“Lord. What an awful thing and all over a ball game.”
Wait until Celia heard the rest of what’d happened because of a ball game. “My thoughts exactly. Is my dad handy?”
“Hang on just a minute, honey.”
Sam smiled at the endearment. She enjoyed being mothered by the sweet nurse who’d married her paralyzed father on Valentine’s Day. She thought about her own mother, who’d recently reappeared in her life. Her mother was looking to heal the rift that had festered between them since the day after Sam graduated from high school and her mom left her dad for another man. Some rifts could never be healed, or so she liked to think. As long as she went with that line of reasoning, she wouldn’t have to deal with her mother’s desire to spend some time together.
“Lieutenant,” Skip said when he came on the line. “How goes it?”
“It’s been better. After the city was torn apart last night, we found Willie Vasquez dead in a Dumpster behind Air and Space.”
“Come on...”
“Sad but true. Stabbed through the heart.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
“Just had to tell his wife. Totally sucked.”
“Always does, baby girl. I don’t envy you that.”
“First time I’ve ever caught a murder when the entire city had motive.”
“That’s a tough one, but I have faith in you. You’ll get to the bottom of it. Poor Scotty. He’ll be crushed.”
“I know. Nick is getting him from school and taking him to the office for the afternoon.”
“It’ll help him to be with his dad.”
“It’s helping me to be with mine, even for a couple of minutes.”
“Aww, kid, you sure know how to pull your old man’s heartstrings.”
Sam smiled at the gruffly spoken words, fortified by the sound of his voice and his reassurances. “I’ll come by in the morning.”
“I’ll be here. Tell your boy to come see me when he gets home.”
“I will.”
“Let me know how I can help with this one.”
“I’ll do that too. Talk at ya later.”
Malone called back ten minutes later than planned. By then Sam was on her way to dozing off in the car. “I talked to the chief,” he said. “He gave the plan a green light. Hit me with a text when you’re in with the team, and we’ll call the press conference. We’re deploying people all over the city in case there’s more rioting, and we’re sending Crime Scene to the ballpark. The minute you let us know you’re with the team management, they’ll descend on the locker room and anywhere else Willie might’ve been after the game. This way the team won’t have time to prepare for their arrival. If they’ve got anything to hide, our guys will find it. Sound good?”
What it sounded like was a couple more hours before she could find a horizontal surface. “Yeah. I’m heading for the ballpark right now. I’ve got to wait for Hill, though, so give me half an hour.”
“You got it.”
“Also, before you go public, check in with Cruz to make sure Vasquez’s family in the Dominican Republic has been notified.”
“Will do.”
Sam ended that call and placed another to Hill, who agreed to meet her at the ballpark’s VIP parking lot. She drove to the ballpark, rehearsing what she would say to the team’s owner and management as she drove. She glanced at the clock. Two-thirty. Nick would be picking Scotty up at school and breaking the unbelievable news about Willie. Sam would give everything she had, including the gold badge she’d worked so hard to earn, to spare the boy she loved from anything that could ever hurt him.
So this is motherhood
. Her heart ached as she imagined how upset he’d be when he heard about Willie. Nick would take care of him this afternoon, and together they’d get Scotty through this.
Chapter Six
Nick waited outside the gates to the Eliot-Hine Middle School, watching the flood of kids emerge at dismissal time. When Scotty let them know over the summer that he wished to live with them full-time, they’d had only a couple of weeks to apply for temporary custody from the commonwealth of Virginia’s child welfare authorities and to figure out where to enroll him in school.
Nick and Sam had gone round and round about the pros and cons of public versus private school. Both of them products of public school, they’d leaned heavily in that direction from the beginning, but worries about security had them visiting a couple of the city’s more prominent private schools.
After a couple of sleepless nights and many long debates over their first major parenting challenge, they’d decided to let Scotty make the final decision because they felt confident he’d do well at any of the schools they’d visited. He’d declared the private schools too fancy for him and had asked to attend the same school as the other kids in their Capitol Hill neighborhood. Nick had been pleased by the way the boy approached the decision and agreed with his reasoning.
Nick waited in the spot where Shelby met Scotty every day, where he’d met Scotty himself for the first week of school until he was certain the boy was settled into the new routine. It had taken tremendous schedule juggling to be free at two-thirty every day for a week, but he’d done it happily.
He’d waited a long time to be a father and to have the family he now cherished. And while he loved the career he’d inherited from his late best friend John O’Connor, his family came first. Always.
Scotty emerged from the school in a gaggle of boys who were talking and laughing, pushing and shoving, and doing all the things kids did after a long day cooped up in the classroom. Scotty wore a grin that stretched from ear to ear, and Nick smiled as he watched him, thrilled that he’d made new friends so quickly.
Although he shouldn’t have been surprised. Scotty had a way about him that drew people into his orbit. It was a trait he shared with Nick, who’d always made friends easily, despite the hardscrabble, austere upbringing with his grandmother as reluctant guardian. His friends and their families had saved his sanity, and he still kept in touch with most of the guys he’d grown up with in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Trailing behind Scotty at a close but respectable distance were the two agents assigned to his detail. They spotted Nick immediately and nodded to him. The area around the school was a madhouse of buses, minivans, crossing guards, pedestrians and bicycles.
