Mending Fences

“To the police station. I’m going to call Emily and see if you can go over and spend the night at their house, okay? I don’t want you here alone.”

“Who’s been arrested? Is it Dad?”

“No, sweetie, it’s your brother, but like I said, it has to be a mistake.” Her hand shook as she picked up the phone and hit the number on the speed dial for Emily.

Her friend and neighbor answered on the first ring, instantly wide awake. “Marcie, is everything okay? I saw the flashing lights on a police car turning onto your street, but I never heard a siren. What’s going on?”

“I can’t explain now. Can Caitlyn stay with you?”

“Of course,” she said at once. “Send her over. Is there anything else I can do?”

“Pray,” Marcie said, her voice catching on a sob. “Pray that the police have made some horrible mistake. My boy…” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“They came for Evan?” Emily said, sounding as shocked as Marcie felt.

“Yes. Please, just watch out for Caitlyn. She’s on her way. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”

“Go. Don’t worry about anything here. Just promise that you’ll call me if there’s anything else I can do.”

Marcie sighed as she hung up. She wondered if Emily would sound half as supportive once she found out what Evan had been accused of doing. There were some things even a best friend could never understand or forgive.

And if there was any truth, any truth at all to the charges, Marcie wasn’t entirely certain she’d ever understand it, either.

Chapter 2

Ten years earlier

Dinner was going to be another rushed affair. Emily Dobbs had spent two hours in a tedious, unproductive teachers’ meeting after school, then picked up her husband’s dry cleaning, run by the post office for stamps, stopped by the drugstore for her prescription for birth control pills—not that she’d needed them lately—and spent fifteen minutes at the market trying to figure out what she could fix for dinner in the twenty minutes she had left after she’d picked the kids up from the sitter’s. Spaghetti with salad and garlic bread had been the quick and easy answer. She supposed that was a step up from stopping for fast-food burgers or ordering pizza, something she’d resorted to way too many times recently.

Every week she vowed to come up with nightly menus and a shopping list, rather than improvising every meal at the last possible moment. So far, she’d failed to follow through, despite her good intentions.

Lately everything in her life felt as if she were doing it on the run. Maybe she should have waited to go back into teaching, but she’d missed being in the classroom after Josh and Dani were born. As soon as Dani had started in preschool, Emily had sought out and gotten a position teaching high school English just a few miles from home. Derek hadn’t been overjoyed when she’d told him, but he was traveling so much for business, he’d hardly been able to complain that she would be neglecting him or their marriage.

The kids, however, were another story. When it came to her son and daughter, she was assailed by guilt on a daily basis. They were growing so fast and she was missing some of it. Josh was a strong, athletic nine-year-old now with a well-developed mind of his own. Dani, with her long dark curls and her preference for dresses and tea parties, was a seven-year-old princess, ruler of the second grade.

As Emily stopped in front of Linda Wilson’s house, she watched her two precious children race outside and across the lawn. Well, Josh raced. Dani walked as sedately as if she were on a fashion runway, at least until her brother called back some taunting remark that had her sprinting the rest of the way.

“Hi, Mom,” Josh said, jumping into the front seat as Dani climbed more demurely into the back, then stuck out her tongue at her brother. Josh rolled his eyes, then directed his attention toward Emily. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“We’ve got new neighbors in back, and they’ve got kids. Mrs. Wilson told me that Evan’s the same age as me and he plays football and soccer and baseball. There’s a girl, too,” he added, as if that were of far less consequence.

“Her name’s Caitlyn,” Dani said, “but she’s just a baby.”

Josh rolled his eyes. “She’s five.”

“That’s too little to be my friend,” Dani said with a dramatic sigh of disappointment.

Emily bit back a smile. “Are you sure about that, sweetie? I bet she’d love to come to one of your tea parties,” she suggested. “You were five when we started having them, remember? Maybe she’s never even been to one and you could show her how much fun they are. In fact, since she’s just in kindergarten, there are probably lots of things you could teach her.”

