Beyond Innocence Read online

  “I don’t feel strong,” he lamented, his eyes trained on his hands.

  “Trust me, Luke Blue. I don’t know much but I know that. I have a feeling you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.” She stood to go and he lifted his eyes to hers. “Now, I have to go back to work, but I’ll come to visit you every day until you’re ready to leave this hole. And then we’re going to get to know each other a little better.”

  She left that room feeling empowered and a little bit stronger than she had when she went in. There was no denying the rush that came with extending a helping hand to her fellow man.

  And it didn’t hurt if that man had sinewy arms, a wide, warm smile and blue eyes that could swallow you whole.

  Chapter Six

  Mid-July, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  “What the hell do you mean, you’re moving?” ranted Jeremiah.

  Faye now regretted the two beers she had consumed just prior to the arrival of her father-in-law. The alcohol had loosened her tongue far beyond what was wise in the face of Jeremiah Barton’s volatile temper. She leaned back against the dingy kitchen counter, which was chipped and speckled with stains that were as permanent as the blood she couldn’t seem to wash from her hands.

  She finally sputtered, “This place is a dump. Tate bought us a new place just before he…left. We can finally move in there in two weeks.”

  Jeremiah narrowed his already squinty hazel eyes at her, the light from the harsh fluorescent bulb glinting off his shiny cranium and his sweat-slick shoulders.

  It was so hot that Faye’s flimsy silk T-shirt was plastered to her breasts like flypaper. The new place would have air conditioning. It was damn well about time.

  “What do you mean, we?” Jeremiah said suspiciously. “Is Tate back and he ain’t called me?”

  “No. I still don’t know where he is.” She combed shaky fingers through her dirty blonde hair and glanced at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Her vivid green eyes were bloodshot and swollen. She felt like shit and didn’t want to have to deal with Jeremiah just then. Calvin should be here dealing with this. This whole thing had been his idea in the first place. She knew what Jeremiah was capable of, but she had no desire to find out firsthand if the stories Tate had told her were true. “But me and Tanner are moving, with or without him. If he’s skipped out I’m not going to—”

  Jeremiah had taken a menacing step toward her. He stood close enough that she could smell his sweat, his hulking six-foot-four-inch frame towering over her like a pit bull that had cornered a sewer rat. “You sayin’ my boy ran off on his wife and my grandson?” His breath was hot and thick with the scent of whiskey. “Is that what you meant, bitch? ‘Cuz Tate may be a lyin’, cheatin’ son of a bitch, but he’s still my boy and I won’t stand for nobody talkin’ ‘bout him like he don’t know how to look after his family.”

  “You mean like you looked after yours?” she spat.

  The sting of Jeremiah’s monstrous knuckles against her jaw was another vivid reminder that her tongue and beer had a dubious relationship. She reeled back and her hand flew to her mouth, only to come back slicked with her own blood.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jeremiah pointed an accusing finger at her. “You think I didn’t take care of my own? You think I didn’t do right by Tate and his mom?”

  The pain helped to clear her head and she quickly saw the sense in denial. “No, no. ‘Course not.” She saw the wisdom in not rehashing the fact that Tate as well as his mother had borne the bruises of Jeremiah’s care too many times to count. Even into adulthood he and Tate frequently clashed over everything from Tate’s choice of vocation to the name he had chosen for their son. “I-I was just talkin’ nonsense. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

  Jeremiah glared at her. “I don’t know. I told Tate ages ago he should’ve taught you some respect. He let you get away with way too much shit.” He pointed a meaty finger at her. “If he don’t teach you some manners, girl, I might just have to.”

  At that moment Faye was relieved to hear the front door slam.

  “Mommy! Mommy!” cried her son as he raced through the dingy living room into the dreary kitchen. The long narrow rooms were way overdue for new wallpaper and carpeting. Tate had recently painted the bedrooms on the second floor, but his vows of refurbishing the main floor living area had gone unfulfilled for months. Not that it mattered anymore.

  “Is Daddy home yet?” Tanner skidded to a halt at the sight of the old man, and when he spoke his voice dropped at least an octave. “Hi, Grandpa.”