Nick waved to Scotty and delighted in the way the boy’s eyes lit up at the sight of him. Was there anything better than the surprised but thrilled look on his son’s face when he realized Nick was there to get him? Other than Sam, no one had ever loved him as much as Scotty did.
Scotty said a quick goodbye to his friends and rushed over to hug Nick, who loved that Scotty didn’t care if his friends were watching. Nick supposed that would matter greatly in a year or two, but for now, Nick was a happy recipient of the spontaneous affection.
“This is a surprise,” Scotty said.
“I thought you might be up for an afternoon on the Hill.”
“That’ll be cool.” He’d been to work with Nick before so he could see his office and meet the staff. “What’s the occasion?”
“We’ll talk about it when we get to the office.” Before Scotty could question what they had to talk about, Nick said, “Did you have a good day?”
“Boring. As usual.” He said the same thing every day, and by now it had become a joke between them.
“Come on,” Nick said, giving him a nudge, as he helped Scotty into the back of the SUV. Scotty’s detail would follow behind them in a second SUV. Nick longed for the days of driving himself around the city and hoped the need for protection would end as soon as the election was over. “I’m sure
something
interesting happened.”
“I did hear a word I’d never heard before.”
“In which class?”
“Lunch,” Scotty said, grinning at him. “Best class of the day.”
Laughing, Nick followed him into the vehicle. Scotty’s backpack landed with a loud thunk on the floor.
“So what’s this word you learned?”
“Blow job. What does that mean?”
Nick nearly fell out of the car in shock. “Who the heck said that?”
“This kid Ethan who always acts like he knows everything. He was talking about his football that someone stole, and that if the kid who took it didn’t give it back, he was going to give him a blow job. The other guys were laughing, but I didn’t know what it meant, and I didn’t want them to think I was dumb. So I figured I’d ask you.”
Christ almighty
, Nick thought.
What the hell do I do with this one?
“Well, um, first of all it has nothing to do with footballs.”
“So what does it mean?”
“It’s, ah, sort of a sex thing.”
Scotty’s entire face folded into a grimace that nearly made Nick laugh. “Eww, gross.”
“Right, so you might not be ready to hear about it.”
“I’d still like to know.”
“Trust me, buddy. I don’t think you want to.”
“Please? I hate when all the other guys know something I don’t know. It makes me feel stupid.”
Like he didn’t already have a big enough minefield to walk through with the boy this afternoon? And now this! He yearned for Sam’s common sense approach to things. Where was she when he needed her? He told himself Scotty was twelve, soon to be thirteen, and certainly old enough—or getting there quickly—to know the truth about certain things. Whether or not Nick was old enough at thirty-six to be having this conversation was another story entirely.
“You’re really going to make me say it, huh?”
“’Fraid so,” Scotty said with the adorable grin Nick had fallen for the first time he met him.
“It’s when a girl kisses you, you know... Down there.”
For the first time since Nick had been forced to accept protection, he was glad he wasn’t allowed to drive so he could have the special joy of watching Scotty’s eyes bug with realization. “Come. On. They don’t really do that!”
“Yeah, they do. If you’re lucky.”
“Oh my God, that is the grossest thing I’ve ever heard!”
Nick suppressed a huge laugh that he knew Scotty wouldn’t appreciate.
Someday you won’t think so
, he wanted to say, but somehow managed to refrain from sharing the thought.
“And you actually
like
that?”
Nick wanted to die on the spot. Nothing in his life could’ve prepared him for this conversation. “I take the Fifth on that.”
“What does that mean?”
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might die of embarrassment.”
“That means you
do
like it. That’s so disgusting. What’s wrong with you?”
“Um, nothing?”
“Yes, there is.”
Nick’s eyes watered from the effort it took to hold back the hysterical laughter that was busting to get out. He couldn’t wait to relay this conversation to Sam. “Listen, buddy, I told you the truth because you asked me an honest question, and I always want to tell you the truth, but you shouldn’t talk about this at school with the other guys, okay?”
“But I know something they don’t know now.”
“True, but a grown-up guy keeps stuff like this to himself. And I think you’re a pretty grown-up guy.”
“You do? Really?”
“I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t think you were grown-up enough to handle it.”
Scotty glowed with pleasure at the compliment, which made Nick glow on the inside.
“So why did you pick me up? Is something wrong?”
“Not with anyone in our family.”
“Then who?”
“Let’s get some ice cream at the Senate Dining Room and talk about it.”
“Okay.”
Always intuitive, Scotty was subdued as they arrived at the Capitol and were escorted by their agents to the dining room, which was largely deserted in the middle of the afternoon. After they ordered ice cream sundaes, Scotty remained unusually quiet. “Is there something wrong with the adoption?”
