The Sheriff's Daughter

The walls were green, but they were going to become yellow before the week was out.

“Dinner’s ready!”

She grabbed a beer for her father and a glass of diet cola with lots of ice for herself. Then she collected paper plates, tore paper towel off the roll to serve as napkins and fell onto an elegant dining-room chair in her ceramic-tiled kitchen.

Brent had gotten the kitchen set, in spite of the fact that Sara didn’t have a formal dining room. So…eclectic was in. The set was made of handcarved cherry wood and the seats were extremely comfortable.

“TV, VCR, DVD and stereo are all hooked up.” John Lindsay came in, stopping by the sink to wash his hands.

She nodded. Half of the components were new. As was the entertainment center in her small sunken living room.

Unscrewing the beer cap, he sat across from her, apparently unaware of the incongruity of sitting in his jeans and sweaty T-shirt in an informal kitchen on velvet brocade chairs. He loaded his paper towel with pizza slices. Took a hefty bite. Looked over at her empty plate.

“Eat.”

“I will.” Maybe after he left.

But probably not. She’d had a banana a couple of hours before. And cereal for breakfast. She’d stay alive another day.

“Now.” His dark-eyed gaze bore into her.

Sara picked up a slice of pizza and watched her father eat. John Lindsay, retired and in his sixties, was still an intimidating man. Tall, lean, even now, with broad shoulders that never seemed to hunch, he commanded respect.

He loved her. Sara had never doubted that.

He glanced up and caught her staring. “What’s on your mind?”

She could shrug, tell him nothing, and no more would be said. Or…

“I met my son.”

Hand on his beer bottle, he froze.

“I’d given permission for the agency to reveal my identity, if he ever asked.”

“Why didn’t your mother and I know about this?”

“You wouldn’t have approved.”

His glance was searching. And then he nodded, started to eat again.

“He’s a cop, Daddy,” she said softly.

“Where?”

“Here. With the Columbus police. He’s on the Westerville beat.”

“I know some guys over there.”

“I figured you would.”

“You want me to ask around about him?”

“Would it matter if I said no?”

“Probably not.”

She grinned. “I didn’t think so.”

He finished his pizza. Wiped his mouth. And sat back with his bottle of beer in his hand.

“How long ago did you meet him?”

“Over six weeks,” she told him and then quickly added, “I’ve only seen him once, when he showed up unannounced on my doorstep.”

“Did he say why?”

“He’s known about me since he was fourteen and he’s been keeping a watch over me, he said.” With a deep breath, she continued, “Which is how he found out about Brent and Chloe.”

John frowned. “He’s the one who told you?”

Nodding, Sara played with her pizza crust, twirling a thin piece back and forth between her fingers. “He thought I should know.”

Her father didn’t look as if he agreed with her son’s decision and Sara was struck once again with her awareness of something she’d always known. Her father would tell her only what he thought was for her own good, withholding everything else. And his idea of what was good for her wasn’t necessarily hers.

“What’s he like?”

Sara smiled and held back the tears that arrived every time she thought about the handsome young man who’d shown up on her doorstep and turned her life upside-down. In so many ways.

“Taller than you. Broad. Blond, with green eyes. Like any good cop, he seemed to take in the whole room at a glance.”

And he’d given her things to think about that were compelling enough to take her mind off the fact that life as she’d known it was over—that the man she’d trusted to be loyal to her, hadn’t been.

“His name’s Ryan. Ryan Mercedes.”

John sipped his beer slowly, gaze intent, though he didn’t seem to be focusing on anything in front of him.

“I don’t think it’s just chance that he’s in police work.”

“What?” Her father asked, turning that gaze on her. “You think it’s hereditary?”

“I think he’s a young man with an analytical mind like yours, an unbending view of right and wrong and a sense of responsibility to do what he can to fight evil. He’s known since he was fourteen that his grandfather was a sheriff, and I think some emotional need to connect with his biological roots, combined with his traits, has led him to his chosen career.”

