Just Stay Away, page 23
He didn’t want to, but was afraid to say no. He’d talked to Shaw twice, and absolutely nothing had come out of it. If the cop had been willing to actually listen, Craig wouldn’t be here. But it was easier to bend toward the loudest voice in the room than figure out what was actually happening, so here they were. If Craig had to get a court order to make somebody listen to him, then that’s what he would do.
Shaw ushered him toward a side door, back into a large room with two lines of desks. A dozen uniformed police officers milled around, drinking coffee and filling out paperwork. No scruffy-looking perps were handcuffed to chairs, nor did any captain come storming out of his office to yell at a play-by-his-own-rules cop.
It looked more like an office than what Craig had always seen on TV.
Lieutenant Shaw sat at the second desk on the left and motioned for Craig to sit in the chair next to it. The desk was empty aside from a computer monitor and a cup full of pencils. It looked like a shared space for cops to sit and fill out forms as opposed to an assigned work space.
“I want to start by saying you are free to do whatever you want. I’m not telling you what to do or anything like that. Understand?” Shaw looked across the desk, waiting for him to acknowledge his disclaimer, but Craig was through talking. He nodded.
“Good.” Shaw leaned forward and folded his arms on the table. “That said, I would suggest you think long and hard about what you’re trying to accomplish here.”
The cop spoke as if Craig were off on some petty revenge, fucking with someone he didn’t like out of spite just because he was home all day and didn’t have anything better to do.
“Like I’ve told you, I want Levi Ryan out of my life.” Craig looked around the room, uncomfortable talking about this with so many others within earshot, but none of the cops buzzing around seemed to be paying any attention to them. “I’ve told him repeatedly. I’ve told his mother. I’ve told you. But he won’t leave us alone, and at this point I don’t know what else to do.”
“He’s a kid.”
“That kid put my daughter in the emergency room yesterday.”
That got his attention. For a brief second, there was concern on his face, but it was just as quickly washed away by doubt. Almost as if—for a second—he’d forgotten that Craig was supposed to be the bad guy, not to be believed no matter what happened. But then he remembered who he worked for. “What are you talking about?”
“My daughter, Alice, has a fish allergy, just like me. Yesterday morning during breakfast she had a severe reaction. But here’s the thing, I ate that exact same cereal the day before, and nothing happened.”
Lieutenant Shaw looked at him, a little confused. “Okay.”
Craig waited for him to catch up, to figure out what he was saying before he had to say it, but it wasn’t happening.
“I think Levi put something in the cereal.”
The statement slapped down on the desk between them like a dead cat. Even though the room kept bustling around them, to Craig it felt like a record had scratched and every cop had stopped to stare at him, all waiting for Lieutenant Shaw’s reaction before moving on.
For his part, Shaw tried to remain professional. To listen the way a cop is supposed to and take seriously any accusation from a member of the public he was sworn to protect.
But incredulity seeped into his voice no matter how hard he tried.
“You think Levi Ryan snuck into your house and poisoned your daughter?”
Craig answered fast and defensively. “I didn’t say poisoned, but, yes, I think he put something in the cereal that made her react. But I think he was trying for me.”
The cop leaned back in his chair as if whatever crazy he assumed Craig had brought in would jump across to him. “You think he was trying to poison you?”
“Not poison, he . . .” Craig took a deep breath. Shaw probably already thought he was unbalanced, and frustration wasn’t his friend. “The cereal wasn’t sugary kid stuff. It’s oatmeal squares . . . you know, adult stuff, so he probably assumed I would be the one eating it, not her. He knew I had a fish allergy because Alice told him all about it that day we . . .”
The look on Shaw’s face told him bringing up the first time they met probably wasn’t the winning strategy Craig thought it was.
“So your daughter had an allergic reaction. Why is your first assumption that Levi Ryan is responsible? Seems to me you’re looking to blame that kid for everything that happens in your life, when there could be a lot of much more realistic ways that could’ve happened. My nephew is allergic to peanuts, and my sister is always checking labels because sometimes things get in at the factory.”
Shaw spoke as if Craig hadn’t been managing their fish allergy his whole life. As if cross contamination was somehow a new concept and not something he’d dealt with every day.
“I check every single label before I buy it. And like I said, I ate from the exact same box the day before and nothing, so something had to have changed from when I ate it to when Alice did.” A flash came back to Craig. Things had happened so fast that day, forgotten memories would still randomly shake out. “She said it tasted bad, and it did smell weird. There was this pink dust, and my nose was tingling when—” The realization struck hard and stopped him in his tracks. His brain had been so scrambled from the fear, anxiety, and lack of sleep that he hadn’t put it together.
“Those fucking bonito flakes.” Craig kicked himself. He’d seen the bag the day before, but assumed it was what Levi was using to trap those squirrels. While those thoughts bounced around Craig’s head, Shaw stared at him like he was having a stroke.
“Mr. Finnigan?”
Craig looked back at the doubt in the cop’s face. He’d already taken him out to Levi’s fort, and everything was gone. It had done nothing but cement the cop’s perception of him as a whack job.
Kind of like he was doing then.
