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  Using a plain old search engine, he soon had Harvey’s address. “We can only hope the guy’s not in prison. Sounds like he stays in trouble.”

  “So, Harvey Clayton. And Robby’s girlfriend…Amanda?”

  “Amanda Laurent is her name now. Two good leads to pursue tomorrow.”

  “And…don’t forget Larry. Hey, you don’t suppose… No, never mind.”

  “What? You think Dwayne let him escape?”

  Beth inhaled sharply. “That is exactly what I was going to say. But I don’t really believe it.”

  Mitch frowned. “I don’t really believe that, either. Don’t worry, Larry will turn up again. He’s not the brightest bulb in the marquee. But until he does, I bet my brother is gonna take a lot of crap from his colleagues.” Mitch didn’t feel quite as happy about that as he would have even a day ago.

  “Say what you will about Dwayne, but he was very accommodating today. He seems like he genuinely wants to help.”

  “Yeah. He wants to help put me in the ground.” The quip was automatic; he’d spent so many years despising his half brother, it was hard to switch gears. He wasn’t certain he could do it. Maybe Dwayne was genuinely sorry for the way he’d treated Mitch when they were kids, but he couldn’t undo what he’d done.

  “Why do you say that? Maybe he’s grown up and put the past behind him.”

  “Meaning I haven’t?”

  “I didn’t mean…well, maybe I did mean that. Have you thought about maybe letting go of a few grudges?”

  “Forgiveness is for wussies. Have you forgiven Vince for breaking your jaw?”

  She blinked a couple of times, and he realized bringing up her abusive ex-boyfriend was a stupid and mean thing to do.

  “I don’t know.” Abruptly she turned and mumbled something about helping his mom with dinner.

  “Way to go, jerk,” he grumbled to himself. He had every right to hold a grudge if he wanted to. Beth had no idea what his childhood and teen years had been like. Living in constant fear of getting beat up by your father at home and tormented by your half brother anywhere else in town…then again, maybe she did know something about fear.

  Maybe he had a right to his grudge, but he didn’t have a right to lash out at Beth. Beth, who’d actually asked him out on a date. He’d already hurt her with his ignorant, cavalier reaction to her invitation. But that didn’t mean he should go on hurting her.

  He would have to make things right, but without encouraging her to revisit the idea of a romance between them. He could do her that favor, at least.

  Mitch followed Beth downstairs, intending to get her alone and apologize, but as he passed the dining room he noticed the table was set. For six.

  His mother was in the kitchen, bustling around to get everything ready. She probably didn’t have company very often, so he didn’t begrudge her making the most of it. But he had to ask.

  “Mom? Who else is eating dinner with us? Did you invite Aunt Trudy?”

  His mother stilled. “Mitchell, Trudy passed two years ago.”

  “She—aw, hell, I didn’t know.”

  “If you ever listened to the messages I leave on your answering machine, you’d know. I did call you.”

  “I’m sorry. I’d have come to her funeral.” At his mother’s dubious look he added, “I would have. I liked Trudy.” His mother’s older sister had been a merry soul, as plump and full of laughter as Myra was gaunt and dour. “So who’s coming to dinner?”

  “Now don’t be angry with me, Mitchell, but I invited Dwayne and Linda.”

  Mitch groaned. “Why did you do that? Bad enough I had to spend half the day with him.”

  “He’s family.” And that seemed to be a good enough explanation for her.

  “He’s not your family.”

  “But he’s your half brother. Since Trudy passed, I’ve come to realize how important family is. You two shouldn’t dislike each other simply because of some unfortunate…parentage.”

  “Are they actually coming?”

  “Dwayne called a while ago and said they would be here. So please, for me, try to get along. I know he was a bit of a bully when you were kids, but he’s grown up into a fine man, and Linda is always volunteering at the church. She keeps the graveyard so neat and attractive, always brings cut flowers.”

  Mitch sighed. He’d rather eat his dinner with the goats.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DINNER WAS A MIXED BAG. The meal was actually delicious, if a bit unhealthy—fried shrimp, hush puppies, and collard greens dripping in butter and salt, followed by bread pudding.

