Two-Against-Nature [Suncoast Society](Siren Publishing Sensations) Read online

  And this was one of the reasons Holly considered Joyce a friend. The woman had a good heart even if her brain frequently disconnected from her common sense. “I’m okay, thanks. I’m going to go home and soak for a while and then head to bed.”

  “Okay.” Joyce offered her up a gentle fist bump, Holly’s preferred method of physical interaction. Far less painful than a handshake or a hug.

  Some days, Holly could barely stand wearing clothes, much less being hugged.

  By the time she pulled into her driveway, Holly was thankful for the fact that she’d restocked her freezer with frozen pot pies the week before. They weren’t the most nutritious dinner choice, but they only took a couple of minutes to nuke, and practically zero brain power or strength to do it.

  Once she finished eating, she filled her bathtub with hot water and Epsom salts, sank into it up to her neck, and let her mind wander. She occupied what had been the master bedroom, her former bedroom now her home office.

  Her brother’s bedroom lay almost exactly the way he’d left it. She went in once a month to dust, but that was it. At first, after her discharge from the hospital, she spent nearly every night in his bed, hugging his pillow and crying herself to sleep.

  Her little brother had a gentle soul, a sweet way.

  That he was in jail for something he did not do was the ultimate “fuck you” from life itself.

  When she’d been brought out of her medically induced coma, her mother and step-father had been dead for almost two weeks, but it’d been another week before she’d finally been awake and aware enough to realize that police were accusing Louis of everything.

  There was a gaping black hole in her memories, though. She remembered leaving work that Wednesday, the day of the attack, but that was it.

  Nothing else.

  Her step-father had been fired earlier that day for threatening some of his coworkers. He’d always had a temper when he was drinking, which had likely been more often than Holly had realized.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d been fired, got drunk on his way home, and then she and her mom had been attacked.

  Holly had sat in the courtroom and glared at the jury as the verdict was read against Louis. None of them would look at her.

  The smug grin on the prosecutor’s face as he and his assistants congratulated themselves made Holly want to vomit.

  How the man had then turned and glared at her, as if she were to blame in her own attack, an attack she’d told the guy that her brother could not have committed.

  Even testifying on the stand in her brother’s defense—what little she could testify about—regarding her step-father’s temper, the prosecutor had ripped her apart and made her look like she’d hated the man.

  No, she’d loved her step-father. When Jason Davids was sober and in a good mood, he’d been a great step-dad to them both. It was the other times he was a shit, and those had usually been few and far between until the later years, nothing this vicious, until before the attack.

  Holly had still been living there, at her mother’s insistence. She’d wanted Holly to be able to save up for a place of her own while she worked. In retrospect, Holly realized maybe it was more so her mom and Louis wouldn’t have to be alone with the guy.

  The bedroom she occupied was formerly her parents’ bedroom. The house had belonged to her mom when she married Jason three years after their father’s death when Holly was eight and Louis was three. Both Holly and Louis had liked the man. He was the only father Louis could remember.

  One of the things Holly had done with a little of the insurance money had been to remove the carpet in the living room, hallway, and master bedroom, and put down laminate flooring that looked like wood.

  It was that or recarpet them, because of the bloodstains.

  She’d painted the master bedroom and living room a bright, cheery yellow that Jason never would have approved of, and she paid a couple of Louis’ friends to help her move the furniture around.

  How was she to know Louis’ attorney was an idiot? She’d had no experience in that before. When she’d started to call around for a criminal defense attorney, Louis had told her not to worry about it because he had a public defender. Then the medical bills started hitting, hard and heavy, and she realized that her health insurance would only cover so much of it.

  She’d had her mom and step-father cremated. Her mom’s urn sat on a shelf next to their father’s urn, flanked by their wedding picture and a picture of the four of them together the day Louis’ adoption was finalized.

  Her step-father’s ashes she’d unceremoniously dumped into Sarasota Bay one night. As far as she was concerned, it was better than he deserved. She’d given serious thought to maybe collect dog shit from a neighbor’s backyard and mix that in with his ashes, or to simply flush him down the toilet, but realized that would be stooping to his level.

  Had he only left a damn suicide note or something, then killed himself before Louis got home…

  On the other hand, she might have been dead by then.