“It wasn’t just the cereal. The EpiPens were gone. When I realized what was happening, I went to get one, but it wasn’t there.”
At this point, Craig didn’t care if the cop thought he was crazy or not. He plowed forward. “You don’t understand. Those pens have been in the exact same spot since we moved in—one for her, one for me. Everyone in the family knows it, because in an emergency they have to be instantly available. This is something I have dealt with not only Alice’s whole life, but mine. It’s not something I’d mess up. Not that. The only way they’d be gone is if someone took them.”
Shaw couldn’t hide the eye roll. “So you think Levi stole your daughter’s EpiPen?”
“It’s literally the only explanation. Nobody touches them unless they are needed. That’s the rule, so we know exactly where they are at all times. It’s been that way forever. But when I went to get it—the one time they were needed—they weren’t there. You think that’s a coincidence? I had to rush her to the emergency room. She could have died.”
He put all the emotion he could on that last word so Shaw would understand the gravity of the situation. This wasn’t some little mix-up; it was life and death, and not a mistake he was capable of making. Levi taking the pens was literally the only explanation. Craig stopped talking as a pair of cops walked past behind Shaw. They were preoccupied with whatever they were talking about and didn’t seem to be interested in what he was saying. A guy pleading his case to a cop probably wasn’t a rare sight back here. Lieutenant Shaw’s voice brought him back to the conversation.
“I believe you couldn’t find them, but couldn’t you have moved them and forgotten to put them back? Maybe your wife was cleaning or something? Or your daughter was messing around and wanted to take them to show-and-tell or something?”
Shaw was either incapable of understanding or willingly choosing not to, and the frustration that caused boiled over.
“No, because when we got home, I went to put a new EpiPen in the drawer, and they were back.”
“Wait . . . what?” His professional patience was gone, and Craig saw the cop shut down. He was no longer listening; he was placating. “You’re telling me you found them in the drawer where they belong when you got home?”
“Yes, I mean . . .” Sweat broke out down his back as he fought for a way to make Shaw understand. His thoughts were a jumbled mess of bees, buzzing all over each other in a swirling ball. “I tore that drawer apart. It’s not like you can miss them. They’re big and have these bright-orange caps on the end. There’s literally no way they were there before, but when I got home, they were back. Somebody had to have taken them, then replaced them while we were at the hospital.”
He was flailing and knew it.
“The house was wide open while we were gone. Like I said, she was dying, so there was no time to lock the back door and . . . the garage door was open. He could have easily gone in and put them back.”
Lieutenant Shaw stared across the desk. If the look on his face weren’t enough, his arms were folded across his broad chest and he’d leaned back in his chair. Another cop came up and asked if he had a second to talk.
“Yeah, we’re done here.” Shaw never took his doubting eyes off Craig. “Just let me walk Mr. Finnigan out, and I’ll come find you.”
He pushed himself up from behind the desk and looked down at Craig. “Let’s go.”
“But . . .” Craig stared up at him, desperation swirling around inside him. He’d managed to take a bad situation and make it worse, as was his custom. Like he’d been walking through a field of rakes since they’d moved up here.
“Come on.” Shaw jerked his head toward the door but waited for Craig to stand.
His legs felt weak, the pit in his gut draining the strength from him. He looked at Shaw and imagined him calling Stephen Ryan, warning him of what Craig was saying about his family.
Patience gone, Lieutenant Shaw reached out toward him, but Craig pulled his arm away and started toward the door. He wasn’t going to let Shaw force him into a scene at the police station. Craig imagined Shaw twisting his arm behind his back and shoving him to the floor, the other cops piling on top of him like an elementary dogpile.
He kept walking, the cop a step behind. The door to the lobby was closed, and Craig had to wait for Shaw to buzz him out.
“I know how it sounds, but you’ve got to believe me.” Craig tried to collect himself. Swallow his desperation. To make himself believable any way he could. “I wouldn’t be here unless I was sure. There’s literally no other explanation.”
“I don’t know what happened, Mr. Finnigan, but honestly it seems to me that there are a lot of possible explanations.” They stood by the door, away from the bustle of the police workroom they’d just left. Shaw’s voice was firm, but with a bit of concern. He sounded like a teacher giving one last piece of life advice. “As I told you before, I can’t tell you what to do in regards to this restraining order you want. If you want to file paperwork, that’s your choice, but understand that you have to stand in front of a judge and provide evidence as to why it’s necessary. Do you have that? Because I can tell you whatever you just told me . . . that ain’t it. So unless you have some real proof you’re sitting on, I would think long and hard about putting the Ryan family, and your own, on the public record.”
Craig glanced back and realized he’d left the forms back on the desk, but made no move to go get them.
“You don’t need a court order to stay away from a kid, and that’s what I would recommend. Just stay away.” Shaw buzzed the door open and held it for Craig. “Don’t forget what the appropriate boundaries are with someone else’s kid. Just stay away.”
