In Hope's Shadow

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#u78fc7dfb-f7bc-5eff-8c94-26eb293074d5)

EVE LAWSON WONDERED whether her fellow social service caseworkers ever met with one of their kids on the sidewalk outside a foster home. Especially on a bitterly cold February day.

They’d probably all agree with her that you did whatever was necessary. And the truth was, Joel had looked relieved when she asked him to walk her out to her car.

Hoping her shivers weren’t obvious, Eve wrapped her fleece scarf more snugly around her neck and leaned against the fender of her car, feeling the chill of the metal penetrating even through her wool peacoat.

However alone they were out here, she was unsettlingly aware that they were being watched.

“So what’s going on, Joel?” she asked.

She had been Joel Kekoa’s caseworker for the past three years. He’d been fourteen years old when they’d first met, sullen, hulking and clumsy. The first thing she’d had to do was move him to a new foster home at the request of the previous foster parents, which left him feeling rejected again. Something she understood too well. The one bright spot she’d been able to see then had been his performance in school.

The move had been positive, though. He and the new foster father, Rod Carter, had bonded right away. Joel had seemingly grown into his extra-large body not long after, starring as an offensive guard on the football team these past two years. Eve had gone to a few games to cheer him on. Several major colleges had recruited him, and on signing day he’d committed to the University of Oregon because of their nationally ranked football program. Seventeen now, he was a senior in high school with a solid GPA. In fact, until this morning’s call, she’d felt good enough about Joel to let him slip to the bottom of her list of priorities, which meant she’d done little but check in with him by phone occasionally.

The dynamics in the home had recently changed when Carter married a woman who also had a teenage son. Eve had just met mother and son for the first time, and her antennae were quivering.

Honestly, seeing the boy, Gavin Shaffer, watching them now from the picture window in the living room gave her the creeps. He wasn’t making any effort to be surreptitious, just stood there looking relaxed, faintly amused, possibly smug. Eve had disliked him on sight, rare for a woman who worked with many troubled children and believed they could overcome the odds.

When she first arrived, she had also seen the drapes twitch in the window of the house next door and was uneasily aware that a couple-inch gap had opened when she and Joel walked to the car. The apparently curmudgeonly next-door neighbor, Clement Rowe, was also keeping his eye on them.

Her inner child wanted to stick out her tongue at them both.

Head hanging, Joel shifted from foot to foot at her question. Having not grabbed a coat on his way out the door, he had to be even more miserable than she was, but he didn’t show it. His one concession to a temperature in the thirties was to shove his hands in his jeans pockets.

“Things are kinda tense right now,” he said finally. “I guess you could tell that, huh?”

“I’m disconcerted that Rod couldn’t be here,” she said, sliding away from directly answering.

Joel scowled. “He says I have to listen to Lynne ’cause she’s my foster mom now.”

“How does she feel about that?”

“She doesn’t like me.” The sullenness Eve remembered from years past imbued his voice. “She’s mostly nice in front of Rod. You know. She’s got this supersweet smile while she gets a dig in.”

Having just seen the woman in action, Eve couldn’t help thinking he’d nailed the description. Eve hadn’t liked Lynne Carter nee Shaffer or her son.

“What about Gavin?” she asked, almost reluctantly.

“I don’t know.” Head down, he toed a crack in the sidewalk. “We’re not, like, friends, but he’s been okay.”

“Is he a good student?”

“Yeah, better than me. I can tell he thinks he’s smarter.”

Eve fixed the boy in front of her with a stern look. “I really doubt if he is. You’ve had to overcome some obstacles.”

He shrugged, maybe in acknowledgment, maybe just because he didn’t want to argue. Joel’s biological father hadn’t been abusive so much as neglectful. He had been known to leave his young son alone for days at a time, moved them frequently and not always bothered enrolling him in school. When he was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to ten years in the Monroe Correctional Institute, Joel had been placed in foster care and enrolled in the Stimson School District. Then twelve, he had tested years behind his age group. The gains he’d made since were extraordinary.

But she let it go right now. “Does he do sports?”

“He’s on the wrestling team,” Joel mumbled. “Plus, I guess he’s into drama. She says he always gets the leading roles.”

Gavin had had to transfer from Cascade High School in Everett to Stimson when his mother remarried. To be fair, Eve reflected, it had to have been tough to have to move to a new district in his junior year.

All she could think to say was, “I see.” Ugh. Truthfully, she didn’t see much of anything yet. She suspected Lynne did not want to parent this hulking young man who didn’t look anything like her own, gilded boy. As sweetly as she’d tried to speak, there’d been an edge in her voice when she was addressing Joel. Eve hadn’t liked hearing it. She also didn’t like seeing that Joel had regressed some. He seemed to be avoiding meeting her eyes. His sulkiness told her he no longer felt secure, which was dangerous in a boy who’d known so little real security.

But none of this had anything to do with the phone call that had brought her out here this morning.

“Okay,” she said on a sigh. “Tell me about Mr. Rowe.”

“He hates kids.” Joel grimaced. “Actually, I think he hates everyone. But he doesn’t have anything to do with most grown-ups. Some of the kids who live on the block have accidently kicked balls into his yard, stuff like that. He comes out screaming if you set one foot onto his property.” He sneered. “Like the sole of my shoe is going to poison his grass.”

Clement Rowe’s lawn was undeniably superior to his neighbors’. It bore more than a passing resemblance to a putting green at an upscale golf course. Along with kids, Mr. Rowe must particularly hate the neighbor a couple of houses down whose winter-brown lawn was tufted with dandelions.

“Tuesday I was walking with some other guys,” Joel continued. “We were kind of pushing each other, you know, just having fun, and I stumbled into old man Rowe’s flower bed. He roared out, so I stared him in the eye and cut right across his yard to get to my front door. It was like, in your face.”

Eve suspected she might have done the same at his age. She nodded.

“So, he comes over last night, really mad. Somebody had smashed some of his rosebushes.”

Her gaze strayed to the torn, stunted canes of hybrid tea roses. All were evenly spaced in a row and appeared to have been recently pruned, which seemed a little early. February was the month to do it in the Northwest, sure, but this was only the twelfth, and the weather had been bitterly cold until a couple of days ago. Well, the pruning job wasn’t the point, not now. Eve had no idea whether these roses could be salvaged.

“He said it had to be me. And Lynne, she just started telling him she was so sorry and that there’d be consequences for me without even asking me whether I had anything to do with it!” His voice had risen in outrage. “And I didn’t! I swear, Ms. Lawson. He’s a jerk, but it’s like, why would I care that much?”

Eve searched his angry dark eyes and thought she saw sincerity. She could also see that he was braced in anticipation of her disbelief.

Would he have lashed out at the mean old man who regularly yelled at him? Eve didn’t want to think so; she’d have sworn Joel was more mature than that. But she also knew that maturity had been erected on a newly poured foundation that could have been damaged by the recent, drastic changes in his home life.

Still, she nodded. “Okay, Joel. Just stay away from Mr. Rowe’s property. Cross the street if you need to go by.”

His shoulders relaxed. “You believe me?”

Throw the dice. Somebody had to believe in him. “I do. You’re a good kid.” She smiled crookedly. “That’s why I neglect you.”

His broad face lit with a grin. “You mean, if I screw up you’d come see me more often?”

“Yes, but please don’t. I’m running from morning to night already.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t me who called you.” All too quickly, he was back to smoldering.

“It’s okay. I’ve been intending to drop by to meet Rod’s new wife and her son anyway.” She hesitated. “I’m a lot more concerned about your relationship with them than I am with Mr. Rowe’s grumblings.”