The question hit Nick’s heart like an arrow. Was Scotty worried about that? “No, buddy. There’s nothing to worry about there. The social workers are recommending approval, and we’re just waiting on a court date to make it official. Anytime now.” Because of who he was, Nick had been assured the date would be sooner rather than later. It was the first time he’d deliberately used his status and clout to get what he wanted, and he was perfectly fine with using it for this very good cause. “Have you been worried about it?”
Scotty shrugged. “Not really.”
Nick waited for the boy to look up at him and saw the truth in his expression.
“Kind of.”
He reached for Scotty’s hand and held on tight. “There’s nothing to worry about. I promise. If there was, I’d tell you.”
“You would? Because I was thinking you wouldn’t tell me cuz you wouldn’t want me to worry.”
“I don’t want you to worry, but I promise right here and right now that I’ll always tell you the truth about important stuff like this—and when you ask me about stuff like...”
“Blow jobs?” Scotty asked with the irascible grin that was much more in keeping with what Nick had come to expect from him.
“That too,” Nick said with a grimace that made Scotty laugh.
Fortunately, their ice cream arrived and he was saved from having to revisit that unsettling topic.
“So what’s going on?” Scotty asked between huge mouthfuls of ice cream and hot fudge and whipped cream.
Nick picked at his ice cream, unable to eat with what he had to tell Scotty weighing on him. “Remember when I said you’re a grown-up kind of guy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Sometimes when you’re a grown-up, things happen that aren’t easy to understand or explain.”
“Is this one of those times?”
“Yes, and it’s really hard for me to tell you this, but Willie Vasquez was found dead this morning.” Nick would never forget the moment his words registered with Scotty. His spoon fell into the bowl with a loud clank.
As his face crumpled, Nick pushed back from the table and reached for him.
Scotty threw himself into Nick’s arms and broke down into heartbroken sobs that brought tears to Nick’s eyes.
When the waiter approached the table, Nick held up a hand to hold him off so he could devote his full attention to Scotty.
“I’m sorry, buddy. I know you admired him so much.”
After a long period of silence, Scotty finally raised his tearstained face from Nick’s chest. “Is it because he missed the ball?”
“We don’t anything yet. Sam is working on the case, and she’ll do her best to figure out what happened.”
“So many people are mad at him. The kids were talking about it at school today. I tried to tell them it wasn’t his fault, but they said someone who plays professional baseball should be able to catch a basic fly ball. I sort of agreed with them, as much as I feel bad for Willie.”
“And that’s probably true, but as long as a ballplayer, even a professional ballplayer, is a human being and not perfect, he’ll make mistakes just like the rest of us do.”
“You don’t make mistakes.”
“Sure, I do,” Nick said, surprised. “I make them all the time.”
“Like when?”
Nick tried to think of an example he could share. “You want to know the biggest mistake I ever made in my whole life?”
Scotty’s eyes were still watery and his face red from crying, but he nodded, and Nick was happy to share his regrets if it would help his son to feel better.
“The first time I met Sam was six years before we got married. We had a really good time together. She gave me her phone number, and I called her because I wanted to see her again. When she didn’t call me back, I was really bummed, and I assumed it was because she didn’t want to see me again. Turns out, that wasn’t true.”
“How did you find out?”
“When I saw her again many years later we talked about it. Turns out her roommate never gave her my messages because he liked her too.”
“Oh wow. That’s totally lame.”
“Right? She ended up very unhappily married to him for four years. The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was not going to find her to ask why she never called me back. I regret that we lost so much time together because of that. So everyone makes mistakes, even me and even professional ballplayers.”
“One of the kids at the old house used to say ‘shit happens.’ I know that’s a swear word we’re not supposed to say, but...”
“It’s true. Shit does happen, and sometimes there’s no good reason for it, such as that ball sailing over Willie’s head last night.”
“And now he’s dead, probably because of it.”
“Sam would tell you it’s easy to jump to that obvious conclusion, but who knows what really happened?”
“I’m glad she’s the one who’s going to find out. If anyone can do it, she can.”
“I agree. I have to ask you a favor—you can’t talk about what happened to Willie until the police make it public. Sam and I decided I should tell you so you wouldn’t hear it somewhere else. I’m sure it won’t be long before the entire city is talking about it, if they aren’t already.”
“I understand. I won’t say anything.”
Nick patted his back and kissed his forehead. “I hated having to tell you that.”
“I know.”
“You want to finish the ice cream?”
Scotty shook his head. “I don’t feel like ice cream anymore.”
“Neither do I.”
* * *
Hill was waiting for her when Sam pulled into the VIP lot. When he came over to open the car door for her, she wanted to tell him to knock it off. But he was a Southern gentleman down to his bone marrow and probably didn’t think a thing of opening a car door for a woman, even if she was perfectly capable of opening her own damned door.
“Get any sleep yet?” he asked.
“Nope. You?”
They flashed their badges to security and were waved in.
“Nope. Helluva thing, huh?”
“What’s the word for beyond insane?”
“Outrageous.”
She kept an eye out for any sign of the Crime Scene Unit, but didn’t see anyone yet. They were probably gathered on the other side of the building. “That’s a good word.”