  But the conversation had been strained. Davy said almost nothing, shoveling down his food as if it were a race. Myra made polite inquiries about Beth’s job, but, like most people, her eyes glazed over when Beth tried to explain what she actually did in the lab. Dwayne limited his comments to praising Myra’s cooking.

  Most of the conversation was taken up by Linda, Dwayne’s wife, who chattered cheerfully about her volunteer work, her garden and activities at the church that she and Myra both attended. She was pretty, in a delicate, china-doll way, with black hair in a sleek bob and heavy lipstick that left dark pinky-orange prints on her water glass. Her shallow chitchat was a blessing: it prevented those awful, awkward silences.

  Mitch and his mother cast wary glances at each other throughout the meal. She kept offering him seconds, which he repeatedly declined.

  “I thought you loved fried shrimp,” she said. “You used to eat it by the boatload.”

  “I do love it, Mom. I just can’t eat like I did when I was a kid.”

  Beth had seen Mitch polish off whole pizzas, and he claimed to have a cast-iron stomach, but she didn’t argue the point.

  After dinner, Davy announced he intended to watch a baseball game on TV. “You boys are welcome to join me,” he offered in his quiet voice.

  “I’ll watch an inning or two,” Dwayne said.

  But predictably, Mitch didn’t jump at the invitation. “I’ll go see to the critters.”

  “Which of course leaves the womenfolk to the dishes,” Linda said good-naturedly, as if she was used to it. She rose and bussed her own dishes to the sink.

  “Now, Linda, put that down,” Myra admonished. “You’re a guest.”

  “And if we all work together we can get this kitchen cleaned up in a snap. Then we can all relax.”

  It was hard to dissuade her. Linda was a cleaning tornado, and Myra, too mild-mannered to argue further, went with the flow. Beth jumped in, too. There were plenty of dishes to wash and food to put away, and Myra didn’t have an automatic dishwasher.

  “It was nice of you to invite us,” Linda was saying. “I’ve often told Dwayne he should invite Mitch to visit. I think their daddy would be happy to see them gettin’ along.”

  “Oh, I agree,” Myra said. “I’ll be the first to admit their daddy was no prize, but those boys do share his blood.”

  “I tell Dwayne all the time, Mitch is the only brother he’s got. I don’t have any siblings—always wished I did. Beth, do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “Two older sisters.” Beth found some aluminum foil to cover the bread pudding dish. “We’re very close.”

  Myra sighed. “If Dwayne and Mitch would just get over themselves, they have more in common than they think. If they would just share…there’s healing to be done.”

  Healing? Beth wanted to ask for clarification, but to question Myra’s meaning would just be plain nosy.

  “You mean ’cause of what their daddy did.” Linda’s voice turned hard.

  Beth’s heart tried to come up into her throat. Was Linda talking about abuse? Beth never would have imagined Mitch to be an abuse victim. He seemed so relaxed and easy-going, like nothing bothered him.

  Of course, she’d seen through that facade the past couple of days. Mitch obviously did have issues, something dark simmering just below the surface.

  Abuse was something she understood.

  Granted, she’d be
en a grown woman, not a helpless child, when she’d been victimized. But she’d put up with far more than she should have. Vince had verbally abused her long before he’d physically struck her. He had hurled words at her as hurtful as any fists, and he’d thrown things, broken things.

  She’d been afraid to stay with him but even more frightened of breaking up with him. It wasn’t until he escalated to actually striking her that she’d found the courage to get him out of her life, and even then it hadn’t been easy.

  How much harder was it for a child who couldn’t simply walk away from an abusive parent? Beth could think of no greater crime than for a parent to pervert the responsibility he had to love and nurture his child.

  Myra, who’d been at the sink drying a platter, grew still and looked out the kitchen window into the darkness, likely seeing something years in the past. “I never knew for sure if Dwayne suffered as Mitch and I did, but I suspected.”

