Just Try to Stop Me. Gregg Olsen

I want. I want your Joe, and if you judge me, push me, tell me anything I don’t want to hear, I’ll make sure you never see him again.”

      Brad could feel his face warm, but he didn’t want to make a scene.

      “Where is this coming from? What happened to you to make you such a paranoid mess?”

      Brenda’s eyes sparkled. She loved the confrontation. It was like having sex in a public place. She had to be quiet. She didn’t want anyone but Brad to hear.

      “I saw the way you looked at me,” she said one more time.

      “I didn’t look,” he said.

      “Right now you’re thinking about my pussy,” she said.

      She’s nuts.

      “I’m not.”

      Joe appeared in the kitchen.

      “What are you two talking about? Looks intense.” He smiled, his disarming Joe-smile.

      Brenda wrapped her arms around her boyfriend. “Your dad was just telling me that he hopes we have fun at the concert.”

      “It’ll be awesome,” Joe said, smiling happily.

      “Thanks, Dad. Thanks, Mom. I’m going to take Bren home now.”

      “So nice to finally meet you, Brenda,” Elise said.

      “Yeah, real nice,” Brad said.

      * * *

      For the next hour Brad Nevins seethed. He drank a couple of beers and let the TV flicker some sports coverage in his face, though he really didn’t—couldn’t—pay attention and would have been at a loss to tell anyone the sport he was watching, let alone the score.

      “Joey,” he said, when his son returned, “I need to talk to you about Brenda.”

      “Dad,” Joe said, “let’s not.”

      “We need to.”

      Joe pushed back. “No, we don’t.”

      “You’re getting into something here that’s not quite right. I’m not sure how to say it.”

      “Look, Dad, I know what you did. She told me. It’s OK. I understand. I’m not mad at you.”

      “At me? What for?”

      “You know. For taking a look. She’s beautiful. It happens all the time. Whenever we go out, some guy comes up to her, comes on to her. Tries to get a peek. She’s hot. But I don’t care. She’s mine.”

      Brad was dumbfounded. His son was mesmerized by the girl. To fight him would only push him closer to her. Even so, he just couldn’t let it go.

      “I never took a look,” he said. “She practically did the splits in front of me with no panties on.”

      Joe gave his dad a look.

      “Don’t go there. She’s not like that. She’s classy.”

      * * *

      “Detective,” Brad Nevins said to Kendall Stark, “there was nothing classy about Brenda. She took an incident and twisted it around to serve whatever it was she was after. The concert tickets, I guess. I think that’s why she did that. She knew I didn’t want to pay for those tickets. I wanted something more practical for his birthday. College money. Elise, on the other hand, just wanted to make our boy happy.”

      “Moms do that,” Kendall said.

      Brad looked over at a family portrait on a side table. “Of course they do,” he said. “But I’ll tell you one thing, and I want you to make a note of this in your notebook. Dads don’t hit on their son’s girlfriends. They don’t. I don’t.”

      Kendall fished for a notebook, though she didn’t really need one.

      “She did it to you, is that what you’re saying?” she asked.

      He took off his glasses and looked at Kendall. “Yeah,” he said. “And I know what you’re thinking. You don’t think a girl that young could be that manipulative and, honestly, that scary kind of devious? Well I know of one who can. And she’s the reason you’re sitting right here, right now.”

      They talked some more about those early days with Brenda hanging around, trying to keep her extra-sharp claws embedded deeply in Joe’s back. It was a rocky relationship. By the time Joe had graduated from high school and was college bound, he’d sworn off Brenda for the last time.

      “Elise coached me on this. Told me not to drag the girl through the mud because by then I hated the sight of her. Told me that ‘love is strange’ and we’d best be careful in case she came back into his life.”

      “Right,” Kendall said, “which she did.”

      “Yeah. Boy, did she ever. Joey was finishing up his degree at the University of Washington when he came home and said not only had they gotten back together, they were going to get married.”

      “That was a shock, wasn’t it?” Kendall asked.

      “Damn straight. Completely. We didn’t even know they were seeing each other. I guess it’s because he knew that I couldn’t stand her. From the very beginning, from that very first day, I understood she was going to be a major problem. I just didn’t know how big.”

      “He was in love with her,” Kendall said.

      He exhaled. “Even better. She said she was pregnant.”

      “But she wasn’t,” Kendall said. “Was she?”

      “No. I don’t think so. After the rush-to-the-church wedding—which we paid for because her family wouldn’t have a thing to do with her—she miscarried the so-called baby. Said it happened at home. Didn’t even see a doctor. Who does that? Elise was crushed by the loss of her grandbaby. It reopened all the old wounds from losing our two before Joe. I think Brenda played on that. Worked my wife real hard.”

      Brad offered to make a sandwich for Kendall. She declined, saying it was too much trouble, but she’d be glad to buy him lunch if there was a place nearby.

      “Hello Deli is pretty good,” he said. “And if we’re lucky, Chelsea will be working.”

      Kendall didn’t need a last name to know who Chelsea was.

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      The hospital had a lovely view of the river. Elise, Brad, and new father Joe whispered among themselves while Brenda slumbered. A nurse came in and told them that the baby was fine. They’d be able to see her in the preemie care room down the hall in a few minutes.

      “Has Mom woken up yet?” the nurse asked.

      “Nope. Out like a light,” Joe said.

      “All right. Let her rest. I’ll be back to check on her in a few. Why don’t you go down and see your precious newborn?”

      Joe and Brad went. Elise stayed behind to keep Brenda company.

      Right after the Nevins men disappeared down the corridor, Brenda’s eyes fluttered. She looked over at Elise, who was sitting next to her in a rocker.

      “Good morning, Momma,” Elise said.

      Brenda wriggled a little and pushed the button to adjust her bed.

      “Childbirth is not,” she said. “Let me repeat, NOT anything that any woman should ever want to do. It’s absolutely horrific. Ugh. So gross. And painful too.”

      “Kara is beautiful,” Elise said. “So tiny, but so beautiful.”

      “I hope so,” Brenda said. “I don’t want an ugly baby. No one does. They say all they want is a healthy baby, but that’s just what people say when they end up with an ugly little creature.” She looked around.