The Perfect Liar (Last Stand #5)(36)
Author: Brenda Novak

"I’m glad, too. The way things were going, I was afraid we wouldn’t have any fun."

Tati glanced at her. "I love you. You know that, don’t you?"

The gravity in her voice pierced through Kalyna’s buzz, and suddenly the memory of the game she’d played at the bar wasn’t quite so enjoyable.

She remembered laughing at Tati’s ignorance while the men stood in line, and wished she hadn’t done it. At least with Danny.

"Of course you do. I love you, too." She turned to the window so her sister couldn’t see her face. "That’s why I don’t want you to go out with that Dan guy."

They were close to the mortuary. "What are you talking about?"

"I hesitated to say this before, because I didn’t want to disappoint you, but he came on to me, too."

Her sister deflated like a balloon. Even her shoulders slumped. "Oh,"

she said. "I didn’t notice."

"I don’t think he wanted you to know. That’s why he shut up the second he realized I was around."

Tati pulled into the driveway and parked off to one side. "I should’ve known," she mumbled.

"Known what?"

"That someone cute wouldn’t want me."

"Don’t talk like that. You just need to lose a little weight. And there are other men out there," Kalyna said. "What’s the big deal with this one?"

"There’s no big deal." Tati managed to pull herself together, but Kalyna was pretty sure there were tears in her eyes when she got out.

Because it was the Fourth of July weekend, Mother’s Country Kitchen Cafe was even more packed than usual, but Ava didn’t mind the bustle.

She, Skye and Sheridan had been meeting here for breakfast on the first Saturday of every month since she’d been promoted to full-fledged director.

She enjoyed getting away with them for a few hours. It gave them all a chance to go over their cases and make decisions for the organization without the interruptions that typically occurred at the office.

"So what do you think?" Skye asked as the waitress who’d fil ed their coffee cups walked away. "Should we hire Jane?"

Ava waited for Sheridan’s response. She didn’t have the seniority they did. She’d first met Skye when she showed up in response to an ad in the Sacramento Bee. Shortly after her mother had gone to prison, TLS had offered a free seminar for victims and their families. Little did Ava know when she attended that it would result in an entirely new vocation for her, but it had. Bored with her job as a bank teller, she’d started to volunteer at TLS–and that was when she’d gone back to school three nights a week to get a masters in criminal justice.

She’d graduated last spring but was stil the new kid on the block and careful not to come across as too presumptuous or pushy.

"I guess it’s okay, if that’s what you want to do," Sheridan said.

Ava put down the spoon she’d been using to stir her coffee. She didn’t want to be the sole dissenting voice. She knew what Jane Burke meant to Skye. But she had some concerns about bringing her on staff.

"I’m not sure it’s our best move."

Skye glanced up at her. She sat next to Ava wearing a pair of khaki shorts, a simple white tank and little white loafers–nothing fancy and yet she looked as glamorous as any model. "Why not? Maybe Jane doesn’t have a police background or a degree like yours, but she could work alongside me until she’s trained." She took the last bite of the multigrain pancakes she’d ordered. "You had no experience with criminal investigations when you started, and look at you now."

"The only real prerequisite is a genuine desire to help," Sheridan concurred. "The rest can be learned."

"I’m not saying Jane needs a degree," Ava told them. "But she was married to a serial kil er who all but ruined her life before he attacked and nearly murdered her. That kind of experience could warp a person, make it difficult to remain objective, that’s all."

Skye turned her orange juice glass around several times. "Oliver Burke nearly murdered me, too. Twice. Does that mean I’m too warped to do my job?"

Ava flushed. Sometimes she spoke her mind before considering all the implications. "What happened to you is different. You didn’t live with him. You didn’t trust him the way she did. She believed him while he was in prison and stil tried to make her marriage work when he got out. She’s the mother of his child. Talk about betrayal! What Jane went through has to have left some deep scars, and they might make her prone to see only one side of a situation."

"You’re afraid she won’t be fair?" Skye clarified.

"It’s more that I’m afraid her experiences wil affect her judgment."

Ava’s thoughts reverted to her meeting with Luke Trussell and her decision to drop the Harter case. She felt sure she was doing the right thing, but if he hadn’t come forward and given her the chance to see what he was like, she might’ve stayed in Kalyna’s corner simply because of her experience with Bella. "Not every situation is as it appears," she said. "Sometimes people lie."

Skye shoved the hair that’d fallen from her ponytail out of her eyes.

"The victims don’t lie nearly as much as the offenders."

"But some victims aren’t victims at all," Ava countered. "They’re master manipulators."

Sheridan scowled. "That’s got to be a very small percentage, Ava."

"Even one is too many. We don’t want to punish the innocent. Ever."

"Where is this coming from?" Skye asked.

Ava smoothed the front of her sleeveless black dress. "A woman came into my office on Monday claiming she’d been raped a month ago.

She showed me pictures of herself bruised and battered, and she was accusing a man whose se**n had been collected with a rape kit. At first, it seemed like a cut-and-dried case. As she sat in my office sobbing, I wanted to cry with her. I was indignant, fil ed with a righteous anger, eager to help her obtain justice."

"Probably more than eager because of what happened to Bella,"

Skye said.

Ava flinched. "Exactly. But when I had Jonathan do the research, I learned that the accused has more credibility than the accuser."

Sheridan slipped a credit card onto the table. "Even people with credibility commit crimes, Ava."

"I almost missed the truth because I was so busy trying to make up for…the situation with Bella. We’re shaped by what we experience, that’s al I’m saying."

Skye slid the syrup back into its place near the laminated menus. "I wasn’t aware that you knew Jane."

"I don’t but I talked to her when you brought her to the office."