“What you need is a lawyer.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Tell him that, too.”
THIRTY
Processed.
Before today, Leni associated that word with food that had been stretched out of recognition and changed into something bad for you. Like spray cheese.
Now it had a whole new meaning.
Fingerprints. Mug shots. Turn to the right, please. Hands patting her down.
“This is fun!” MJ said, banging his hands along the cell bars, running from side to side. “I sound like a helicopter. Listen.” He ran again, as fast as he could, his hand hitting the bars.
Leni couldn’t manage a smile. She couldn’t look at him but she couldn’t look away. It had taken endless pleading on her part to get them to let him be in here with her. Thank God she was in Homer, not Anchorage, where she was pretty sure the rules would be more strictly enforced. Apparently there still wasn’t much crime in the area. Mostly this cell was used to house drunks on the weekends.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
“MJ,” Leni said sharply. It wasn’t until she saw his face—the worried green eyes, the gaped mouth—that she realize she’d screamed it.
“Sorry,” she said. “Come here, kiddo.”
MJ’s moods were like the sea; one glance told you all you needed to know. She’d hurt his feelings, maybe even frightened him with her outburst.
Something else to feel bad about.
MJ shuffled across the small cell, purposely scuffling his rubber-soled tennis shoes. “I’m ice-skating,” he said.
Leni managed a smile as she patted the empty place beside her on the cement bench. He sat down next to her. The cell was so small the lidless toilet was practically touching his knee. Through the metal bars, Leni could see most of the police station—the front desk, the waiting area. The door to Chief Ward’s office.
She had to force herself not to take MJ into her arms and hold him tightly. “I have to talk to you,” she said. “You know how we’re always talking about your dad?”
“He’s brain damaged, but he would love me anyway. That’s a gross toilet.”
“And he lives in a facility where they take care of people like him. That’s why he doesn’t visit us.”
MJ nodded. “He can’t talk anyway. He fell down a hole and broke his head.”
“Uh-huh. And he lives up here. In Alaska. Where Mommy grew up.”
“I know that, silly. It’s why we’re here. Can he walk?”
“I don’t think so. But … you also have a grandfather who lives here. And an aunt named Alyeska.”
MJ finally stopped banging his plastic triceratops on the bench and looked at her. “Another grandpa? Jason has three grandpas.”
“And you have two now, isn’t that cool?”
She heard the station door open. Through it, the sound of a truck rumbling past outside, tires crunching on gravel. A horn honking.
And there was Tom Walker, striding into the police station. He wore faded jeans tucked into boots and a black T-shirt that had a huge, colorful Walker Cove Adventure Lodge logo on the front. A dirty trucker’s hat was pulled low on his broad forehead.
He came to a stop in the center of the station, looked around.
Saw her.
Leni couldn’t have remained seated even if she’d tried, which she didn’t. She eased away from MJ and got to her feet.
She felt a flutter of energy that was equal parts anxiety and joy. She hadn’t realized until right now, this moment, how much she’d missed Mr. Walker. Over the years, she’d romanticized him. She and Mama both had. For Mama, he’d been the chance she should have taken. For Leni, he’d been the ideal of what a dad could be. In the beginning, they’d talked about him often, until it had become too painful for both of them and they’d stopped.
He moved toward her, pulled the hat from his head, crushed it in his hands. He looked different, more weathered than aged. His long blond hair was gray around his face and had been pulled back into a ponytail. He had obviously been working in the woods when Chief Ward called him. Dried leaves and twigs stuck to his flannel shirt. “Leni,” he said when there was nothing but a set of jail-cell bars between them. “I didn’t believe Curt when he said you were here.” He clutched the bars in his big, work-reddened hands. “I thought your dad killed you.”
Leni’s shame reared up; she felt her face warm. “Mama killed him. When he started in on me. We had to run.”
“I would have helped you,” he said, lowering his voice, leaning in. “We all would have.”