the police were finished with him? Suppose her worry over what Roy might or might not know about Joe Merchant was needless? Then life might be as it had once been. She wondered if she was asking for too much.
Tucker said the house plans were upstairs, that he’d get them.
Lissa stored the leftover cake.
Emily carried the dishes to the sink. “I don’t have a clue how Evan can fix the problem with the deck, but I’ll be beyond ecstatic if he can get your dad back to work on that house.”
“Me, too. Evan’s as worried as we are about him. He thinks Daddy’s in a lot more pain than he’s letting on.”
“He is, but we both know how he feels about seeing a doctor. He won’t even let Dr. White look at him.”
“If only Tucker would get his act together, that would help.”
“Maybe he will this time. I’ve never heard him sound quite so—” Emily paused, hunting for the right word.
“Committed? Contrite?” Lissa supplied two. She dampened a dishcloth and wiped the countertop. “He has to grow up sometime.”
Emily opened the dishwasher. “He said he has receipts, proving he was in Austin over the weekend when Jessica was murdered. Did he give them to the police, do you know?”
“They’re in his glove box. He has to get his car back first.”
“That should take care of it, right?”
“Maybe, but you know, if it doesn’t, if the police insist on pursuing him, we’ll have to get a lawyer.”
Emily wouldn’t say it aloud; she didn’t want Lissa to worry, but she wondered where the money to pay a lawyer would come from. She wondered why the police focus on Tucker continued. It was as if they wanted him to be guilty. A year ago, when the police fixated on him, the media raised the outrageous possibility that whoever killed Miranda had likely killed the other two victims who’d been found at the same location in previous years.
More than one reporter speculated that the I-45 serial killer had moved his base of operations from the Galveston area north, seventy or so miles, to the piney woods. They associated the location with Tucker’s home—her home—by describing it as “near where Tucker Lebay, a person of interest in the murder of Miranda Quick, lives.”
It horrified Emily, the very idea that her son’s name was forever linked in some people’s minds to such brutal crimes. And it was complete insanity, anyway. The math didn’t work. Tucker wasn’t old enough to have committed the first two murders. He wasn’t capable of such violence in any case. These crimes were the work of a monster, one who was still out there, still on the loose, which could only mean more women would disappear, more bodies would be found. And more families, good families, like the Quicks, would suffer heartbreak and loss, while the police wasted time hounding Tucker, while they drove him even further back into the black cave of his unhappiness and frustration.
Lissa came to stand beside her.
“I wish Tucker could be more like Evan.” Emily was sorry even as she said it. Even as she felt Lissa’s arm slip around her waist, the surge of her love was tainted with regret. She shouldn’t compare them, these three who would always be children to her.
She had mothered Evan, too, the same as Lissa and Tucker, ever since Roy gave Evan a job when he was barely seventeen, nothing more than a scrawny boy. As a nine-year-old, Tucker almost instantly idolized Evan. But even Lissa, at thirteen, was drawn to him, although she had pretended the opposite. Still, the seed of their attraction for each other had been visible from the beginning. Tucker’s admiration was less self-conscious. So often when he needed someone strong, when he needed a sure and steady guide, Evan was there.
He possessed every admirable trait a parent could want in a son, despite his own complicated upbringing, which involved a father who’d walked out and a mother who was indifferent. Emily would never understand it. Evan’s parents were so careless with him, and yet, he never caused them, or anyone, one moment’s worth of worry or doubt.
“Some people seem to lead a charmed life, while others struggle,” she said now, and there was a bite in her voice that was unintentional, and she rued it.
Lissa moved away. “Evan hasn’t led a charmed life, and neither have I. Tucker has the same opportunity as anyone to make better choices. Not even Daddy can stop him.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know, Momma. It’s okay.”
Emily glanced sidelong at her daughter. “I know you’ve pretty much decided not to have children, but if you were to change your mind and become a mother, you’d understand. There’s just this drive to protect, especially when your child is—” Emily shrugged. She didn’t want to say impulsive or high strung, or oversensitive or—she didn’t know. Just hardwired, differently, in some nameless, unfathomable way.
* * *
Lissa and Evan had left, and Roy had gone upstairs to bed, when Tucker found Emily, as she had hoped he would, outside on the porch, tucked into a corner of the swing.
He sat down beside her. “What are you doing out here? It’s cold.”
“I think that woman is calling your dad,” Emily said without preamble.
“What woman?” Tucker asked, as if he didn’t know.
“The one who had you arrested for stalking her last fall,” Emily answered shortly. “Revel Wiley.”
“What makes you think—?”
“I’ve been getting calls on my cell phone from her number, and I’ve ignored them. Now, in the past few days, the same number has started coming up on the landline caller ID. When I answer, she hangs up. But if your dad answers, he talks away. He’s acted odd when I ask about it. I’m afraid it’s her, that she’s stirring up trouble again.” Emily couldn’t keep the edge from her voice. “Every time I think how you involved me in that mess, Tucker, I’m angry all over again. I wish you hadn’t put me in the middle of it.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“I posted your bail. I paid Revel a thousand dollars to drop the stalking charge altogether because you said that would end it. I should have known better.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“No! For heaven’s sake, Tucker, if you can only do one thing for me, please, please promise me you’ll stay away from those women, the clubs, that life.”
He scrubbed his hands down his thighs, shifted his feet, jarring the swing.
Emily’s initial jolt of exasperation was softened by her regret for his inadequacies and his struggles, his aura of unhappiness. It was the constant war of her own emotions that weighed on her, that rendered her nearly useless when it came to making a stand. At one moment she would feel she didn’t love Tucker enough, or in the right way, and then at another, she would feel as if she loved him and catered to him too much. She slid her palm over the back of his hand. “You know I want to believe what you said earlier, that you want to change, to take responsibility, but for that to work out, you’re going to have to stay away from Miranda’s friends—”
“Revel misunderstood me, Mom. I only wanted to help her get out of the business and out of the rat hole she was living in.”
“Yes, but she and the rest of those girls aren’t your responsibility. You can scarcely take care of yourself.”
Even in the half-light, Emily could see his shoulders sag. She saw his defeat and his aggravation written into the line of his jaw, the crease of his brow. He hitched forward, setting his elbows on his knees. “I’ll be up a shit creek with Pop if he finds out.”
Emily was worried, too, for the possible consequences, which was why she’d talked to Joe and solicited his help. She felt as though