Mending Fences. Sherryl Woods

belligerently.

      Marcie followed him downstairs. At the bottom of the steps, the two detectives stood in his path.

      “Evan Carter?” Detective Rodriguez asked.

      “Yes. What the hell is this about?” he demanded, his voice radiating antagonism.

      Again, he sounded so much like his father, it gave Marcie goose bumps. Instinct kicked in. She was about to try to smooth things over with the detectives, but realized they were oblivious to his attitude and totally focused on their own mission.

      “You’re under arrest for the rape of Lauren Brown,” the woman said quietly. “Anything you say can and will be used against you…”

      Rape! Marcie was incredulous. This simply couldn’t be happening. As the detective read Evan his rights, Marcie fought back the bile rising in her throat and ran upstairs to wake her husband. She couldn’t shake the sound of the word rape. It kept echoing in her head.

      “Ken, get up now! The police are arresting Evan. They say he raped somebody.”

      She didn’t have to say it twice. Ken bolted out of bed with a curse and ran for the stairs, Marcie right on his heels. She heard Caitlyn’s door open and knew that her daughter had been wakened by the commotion as well.

      “Mom, what’s going on? Why is there a police car outside?”

      Marcie couldn’t bring herself to explain. “It’s all a terrible misunderstanding,” she said. “I’m sure that’s all it is. Your father will straighten everything out, but I need to go with him.”

      “Go with him where?” Caitlyn asked, her eyes wide. “It’s the middle of the night.”

      “To the police station. I’m going to call Emily and see if you can go over and spend the night at their house, okay? I don’t want you here alone.”

      “Who’s been arrested? Is it Dad?”

      “No, sweetie, it’s your brother, but like I said, it has to be a mistake.” Her hand shook as she picked up the phone and hit the number on the speed dial for Emily.

      Her friend and neighbor answered on the first ring, instantly wide awake. “Marcie, is everything okay? I saw the flashing lights on a police car turning onto your street, but I never heard a siren. What’s going on?”

      “I can’t explain now. Can Caitlyn stay with you?”

      “Of course,” she said at once. “Send her over. Is there anything else I can do?”

      “Pray,” Marcie said, her voice catching on a sob. “Pray that the police have made some horrible mistake. My boy…” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

      “They came for Evan?” Emily said, sounding as shocked as Marcie felt.

      “Yes. Please, just watch out for Caitlyn. She’s on her way. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”

      “Go. Don’t worry about anything here. Just promise that you’ll call me if there’s anything else I can do.”

      Marcie sighed as she hung up. She wondered if Emily would sound half as supportive once she found out what Evan had been accused of doing. There were some things even a best friend could never understand or forgive.

      And if there was any truth, any truth at all to the charges, Marcie wasn’t entirely certain she’d ever understand it, either.

       Chapter 2

       Ten years earlier

      Dinner was going to be another rushed affair. Emily Dobbs had spent two hours in a tedious, unproductive teachers’ meeting after school, then picked up her husband’s dry cleaning, run by the post office for stamps, stopped by the drugstore for her prescription for birth control pills—not that she’d needed them lately—and spent fifteen minutes at the market trying to figure out what she could fix for dinner in the twenty minutes she had left after she’d picked the kids up from the sitter’s. Spaghetti with salad and garlic bread had been the quick and easy answer. She supposed that was a step up from stopping for fast-food burgers or ordering pizza, something she’d resorted to way too many times recently.

      Every week she vowed to come up with nightly menus and a shopping list, rather than improvising every meal at the last possible moment. So far, she’d failed to follow through, despite her good intentions.

      Lately everything in her life felt as if she were doing it on the run. Maybe she should have waited to go back into teaching, but she’d missed being in the classroom after Josh and Dani were born. As soon as Dani had started in preschool, Emily had sought out and gotten a position teaching high school English just a few miles from home. Derek hadn’t been overjoyed when she’d told him, but he was traveling so much for business, he’d hardly been able to complain that she would be neglecting him or their marriage.

      The kids, however, were another story. When it came to her son and daughter, she was assailed by guilt on a daily basis. They were growing so fast and she was missing some of it. Josh was a strong, athletic nine-year-old now with a well-developed mind of his own. Dani, with her long dark curls and her preference for dresses and tea parties, was a seven-year-old princess, ruler of the second grade.

      As Emily stopped in front of Linda Wilson’s house, she watched her two precious children race outside and across the lawn. Well, Josh raced. Dani walked as sedately as if she were on a fashion runway, at least until her brother called back some taunting remark that had her sprinting the rest of the way.

      “Hi, Mom,” Josh said, jumping into the front seat as Dani climbed more demurely into the back, then stuck out her tongue at her brother. Josh rolled his eyes, then directed his attention toward Emily. “Guess what?”

      “What?”

      “We’ve got new neighbors in back, and they’ve got kids. Mrs. Wilson told me that Evan’s the same age as me and he plays football and soccer and baseball. There’s a girl, too,” he added, as if that were of far less consequence.

      “Her name’s Caitlyn,” Dani said, “but she’s just a baby.”

      Josh rolled his eyes. “She’s five.”

      “That’s too little to be my friend,” Dani said with a dramatic sigh of disappointment.

      Emily bit back a smile. “Are you sure about that, sweetie? I bet she’d love to come to one of your tea parties,” she suggested. “You were five when we started having them, remember? Maybe she’s never even been to one and you could show her how much fun they are. In fact, since she’s just in kindergarten, there are probably lots of things you could teach her.”

      Dani regarded her solemnly. “You think so?”

      “You could ask,” Emily said.

      Dani was silent for a long, considering moment, then nodded. “Maybe I will.”

      And so it began…

      

      The kids pestered Emily all day Saturday to let them go play with Evan and Caitlyn Carter. They both knew that there was one rigid rule in their house, that they were never to go to another child’s home unless she knew the parents, and she had yet to meet their new backdoor neighbors.

      Exhausted from cleaning and grocery shopping and with a stack of English papers still to grade, she knew there would be no peace until she gave in.

      “Okay, fine. Let’s take a walk and see if they’re home,” she agreed eventually.

      The neighborhood in southeast Miami was shaded by pin oaks and giant banyan trees with their gnarled, twisted trunks that looked as if they belonged in a horror movie rather than in some pleasant, suburban neighborhood. Most of the well-landscaped yards were surrounded by hedges of bougainvillea in colors ranging from purple and fuchsia to red or white. The prickly