“You got all this from one meeting?”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about him.”

And the things he’d told her.

“You going to see him again?”

The sun was setting, though it would be another hour or two before it got dark outside. Evening shadows were creeping into the kitchen.

“He left his number.”

“I take it you haven’t called.”

“I’ve been a little busy.”

SARA ALMOST CALLED Ryan Saturday night. Now that her father knew, hadn’t tried to deny that she’d ever been pregnant and given up her child or denied that he had a biological grandson, Ryan’s existence seemed all the more real.

She picked up the phone a couple of times, but always put it down again. She had no idea what she’d say. If he’d be at home on a Saturday night—or what he’d be doing if he was.

Did one leave a message for one’s child that one had given away? What did she call herself? This is your mother. Her mind played out various messages and rejected them.

Mrs. Mercedes was Ryan’s mother. Sara was Sara. Nothing more.

HER FATHER WAS BACK again on Sunday, seemingly undeterred by the seventy-five-minute drive from Maricopa to Columbus, to unpack her half of the tools in her garage. He’d brought along a Peg-Board and broom-holder bar to hang for her.

And when that was done, he came inside to help, moving boxes, putting together the new daybed in the room that was going to serve as her study and guest room. After which, he installed two new toilet seats in her bathrooms—Sara’s mother had always insisted new toilet seats were mandatory when moving.

Sitting on the edge of the tub, watching as he lay flat on his back on the tile floor, his head underneath the tank while he worked an ornery lug nut, Sara knew the time had come.

Ryan’s appearance in her life had prompted many changes. And because she was starting to obsess about some of the things he’d told her—the things left unsaid—she was going to have to do something.

“Tell me about that night.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “What night?” The words came out almost as a grunt as he gave the wrench a hard tug.

“The night I was raped.”

John Lindsay bumped his head on the bottom of the toilet tank. He didn’t swear. Barely acknowledged having done so. Just went back to the bolt. With one more tug, after ten minutes of struggling, it was free.

“I need to know, Daddy.”

“No, you don’t.”

Twenty years ago that would have been that. Hell, twenty days ago it might have been.

“I’m thirty-seven years old. Old enough to determine for myself what’s important to me.”

“You don’t know what you don’t know.”

She’d known this wasn’t going to be easy. Her insides were shaking. She’d always gotten knots in her stomach at the thought of standing up to him. But this time anxiety wasn’t going to stop her.

“I’m not going away on this one. I can’t anymore,” she said softly, as much for herself as anything else. “I’ve just spent the past twenty years of my life doing as you wanted, as Brent wanted, and look where it got me. Right back where I was at sixteen, trying to pick up the pieces of my life, with my father there taking care of everything for me. Except, this time, I also have the memory of an ex-husband so dissatisfied with me that he had no hesitation breaking our marriage vows.”

“He’s a fool—and a man. He’d have gotten over it.”

“I don’t think so.” And it wouldn’t matter if he had. The trust was gone.

The second bolt was loose with one twist and soon the new seat was securely in place.

“You sell yourself short,” he said, gathering up his tools. “You run a nationally recognized organization, one built almost entirely by your efforts. You have the respect of many of this country’s most important movers and shakers.”

That said, he left the room.

After unrolling the new purple-and-green bathroom rugs she’d bought to go with the shower curtain, towels and light purple paint that would soon be on the walls, Sara followed him. He was in the laundry room now, hooking up the washer.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll ask someone else.”

She received a long under-the-arm glance for her efforts. But the usual look of steely determination that he used to perfection was not there.

Sara’s hands started to shake.

THEY ENDED UP in the kitchen with glasses of iced tea. Sara couldn’t remember a time when she and her parents had had any serious discussion any place other than the kitchen table. If you had to talk, that’s where you went. Period.

That’s where they’d discussed the results of the pregnancy test and, ultimately, the adoption. The college she’d attend. It had been over a Sunday steak dinner that she’d introduced them to Brent. And lasagna on a Friday night, when she and Brent announced their engagement.