  As Mitch and I. Which meant Myra had probably been abused, as well. Beth felt an urge to reach out to the woman, who carried such an air of sadness about her.

  Suddenly Myra looked over at Beth, contrite. “Beth, honey, I’m sorry. I’m sure you don’t want to hear all this awful family history.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said easily. “Mitch has said little about his childhood to me.”

  “And now you know why,” Myra said. “Forgive me for being blunt, but are you and Mitch…do you—”

  “We’re just friends and coworkers,” Beth said firmly.

  “Now, that’s a shame.” Linda dried her hands on an ancient calendar dishcloth. “Going through this mess, he’d be better off with a good woman at his side. I understand juries are highly influenced by a show of familial support.”

  Which brought Beth squarely back to the reason she was here in Coot’s Bayou: to prove Mitch’s innocence. Not to heal his psychological wounds or mend his family rifts. “I’m doing my best to make sure it never gets to a jury.”

  Once the kitchen was clean, Dwayne and Linda got ready to go home—and Mitch was nowhere to be found.

  “Well, tell him we said good-night,” Linda said. “I’m sure we’ll see him again soon.”

  Beth thought it was unspeakably rude for Mitch to disappear like that and not even say goodbye. She had to remind herself, once again, that she might not know the whole story.

  MITCH WAITED IN THE SHADOWS for Dwayne to leave. He had a few words to say to his half brother that he didn’t want Beth or his mother to hear. He didn’t want Linda there, either, but she was a little harder to get rid of.

  “Dwayne,” he said as soon as the front door had closed.

  Dwayne whirled around, his hand going automatically to a weapon he wasn’t currently wearing as he squinted into the darkness. “Mitch?”

  “Right here.” Mitch stepped out of the shadows. “I just want a word with you. In private.”

  Dwayne handed his car keys to Linda. “Wait for me in the car.” He never took his eyes off Mitch.

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Linda asked.

  “Just do it.”

  Linda took the keys and skulked away, shooting one last worried look over her shoulder before unlocking the car door and scooting inside.

  “Now, what is it you have to say to me that can’t be said in front of anyone else? You don’t want witnesses?” Dwayne took a few steps forward, his hands bunched into fists.

  “I want you to stay away from my family. If you want to flash your badge and spy on me and meddle in my business as a cop, fine, whatever. I can’t stop you. But I draw the line with you trying to get all cozy with my mother. Or with Beth, for that matter.”

  “What the hell are you so afraid of?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything!” Mitch automatically countered. But there was something he feared, he realized. Right now, the only thing he had going for him was the loyalty of his Project Justice colleagues and his mother.

  “You think I’ll turn them against you? Is that it?” Dwayne asked. “You must have an inflated view of your importance in my life. I don’t sit around plotting how I can get the better of you. Your mother invited me to dinner and I accepted. What’s so wrong with that?”

  “Because you never could stand it if I had something you didn’t. Now that you see I have friends, a good job, a place I belong, you’d like to take it away from me. Remember that girl in junior high, Sandy?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You caught us making out under the bleachers. You humiliated me in front of her ’cause you just couldn’t stand it that I might have a girlfriend. She wouldn’t even talk to me after that.”

  “You’re still mad at me for that?”

  “That was just one way out of a hundred you made my life miserable as a kid.”

  “It was a two-way street, you little bastard. You once filled my car’s exhaust pipe with potatoes.”

  Mitch smiled. “I’d forgotten about that.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s one I haven’t forgotten. I should have pounded your face for that.”

  “Why didn’t you, huh? Maybe because I’d grown enough that I wasn’t so easy to beat up anymore?”

  “Don’t kid yourself. I was still twice as big as you, and I could have turned you into a grease spot on the pavement if I’d wanted to. But I’d have gotten thrown off the football team if I’d beat you up.”

  “You’re not twice as big as me now.”

  “You want to take a punch at me, huh? That’s what you always wanted to do. Well, go ahead. Beat me up. Then maybe you’d get this stupid grudge out of your system.”

  It was so, so tempting. But Mitch wasn’t going to fall into any traps. “Yeah, so you can arrest me for assaulting a police officer?”

