Janice Johnson - Between Love and Duty

“Do you know where your brothers are?” she asked, in a seeming non sequitur.

Unease crawled up his spine with the quick flick, flick of a snake in the grass. Why was she so out of it? They both knew where Niall was. Duncan’s fifteen-year-old brother was in juvie for possession. Only for a joint—it could be worse. With Niall, it usually was worse. This time, when they called, Mom had said, “He can rot there,” and hung up the phone.

Around a constriction in his throat, Duncan said, “Conall was still asleep when I left this morning.”

Only twelve, Conall had been out late last night. Duncan had heard him come in sometime after one. Mom wasn’t even trying to control him anymore, which Duncan didn’t understand.

“I left a note asking, if he didn’t do anything else today, he could at least leave the kitchen clean.” Mom didn’t even look toward the mess.

Duncan said awkwardly, “I can clean up.”

Her eyes were focused now on his face. So intensely focused, he couldn’t look away.

“I’m afraid—” her voice cracked “—you’re going to have to.”

“Do you, uh, want to lie down or something?”

She shook her head. “I’m done, Duncan. I can’t take any more. Your father promised…”

He couldn’t imagine why she would ever believe anything Dad promised. And she must have known for at least a year that he was moving drugs again. Duncan hadn’t even heard them arguing. It was like she’d given up.

“I can’t do anything with your brothers. You’re an adult now. You don’t need me anymore.”

What was she talking about?

“I’m already packed,” she said. “I wanted to stay until you got home. To…explain.”

Explain what? He only stared.

“I’m leaving,” his mother said flatly. “Your aunt Patty is in Sacramento. She told me I could stay with her until I got on my feet. I don’t want anyone but you to know where I’ve gone.”

“You’re…leaving?” His voice cracked this time, as if he was a little kid and it was beginning to change.

“Yes. You should, too. Maybe Jed’s parents would put you up until you go in August.”

This was like an out-of-body experience. He watched himself standing in the doorway, gaping. Heard himself say, “But…Conall.”

She shrugged. “He’s not your responsibility.”

“He’s my brother.”

His mother had aged. Between the moment he walked in the house and now, she’d added ten more years. She only shook her head. “There’s nothing either of us can do for him, or Niall, either. Face it.” She rose to her feet; her voice hardened. “I have.”

“You’re just…taking off,” he said in disbelief.

“That’s right.” She walked toward him. He had to fall back to let her by. She paused briefly; he thought she kissed his cheek, although he wasn’t positive. “You’re a good boy, Duncan,” his mother murmured, so softly he might have imagined that, too. A moment later he heard the front door open and close.

Her car started. She backed out.

He hadn’t yet returned to his body. He was afraid to. The house was utterly quiet.

His father had been sentenced today to ten years in the Monroe Correctional Complex. His mother had driven away. Apparently she intended to keep going, all the way to California. She thought he should go upstairs, pack his things and leave, too, so that his brother Conall would come home to find no one.

There’s nothing either of us can do for him, or Niall, either.

But he’s twelve years old! A kid. Really, so was Niall.

Not your responsibility.

Then whose were they?

Duncan’s heart was thudding as though he’d sprinted the homestretch of a five-mile run. His breath came in great gasps, like an old-fashioned bellows. His hands had formed fists at his sides.

Not your responsibility.

Then whose? Whose? he raged silently.

Upstairs he had a packet from the university. He was still waiting for a dorm roommate assignment, but he’d already chosen his classes. He was this close to escaping. The freedom had shimmered in front of him since he started high school and understood what he had to do to attain it. Good grades, scholarships, and he was gone.

The promise was so beautiful, he stared at it with burning eyes, understanding now what his mother had seen as she sat there at the kitchen table. Not the here and now, but what could be.

If only he, too, agreed that his brothers weren’t his responsibility.

Duncan made an animal sound of pain and fell to his knees. He pressed his forehead against the door frame and hung on.

There was a reason college and escaping home and family had always shimmered before his vision. That’s what mirages did.

CHAPTER ONE

IT HAD BEEN A PISSER of a day, and Duncan MacLachlan’s mood was bleak. He had had to personally arrest one of his officers, a five-year veteran, for blackmailing a fifteen-year-old girl into performing an act of oral sex on him.

It didn’t get any worse than that. Rendahl had betrayed the public trust. He’d also been so stupid he had apparently forgotten that his squad car was equipped with a video camera and microphone that uploaded wirelessly. Duncan grunted. Stupidity was the least of Rendahl’s sins. Ugly reality was that he was a twenty-seven-year-old married man who’d blackmailed and terrorized an already frightened girl into fulfilling his sexual fantasy.

Duncan realized his teeth were grinding together and he made himself relax. The dentist was already threatening him with having to wear some damn plastic mouth guard at night. “Find another way to express your tension,” Dr. Foster had suggested.

Today, Duncan would really have liked to express it by planting his fist in that son of a bitch’s face. Hearing his nose crunch and seeing the blood spurt would have worked fine, if only as a temporary fix.

Instead, he’d gone by the book, because that’s what he did. He’d been his usual icy self. His only consolation was the way Rendahl and his attorney both had shrunk from him. They’d seen something in his eyes that he hadn’t otherwise let show by the slightest twitch of a muscle on his face.

To cap his perfect day, he’d held a press conference announcing the arrest while maintaining the girl’s privacy. He had had to ignore most of the shouted questions. How did you explain something like this when you couldn’t understand it yourself?

He’d come home and planted himself, cold beer in hand, in front of a Mariners game on TV. He’d gotten up for a couple of replacements, thought about dinner and settled for a sandwich. Purple and secretive, dusk finally crept through the windows. Duncan hadn’t turned on a light, inside or out. The game hadn’t worked any magic; he didn’t know the final score and didn’t care. At last he flicked the TV off with the remote and settled in his recliner, brooding.

How could such a lowlife have passed under his radar for five years? Gotten satisfactory ratings in annual reviews? Rendahl had fooled a lot of people. Duncan liked to think he knew the men and women who worked for him, even if there were seventy-four at last count. Knew their strengths, their weaknesses; what motivated them, what tempted them. Police Captain Duncan MacLachlan hadn’t gotten where he was by misjudging people.

Dusk became night, and still he sat there, disinclined to go to bed, uninterested in reading or finding out what might be on television. The darkness wasn’t complete, not with streetlamps, the Baileys’ front porch light across the street, occasional passing headlights. It suited his mood to feel as if he was part of the night, invisible. Anonymous.

The recliner was comfortable enough that Duncan began to nod off. Rousing himself enough to get to bed seemed like too much effort. If he woke up later, fine. He let himself relax into sleep.