That warning rattled around in Craig’s head as he walked out.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Courtney’s coffee steeped in the French press, but the warm, roasty aroma of fresh ground beans that usually filled the kitchen wasn’t there. All Craig’s nose could find were the bitter, acrid notes as he sat at the kitchen table looking at his phone, ostensibly reading the news but mostly spacing out while thoughts pinballed around his head. The screen blurred into pixels, floating apart, then reforming into words he couldn’t understand. He might have slept that night, but he couldn’t tell because exhaustion was the only thing he knew anymore. It was a weighted blanket smothering his mind, his body, his entire world, and a couple of hours of sleep wouldn’t get him out from under it.
Courtney plunged her coffee and carried it over to the table with a bowl of Greek yogurt and granola. She sat at the other end without a word and pulled out her own phone. They still hadn’t spoken. Or they had, but it was just utilitarian banter like excuse me—ingrained politeness that didn’t count as actual conversation. She wasn’t not speaking to him, but she wasn’t going out of her way to talk either.
She didn’t know he’d gone to the police station.
They hadn’t had many rocky patches in their fifteen years together, so he didn’t have much of a map for navigating choppy waters.
After a minute he realized he was staring at her, yet she hadn’t even noticed.
“I’m going to call and get the security system set up.”
Courtney gave a slight nod without looking up from what she was reading. She’d asked about setting it up back when they’d moved in—the system was already installed but inactive after the previous owners moved out—but Craig had figured they didn’t need it. Their Realtor had said if they ever changed their minds, call HomeTech Alarm, and they’d flip a switch to activate it, easy peasy.
“What do you think?”
She still didn’t look up from her phone. “That’s fine.”
“I’ll call today.”
Courtney continued to eat her breakfast in silence. The minutes stretched on, and the sense of awkwardness that settled over the table refused to burn away. Craig tried to think of something to say—something funny or useful or banal or anything—but the file was empty. His thoughts had simmered down to one thing, and he knew it wasn’t something that would help to talk about.
She finally glanced up from her phone and noticed Craig was still staring across the table. “Are you going to be okay this weekend?”
He blinked against his dry eyes and the fog behind them. Anxiety and sleep deprivation mixed a potent cocktail, and the hangover was tough to push through.
“Did you even remember?” Her lips tightened as her eyes begged him for an answer. “I’m leaving for San Francisco this afternoon? To give the presentation I’ve been working on pretty much every night for the past I don’t know how long? Jesus, it’s been on the calendar for over a month.”
Craig glanced over at the calendar that hung in the corner and saw AACR—SF written in his wife’s hand with black Sharpie, then a line stretching from Friday to Sunday. He looked back in time to see Courtney close her eyes.
“No . . . I mean, yeah . . .”
Courtney stabbed the bowl of yogurt in front of her, and the spoon clanked against the edge. “Craig, I’m going to be honest here. I’m really fucking nervous leaving you home alone right now.”
“I’m—” He couldn’t even get the denial out before she was on him.
“You are not fine. I don’t know if you’re depressed or if it’s something else, but you are absolutely not fine. I know you aren’t sleeping, and it’s absolutely affecting your behavior and judgment. And if you can’t see that, well . . . I’m scared something could happen to you. To Alice.”
The room blurred into an odd sort of tunnel vision as Craig hit rock bottom with the force of a pilot looking at a faulty altimeter. He wanted to peel himself off the concrete, but his own wife didn’t trust him with their daughter, and he didn’t know how to come back from that. But could he blame her? When they’d uprooted their lives to move to Minnesota, Craig had taken on a whole new array of responsibilities, and it was finally clear that he had unquestionably failed at every one. His book was gone. His daughter had been to the hospital twice. Now his wife had finally run out of patience with him.
“You have to talk to someone. If you won’t do it, I’ll find somebody for you, because we can’t go on like this.” They had never even approached a problem that was unsolvable, and the realization that they were close to that cliff’s edge was a shock to the system. What Craig had thought of as another conversation had become an intervention. He turned on whatever charm he had left inside. Assured her he was fine, softened his voice, and agreed with what she’d said. He’d been struggling. The pressure from his book and staying at home with their daughter while trying to integrate into a new town had been too much to handle on his own, but he realized that now.
He was convincing, but Courtney wasn’t buying it anymore.
“I’m serious. I want you to have made an appointment with someone by the time I get back. You have to do it not only for yourself, but for us. If you won’t do that . . . I don’t know. You have to.”
A series of thumps from the front stairs cut off any response he had, but Courtney held his eyes as Alice bounded into the room. “Good morning, Allie cat.”
Craig watched the gravity on Courtney’s face fade away into a morning greeting for her daughter. A little girl she was afraid to leave alone with her father.
Alice trotted over and gave her mom a big hug. She untangled from Courtney’s arms and beamed a smile across the table.
“Morning, Daddy.”
Craig stared through them, eyes blank and focused back inside himself.
“Daddy?”
He shook his head back into the moment. “Yeah, sorry, kiddo. I’m just tired.”
“Dad was up late last night.” Something inside him knew Courtney’s concern came from love, but his addled brain couldn’t hear it. “Maybe you can make sure he takes a nap this afternoon.”
“Can I watch TV?”
Courtney looked back at her with a smile. “As long as you are quiet so Dad can sleep. He really needs some rest, so if he forgets, you need to remind him. That’s your job today, okay, sweetie?”