  “I’m not wearing a badge or a uniform or a gun. I’m off duty. This is between you and me. C’mon, weenie-boy, put your money where your mouth is.”

  “I’m not gonna hit you.”

  Dwayne grinned, and suddenly his fist was making contact with Mitch’s jaw. It was just a little tap, not enough to leave a bruise or loosen teeth, but it was enough.

  “Okay, that did it.” Mitch reared back and punched Dwayne right in the solar plexus.

  Damn. The guy’s gut was made of cast iron. Mitch drew back his hand and shook it, wondering if he’d broken a bone.

  Dwayne barely reacted. “Is that all you got?”

  Mitch snapped to attention. Clearly his brother was not the easy opponent Mitch had thought he would be. He yanked off his shoes and crouched, arms extended and slightly bent. Dwayne took off his shirt and assumed his own fighting stance. Now they circled each other, wary.

  “Weenie-boy, huh?” Mitch said. “I’d forgotten about that nickname.”

  “What’d you used to call me? Dork-head?”

  “And Fat-neck.”

  “Boney-ass wimp.”

  “Shit-for-brains.”

  Mitch wasn’t dumb enough to use his fists again. He moved in close and attempted to sweep Dwayne’s right leg out from under him, but Dwayne deflected the move with enough skill that Mitch could tell he’d had martial arts training.

  He never would have pictured his brother having the discipline to study martial arts.

  Dwayne moved in for a punch. Mitch turned and let it glide off his body, then grabbed his brother’s arm and got him in an elbow lock. In moments Dwayne was on his knees, but with his free hand he managed to grab one of Mitch’s legs and throw off his balance.

  Moments later they were both in the grass, rolling around and punching and yelling. All fighting finesse had gone straight out the window. Mitch grabbed Dwayne’s ear and yanked; Dwayne managed a palm to Mitch’s nose, which started bleeding.

  It wasn’t until a cold blast of water hit them that they came to their senses. Sputtering their objections, they sprang apart to see Beth standing near the front porch, holding a garden hose and spraying them down like a couple of dogs.

  Mitch looked at Dwayne, and al
l of a sudden the whole thing became hilarious. He started laughing, and soon Dwayne joined in.

  “Would you look at us?” Dwayne said.

  “I could have sworn I was twelve years old again.”

  “Your nose is bleedin’, dude.”

  Mitch tipped his head back and pinched his nostrils closed. “It’ll stop in a minute.”

  “Feel any better?”

  “No, I still hate your guts, Pig-breath.”

  It was then that Mitch became aware of the hard stares he was getting from Beth and his mother. Linda stood with them, arms folded, glaring at her husband.

  “Guess I better get going,” Dwayne said. “And try to mend some fences so I don’t have to sleep on the couch.” He stood and offered a hand to Mitch. Mitch almost took it. Almost. But one fight wasn’t going to undo years of animosity.

  He pushed himself to his feet.

  “Of all the ridiculous behavior,” Linda said as she hustled Dwayne to the car. “Two grown men scuffling like children.”

  Beth and Myra didn’t bother scolding. They just shook their heads and walked back into the house, leaving him to bleed in solitude.

  AN HOUR LATER, Mitch still had not returned to the house. “I should go look for him,” Beth said to Myra. “What if he was hurt worse than just a nosebleed?” Her head swam, just thinking about the blood dripping down his face.

  “I expect he’s off somewhere, licking his wounds.”

  Beth was horrified by what she’d seen when she’d heard some strange noises and walked outside. Mitch had lost it. Lost his temper and resorted to violence. This was different from what she’d seen when he worked out. This was violence and anger aimed at another human being.

  It scared her. Yet she felt compelled to seek him out.

  “I’m going to check on him, make sure he’s okay.”

  “And I’m going to bed,” Myra said, as if she’d seen this before and it didn’t alarm her.

  Beth exited through the back door, Poppy following at her heels. Once the dog had figured out Beth was no threat, she’d become a devoted fan.