Tyler O'Neill's Redemption. Molly O'Keefe
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she said. “Not much ever sticks to Tyler.” She turned back to Miguel, narrowing her eyes. “You were just pretending to sleep in the backseat, weren’t you?”
He nodded, unapologetic. Probably a skill he’d learned to survive.
“I’m not going to jail?” Miguel asked, as if he couldn’t believe it. Juliette put her hands on his shoulders and waited until he looked at her. The impact of his wounds could still take her breath away and she wondered again whether she really was doing the right thing, or if calling in the social workers wasn’t the way to try and save this boy.
“It’s not too late,” she told him. “I can call the Office of Community Services—”
Miguel shook his head. “I’ll run. I swear it.”
He wasn’t lying. And while she didn’t doubt that she’d be able to find him, if he took his sister, who knew what kind of trouble might find them before she did. Two kids, no money—it was a disaster in the making.
“Okay,” she said. “But we’ve got to keep you away from your dad. Where is he now?”
“It’s Monday, so he’s sleeping it off and then he’s back out at the refinery until Saturday.” The refinery was over the state line, and employed many of the men and women of Bonne Terre. Due to the commute, many of them, like Miguel’s father, spent part of the week in a cheap hotel closer to the refinery.
“Your sister?”
“She’s at Patricia’s. I’m gonna pick her up for school tomorrow.” Patricia was an old friend of Miguel’s mother, who did what she could for the kids, but the woman was eighty, on welfare and barely spoke English.
She nodded. What to do? What to do?
“All right.” She ducked her head, looking hard into his good eye. “Tomorrow after school you come right here. In fact, after school you come here every day.”
“To the police station?” he asked, horrified as any good delinquent would be.
“It’s your only choice, Miguel. And considering what I’ve done for you, if you don’t show up I’ll be—” He looked away. “Miguel,” she snapped and he looked back up, sighing. “I will be very, very insulted.”
Miguel nodded, his lip lifting slightly. Nearly made her cry to see it. Here he was, face beat in, future up in the air, and the kid could still smile. Sort of.
Maybe she could make this work—as long as Dr. Roberts didn’t tell anyone and Tyler kept his mouth shut. And if no one in the station cared about an attempted grand theft she made disappear, or wondered why Miguel was cleaning squad cars every day after school.
And particularly if no one else saw Miguel’s file.
Panic nearly swamped her. Who was she kidding?
Thinking about what she was doing made things worse. She needed to move, act, do something. Give Ramon Pastor a warning that even he would understand.
“Get in the car,” she said, following Miguel toward her sedan.
“Chief!” Lisa came running out into the impound yard, her blond ponytail a little flag out behind her.
“What’s up?” Juliette asked, a little surprised to see Lisa away from her FreeCell game.
“Mayor wants to see you,” Lisa said.
It had been approved? She’d just turned in that paperwork last week. The squad car requisition? Man, the mayor was totally on her side—
Lisa’s eyes flipped over to Miguel. “About the boy.”
“DAD!” TYLER CALLED, slamming the front door shut behind him.
“Yeah?” Richard stepped in from the kitchen into the hallway, a sauce-splattered apron tied around his trim waist. Good God, the man was playing house.
“Let’s go,” Tyler said to Richard’s blank face. “Let’s go back to Vegas. Play some cards, get a steak as big as our heads.”
“I’m making lasagna.”
“Screw the lasagna!” Tyler cried. “It’s time to go.”
“But we just got here. We haven’t found the gems.”
“Dad, if it’s about money, I’ve got more than—”
Richard shook his head. “I’m not taking your money.”
Tyler blew out a long breath and stared up at the ceiling. This totally misplaced sense of honor his father had could be such a pain in the butt. “You will live in my suite, charge meals to my room and wear my damn clothes, but you can’t take money from me?”
“Hey—” Richard wiped his hands off on the apron “—that’s taking care of one another. You’ll remember I did the same thing for you for years after you found me in Vegas.”
I was a kid! Tyler wanted to yell. I was your kid! It’s part of a father’s job description.
But the truth was, Richard often got the job description for father and sperm donor confused.
I should just leave. Leave him here to find these nonexistent gems. Tyler’s feet twitched with the urge to turn around and walk away, leave Richard behind like he’d done to his family. Shuck them all like so many dirty socks.
If he could leave the best of them behind, why the hell couldn’t he walk away from the worst of them?
“I need you, son,” Richard said, his voice getting earnest, his eyes slightly damp. The old caring father routine—I may have been absent, but you were never absent from my thoughts. Tyler fell for that story hook, line and sinker more times than he’d like to admit.
“You need me to help you look for gems,” Tyler said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You could hire someone for that. Hell, we could get a cleaning crew in here and they’d—”
There was something off on Dad’s face, something raw. Something not manufactured and it looked like worry.
“What?” Tyler asked, feeling his stomach fall into his shoes.
“It’s not a big deal—”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“I was in a…thing…back in Los Angeles.”
“Oh, my God,” Tyler breathed, turning away from his father, fisting his hands in his hair. “Oh. My. God.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Richard said. Tyler heard him step forward and Tyler put up his hand. If the old man got closer there was a good chance Tyler would knock him out. “I swear to you, son, I didn’t do anything. But the friend I was staying with was arrested for credit-card fraud. I didn’t know what he was doing, but because—”
“But because you were staying with him, the police think you do.” Tyler sighed and looked his father hard in the eye, willing his father to tell the truth.
“I was questioned and released. I swear, son,” he said. “I had nothing to do with it. Credit-card fraud is for lowlifes.”
Tyler’s laughter was a hard bark that hurt his throat. “Good to know you have standards.”
“I just need…a change of scene, until things cool down. Just for a little while.”
“What if I decide to leave?”
“Then I’d wish you well,” he said, “but I better stay. Empty house and all.”
Empty house full of gems.
“It’s not your house.”
“Not yours, either.”
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
There was no way Tyler could leave now. It would be