Falling for the Brother

“Correct.”

“Maybe she did just fall.” The chin bruises, if she’d landed with her chin in something—say, the gold egg carton she was so fond of.

“According to Mason this isn’t the first time.”

Wow. She simply couldn’t grasp the reality. Couldn’t imagine how it must make the brothers feel, knowing someone was hurting their grandmother.

Brianna.

She became aware of the first ramification stirred up by this mess.

“How many times before?” Until a month ago, four-year-old Brianna had spent every other Friday night and half of Saturday with Bruce. And, since Oscar’s death two years before, since Bruce had moved in with his grandmother to help her out, Brianna had been with Miriam, too.

“The doctor suspects, based on previous bone cracks he could see on the X-ray, at least three.”

“To the same arm?”

“Yes.”

It made no sense to her at all.

“And the cracks had time to heal.” Which meant that whatever had been happening had been going on for a while.

“Yes.” Lila didn’t often point out the facts, didn’t explicitly share what she knew. Her way was to give her conversational partners the time and space—usually with a bit of guidance—to find the truth on their own. To figure it out for themselves, rather than be told. She was a huge proponent of helping people think their own thoughts, draw their own conclusions.

Because so many victims of abuse—as everyone now knew Lila had been—were denied that right to the extent of believing themselves incapable of trusting their own thoughts.

“Brianna stayed in that house every other Friday night.”

“I know the two of you used to go to Albina on your weekends off. I suspected she might’ve been visiting her father.”

“And my parents,” Harper said, her screen steady on the picture of an injured Miriam. “They have a small vegetable farm and I’d stay with them. Brianna would spend Friday night at Bruce’s. From Saturday afternoon until we came home on Sunday, we’d be with my folks.”

“What’s happened with her visitation since you accepted the new position?”

As head of security now, she couldn’t be gone every other weekend. She had vacation. And days off, but they rotated.

“Bruce has to make the drive here, to my house, to see her. He can take her to his hotel on Friday night, or I said he could just pick her up and spend time with her, then bring her home…”

“Has he done that?”

Well… “Not yet,” Harper said, closing the screen when she could no longer bear to look at it. “But he’s an undercover cop and he’s been on assignment. We knew going in that there’d be times, when he was on a job, that he’d miss his weekends. It happened up in Albina, too, but Miriam still got to visit with her.”

She could hear her defensive tone. It wasn’t that she wanted to be with her ex-husband anymore. If she did, her marriage might have lasted more than a year. But she couldn’t see a good cop having his life ruined because he couldn’t keep his pants zipped.

None of that mattered at the moment. “You should know, Miriam isn’t fond of me,” she told her boss. “Truth be told, she pretty much hates me.” The rest of the staff had a right to know what they might be facing.

But if Mason and Bruce were working together, presumably they’d chosen the Stand because she was there. Because they trusted her to keep their grandmother safe while they did their bit?

Bruce knew where she worked, if not the actual address, the name of the shelter. And he was a decorated cop with cop friends, she heard Lila’s words again.

“Why does she hate you?”

“I left her grandson.” Miriam hadn’t been subtle in expressing her opinion as to where the blame lay. But she’d reluctantly agreed to keep her opinions about Harper to herself when Brianna was around, as long as Harper never showed up in their home. Unless Miriam was discreet, Harper wasn’t going to let Brianna stay overnight with them. Bruce had given her full custody of their daughter, without state guided visitation rights—probably to stay on Harper’s good side—and that meant she didn’t have to let Brianna stay overnight with him. He’d given her everything she’d asked for in their divorce, requesting only that they remain in touch. That she at least let him be her friend. He hadn’t wanted the divorce and had repeatedly begged her for another chance. He’d said he understood when she’d been unable to do so. Deep down, Bruce was a good man. One who lived a deceitful professional life that sometimes bled into his personal morality.