  Calvin’s voice greeted the trio from the doorway. “Jeremiah. What do you want?”

  Jeremiah knelt and reached for his grandson. “Come give Grandpa a hug.”

  Tanner went to him without a fuss, but it tore at Faye’s heart to know the fear he held in his heart for the man who was clutching him with a fierce possessiveness. Jeremiah had never struck Tanner, but Jeremiah’s presence could strike fear in the hearts of men of all ages. Tanner wasn’t immune to his dubious brand of charm.

  Peering over Tanner’s head, Jeremiah fixed Calvin with a hostile stare. “I came to see my family, and look for my son. Where is he, Calvin? What kinda shit is he into this time?”

  “This time I don’t know, old man. He just took off. Never said a word to me. I—”

  “Bullshit!”

  In a heartbeat Calvin’s eyes turned murderous, and Faye was afraid an explosion was imminent. But neither man was inclined to listen to her. A word from her might be all it took to detonate the fuse.

  “You’re his partner,” Jeremiah accused. “You always know what he’s up to. Don’t lie to me, boy.”

  “I told you, not this time. I think it had something to do with that cop, but he didn’t say where or how long. Now why don’t you leave us alone?”

  “Us? You seem awfully interested in them all of a sudden. Seems to me you been hanging around here an awful lot ever since Tate left.” Jeremiah stood and shoved Tanner toward his mother. Faye hugged the boy to her and watched the events transpiring as if it were all a bad dream. In fact the last six weeks had all felt like a bad dream. Things were supposed to get better with Calvin. It had all made sense when she was high on pharmaceutical-grade cocaine and cheap wine.

  Calvin had said Tate was a stubborn mule, and that they could really go places with him out of the way. Faye really wanted to go places. She wanted to get away from the slums of Philadelphia, that was for sure. So now they were moving, but the trouble was they weren’t moving to California or Palm Springs. They were moving to a slightly better slum. They couldn’t be too far away from the clubs, Calvin said. There wasn’t as much money stashed away as Calvin had thought. What the hell had Tate done with it all, anyway? They had to keep running the clubs, but they’d take on some other sidelines to build up their kitty. And then, once they were rich enough, then they’d take off and live on a beach in Malibu or in a penthouse in New York.

  Calvin had promised…again and again. But Calvin’s promises were starting to sound as hollow as his empty beer bottles.

  She was starting to miss Tate. He had been a pain in the butt and they hadn’t exactly lived the life of June and Ward Cleaver, but at least Tate had been a decent father to Tanner. Maybe she had been too quick to point out his flaws and dismiss his better qualities. Maybe she had been too quick to listen to Calvin’s pleas and arguments that he could make their life so much better. Maybe she had been too hasty. Maybe she had made a mistake.

  But it was a little late for regrets. There was no bringing him back. She had seen to that. And now when she looked in a mirror she didn’t even know the face that stared back at her. Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes haunted—haunted by fear and guilt. Even now her stomach coiled into knots at the memory of what she had done.

  It had felt so good at the time. How could that be? Why didn’t it feel good now?

  Jeremiah and Calvin had squared off like boxers in a ring.

  �
�So? Why you been around here so much, Cal? You screwin’ my son’s wife, or what?”

  “I think you better get out, old man, before I throw you out.”

  “You’re talkin’ like this is your house. You moved in and you ain’t told your partner’s old man about the new arrangement?”

  Calvin gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists. “I’m lookin’ after them while he’s gone.”

  “Yeah,” sneered Jeremiah. “I’ll bet you are.” He pointed that meaty finger at Calvin’s wide chest once more. “I know you and Tate weren’t getting along so good there for a while. If I find out you did something stupid…” He let his words trail off but the message was all too clear.

  Calvin just stared, refusing to acknowledge the accusation.

  Her father-in-law snorted in derision and finally strode toward the back door that led to the alley. “You just make sure I see him real soon,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “If you know where he is you tell him that. And if he doesn’t show in a week or two, you better believe I’ll come lookin’ to you for answers…Cal.” The screen door slammed behind him and with him gone the space in the kitchen swelled to double its former size. Faye could breathe again.

