Dead Right (Stillwater Trilogy #3)(66)
Author: Brenda Novak

Pontiff ignored him in favor of appealing to Madeline. “Get rid of him. I’ll find your father’s murderer and whoever broke in last night, and it won’t cost you a dime. I’m a public servant, remember? Not a bloodsucking leech.”

“Hey, Barney Fife, maybe this is news to you but, so far, you haven’t done anything except defend your department—men who used their power to abuse a sixteen-year-old boy.”

Despite all the confusion and emotional upheaval, Madeline found Hunter far too appealing. Especially when he was sticking up for Clay.

“He’s full of shit, Maddy,” Radcliffe added, mistaking her silence for indecision and piling on. “Clay wasn’t beaten up.”

“I’ve read the reports,” she said. “Maybe Clay’s never made any accusations, but I think Hunter’s right.”

“What?” Radcliffe cried.

She raised both hands, indicating her desire for silence. “It makes too much sense—and it’s further proof that I need someone with a different perspective than our own. Someone like Hunter.”

“He’s a troublemaker, Maddy,” Pontiff said. “Send him packing. He doesn’t belong here.”

Maddy was tempted to let Hunter go. But not because she agreed with anything Pontiff or Radcliffe had to say. Her reasons were purely those of self-preservation. She was beginning to fall in love with him—in a headlong tumble she’d never dreamed possible. And he was the one person most likely to destroy everything she’d ever believed about her father and her family.

“Hunter stays,” she said.

Pontiff’s fingers tightened on her hand. “Why?”

“Because it’s time to face the truth.”

Hunter stood, gazing down at Madeline, who was still asleep. He’d made it all the way to morning without touching her. He was proud of that, especially since it hadn’t been easy. He’d wanted to comfort her, but he knew where any break in his resistance would lead and refused to take advantage of her vulnerability. So he’d wrestled with himself until they’d both fallen asleep, with her on the couch and him in the recliner. And now he was hoping to leave before she woke up. There were people he needed to talk to, and he preferred not to take her with him.

Careful to move quietly, he gave Sophie a quick pat and walked outside, but as soon as he reached the porch he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Flipping it open, he studied Maria’s picture, although he’d already memorized every detail.

He wanted to speak to his daughter. Maybe that would help him remember why he couldn’t afford the kinds of emotions he was starting to feel for Madeline—tenderness and compassion, the instinct to protect, sexual desire.

With one kind word from Maria, he could give up any hope of a relationship with Madeline. He could make the sacrifice. If his daughter agreed to see him, he’d leave for California tomorrow. He was afraid they’d miss so much. She was only twelve years old. What about all the places they’d never visit? The prom dates he’d never meet? The pictures he’d never take?

He sighed. How did it get to this point? He hadn’t been a bad husband or father, at least not until the final year of his marriage, when he and Antoinette had grown so estranged that he could hardly make it through the day without pickling his brain in alcohol. Before that last year, he’d actually been a decent husband, especially in the beginning, when his resolve was fresh and he believed the love he felt for his daughter could compensate for the love he didn’t feel for his wife.

His fingers caressed the phone button that would automatically dial his little girl. But if he tried to call her, chances were she’d rebuff him again. Antoinette made sure Maria heard, on a daily basis, a litany of his faults and shortcomings—how he was a womanizer, even though he’d only slept with two, now three, women in his life; how he was an alcoholic, even though she drank heavily herself and used cocaine and other drugs when she partied; how he’d stolen her best years even though he hadn’t wanted them in the first place.

He knew what Antoinette said. Maria had told him in the past, when she’d craved reassurance. Unfortunately, she didn’t come to him with her concerns anymore. She’d finally succumbed to the poison of her mother’s words.

He wasn’t sure he could take hearing his daughter repeat what she’d said during their last conversation. So he started to put his phone away. But then he changed his mind and sent the call.

It rang several times before someone picked up.

“Hunter, have you mailed my check yet?”

It was Antoinette. Obviously, her caller ID was in good working order.

He didn’t answer. He was too busy searching for the right words. The ones that would make peace, patch things up, turn the situation around.

The ones he never seemed to find.

“If you think you’re going to get out of paying your child support this month just because you gave me a little extra last month, you’re wrong,” she said. “Maria’s the one who didn’t want to go to Hawaii. You can’t blame me. I had nothing to do with it.”

He could blame her, and did. The only way Antoinette could hurt him was through Maria, so she turned their daughter into a weapon at every opportunity. The woman who’d claimed she loved him more than her own life—who’d been so obsessed with him that she’d once hired a private detective to trail him, who’d gone so far in her paranoid delusions that she’d bugged their home phone—now hated him in equal measure.

“Is she there?” He stared out over Madeline’s front lawn without really seeing anything.

“She’s here, but she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

He drew a steadying breath. “Will you ask her?”

There was a long pause. “Hang on,” she snapped as if she’d rather not be bothered.

She was gone for precisely eighty-nine heartbeats. “She wants to know why you’re calling,” she said when she returned. “And she told me to remind you of your promise.”

“My promise?”

“To leave her alone.”

“I only promised because she asked me to.”

I can’t stand the tug-of-war any longer, she’d said. Please, give up. Let me go.

“Then keep your word,” Antoinette said simply. “She’s fine, you know. We’ve grown very close.”

“That’s it, then?”

She seemed unsure of his attitude. Knowing her, she was trying to figure out how to work his current mood to her advantage. It probably alarmed her that he seemed resigned to the situation; she didn’t have any power if he gave up. If she’d held anything else over his head, he would’ve sacrificed it a long time ago just to be rid of her. But this was his daughter, for God’s sake.