The Proviso (119 page)

She bit her lip.

Tightened her arms over her body, over the book
whose vinyl stuck to her skin.

“Well, uh, hi,” he said after a long few seconds.
“My name’s Richard. What can I do for you?”

She gulped. “I came to see Mr. Hilliard,” she
whispered. “I have something for him.”

A bemused smile swept across his face and she knew
then that he was nice and he’d help her. “Really? What would that
be?”

“A book,” she breathed. “I really need to talk to
him, please.”

He turned a bit and gestured that she should step
ahead of him. She shrank from the curious glances of the other men
as their conversation lowered and stilled in her presence. She felt
Richard’s hand lightly on her back but didn’t pull away; she didn’t
like for strangers to touch her, but she had come here by herself
for a reason. She tucked her head down and let her dark brown hair
fall to cover her face. Finally, she took a step and then another,
Richard’s hand guiding her across the floor to a dark corner in the
back. Mr. Hilliard sat hunched over his desk, engrossed in his
work. She blinked when he jotted a note. He was left-handed, like
her. Somehow that made her think that maybe she didn’t have to be
so afraid.

“Knox, this young lady says she has something for
you.”

Mr. Hilliard raised his head and looked first at the
man, then at her. She tried to hide how afraid she was but knew she
couldn’t. Then the most amazing thing happened.

He smiled. And it was a nice smile.

“Hi. What’s your name?”

“Vanessa,” she whispered. She didn’t want to tell
him her last name because his smile might go away and then he might
not be nice to her anymore. Her mother badgered him enough as it
was and she was sure he was sorry he’d ever heard the Whittaker
name.

“How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“Why aren’t you in school?”

“I have to give you something. It’s very
important.”

He looked up at Richard and nodded, which she
figured meant he was to go away. Mr. Hilliard reached behind him
and pulled a wooden chair toward Vanessa, setting it next to his
desk. He patted it. “Have a seat, Vanessa. What do you have for
me?”

She approached warily because of what he’d done. It
was wrong and bad and horrible. Yet . . . Vanessa felt safer at
home because of what he had done (honestly, she was secretly
glad
, which Laura would say made her as evil as Mr.
Hilliard) so she bit her lip as she sat down on the chair. She
slowly drew the book from under her shirt, making sure not to show
any skin, and without a word, she handed it to him.

He took it from her gently, turning it over and over
again. She knew that book by heart: Pink plastic with a small lock
that didn’t seem to work very well. The key had been lost—she
didn’t know when. The book was decorated in pink, red, and white
hearts, glitter, and silver flowers. She also knew every word in
it, which was why she had come.

He opened it and looked at the beginning of it,
where its owner’s name was written, the “i” dotted with a heart.
Then his mouth tightened and he looked at her out of the corners of
his eyes. She didn’t think that was a nice look.

Thankfully, he began to read. It wouldn’t take him
long to get to the important part, so she decided to make herself
as small as she could. She curled into herself then, hooking her
heels on the edge of the seat. She drew her knees to her chest and
wrapped her arms around them.

Her stomach rumbled loudly, earning her another,
longer, glance.

She knew that look.

More than a few people had been mean enough to put
words to it.

When was the last time you ate?

Then he tipped back his chair and, putting one foot
on the edge of his desk, he read page after page with what seemed
to Vanessa to be lightning speed.

Then he was done and he looked at her for a long
time. He was chewing on the inside of his mouth. She didn’t know
what that meant, either.

He threw the book on his desk and linked his fingers
behind his head. “Why did you bring me that?” he asked. She still
couldn’t tell if he was mad or not.

“Because it’s the truth,” she whispered. “People
were burned at the stake because no one told the truth.”

Mr. Hilliard got a funny look on his face. “What
people?”

“The witches. In Salem. A long time ago. People died
because mean girls told a lie. I read about it.”

“I see,” he said slowly and looked down at the book.
He pointed to it. “How do I know this is the truth?”

She hadn’t thought about that. To her, it was so
clear. Her forehead crinkled. “I guess— Well, I don’t know.”

