"I was a jerk back there," Richard says as Raylan weaves his way through the suburban Miami streets and onto the freeway. "I just..." he shakes his head. "Do you think they're gonna keep him overnight? They can't keep him overnight, can they?"
"Yeah," Raylan says. "They can. And they probably will."
"But he's just a kid!" Richard's voice breaks and Raylan keeps his eye on the road.
"To the cops he's a kid caught with prescription medication. That's possession, and it's a felony."
"Can they prove it?"
"They already have. He had the drugs in his possession. That's all it takes. The ADA is gonna look at that and go for an indictment."
Silence fills the car. Raylan keeps his eyes on the cruiser, several cars ahead in the other lane. The cops' blinker goes on and Raylan does likewise, preparing to exit.
"Has Tommy made any friends since he's been here? Had anyone over to the house?"
"I don't know," Richard sighs. "This damn job we're on has kept me pretty busy. I took a couple of days off when he got here, but this week, I've worked late almost every night. It's not like I can just tell my boss 'no'. I mean, what am I supposed to do?"
Raylan wisely keeps his mouth shut. He knows all about putting work ahead of, well, anything. But listening to Richard he's glad he hasn't done that lately. He might have lost Winona, but now he's putting Willa first.
He pulls up in front of the precinct and parks behind the cruiser. Officer Barnett and his partner have already taken Tommy inside.
"Okay, listen," Raylan says. "They're going to book him...do fingerprints, take his picture, all that stuff you see on TV. But he's a minor and they can't question him without you. My advice? Don't say anything until the lawyer gets here."
"I didn't call a lawyer," Richard says.
"Winona did." Raylan glances at his phone. "Kit Martin is on his way. One other thing." He turns to look at Richard. "Does Tommy have any kind of record? Because they're gonna find out if he does, and it'd be better for it to come from you."
Winona's husband pauses, his hand on the car door. He sighs again, leaning back in the seat. "
"Carson – Tomás' grandfather, called me about a month before he was due to come down. Evidently, he and some other boys had been texting or snapchatting or whatever it is these kids do and they were sending nude pictures of some girl at that fancy private school he went to. Only it turns out it wasn't that girl at all, just her face photo-shopped onto some picture they got from the internet. Needless to say, the girl's parents got hot about it anyway and the boys were all expelled."
"No drugs, then?"
He turns in his seat, shaking his head. "No, just ordinary teenage guy stuff, turned up a notch because of the internet. That's the way Carson made it sound. If there was anything else, he didn't tell me about it, and the only one of the boys who got into legal trouble was a kid who was over eighteen. He was the instigator, and he'd dated the girl. She broke up with him and the whole thing was payback."
Richard stares straight ahead through the windshield. "Of course, Carson doesn't have a great record of honesty where Tomás or his mother is concerned, so I take what he says with a grain of salt."
"But you believed him."
"Yeah, I did."
"What about Tommy's mother," Raylan asks, sticking with the name the boy prefers. "Is she in the picture?"
"No and I have no idea where she is," Richard says. "Last I heard Gina was using again. Carson and Deliah may not know either."
"Tommy's mother is into drugs?"
Richard nods. "Look, I'd love to go over the sordid family history with you, but I really need to get in there with my son."
He studies the other man for a moment. Richard has been very forthcoming up to this point, and now Raylan's lawman instincts are kicking in, wondering what it is he's reluctant to share.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, he notices a late model Mercedes convertible pulling in to the precinct lot. The license plate reads L8 4 CRT.
"Looks like your lawyer's here. Let's go."
-o-o-o-O-o-o-o-
"Mama?"
"What, baby?" She'd been ready to slip out, thinking Willa was finally asleep. They're both unsettled by the evening's events, and it took longer than usual to get her bathed and into bed. A half-hour later she's still wide-awake.
"If I tell you something, do you promise not to get mad?" Her eyes are huge and serious.
Winona nods. "I promise."
Willa chews her lip and hugs Mr. Bear, her forehead wrinkled with worry.
"It's okay, Punkin'. Whatever it is, I won't be mad, promise." She crosses her heart.
"The other day," Willa says. "When you were 'cross the street?"
"Uh-huh." Winona had gone over to deliver some mail to their neighbor that had mistakenly ended up in their box. Willa had been in her room and Tommy in his, with the door shut, of course. She'd ended up chatting longer than she expected, when she got back, Willa was on the living room couch with Mr. Bear. It struck her as odd, and Winona felt her forehead to see if she had a fever, but it was cool and Willa insisted she was fine. Still, she hadn't eaten much dinner.
