Vigilant (13 page)

“I’m sorry,” he said, lifting his hand gently, removing the warmth.

“Why?” Ari asked. “You saved me.”

“I hurt you.”

“You saved me.”

“You wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me inviting you. I’m the one that kicked Antonio out of the program and made him feel belittled, like he needed to save face. You wouldn’t have a concussion and that nasty bruise if I’d been more careful.” His tone was hard and angry.

Ari shook her head and laughed. “Do you really think you control everything?”

“I try,” he replied in all seriousness.

“That’s kind of stupid. Not to mention a little narcissistic.” That earned her a smile and to her surprise, his cheeks reddened in embarrassment. Before she could say anything else, she heard a knock at the door and Ari slid off the bed, hastily re-buttoning her shirt. When Peter entered the room Ari had her bag and was ready to leave.

“You don’t have to leave just because I’m back,” he said. He handed Davis a brown paper bag.

“I need to go. Oliver’s waiting on me, plus visiting hours are almost over,” she said, walking over to the door.

“Thanks for coming to see me,” Davis said. “Take care of that concussion, okay?”

“Okay,” Ari said. Peter’s phone rang and he went into the bathroom to answer it. Ari used the chance to mouth the words, “Thank you,” to Davis before she slipped out of the room.

THIRTEEN

“What happened to your face, Ms. Grant?” Shawn asked, when Ari walked by the activity room. The whole day had been like that. One question after the other about her injuries.

“Took a bad spill,” she replied and entered the room, where several groups of kids waited for their programming to start. The soda machine was in the room and she was in dire need of some caffeine.

“Ooooh, Ms. Grant, that looks terrible,” one girl said.

Another piped up, “I’d never come out of the house looking like that. You need to put some cream on that.”

Ari smiled at the young teenager sitting at a table with a group of girls. “Thanks, Devon. I’ll make sure I do that.”

“Did somebody hit you?” a girl named Shanna asked. Ari pushed her coins into the change slot and selected her drink. The machine hummed and the can landed with a thunk.

“Nope,” she replied. “No one hit me. Unfortunately this is what happened when someone tried to help me.”

Ari walked through the room and she heard Shanna tell Devon, “I heard Ms. Grant was downtown and there was a big fight. Someone got shot.”

“Who told you that?” Devon asked.

“My cousin. He was there. Said Antonio was high and shot some guy he had a beef with.”

Ari paused next to the girl’s table. “Shanna, your cousin was there?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. “You got that when Antonio shot that man?”

“Yes. I got this when Mr. Davis knocked me out of the way.”

“Is he the man that got shot?”

“Yes.”

“Antonio hates him. Says he’s the devil or a witch or something.”

“The devil?” Ari thought back to Davis saying Antonio was paranoid and delusional. She wondered if his drug use was a method of coping with mental illness. “Why would he say that?”

“He said that whole place is bad. That it’s a cult or something.”

“How is it like a cult?” she asked, but to be honest, she already had an idea of what he meant.

“They can’t leave that place and they have all these meetings teaching them how to behave and if they do anything wrong, they get punished.”

“That sounds like the group home I was in that time. It wasn’t a cult, though. I just hated it,” Devon said.

“It’s a very intense program,” Ari said. “I can see how it wouldn’t be the right fit for everyone.”

“I’m just saying.” Shanna looked at Devon and they both shrugged.

Rebecca walked into the room and said, “You have a phone call. I think it’s important.”

“I’ll take it in my office,” Ari said. She gave the two girls a stern look. “You two need to find something better to do than gossip.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Devon agreed.

The activity room had a side door that entered the back hallway, where the offices were located. Ari took the shortcut, reaching her desk quickly. “Ari Grant,” she said into the phone.

“Ms. Grant, this is Detective Morgan from the Glory Police Department. I got your name off Maria Snow’s file.”

Ari sat in her desk chair and searched for a pen and paper to take notes. “Maria is one of my clients. Is she okay?”

“I hate to tell you but, no, she isn’t. Her body was found in a ravine off Duncan Street last night.”

The news hit Ari like a ton of bricks. “Oh, no. What happened?”