  Calvin hadn’t moved since Jeremiah had stepped past him and headed for the door. Once they heard the engine on the old Ford Falcon rev to life and the tires squeal, his stance relaxed marginally.

  “Tanner,” he growled. “Get lost. Go watch TV or somethin’.”

  Tanner gripped his mother’s hand and looked up at her with pleading blue eyes. She shook her head and shooed him away. “Go on. I’ll be making supper soon.” Facing her son had become almost as difficult as facing herself in the mirror. Lately her patience for his antics had grown thin, and even when he was acting decent her attention span had dwindled from negligible down to nothing. She regretted it. He deserved better. He deserved a mother who was really there for him. He deserved a lot of things she had never been able to give him.

  Tanner plodded away, head hung dejectedly, and she heard him mutter, “When’s Daddy coming home? I want Daddy.”

  Faye suppressed the urge to tear at her hair in anguish. Calvin had something on his mind.

  “Shit!” He plunked his frame down on a squeaky aluminum kitchen chair. “I should’ve thought of this. Jeremiah’s gonna be a problem.”

  “He’ll cool off,” she offered. “He’s just full of hot air.”

  “I’m not so sure. He’s a bastard, but he’s got this weird thing for Tate.”

  “Well, what the hell did you expect?” Suddenly all the guilt and the fear and the regret balled inside her and swelled until she thought she would burst. Her words were broken by loud wrenching sobs. “Goddammit! I can’t believe this! Tate’s his son, for chrissake! To some people that means something. And we killed him.” She sank into one of the kitchen chairs, heedless of the glint in Calvin’s eye. “We’re going to hell, Calvin.” Her head sank to the table. She no longer had the strength to hold it up.

  “We killed him,” she whispered over and over, as if that could somehow make it seem more real, or make it go away, or…something. She just wanted to forget and she wanted to stop hurting, but she suspected this kind of pain would last a lifetime. “I killed my husband.”

  Calvin leaned over and grabbed her hair in a great, thick handful, pulling it tight enough to make her wince. But she didn’t care. The pain was all too familiar, it felt right. Maybe that was why she had never felt comfortable with Tate. He was a man beyond her experience…in so many ways.

  Calvin twisted her head back so she was forced to look up at him. “Don’t you forget, bitch, you hated him,” he hissed. “You wanted him out of the way just as much as I did, and you pulled the goddamn trigger. So you better keep your fucking mouth shut. Because if the police hear you spew off that shit and come after me, I swear I’ll kill you myself.”

  He let go of her, and she let her head fall back on her hands that were resting on the table. His fingers tapped hard and fast on the tabletop. “And if Daddy dearest puts up too much of a fuss—if he interferes, we might just have to take care of him too.”

  Faye’s head snapped up. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  Faye’s insides coiled at the implications. This wasn’t going according to plan. It was supposed to be a one-time deal. Quick and clean. There would be no bodies and no questions. She and Calvin would be rich, and Calvin could finally run the business like they wanted. But another killing? A wave of nausea washed over her, but she kept silent. In his current mood she knew better than to question Calvin’s decisions.

  He pushed his chair back, stood, and stalked to the refrigerator. He pulled it open and began to scan the contents. “Stupid bastard hid that money pretty damn good,” he muttered to the assortment of moldy cheeses and spoiled lunchmeats. “But now that I’m running the show maybe those girls will actually start pulling in some real bucks and then we can get out of this hole.”

  Faye heard him but she wasn’t paying attention. She wanted to live better, she wanted to get out of this life of poverty and prostitution that seemed to have such a stranglehold on her. Tate had seemed to have no intention of getting her out of it, at least not on the kind of timetable she had in mind.

  The money from the clubs had always seemed to disappear like water soaking into sand. She had seen the books. She knew what his profit margin was like, but Tate had always refused to discuss what happened to it all.

  All she knew was that it never found its way into the house or Faye’s closet. Tate had said they were doing just fine. He had plans. He always had big plans for that money and he’d fill her in when the time was right. Well, he had waited too long and look where it had gotten him.