"I saw Tommy coming out of your bedroom."
"You did?" Winona says. "What was he doing in there?"
"I don't know." Willa says. "He saw me, too and he said that if I told anyone Mr. Bear would disappear and I'd never see him again." She squeezes her stuffed friend extra hard.
Winona wraps her arms around her daughter. "Oh, Honey!" She says, kissing her forehead. "I promise Tommy isn't going to get anywhere near Mr. Bear." Or you.
"Promise?" Willa says. She looks close to tears. "I was gonna leave him at Daddy's so he'd be safe, but I'd miss him at night."
"Don't you worry about it anymore. You and Mr. Bear are safe right here."
"Is Tommy going to jail?"
"I don't know, sweetheart."
"I hope he goes to jail."
Me, too. Winona thinks.
Later, she wakes with a start, almost falling off Willa's narrow bed. She lies there for a few minutes, collecting herself, listening to her baby girl breathe. All she remembers after Willa told her about Tommy's threat is finishing the third bedtime story, then turning out the light and stroking the little girl's soft curls. That's it. She must've fallen asleep too.
Getting up carefully so as not to wake her, she leaves Willa's door slightly ajar and quietly steps out into the hall. She pulls her cell phone out of her pocket. It's only a little after nine, although it seems later. There are no messages from Richard or Raylan, but she knows the legal wheels turn slowly, especially at night.
She picks up the clothesbasket still sitting in the hall outside Tommy's room and carries it back into the laundry, setting it on top of the washer. Walking back down the hall, she tries the knob again, jiggling it harder. She's curious. It would be nice to know what else he's got in there. She squats down and looks at the lock.
When they were teenagers, after their parents divorced, she and Gayle shared a bedroom in the tiny apartment their mother rented. Although the two of them had always gotten along, in this new environment they had knock-down drag-out fights at least once a week. There was yelling, things were thrown and broken, and doors were slammed.
With a high-maintenance adult woman and two high school girls the one bathroom was in great demand. Gayle's favorite trick was to get up before her sister in the morning – not difficult to do since Winona loved sleeping until the last possible moment – then lock the bathroom door. It was a source of great frustration to Winona, until she discovered she could pick the bathroom lock with a paperclip.
"I wonder if that trick will work on this lock?" Winona murmurs out loud. In the bedroom, she sifts through the top drawer of Richard's dresser, where he tosses everything. Sure enough, there's a paper clip. In a matter of minutes the door is open and she's in Tommy's room.
It's surprisingly neat for the bedroom of a teenage boy, from what she knows of teenage boys, anyway. Tommy seems to have inherited his father's neat streak. Richard is always picking up after her and Willa.
Winona stands in the doorway and scans the room. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Feeling slightly guilty, she slides open the top dresser drawer - nothing but t-shirts and underwear. The second drawer has more t-shirts, colorful ones, and several pairs of shorts. She lifts the clothing, running her hand underneath. She pulls out a photograph of a woman and a little boy, obviously a much younger Tomás.
The woman is blonde, but there are darker roots showing. She has her too-thin arms around the boy and he's looking up at her. They're both smiling, although the woman's smile doesn't reach her eyes. This must be Gina. It's the only picture Winona has ever seen of Richard's ex. He doesn't talk about her. All she knows is that they were never married and that Gina took off with Tomás when the boy was only two. They ended up with her parents, and when Gina took off again, they filed for custody. Richard hadn't fought them. He'd never really explained why to Winona and she hadn't questioned it.
Now it seems like a giant red flag she's ignored.
"I really know how to pick 'em," she says to the empty room.
-o-o-o-O-o-o-o-
She's half-asleep on the couch when she hears the car door slam and Richard's key in the lock. Raylan's headlights flash through the window as he pulls away. She wishes he had come in. She's not at all anxious to be alone with her husband.
When he opens the door, Richard's shirt is untucked and his eyes are red and bloodshot. She sits up, but makes no move to go to him. "How'd it go?"
"Thanks to Kit and Raylan, he's not in juvie. They're keeping him in a holding cell at the precinct until he can be arraigned tomorrow. Kit thinks he can get him released to my custody."
"That's good news."
"Nothing about this is good."
She knows it's cruel to lay anything else on Richard, but she's furious and Tommy isn't here to get the well-deserved brunt of her anger.
"He threatened Willa."
"Threatened her? How? Why?" Richard goes to the liquor cabinet and pours himself a scotch, drinking half of it in one swallow as he walks back toward Winona.
