Queen Never Cry novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Ten Seconds

Desmond calls the police on a protective-order violation, but a crossing guard and a stranger's dashcam clear her, and the stranger offers a way into Desmond's gala tonight.

I got ten seconds with my daughter.

I counted them in her breathing against my neck.

Then Desmond's hands closed on her shoulders and pulled her away from me.

"Come to Daddy, sweetheart."

Posy clung to my coat with both fists.

"No. No, I want Mama."

"Let go, Posy." His voice was pleasant and very sharp. "Right now."

She let go, because she was six years old and he had taught her what happened when she didn't.

As he lifted her she put her mouth to my ear.

"Lydia wears your key," she whispered. "I told her it was Mama's and she said shh."

Then she was in his arms with her face turned away, and I was on my knees on a Chicago sidewalk with my hands empty.

I stood up.

I did not wipe my face, because there was nothing on it.

Lydia came across the street in her cream coat, shaking her head at the other mothers.

"I'm so sorry, everyone. This is a very sad situation."

Two police officers got out of a cruiser at the curb.

Desmond handed Posy to Lydia and turned to them with his hand over his heart.

"That's my ex-wife," he said. "She was released this morning from prison. She has a court order to stay five hundred feet from my daughter."

"I haven't moved from this spot," I said.

"She lured her into the road, officer. My child nearly died."

The older officer looked at me, then at the school gate eighty-three feet behind us, and he frowned.

"Ma'am, did you approach the child?"

"No."

"The little girl ran into traffic," said a voice behind me. "The lady never moved."

It was the crossing guard, a heavy woman in a yellow vest with a stop sign in her fist.

"I saw it from start to finish, officer. That child tore away from her stepmother and ran. The lady stood there like a post."

Desmond's smile slipped by half an inch.

"With respect, she's not a reliable witness. She's a crossing guard."

"I'm a crossing guard who has watched this street for nineteen years," the woman said.

Then a second voice spoke, a man's, level and unhurried.

"I have the whole thing on video."

He stood beside a grey pickup truck parked at the curb, with MERCER FREIGHT in white letters on the door.

He was tall and lean, in a navy sweater and work boots.

His light-brown hair was pushed back, and his grey-blue eyes did not look at me once.

He held out his phone to the older officer.

"The dash camera faces the school gate. You can see her walk up and stop."

"You can see the girl run the whole way."

The officers watched it twice.

I watched Desmond's face while they did.

He had stopped smiling altogether.

"Ma'am, you're free to go," the older officer said. "Sir, I'd suggest you keep your daughter's hand in yours."

"This is outrageous."

"Yes, sir. Put it in writing."

The cruiser pulled away.

The other mothers drifted off in clusters, whispering, and I knew that every one of them would tell the story by supper.

Desmond came right up to me.

He was close enough that Lydia, ten feet back with Posy, could not hear.

"You have been out for nine hours," he said, "and already you're begging for your cell. It's almost sweet."

"Tell Posy I love her."

"I'll tell her you're a thief."

He walked back to the SUV and slammed the door.

Posy's small face looked out the back window.

She did not cry either.

She pressed her palm flat against the glass.

I raised my own hand and held it there until the car turned the corner and she was gone.

The man in the sweater cleared his throat.

"Garret Mercer," he said. "You don't know me, and you have no reason to trust me."

"You've got that right."

"I used to be Desmond Roarke's partner." He put the phone in his pocket.

"Eight years ago he forged my name on a transfer and took my first company."

"I rebuilt it from a single truck."

I studied him.

He had a pale scar along his right palm and the stiff posture of someone who didn't ask people for favors.

"You were waiting for me here."

"The parole date is public. I guessed you'd come to her school before you went anywhere else."

"That is a little creepy."

"I know." One corner of his mouth moved. "I'd say I can explain, but it would sound worse."

For the first time since the gate, something close to a laugh tried to climb out of me.

I held it down.

"What do you want?" I said.

"Him." He said it simply. "I want him finished."

"And I don't want you to owe me for that. Not a favor, not a dinner, not a thank-you."

"Everyone wants something."

"Then watch me not take it." He opened the passenger door of the truck.

"He gives himself the Founders' Award tonight at the Corrigan Foundation gala."

"Three hundred guests, the Drake Hotel, eight o'clock."

My grandfather's foundation.

My scholarships.

"I have a table," Garret said. "And an empty chair."

I thought of Lydia in a cream coat with my daughter's hand in hers.

I thought of a gold key.

"I don't own a dress," I said.

He nodded toward the truck door, like he'd expected that.

"Then let's go and see what your grandmother does."

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