Lana's Lawman (20 page)

Lana felt numb. A part of her knew Sloan was right. Having Bart get Rob off the hook with his slick lawyer tricks was sending the wrong message to the boy. But another part of her, the mother in her, just wanted her child home and out of this mess so they could forget it ever happened.

The mother won out. Once Rob was home safe and sound, she would deal with the matter of teaching him right from wrong. She would make sure he never even considered letting a stranger in the house, or entering a neighbor's home without permission, even if she had to ground him for the rest of his life. But
she
would mete out a proper punishment. Not some insensitive legal system.

“That's good that you didn't tell the police anything right off the bat,” Bart was saying to Rob. “Now, let's go over your story and make sure you don't say anything that might incriminate you.”

Rob looked at Lana. “Incriminate. That's the word I was trying to think of earlier. See, I told you I wasn't supposed to talk to the cops until my 'torney got here.”

Oh, Lord.
Lana felt sick. Her son was talking like a hardened ex-con. “Wait,” she said. “This is all wrong.”

Bart sighed wearily. “What, Lana?”

When she spoke, Lana addressed Rob, not Bart. “Son, I believe Officer Bennett was right. You should just march on in there and tell Detective Bledsoe the truth, like you did to me a few minutes ago.”

“Are you crazy?” Bart exploded.

“Oh, stop it! If you would just listen to him, he
didn't do anything wrong—well, nothing criminal anyway. But whatever happens, I don't want him to lie to the police.
That's
wrong. That's a very bad lesson to teach a little boy—that he can avoid punishment by lying—and I won't have it. Do you want to raise him to be like this Ricky person? Thinking he can get away with anything because his lawyer will get him off? Make no mistake, Bart, you're the one who'll have to deal with the consequences if you win this stupid custody suit you started.”

“Custody suit?” Rob's eyes widened. Lana hadn't thought he would understand, but apparently he did. Then she remembered that one of his friends at school had been caught in a fierce custody fight. “Dad, you're suing Mom to get me?” He looked more bewildered than ever.

“Yeah, I am. And not any too soon. Obviously she's doing something wrong with you if you're getting into trouble with the law at this age.”

Rob took an instinctive step closer to his mother. “But, Dad, I never would have gotten in trouble in the first place if I'd been at Mom's. She doesn't leave me alone for ten seconds.”

All Lana could do was stare. Out of the mouths of babes … but never had she heard such a reasonable, adult explanation coming from
her
baby's mouth. And it buoyed her spirits immeasurably. For once Rob was looking beyond the more superficial aspects of the care given him by each of his parents. And he found his father lacking.

“Mom, when you asked me if I'd rather live with
Dad, I thought you didn't want me to live with you anymore.”

“Oh, Rob … not that. Never that.” She put her arms around him and hugged his warm little body close to her.

“This is all very touching, but can we get on with this?” He flicked back the sleeve of his shirt to glance at his Rolex. “Rob, what's it going to be? Are you going to follow your mother's advice and get yourself a juvenile record, or are you going to let your dad tell you what to say to make this whole thing go away?”

Rob looked first at Lana, then at Bart, then back at Lana. He folded his arms and stuck his lower lip out mutinously. “I'm gonna tell the truth.”

Lana's heart was nearly bursting. She'd never been more proud of her boy. And as soon as she and Rob were clear of this mess, she was going to call Sloan and tell him what an impression he'd made on Rob. And on her. She would apologize for not backing him up—putting her full trust in him—and insisting that he stay, even if it would have meant some added tension in the room. It was about time she realized she couldn't do everything herself.

She needed Sloan. And with a blinding flash of insight she knew that was okay. In fact, it was the only way for two people in love to behave. They put faith in each other, trusted each other, leaned on each other. Sure, there was a certain amount of risk involved. The person you love could die. Or stop loving you. Or hurt you some other way.

But she'd survived. Her mother had survived. Millicent
was surviving. That was life. You couldn't savor the best it had to offer without risking the worst.

She could only hope that with all her wishy-washiness, she hadn't damaged Sloan's faith in her beyond repair.

The ordeal was over, at least for the day. Rob still had to face a hearing before a judge on Monday. But Detective Bledsoe had assured Lana that it was mostly a formality. If Rob continued to cooperate, and he told the judge his story, most likely all charges would be dropped.

Bart had looked on, mute, grinding his teeth. When it was over he'd stalked out, forgetting—or ignoring—the fact that this was his weekend with Rob.

Just as well, she thought as they got into the car. Lana would have made a fuss if he'd wanted to take Rob home with him. The jerk had one lousy weekend a month to spend with his son, and instead he'd abandoned the kid to the TV and gone to the driving range with his fiancée.

“Mom,” Rob said, breaking into her thoughts, “did Officer Bennett really steal cars and carry a knife?”

“Yes, he did,” she admitted. “When he was a kid, he did some pretty bad things. You see, he was poor, and his parents really didn't care much about him.… Well, I guess I shouldn't be making excuses for him. Stealing is wrong, whether you have good or bad parents, whether you have money or not. The point is, eventually he realized that he didn't want to
do those things anymore. He wanted to be a good person, not a bad person. So he got himself a job and he enrolled in college and joined the police force, and he's been a good person ever since.”

Rob chewed this over. “So he's not a bad cop, like the ones on TV?”

“No. He's a good man, or I wouldn't want to date him. If your dad knew Sloan better, he wouldn't say such terrible things about him.”

“Oh. I have another question.”

“Shoot.”

“Is Dad really suing you for custody, like Eli's dad did?”

“Yeah.” Lana dragged the word out.

“Are you going to let him have me?”