She feels small sitting on the couch while he's standing, so she pushes to her feet, crossing her arms over her chest. "She told me tonight. The other day she caught him coming out of our bedroom and he told her that if she told anyone Mr. Bear would disappear and she'd never see him again."
Richard throws back the rest of the scotch and stares at her. "Come on, Winona, he threatened a teddy bear, not Willa."
Her mouth opens and shuts. No words come out. She's stunned at his reaction. She knows he cares for Willa. For two years he's cuddled with her, read her bedtime stories, taken her to the zoo. He's been more of a father to Willa than he has to his own son. Maybe that's the problem. He's neglected Tomás, or feels like he has, so now he has to take his side. But he has to know she's always going to be on Willa's side.
"Willa's been carrying that damn bear around for a week refusing to leave it at home! He made her keep a secret from me. She's been scared to death."
"It's a stuffed animal. What's the big deal?" He pours himself another drink. She's never seen him like this.
"I'm not going to have her in the same house with him," Winona says. Stalking out of the living room, she goes to the kitchen and pours a glass of wine. She closes her eyes and takes a sip.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Richard is standing not a foot away when she opens her eyes. "It means," she takes another sip. "If Tommy comes back here, I think it would be best if Willa was at Raylan's, or if I take her to my mother's."
"What the hell?" Richard slams the glass down on the counter. "If he comes back? Where else is he going to go? What am I supposed to do? He's my son. You want me to just send him back? Make it all go away?"
"I'm not telling you to send him back. I know he's your son. But you never even told me he was having problems! I know next to nothing about this boy who's been living in my house. Before he got here I kept asking you how long he was staying and you couldn't tell me. Tell me now, Richard. How long were you planning on having him here, before all this happened?"
He looks at the floor.
"Richard?"
"I was thinking of filing for custody."
"Full custody?"
"Yes. I talked to Carson about it."
She drinks the rest of the wine. "But you didn't talk to me?"
"He's been expelled from that fancy private school. He'd been having problems. I thought maybe living here, with us, with a family, would be good for him. I was going to talk to you about it but..."
She sets a hand on her hip and glares at him. "But what? This is a major decision, Richard! We're married. We're supposed to confide in one another."
He laughs, a harsh bark, and her stomach does a flip. He knows.
"You really want to go there right now, Winona?" He narrows his dark eyes at her, confirming her suspicions.
She backpedals. "Don't you want to know what he was doing in our bedroom?" After snooping through Tommy's things, she'd gone into their bedroom, wondering what Tommy possibly could've been doing in there.
"Nice change of subject." He laughs again. Slinging down the last of the scotch, he heads back to the bar for more. "Kids are curious. They snoop."
She pouts another glass of wine and raises her voice so he can hear. "You know how I always leave my diamond earrings on the dresser? The ones you got me last Christmas? Well, they're missing. And, your grandfather's pocket watch is gone, too. Didn't you keep it in the top drawer?"
Richard comes back into the kitchen and sits heavily on a barstool. "Well. So that's where the money came from."
"I thought he was selling his medication." She relaxes a little. Maybe they aren't going to have this out tonight. Richard is right, she really doesn't want to go there, not right now. Not with everything else that's happening.
"He denied it. None of us believed him, of course, because of the money, and he wouldn't say where he'd gotten it." Richard looks at her for a long moment and then pushes the glass of scotch away. "He must've sold the earrings and that watch. Dammit."
"Where?"
"Probably a pawn shop."
"How would he find a pawn shop?"
"You can find anything on the internet these days."
Winona is still skeptical. "Do you think a pawn shop would buy diamond earrings from a thirteen-year-old?"
Richard shrugs. "He kept insisting he hadn't sold any of his pills. I guess I should've believed him. He was going to use the money for a bus ticket to Santa Fe. He thinks he's found his mother." He shakes his head slowly. "For all the good that will do him."
He makes a fist, pounds it twice on the counter, then reaches for the glass and drinks the entire contents in one swallow.
"I think you're right. You and Willa should be gone when he gets home." An unpleasant smirk turns up his mouth. The last thing Tomás needs is another faithless woman who's going to run out on him. That's the last thing I need, too."
"Richard, I..."
"Look, Winona. I don't care what your reasons are or what lies you tell yourself to make you feel better. You fucked him. You threw our marriage vows away to fuck your ex-husband." His tone is sharp and bitter. "I should've seen it coming, but honestly, I didn't."
She has nothing to say. She doesn't even try I'm sorry because, if she's honest with herself, she's not sure it's true.