“Now, you know I’m going to have to ask about this
and that I’ll have to say how I got it, right?”

Vanessa nodded. “Yes,” she said, and gulped again.
She began to tremble because now that Mr. Hilliard hadn’t shot her
in the head like he did Tom Parley, she knew her mother and her
sister would make her wish he had.

He wiped a hand down his face and didn’t talk for a
long time. Finally, he handed her a pen and paper. “Write down your
grade and teacher’s name, Vanessa.” She did, and then he took a
business card, turned it over, and wrote on it. When he handed it
to her, he said, “If anything happens to you, if you’re afraid at
home for any reason, you call me and I’ll come get you, even if
it’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“Where would you take me?”

“To my cousin Giselle’s house until social services
could come get you.”

Foster people. That sounded worse than home, if that
was possible. She bit her lip in indecision.

“Well, okay. I can see that might not seem fun.
Right now, I’m going to take you to school. Have you had anything
to eat this morning?”

She shook her head again, understanding what he
intended and that it would mean a ride in a car with a strange
adult man, yet she was too hungry to let the possibility of a free
meal pass her by.

So she went with him and she stood by his pretty
dark green car while he unlocked and opened the door for her, then
closed it once she had climbed in. She didn’t think much of it
until he parked at McDonald’s and murmured, “Stay there.” Now
simply curious, she watched him get out of the car, walk around to
her side, and open her door for her. He offered her his hand as if
she were an adult! A real lady! And then he opened the door of
McDonald’s for her!

He let her pick whatever she wanted and eat at the
picnic table (he didn’t say much because he seemed to be busy
thinking), bought her more (enough for dinner tonight, breakfast
tomorrow, and possibly lunch too, if she hid it well enough), then
took her to school. The high school girls were out because it was
their lunchtime and they could go off campus if they wanted. She
was very conscious of them because they thought Mr. Hilliard was
handsome and dangerous, and they had stopped to stare when they
heard, then saw, his car.

What would Laura do?

Laura would hold her head high and ignore the people
who stared.

They parked and she reached for the door handle.
“Stay there,” he reminded her, and again she waited, feeling very
grown up and sophisticated. The senior girls watched Mr. Hilliard
open her door for her and help her out the same way he had at
Mickey D’s. A strange, nice feeling went through her, like how the
word “dignity” might feel. They watched him walk her across the
lawn away from the lunch quad to the entrance of the elementary
school. They watched him hold the front door open for her, again,
as if she were an adult and a lady.

The school secretaries gasped when they saw him walk
in behind Vanessa and they shrank away from him. He seemed not to
notice.

“Vanessa Whittaker’s been at the courthouse for an
interview,” he said to the principal, who came out of his office to
see what the commotion was all about. “I’m sure you won’t put her
down as tardy for today.”

“Oh, of course not, Mr. Hilliard. Of course
not.”

Wow. She had never thought Mr. Roberg could be
afraid of anything.

Mr. Hilliard stepped away from her then. He looked
down at her and smiled again that really nice smile. “Thank you,
Vanessa. You’re probably the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

Vanessa grinned back at him then, big enough she
felt her eyes crinkle at the corners. Now she knew that everything
would be okay. Her mother wouldn’t dare do anything to her as long
as everyone knew that Knox Hilliard was Vanessa’s friend. He patted
her shoulder before he left.

She was walking down the street toward her mobile
home after school when the cop car whizzed by and stopped at her
trailer. By the time she got there, her sister was being hauled out
in handcuffs.

“You little bitch!” she screamed when she saw
Vanessa. “You lying little bitch!” She lurched toward Vanessa and
Vanessa instinctively stepped back, but the deputy hauled her back
toward him, then shoved her in the back seat of the squad car, a
hand on her head.

Her mother came out on the deck and looked straight
at Vanessa, taking a puff of her cigarette. “So what’d that bastard
do to you to get you to lie for that sonofabitch who raped your
sister?”