Dani regarded her solemnly. “You think so?”

“You could ask,” Emily said.

Dani was silent for a long, considering moment, then nodded. “Maybe I will.”

And so it began…

The kids pestered Emily all day Saturday to let them go play with Evan and Caitlyn Carter. They both knew that there was one rigid rule in their house, that they were never to go to another child’s home unless she knew the parents, and she had yet to meet their new backdoor neighbors.

Exhausted from cleaning and grocery shopping and with a stack of English papers still to grade, she knew there would be no peace until she gave in.

“Okay, fine. Let’s take a walk and see if they’re home,” she agreed eventually.

The neighborhood in southeast Miami was shaded by pin oaks and giant banyan trees with their gnarled, twisted trunks that looked as if they belonged in a horror movie rather than in some pleasant, suburban neighborhood. Most of the well-landscaped yards were surrounded by hedges of bougainvillea in colors ranging from purple and fuchsia to red or white. The prickly vines with their profusion of brilliant flowers served as something of a security barrier without the need for fences or gates, though high wrought-iron gates had started to appear at the end of a few driveways as property values went up, along with the crime rate.

Only a few blocks from the waters of Biscayne Bay, Emily thought she could detect traces of salt in the air, along with the lingering scent of night-blooming jasmine. It was enough to remind her how much she enjoyed being outdoors at this time of year, when the Miami air had less humidity and the sky was a clear, vivid blue. She and Derek needed to get back into the habit of taking a walk after dinner the way they had when they’d first moved into their dream house. Back then, they’d pushed Dani in her stroller and Josh had ridden along beside them on his tricycle.

A few years ago, they’d also known all their neighbors in this well-established area, but as prices had soared, many of their older neighbors had sold out and moved to more manageable condos or retirement communities. Lately the turnover had been so frequent that there were only a few familiar faces left from those early years…the Wilsons down the block, the Delgados on the corner and Janice Ortiz and her elderly mother on the next street.

“Mom, hurry up!” Josh said impatiently. “Can’t you walk any faster?”

Emily grinned at him. “I can, but I’m enjoying the fresh air.”

He regarded her blankly. “Why?”

“Someday you’ll understand,” she said, ruffling his brown hair.

“It’s like stopping to smell the roses,” Dani said. “Grandma Dobbs tells Dad he needs to do that.” She wrinkled her forehead. “I’m not sure what she means, though.”

“She means your dad works too hard,” Emily told her.

“No joke,” Josh said with disgust. “He’s never around anymore to play ball with me.”

“He has an important job,” Emily reminded him, feeling the need to defend Derek, even though Josh was expressing a dissatisfaction that she often felt herself. Then, as a reminder to herself as much as to her son, she added, “We should be grateful that he’s such a hard worker. That’s why we’re able to live in such a great house and you kids get to go to wonderful schools.”

“I’d rather be able to play ball with my dad,” Josh grumbled. “Dad doesn’t even come to my games half the time anymore.”

Emily resolved to remind Derek that he needed to get some balance back into his life, that his son needed more from him than a fancy house and every hot electronic game to hit the market, all purchased out of guilt over his too-frequent absences and a string of last-second disappointments.

As they approached the sprawling, Spanish-style house with a red-tiled roof that the Carters had just moved into, she hunkered down on the sidewalk in front of the kids. “Now remember to be on your best behavior,” she instructed. “The way you are when we visit Grandma Dobbs and Grammy and Poppy, okay?”

Josh was practically bouncing with excitement. It had been a long time since there had been a boy his age living close enough for him to hang out with. “Come on,” he pleaded, then made a dash for the pretentious wrought-iron gate that was new to the property. He tried to turn the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. He regarded it with dismay. “It’s locked.”

Emily was as startled as her son, but she spotted a buzzer next to the gate. “I think we probably need to push that button,” she told her son, and watched as he gave it an eager punch.

“Yes?” The disembodied voice sounded far away.