  Now Calvin seemed to have his own agenda as well. And, just like always, she was trapped—trapped in a life with a questionable past, a miserable present, and a future that was as bleak and polluted as the Philadelphia skyline on a hazy day.

  * * * * *

  “What the hell are we doing here?” Kyle wanted to know.

  Kyle’s constant questions could irritate Pete at the best of times, but today, in particular, he had no patience for the kid’s meddling. In lieu of strangling his new partner, Pete wrapped his thick hands around the steering wheel and struggled to rein in a temper that had been threatening to erupt all day.

  “I told you not to come. This is on my own time. Unofficial. Off the record.” And none of your damn business. But he held that thought. God help him but he had to work with this guy. He had to remind himself that it wasn’t Kyle’s fault that an eight-year partnership had gone down the tubes and he didn’t have a single clue as to why. It wasn’t Kyle’s fault that he was a rookie detective and greener than snot on grass. It wasn’t Kyle’s fault he was inexperienced.

  It wasn’t Kyle’s fault he wasn’t Sam.

  Kyle hunkered down in the seat, his spiky auburn hair barely peeking above the head rest, and his hazel eyes sullen and rimmed with lines of fatigue. He was just too cute, with those damn dimples and that rakish grin. He dressed too well and ate too many vegetables. He was too young and too skinny and he drank that damn designer coffee. As if on cue he picked up his now-tepid cup of cappuccino from the cupholder. Pete rolled his eyes.

  “I was hoping to maybe learn something,” said Kyle as he peered at the run-down two-story row house with the peeling paint and the cracked windows.

  “About what?”

  “Surveillance.”

  Pete just grunted.

  “And you.”

  Pete swung around. “Huh?”

  Kyle wouldn’t meet his eyes. He just kept staring, unseeing, at the run-down unit that was the focus of their stakeout.

  The house looked like a thousand others here in South Philly. The ubiquitous row houses lined the streets of the historic city from Germantown to the north, to the black ghettos in west Philly, to the Puerto Rican neighborhoods in the east, right down to the Italian domains where T
ate Barton and his clan had set up house. As far as Pete knew, Tate claimed no Italian lineage and no connections to the mob, but he seemed to have made himself at home among the warrens of garlic-saturated residences that had been featured in an endless stream of Rocky movies.

  “I know you hate me,” grumbled Kyle. “Not that I blame you. It must be tough, having a partner disappear like that.” Now he looked at his new partner. “And not knowing whether he’s alive.”

  Pete’s jaw muscles flexed rapidly. Dammit. The kid wasn’t supposed to have feelings. Or at least he wasn’t supposed to let Pete know that he did. Pete wanted to go right on hating him. If he started to like the kid, started to feel like they were a team, then it would feel like he was betraying Sam. Betraying the best friend he’d ever had. But maybe he couldn’t go on punishing the kid, or himself, indefinitely. Maybe he could move forward but still manage not to let go of the past completely.

  “He’s alive. We’ve just got to find him.” Pete unclamped his hands from the steering wheel and wiped his palms on his thighs. He cleared his throat. “But I know I haven’t been exactly easy to get along with the last two weeks. You’re right.” He riveted his gaze on the front door of the narrow house. “It’s pure hell not knowing. Pure hell…” His voice faded away to nothing.

  Seeming to sense Pete’s mood, Kyle remained silent and sipped from his cup. Pete picked up his own coffee cup and swirled around the cold dregs. How many hours had he spent with Sam exactly like this, huddled in an unmarked cruiser, staking out a crack house or some lowlife who pushed drugs or kiddy porn? They would sit there, guzzling bad coffee, swapping worse jokes, lamenting the intense boredom and tedium…and never admitting there was no finer place in the world than right where they were.

  Maybe that was why both of their marriages had failed miserably. Maybe that was why Sam had allowed himself to become so consumed by his obsession with Tate Barton. But Pete had always suspected there was more to it than that. There was more to it than Sam’s professed need to see justice done. More than an old friendship gone sour, as Elsie suspected.