It had been at the kitchen table, five years before, that her father had told her about the car accident that had killed her mother. She’d received a call at work, asking her to meet him at home. All the way from Columbus to Maricopa she’d imagined what she might find there. From her parents selling everything and retiring to Florida, to one of them finding out he was ill, she’d run the gamut. And come up horribly short.

“What do you want to know?” Her father’s question was brusque.

“Everything.”

Sitting up straight, his fingers tapping the sides of his glass, he frowned. “I don’t see how, after all these years—”

“You and Mom were still asleep that morning when the call came.”

“That’s right.”

“Who called?”

“Chris Watson.”

“I don’t know him.”

“Neither did I. He was a freshman at Wright State, new to town, and he came to the party with the rest of them.”

“How many people were there?”

He stared at her for a long time and Sara realized she shouldn’t have done this. Not because she didn’t need to know. She did—should’ve asked years ago. But she shouldn’t have done this to him.

Never once, in all these years, had she looked at that night and the months that followed through the eyes of a man who loved his only daughter. When she’d seen her father’s part in it all, it had been as her father, the enforcer, the sheriff. The big, strong man who always did the right thing and made damn sure those around him did, as well.

“Twenty-three for at least part of the evening,” he finally said. “Twenty-one of them male. I questioned everyone who’d been within half a mile of that lake, from the family who’d driven down to do some stargazing and left when they arrived to find a party in full swing, to the gas station attendant down the road who’d seen cars go by. And everyone who’d known about the party, as well, whether they attended or not. I’m certain there wasn’t a person in the vicinity I didn’t talk to.”

She’d known her father had worked exhaustively on the case. And she would have tried to find out more at the time if she’d been in any state to think for herself. In the months immediately following the rape, she’d been adamant about one thing. She was not going to have the abortion her parents were pressuring her to consider.

For everything else, she did as she was told. Ate the foods her doctor recommended, studied the lessons her mother prepared, visited with the two girlfriends her father encouraged her to see.

“In the end, the physical evidence did the work for us,” he said now, bending over his iced tea glass. There were lines around his eyes she’d never noticed before.

As soon as he left, she’d hook up her computer—she’d been planning to, anyway. And then she’d do what she’d never allowed herself to do before and begin to dredge up the past. She’d find the articles Ryan had found—articles that, until he’d told her about the small town news archives, she’d never even considered having at her disposal. She’d read about the night that had stolen away her childhood. It had taken an unfaithful husband, meeting her son for the first time, the shock of a quick divorce, but she was finally ready to rock the boat she’d been floating in precariously ever since that horrible night.

However, there was at least one thing she wouldn’t find in old newspaper articles.

And she had the chief investigator right here.

“Aside from the…incident…with me, was there anything else unusual about the party? Any fights? Or evidence of misconduct?”

“Other than littering?” her father asked. “No. By all accounts, and believe me I heard them all, the goal was to get trashed. It was the week before finals and they’d brought cases of whiskey, beer and wine to drown themselves. They put their car keys in a can, buried it and drank until they puked. Repeatedly, judging by what we saw at the party site the next day.”

“Were they smoking pot?”

John shook his head. “We found cigarette butts, but no drug paraphernalia of any kind.”

“Was anyone tested for drugs?”

“No. There was nothing to indicate drug use.”

“What about the fact that at least a few of us couldn’t remember anything the next day?” Ryan’s doubts confused an already blurry situation.

“You reeked of alcohol and were obviously passed out, drunk. With the number of empty bottles, divided by the number of people at the party, added to the fact that you’d mixed beer, wine and whiskey, we were more concerned with getting you awake and sober.”

And dealing with the rape. Sara filled in the blanks her father’s expression left hanging there.

“And you have no doubt that nothing else happened there that night?”

“Honey, I know the details of that party so well I could have been there myself.”

She wanted to believe him.

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