“Can you tell me the last time you saw her?”

“I’ll have to look it up, but it’s been a couple of weeks. She missed our last several appointments and I had a warrant out for her to be picked up by Apprehension Services.” Ari spun her desk chair around and scrambled for Maria’s file in the cabinet.

“We’re going to need whatever information you have on her.”

“Of course.”

“Do you know if she was having any problems?” he asked.

“Nothing more than usual. She had a pregnancy scare last year. Truancy problems. Fights at home.”

“The crime scene wasn’t pretty. Whoever did this to Maria wanted to hurt her.”

Ari thought of the girl. Pretty and brown skinned. She loved sports—it was the only thing that kept her out of further trouble. She could only imagine that Maria put up a fight. “I’ll just get this file together and bring it to your office this afternoon, if that’s okay?”

“That would be great.”

“Have you notified her mother?”

“Yes ma’am. An officer brought her in earlier. She identified the body.”

“Okay, wow. Poor Maria.”

Detective Morgan gave the location and address of his precinct and Ari agreed to meet him there on her way home from work. She hung up the phone and walked to the office next door and broke the news.

* * *

Nick came by the office to take her to the police department. Maria had been one of his cases, too. Going together didn’t raise any suspicions other than with Rebecca who’d simply raised an eyebrow when they’d left together.

They hadn’t seen one another since the incident at the GYC. Ari called him after she’d visited Davis, but he’d returned late and they’d made promises to meet one another after work. Maria’s death changed that. Once they were in the car, Nick reached for Ari’s face, turning it so he could examine the wound. He sighed and said, “I guess it could be worse.”

“Yeah,” Ari said. “It could have been a gunshot wound.”

“Don’t talk like that,” he said. Nick gave her a lingering kiss.

Ari kissed him back, but with hesitation. They were still in the parking lot after all. When they parted, she said, “It’s true. Thank God Davis was there.”

“Thank God for that,” he said. She noted the sarcasm. “Next time you should decline any invitations. Your instincts may have been right. Sounds like that place is dangerous.”

“The kids weren’t involved. It was other people—outside the match. The event itself carried off without a hitch. You should have seen Curtis. He was so proud.”

Nick seemed irritated. She placed a hand on the back of his neck, running her fingers through the hair at the nape.

“It’s not the first scary situation I’ve been in since I took this job,” she told him.

He glanced over and said, “It’s the first one you’ve been in since we got together. I don’t like it.”

Ari switched the subject to Maria and the limited information the police gave her. Before Nick picked her up, Ari had gone through the moderately sized file on the girl. She’d made sure all her notations were up to date before she made copies to bring to Detective Morgan.

The Glory Police Station was located downtown, not that far from the GYC. Nick parked in the front lot. They walked through a metal detector and Ari approached the desk.

“We’re here to see Detective Morgan,” Ari told the young officer behind the desk.

They didn’t wait long before being ushered back to a small office. Detective Morgan was an older man with gray, short hair. A large man, he gave off an imposing vibe, although his eyes held the weary look of some of the older case managers Ari worked with.

His first reaction was a raised eyebrow at Ari’s bruised face. “That’s quite a bruise,” he said, pointing to the two chairs in his office.

Ari sat in one, Nick the other, and she said, “I fell the other night. It’s okay.”

Nick snorted. “She was involved in the shooting on City Street.”

“One of my clients is placed there,” Ari explained.

“We’ve got that guy downstairs waiting for his hearing,” Detective Morgan said.

Ari reached in her bag and pulled out Maria’s file. “I looked through everything and made sure it was up to date. I don’t think there’s anything relevant in there, though.”

“Can you tell me a little about her?” he asked, taking the file and flipping through it.

“She was a pretty good kid. She went to school because she was good at science. Maria was super smart, but boys and problems at home made it hard to focus. I know she took care of her younger sisters a lot. I’m pretty sure this is why she missed so much school.”

“I see she ended up in GDJJ custody because of truancy and chronic running away.”

“Yes. She’d been detained enough to cause concern from the court so they assigned her to us, but she was still technically in school and hadn’t committed any major crimes yet.”