“I didn’t lie,” she murmured as she climbed the
steps, the deputy’s car pulling away from the curb and disappearing
down the street. She pulled out Mr. Hilliard’s business card and
showed her the back, where he had written the word “home” and his
phone number. “Mr. Hilliard is my friend. He thinks I’m brave.”

Laura was brave.

Her mother’s eyes widened and after a long pause,
she went back in the house without a word.

* * * * *

Eric heard Hilliard’s voice in his head now, in his
dreams—and he had nothing better to do but sleep—accusing him of
things he hadn’t done, presenting evidence so clearly, so
indubitably that now even Eric believed he’d done it. The clang of
jail cell doors, ever present, didn’t disturb his sleep until he
awoke in a panic, Hilliard standing over him in his cot . . .

Looking at him completely differently.

“What,” Eric snapped, deeply offended that the
asshole had invaded his meager space.

“You’re free to go.”

Eric’s mouth dropped open. He looked at his
attorney, standing behind Hilliard, a pleased smile on her face.
“Eric, we couldn’t have asked for better.”

He sat up slowly, looking back up at Hilliard
suspiciously, certain this was a trick, some cruel thing Hilliard
would do because Hilliard was cruel.

Perhaps he was just dreaming. There was nothing of
the rage, the hatred in Hilliard’s face now. A smile that bordered
on—relieved?—threatened to ruin Eric’s image of him, then he
turned.

“Bring him to my office when he’s ready to go,” he
finally said over his shoulder. “Make everything official. He
doesn’t belong here.”

“Thanks, Knox.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said as he maneuvered his way
around Eric’s attorney to leave the cell. “Thank one brave little
girl.”

Eric waited until Hilliard left, then looked up at
his attorney. He knew his confusion showed and he didn’t care. He
was broken. At seventeen.

“Simone confessed?”

She smiled and shook her head, but would say nothing
until Eric was attired in the suit she’d provided for him to wear
for the trial. They were the only clothes he had that didn’t come
in neon orange.

“Don’t worry about your hair now.”

Eric knew he was vain. Vain enough to want to keep
his hair long, vain enough to risk tucking it down his shirt collar
for his trial so as not to give off the stink of
half-breed-bastard-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks, vain enough
to fight for it.

When he was ushered into the Chouteau County
prosecutor’s private office, he was shocked to see its six other
occupants. He stopped and looked around, obeying his hard-won
instincts for suspicion. Nocek, the head prosecutor, had
disappeared, though. That really shook him up. Nocek ran the office
and the county with an iron—albeit crooked—fist and without ever
leaving his office. Was it possible Nocek himself was afraid of
Hilliard?

His mother, tears in her eyes. Eric hadn’t seen her
since before he was arrested four months ago.

Jenkins, his boss, the owner of Chouteau County Feed
and Tack. He hadn’t bothered to show up at the courthouse, even to
tell Eric he was fired.

Rayburn, the principal of Chouteau County High
School.

Two of his advanced placement teachers, math and
English.

Hilliard, leaning back against Nocek’s desk relaxed,
as if it were his and he were totally at ease in his boss’s office,
his ankles crossed, his hands in his pockets. He had that same
strange expression on his face that Eric didn’t trust for a
minute.

“I thought you said I was free to go,” Eric finally
muttered when no one seemed inclined to stop staring at him or to
speak.

Hilliard inclined his head. “You are. But. I have a
proposition for you.”

Eric cast a wary glance at his attorney whose mouth
crooked in a relieved smile, then back at Hilliard. “I’m not
fucking you.”

Hilliard laughed then—roared—his laugh no less
deafening than his most enraged bellow. He finally wound down to a
chuckle and wiped his mouth. “Ah, no. That’s not what I had in
mind. I want to send you to college.”

Eric’s mouth dropped open. College!

A vague hope before his arrest, one he had worked
toward in spite of his unwillingness to let the hope gel into a
dream or, even worse, a goal. The one he hadn’t dared think about
while he was in jail, on trial.

But Hilliard kept talking. “I’ve been watching you,
looking through your record, wondering how a smart kid like you
managed to fuck up so badly when what you want is crystal
clear.”