3 A Brewski for the Old Man Read Free Page B

place.
    “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Lacey said.
    “Neither had I until I moved in to the Tradewinds but it didn’t take long to get used to.”
    “He must be really rich.” Her face turned red. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
    I laughed. “Let’s take our pizza out to the conservatory. It overlooks the gulf.”
    I threw the crust of my pizza back into the cardboard box. “I have to tell you something, Lacey.”
    Her forehead wrinkled and she became very still. She waited. The bad news instinct in this kid was on full alert.
    “When I was eleven, almost twelve, Ray John Leenders moved in with my mother and me.”
    Storm clouds formed in her eyes. I hurried on. “Not long after, he started trapping me in the hall or in the kitchen, anywhere, and touching me. I couldn’t tell my mother. She loved him. She was wrapped up in him just like Rena is besotted with him now. I didn’t want to make Ruth Ann choose between us and I guess I was embarrassed. Besides, I didn’t think she’d believe me. I tried to stay away from him. I stayed at friends’, begged to stay over at Marley’s, anything not to be around him. Mom was a waitress and worked long hours so she wasn’t always there, but Ray John was. And if I stayed at someone else’s house, he’d come looking for me. Everyone thought it was so nice that he looked after a kid that wasn’t his own.”
    She dropped the pizza onto her plate and stared down at it, body drooping, while I rushed on. “Things got worse. One day he tried to rape me but I got away.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Walking down memory lane stunk. “This time I told my mother. She believed me all right. I don’t know why I doubted her.” I pulled my hair back from my face and let it flop down my back. “Anyway, she was waiting for him when he came home. She lit right into him, said she was going to turn him in.”
    “He beat her, punched her right in the face. I got out an old shotgun of my dad’s and threatened to kill him if he didn’t stop. The damn shotgun wasn’t even loaded. Didn’t find that out ’til later but Ray John didn’t know it.”
    “The thing was, the neighbors heard the ruckus and called the sheriff. The sheriff came in and found me holding the shotgun and screaming at Ray John that I was going to kill him.”
    Lacey’s hands were trapped between her knees, shoulders hunched and eyes on the floor.
    “Long and short of it was the sheriff took him on out of there. No charges were filed. Thing was, Ray John was a deputy sheriff.”
    She shrank into herself, making herself as small and self-contained as possible. She wouldn’t look at me, didn’t acknowledge my words in any way as I blundered on. “That was fine with me. I didn’t want anyone to know what he’d been doing to me. I just wanted him gone and now he was. We never saw him again. I always thought the sheriff made it pretty clear to Ray John what would happen to him if he ever bothered us again.”
    Lacey was staring at her lap, her hair falling in front of her face like a veil.
    “I don’t figure Ray John has changed his ways, Lace. For a long time I didn’t realize that, didn’t realize he’d likely go after some other young girl, thought I was the only one. But I wasn’t, was I?”
    She stayed silent. I waited. Finally she shook her head no. “Shit,” I said, then, “tell me.”
    She did. Tears and choking sounds jumbled the words but she finally got it all out. It had been a lot worse for Lacey.
    “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Lacey. I feel responsible. If we’d charged him back then maybe he would have gone to jail or something. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened to you.”
    “No,” she said, shaking her head. “RJ is responsible for this, not my mom, not you…RJ.” “We need to call the police now.”
    “No, no.” She shook her head wildly and threw herself forward, grabbing my wrist. “Don’t do that.” “But you can’t go back