Nick had a briefcase of his own and Ari was surprised when he extracted his own file. He opened it and offered it to Detective Morgan without showing it to Ari. “Juvenile court took these photos the last time she came in.”

Ari leaned over the desk and saw a photo of Maria, defiantly glaring at the camera. Angry, but Ari could see the glint of tears in the corner of her eyes. She stood in front of a gray cinderblock wall. Her hair was a mess, sticking out at odd angles and a smear of mascara rubbed under her eyes. But that wasn’t the alarming part. A large bruise splayed across her neck, mimicking the shape of long, slim fingers. Ari clenched the front of her shirt, knowing she had something similar to that on her own body—understanding the power it took to leave a mark so defined.

“When did this happen?” she asked.

“During her last detention.”

“How come no one told me?”

Nick shook his head. “Ari, I’m sorry. I didn’t know myself until I went looking for her file. But if you ask me, and I’m no detective,” he looked across the desk, “I’d maybe guess an abusive boyfriend? Family member?”

“Maybe so.” Ari thought back to all the times she’d been with Maria. Never had she gotten the impression she was being abused. Of course that wasn’t unusual. Victims were good at hiding. “She did have that pregnancy scare. I took her to the clinic. She said she miscarried but now I wonder…”

“Can I keep this?” Detective Morgan held up the photo.

“Of course. I hope it’s helpful,” Nick said.

“It could be. The attack has a personal feel to it. A boyfriend may be the right track.”

Ari tried to push away the bad feeling in her stomach but it wouldn’t budge. The past couple of weeks had been hard. Starting with the armed robbery, she felt like she couldn’t get away from all the negativity and crime. Curtis’s placement was the only high point in the last week and even that was tarnished. The dull ache in her chest and on the back of her head was a constant reminder.

On the way back to the car Nick noticed her mood and risked wrapping an arm around her waist. “You okay?”

“Not really.”

He nodded in understanding. “Anything I can do?”

Make it better, she thought. Make me feel alive. “I think I’m just tired.”

He leaned down to kiss her and warmth spread throughout her body. “I’ll drive you home.

Ari snuggled into the warmth of Nick’s wool coat. Okay, she thought. Maybe not everything about the last couple of weeks has been bad.

FOURTEEN

Nick accepted Ari’s invitation into her home that night. She didn’t push it—keeping it friendly, in the common areas. He helped her make dinner, including enough for Oliver when he finally straggled in around nine, beat from a long day of work.

“I know you make an okay salary, so I was wondering why you lived with Ari,” Nick said, taking the last bite of his dinner. “Now I know. That was amazing.”

Oliver rubbed his flat stomach. “She feeds me well.”

“Yeah, but Oliver kills spiders and mows the lawn,” Ari said.

“You two sound like you’ve been married for years.”

“Eh,” Oliver said, removing plates from the dinner table. They only used the table when they had company, preferring to eat on the couch. “She’ll be hard to replace, but I feel confident she’ll teach my wife how to make my favorite meals.”

Ari picked up the dishtowel and swatted him on the backside. “You wish.”

“I do,” he said, popping a kiss on her forehead. “If it’s okay, I’m gonna leave this to you guys. I’ve got a crap-ton of work to do before tomorrow.”

Ari followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room where he’d left his briefcase and a stack of paperwork. Nick stayed behind and continued rinsing dishes.

“What’s going on with all that? Late hours and extra work?” Ari asked.

Oliver gave her a mischievous grin and whispered, “I’m up for a promotion, but I’ve got to get this case prepared or it won’t happen.”

“That’s great!” she yelled before clapping her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, why the big secret?”

“I just don’t want anyone to know in case it falls through.”

Ari looked over her shoulder at Nick. “Are you still being competitive? Because I think you have him beat out in the job department. No way a court-appointed attorney makes as much as someone with a massive law firm.”

“Nah, it’s just a big deal case and I’m not allowed to talk about it. He’ll ask too many questions.” Oliver ran a hand through his curly hair.

“Well, I’m proud of you. And good luck.” She gave him a fast hug. “We’ll keep it quiet out here so we don’t disturb you.”

“Out here or in there?” He nodded to her bedroom.