Barbara Sissel - Safe Keeping

Like Roy, Tucker suffered from night terrors. When he was a child, Emily had gone to him on those nights when he’d wakened, flailing and shouting out, and she had comforted him as best she could until he fell back asleep. But she no longer did that. He was a man now, and she imagined the man’s fear exceeded the scope of her ability to reassure him; by now, its boundaries would be much larger than the mother-size shelter of her embrace. Or so she assumed.

He got his comfort elsewhere, in places she didn’t want to think about. And that was the worst part of it for her. That in the wake of his random disappearances she was left to form assumptions based on nothing of substance, the fallout from a single childhood trauma, the failure to properly parent versus the heritability of a hotter temper. What, of any of it, was valid?

“Em?” Anna urged. “You can talk to me. You know that, right? You know nothing you tell me—”

A knock came on the back door, a sharp rapping, and they both turned to look in that direction. Anna went to answer it, and when she reappeared, Emily was alarmed to see that Roy was behind her. He was white-faced, and a muscle that might be rage or fear or both was darting like a minnow under the skin at the corner of his jaw.

Emily’s heart closed as tightly as a fist. Her breath stopped. “Tucker?” she said faintly. “Has something happened to him?”

“The cops are questioning a suspect about that girl’s murder,” Roy said. “It was just on the news. It’s Tucker, Em. They’ve got him.”

She felt her knees weaken. Anna’s palm slid under her forearm. Their eyes met. “Do you want me to call Joe?”

Emily’s face warmed. Joe Merchant was a Houston homicide detective now, but once, while Roy was away fighting in Vietnam, Joe had worked as a security guard for her mother, and she and Joe had very briefly been lovers. The affair ended; the friendship didn’t. Emily had needed for it not to end. When Roy came home from the war, he’d been so damaged in every possible way, and out of her grief for him, and feeling unable to cope with the magnitude of his injuries, she relied on Joe for his strength, his advice. Once Roy healed, the bond persisted, even though they would go months without speaking. Anna knew of their relationship, but Emily wasn’t sure about Roy. He didn’t ask, and it didn’t feel wrong to her, keeping it for herself.

But Anna’s mention of Joe’s name now worried her. Not because of her history with Joe, but because of the legal bind Tucker had gotten himself into last November that Joe had helped her to resolve. Wanting to spare Roy the stress, she had said nothing to him about it, and she’d been afraid ever since of the consequences if he were to find out. She looked at him, but if he was aware of her gaze, her anxiety, he gave no sign. He was informing Anna sharply that since it was a Lincoln County case, he doubted they’d want interference from Houston.

“Is Tucker all right?” Emily knew her question was ridiculous, but she wanted Joe, the whole idea of him, banished, gone from the room.

“Oh, sure, Em. He’s great. Jesus Christ.” Disgust rimmed Roy’s tone, but remembering Anna, he worked his mouth into something that was meant to resemble a smile, and taking Emily’s elbow, he said, “We need to get home.”

Leading her from Anna’s kitchen, his gait was unsteady, and when he staggered, if it hadn’t been for Emily, that she was somehow able to keep him upright, he might have fallen. She knew he knew it, too. She felt his humiliation, the blow leaning on her, even for a moment, was to his pride.

“Call me,” Anna said after them, and Emily heard the apprehension in her voice.

“I talked to Lissa,” Roy said once they were out of Anna’s house and out of her earshot. “She and Evan are on their way to the sheriff’s office to see what they can find out.”

“Has Tucker been arrested?”

“I guess we’ll know soon enough.”

They climbed the back porch stairs, and going into the kitchen, Emily’s gaze fell on the abandoned mixing bowl with the ingredients for a chocolate cake scattered around it; her apron was discarded over the back of a kitchen chair. The sight was so ordinary, and she felt out of place somehow, as if given all the brewing calamity she had no right to be here, to even think of baking a cake. And yet, it was all she wanted to do. “They shouldn’t be the ones who have to go after Tucker every time,” she said to Roy.

“You can’t handle it, and you damn sure don’t want me going down there,” he answered. “That’s what you told me last time,” he said in response to her heated look.

She held his gaze, clinging to the hope that Roy was referring to the time in April when they’d given Tucker two thousand dollars to clear his traffic tickets, and not to the time in November when she’d contacted Joe for help after Tucker was arrested and charged with stalking. Keeping Roy in ignorance then had been out of concern for him, but he would likely not see it that way.

“You do remember telling me that?” Roy’s stare was penetrating, unnerving.

“You always lose your temper. It doesn’t help.”

He didn’t argue.

“Will they bring Tucker home?” Tying her apron around her waist, she crossed to the refrigerator. “I was going to bake a chicken for dinner. If I do two, there will be enough for all of us. We can sit down together when they get here.”

“I don’t want Tucker here, if they let him go.”

“What?” Emily turned to Roy. “He’s our son. Of course you want him here.”

“Not if it’s going to be the way it was when Miranda was murdered. Cops and reporters everywhere. Phone ringing all the goddamn time. I swear if Tucker gets pulled into this, if he knew this girl, too—” Roy pivoted on his metal foot, then pivoted back, locking Emily with his glare. “If that’s the case, you and your friend Joe won’t be able to pay his way out of this one, Em. None of us will. You do realize that?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She didn’t know how she managed to keep her voice level. Her heart was beating fast, so fast, she put her hand there.

Roy huffed his disdain and, leaving the kitchen, disappeared into his office, closing the door.

Emily followed him; she balanced her hand on the knob, and resting her forehead against the panel, she said, “I’m sorry, I was only trying to protect you.” But then, lifting her head, she thought how badly she had failed, that in truth, she hadn’t protected any one of them at all.

5

THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE and the county jail were housed in the courthouse, an imposing three-story, old colonial-style building on the Hardys Walk town square. Evan pulled into a space in the parking lot at the back, where parking was free. Out in front they’d have to feed a meter, and Lissa knew from previous experience there wasn’t any telling how long they’d be.

Inside, the duty officer, a heavyset guy, didn’t bother looking up when Lissa and Evan approached. He was engrossed in reading a magazine, or pretending to be, like maybe if he didn’t look up, they would go away. Lissa steadied her breath. “I’m looking for my brother,” she said. “Tucker Lebay?”

The officer took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes.

“We were told he was brought in here earlier this afternoon for questioning,” Evan said.

“Wait here.” The duty officer slid off the stool and headed for a door at the end of the counter.

Lissa turned to Evan, running her fingers around her ears. Her hands were shaking; she was shaking. Evan slipped his arm around her.

“I hate this,” she said.

“I know, babe. Me, too.”

“Daddy said not to bring Tucker home. What are we going to do? I can’t tell Tucker that.”