “I’m talking to Malcolm, not to you.”

“You don’t understand,” she said heavily. “Clay Cullen is my brother.”

His dark brown, almost black eyes narrowed and he gave her a look that made her feel half an inch high. “Cullen is a name I know. Another Cullen was in here a few years ago on a robbery charge. The victim refused to testify and he got off. I would have gone for a conviction without parole if I’d gotten him to trial. Any kin to you?”

She flinched. “My father.”

Kilpatrick didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His level stare told her exactly what he thought of her family. You’re wrong, she wanted to say. We’re not all like that. But before she could even speak, he turned back to Malcolm. “Am I right in assuming that you’re representing your secretary and her brother?”

“No,” Becky began, thinking of the legal fees she couldn’t afford to pay.

“Yes,” Bob Malcolm interrupted. “It’s a first offense, and the boy is a hardship case.”

“The boy is a sullen, uncooperative young brat,” he corrected. “I’ve already spoken to him. I don’t consider him a hardship case,” Kilpatrick said curtly.

Becky could imagine how Clay would react to a man like Kilpatrick. The boy had no respect at all for men—not with the example his father had set. “He’s not a bad boy,” she pleaded. “It’s the company he’s keeping. Please, I’ll try to work with him...”

“Your father’s done a great job of that already,” Kilpatrick said, totally unaware of the real situation at home as he went for her throat with sickening ease, his dark brown eyes stabbing into hers as he leaned back with his cigar between his big fingers. “There’s no point in letting the boy back on the streets unless his home situation changes. He’ll just do the same thing again.”

Her hazel eyes met his dark ones. “Do you have a brother, Mr. Kilpatrick?”

“Not to my knowledge, Miss Cullen.”

“If you had one, you might understand how I feel. This is the first time he’s done anything like this. It’s like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”