Barbara Sissel - Safe Keeping

“What do you mean, Tucker?” Lissa asked the question Emily couldn’t find breath for.

“I didn’t murder Jessica Sweet.” Tucker looked hard at Lissa. “Or Miranda. I tried telling you earlier, Liss. The cops can dog me into hell, and they probably will, but they’ve got it wrong.”

“If they’re so goddamn wrong,” Roy said, “why do they keep coming after you?”

Emily tensed, waiting for Tucker to say something ugly; she waited to hear the scrape of his chair, the clatter of his plate when he dumped it into the sink. She waited for him to walk out in a huff, or walk out yelling. But for what seemed an eternal moment there was nothing.

And then Tucker said, “I want to come back to work.”

Emily looked at Tucker in astonishment.

But he had eyes only for his father. “I’ll do whatever it takes, Pop. You can cut my salary, put me on any kind of job. I don’t care. I just want a chance to make it up to you, to get it right.”

A tremor rocked Tucker’s voice, stalling Emily’s heart.

“I meant what I said before,” he went on, “about being a bastard. I’m sick of myself. Sick of living this way. Sick of being so fucked up— Sorry, Mom. There’s no reason you should believe me, but I swear this time it’s different. If you could just let me try—if you could just give me one more shot.”

Roy drew his napkin from his lap. “The only job we’ve got going on is Pecan Grove, and Pederson’s made it clear if he sees you out at the site, he’ll quit. We can’t afford to lose him. I think your sister and Evan would agree.”

“Maybe if we talked to him,” Evan said.

“If we reassure him he won’t have to work directly with Tuck again,” Lissa said. “Either Evan or I can meet with Carl from now on.”

Emily clenched her fists, willing Roy to see the possibility.

He didn’t. “That’s not going to fly,” he said. “If he even sees Tucker out there, he says he’s done. I had to tack five percent onto his original bid to get him to stay as it is.”

“Dad!” Lissa protested. “We’re already upside down on that job.”

“Yeah, well, do you think losing Pederson is going to put us right side up?”

“Look,” Evan said, “we could use Tucker’s help out at our place, right, Lissa? He could lay the floor in your art studio, for one thing.”

“That would be great,” Lissa said. “I’m dying to have a real place where I can paint again.”

Evan found Tucker’s gaze. “We can’t pay you much.”

“I don’t want any pay. I’ll just be glad for a job, the chance to show everyone I mean what I say.”

“It’s a deal, then,” Evan said. “You want to start tomorrow?”

“Is eight o’clock too early?” Tucker said, sounding as eager as a child.

Evan laughed, and Lissa said it was fine. She said, “The floor tile for the studio is at the office,” and a discussion ensued among the three of them about the logistics of transporting it to the house.

Emily looked at Roy when he shifted his fork from one side of his plate to the other, the noise drawing her attention. She knew what he was thinking, that this was another of Tucker’s empty promises. He would say people don’t change, that they were incapable of it. She didn’t know how much he based his opinion on his own experience, the ongoing war he waged with his own demons. She didn’t hold his gaze when their eyes met. She couldn’t. She was too afraid of what she might reveal. Why hadn’t she told him immediately when Tucker was arrested last fall? A confession now would sound so much worse. She stood up, and began stacking plates, pausing when Evan mentioned the lake house.

“I think I know how we can engineer the deck off the master bedroom to extend over the water the way you want it to,” he told Roy. “If you’ve got a set of plans here, I can show you.”

Emily exchanged a wondering glance with Lissa, who shrugged.

Catching them at it, Evan grinned. “Roy did say he wanted to be able to fish from bed.”

“Please tell me that’s a joke,” Emily said, feeling a warm surge of delight mixed with relief. Suppose Evan could convince Roy to take up his project again? Suppose Tucker did even half of what he promised? Suppose he was right and the police were finished with him? Suppose her worry over what Roy might or might not know about Joe Merchant was needless? Then life might be as it had once been. She wondered if she was asking for too much.

Tucker said the house plans were upstairs, that he’d get them.

Lissa stored the leftover cake.

Emily carried the dishes to the sink. “I don’t have a clue how Evan can fix the problem with the deck, but I’ll be beyond ecstatic if he can get your dad back to work on that house.”

“Me, too. Evan’s as worried as we are about him. He thinks Daddy’s in a lot more pain than he’s letting on.”

“He is, but we both know how he feels about seeing a doctor. He won’t even let Dr. White look at him.”

“If only Tucker would get his act together, that would help.”

“Maybe he will this time. I’ve never heard him sound quite so—” Emily paused, hunting for the right word.

“Committed? Contrite?” Lissa supplied two. She dampened a dishcloth and wiped the countertop. “He has to grow up sometime.”

Emily opened the dishwasher. “He said he has receipts, proving he was in Austin over the weekend when Jessica was murdered. Did he give them to the police, do you know?”

“They’re in his glove box. He has to get his car back first.”

“That should take care of it, right?”

“Maybe, but you know, if it doesn’t, if the police insist on pursuing him, we’ll have to get a lawyer.”

Emily wouldn’t say it aloud; she didn’t want Lissa to worry, but she wondered where the money to pay a lawyer would come from. She wondered why the police focus on Tucker continued. It was as if they wanted him to be guilty. A year ago, when the police fixated on him, the media raised the outrageous possibility that whoever killed Miranda had likely killed the other two victims who’d been found at the same location in previous years.

More than one reporter speculated that the I-45 serial killer had moved his base of operations from the Galveston area north, seventy or so miles, to the piney woods. They associated the location with Tucker’s home—her home—by describing it as “near where Tucker Lebay, a person of interest in the murder of Miranda Quick, lives.”

It horrified Emily, the very idea that her son’s name was forever linked in some people’s minds to such brutal crimes. And it was complete insanity, anyway. The math didn’t work. Tucker wasn’t old enough to have committed the first two murders. He wasn’t capable of such violence in any case. These crimes were the work of a monster, one who was still out there, still on the loose, which could only mean more women would disappear, more bodies would be found. And more families, good families, like the Quicks, would suffer heartbreak and loss, while the police wasted time hounding Tucker, while they drove him even further back into the black cave of his unhappiness and frustration.

Lissa came to stand beside her.

“I wish Tucker could be more like Evan.” Emily was sorry even as she said it. Even as she felt Lissa’s arm slip around her waist, the surge of her love was tainted with regret. She shouldn’t compare them, these three who would always be children to her.

She had mothered Evan, too, the same as Lissa and Tucker, ever since Roy gave Evan a job when he was barely seventeen, nothing more than a scrawny boy. As a nine-year-old, Tucker almost instantly idolized Evan. But even Lissa, at thirteen, was drawn to him, although she had pretended the opposite. Still, the seed of their attraction for each other had been visible from the beginning. Tucker’s admiration was less self-conscious. So often when he needed someone strong, when he needed a sure and steady guide, Evan was there.