“No, not without a fight. Maybe that's selfish of me, but I want you home with me.”

“But you'll need a lawyer. And we don't have any money.”

“I've already hired a lawyer. We'll come up with the money, don't worry.”

Rob nodded. “I'm glad you're fighting.”

Lana felt a sense of peace settle over her. She had her son back; everything else would follow. She was already mentally reviewing what she would say to Sloan when she called him later. She was looking forward to calling him, to telling him what she'd figured out. To putting it all on the table.

That's when her car sputtered a few times, gave a death rattle, and ground to a halt.

Sloan went for what seemed like the longest run in history, trying to work the anger out of his system by circling the small lake at the park again and again. He'd never wanted to punch anybody as badly as he'd wanted to punch Bart Gaston. But his anger encompassed Lana too. She'd taken her ex-husband's side against him.

A flock of ducks on the bank of the lake scattered before him. All right, Sloan thought, trying to temper his anger, so maybe he'd butted in where he didn't belong. He had no official position in Lana's life, no status in relation to Rob.

But how could he not interfere? The matter of Rob's arrest was one near Sloan's heart. He felt too strongly about it to keep silent. Whichever parent dealt firmly with Rob when he went astray—that was the parent Rob would eventually love and respect the most.

But obviously Lana hadn't wanted his opinion on the subject. Sloan realized that maybe it was time for him to bow out. He'd started to care too much, obviously more than Lana wanted him to care. She'd needed him for a while—like Belinda—but that time had passed. She was on her own now, exactly where she said she wanted to be.

Seemed he was great at making decisions for other people, offering a shoulder to cry on and sound advice. But there was a wall somewhere between being a supportive friend and a truly intimate lover that he'd yet
to cross. Maybe that was why his relationships failed. He didn't know how to handle intimacy.

He'd opened up to Lana, a little. He'd told her about his parents. But had he told her anything about
him
? About the man he was today?

A phone message was waiting for him when he got home. It was Lieutenant Davis, his superior, asking if he'd work some overtime. The first cold spell had brought with it an onslaught of flu, and the department's ranks were decimated.

Fine. Maybe some extra work would take his mind off Lana.

Two hours later he was on patrol. Ironically, it was in Ivy Wood, the deceptively named neighborhood where he'd grown up, and nothing had changed in ten years except the houses had gotten a little seedier, and the sidewalks had more cracks. The little movie theater had become a video store, and the café had closed down, but the rest of the businesses were holding on, though it looked like by only a thread.

Oddly, he felt more uneasy now, with a gun strapped to his hip, than he had as a teenage hood. Maybe that was because ten years ago
he'd
been the threat.

He parked at the crumbling shopping center and got out. Some kids were gathered around a car with the stereo playing too loud, but no one had complained about it, so he wouldn't ask them to turn it down. He just wanted to make his presence known, so that if anyone was planning mischief, they'd think twice.

All activity stopped as he approached. “Hey, what's
the problem?” an older boy demanded, taking a decidedly aggressive stance.

“No problem,” Sloan said hastily. “I just stopped by to say hi. I used to live in this neighborhood.”

The kids stared at him with unguarded suspicion. One of them turned the music down, though Sloan hadn't mentioned it.

The older boy removed his sunglasses and stared through narrowed eyes. “I 'member you. You were a badass. Used to ride a big ol' Kawasaki.”

“Still do.”

“And now you're a
cop
? Man, that's cold.” The boy shook his head.

“You tell 'em, Dustin,” another boy said.

Dustin, Dustin. The name was unusual enough to ring a bell. “Dustin Tooey?” Sloan asked in surprise. He remembered this big, hulking boy as a chubby kindergartner who always had a Popsicle clutched in a sticky hand.

“What's it to ya?”

“I just thought I remembered you, is all,” Sloan replied. Well, it was a cinch he wouldn't be a welcome addition to this group, no matter where his roots were. These kids, as five- and six-year-olds, had once worshipped him and begged for rides on his motorcycle. But now they feared and mistrusted him because he wore a badge. He decided to retreat. Times change, and he'd changed.

He walked into each of the stores on the strip, looked around a bit, then left. He patrolled in his car around the residential sections. All was quiet. He answered
a call about a trespasser, but the perp was long gone by the time he arrived, so all he could do was write up a report with a vaguer-than-vague description.

The sky clouded over and darkness came early. Sloan had dinner at the Dairy Queen, then stopped by Ernie's Mobil to fill up his car. The station was an old-fashioned full-service one, but Sloan got out of his cruiser anyway to stretch his legs. He wanted to see if old Ernie was still around. The two of them had spent many an hour getting his first motorcycle into shape.

It took only a few seconds for Sloan to feel a sense of unease. Something was wrong. The lights were blazing, the sign was turned on, but no one came out to pump his gas.

Sloan picked up the radio handset. “This is Car 17. I'm at Ernie's Mobil at Elm and Ninth, investigating a possible … situation. I might need some backup.”

“Ten-four, Car 17,” the dispatcher's voice came back. “Anybody in the area?”

“This is Car 5. Hey, Bennett.” The voice belonged to Jay Sanchez. “I'm about ten blocks away, so I'll mosey on over.”

Sloan flipped on his handheld radio and got out of the car. He could see movement inside the gas station, but still no one had come outside. Walking slowly so as not to draw attention to himself, he made his way to the door and peered through the glass. Inside he saw a man wearing a ski mask helping himself to the contents of the cash register. A gun lay on the counter within the thief's reach. No one else was in sight.

Sloan grabbed his radio. “This is Car 17. I've got an armed robbery in progress, Ernie's Mobil. Sanchez, you need to step on it.”