  Had Louis worked as late as he’d been supposed to and not gotten off early because he was nearly at overtime for the week…

  Had her step-father not blown his top at coworkers and gotten fired…

  Had she gone out to dinner with friends immediately after work like she’d originally told her mom she was going to, instead of going home first to change clothes…

  Holly wondered if Jason had even planned to attack her, or if she and Louis were supposed to come home to find them dead. Maybe she’d walked in and interrupted him attacking her mom, tried to help, and was also attacked.

  But the black hole in her memory revealed nothing.

  Closing her eyes, she tipped her head back into the water for a moment. Part of her was glad she couldn’t remember the attack.

  Part of her wished she’d been in a better frame of mind so she could have lied and said yes, she absolutely remembered the attack, and that it was Jason who did it, not Louis.

  Water under the bridge now. Louis was paying for simply trying to defend himself and her and their mom.

  If it was the last thing she ever did, she would keep fighting, somehow, to get him out of jail and clear his name.

  Chapter Two

  “Raise your hand on the side you hear a tone, okay?”

  The young girl, who’d just recovered from a severe bout of spinal meningitis, nervously nodded. It was suspected the high fever she’d suffered might have impacted her hearing. Her even more nervous-looking mother watched from where she sat in a chair in the far corner of the soundproofed booth.

  Walter Wells, who was seated on the other side of the glass, started the test. She was his last patient of the day on this Friday, and he was desperately looking forward to his weekend. The head audiologist at Proctor-Collins’ satellite pediatric center in Sarasota, Walt had worked for them for the better part of twenty years.

  As he ran through all the tonal ranges on both sides, he noted the results. It was hard to determine from the basic tests the girl had every year in school as part of their routine screenings if she’d sustained additional losses, but it did appear she had minor issues at the far upper ranges in her right ear. Fortunately nothing drastic enough to require intervention at that time, but enough that he recommended regular follow-ups over the next several months, and he recommended the mom stay in close communication with her daughter’s teachers.

  “And no loud music, especially in headphones or earbuds. I also recommend keeping disposable ear plugs on hand at all times for loud events like concerts or sporting events. They’re cheap, and you can buy a big box of them.”

  The relieved mom thanked him as she took the paperwork. He’d write up a detailed report for her pediatrician and forward that, too.

  As he finished the last of his reports for the day, he struggled to keep his mind focused. It was too tempting to want to think about meeting up with Tory tomorrow night at Venture.

  They weren’t dat
ing, just play partners. Tory was a very heavy masochist who needed the crap beaten out of her.

  Fortunately for him, he was just the sadist to give it to her without qualms. He’d had a crazy week at work and would be more than happy to dish out a beating to a willing victim.

  He jumped as a woman spoke from behind him, in his office doorway.

  “Walt, can I borrow you for a moment?”

  He turned in his chair. Cindy Saltzer was a recent college graduate and had interned under him for over a year before the hospital hired her on full-time. She was sweet, great with the kids and the parents, and had that fresh, eager, youthful vibe going on.

  He felt like an old dog in comparison, but welcomed her presence on their staff.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I need your hands. Non-verbal mom. I’m only getting about every third word she’s saying, and vice-versa. I don’t know which of us is more frustrated, but her baby’s coming in a close third.”

  “Gotcha.” He stood and followed her down the hall to one of their three audiology labs. The woman wore a frazzled expression and held a squirming, even less happy baby boy who was maybe a year old.

  He sat and offered her a smile, then introduced himself using American Sign Language.

  Almost immediately, after a couple of questions, he discovered the source of Cindy’s issue. The mom had been born and raised in Quebec, and only recently moved to Sarasota with her husband. Her husband wasn’t deaf, but he’d had to work today and couldn’t attend to interpret for her.

  While the mom’s primary language was French, she understood English just fine, but her ASL dialect wasn’t a common variant they usually saw in Florida in clinic. Yes, Cindy could have continued with the mom, using writing or text messages, but that would be slow and take much longer than him taking over for Cindy.

  He turned to Cindy. “I’ll explain later. Transfer her to me in the system, please. Where’s her paperwork, and fill me in quickly.”

  Cindy did that while Walt translated the appointment’s goals for the mom, only fumbling a little and having to go back and fingerspell in English a few things the mom didn’t understand. By the time the appointment ended, both Cindy and the mom were relieved he’d stepped in, making the appointment short and easy for everyone. The baby—who was the patient—tested fine.

  Once they were alone, Cindy asked. “Why am I an idiot?”

  He laughed. “You aren’t.” Once he explained and she understood, she shook her head. “Thank goodness. I was beginning to think I’d just had a nightmare from college come to life.”

  “What nightmare?”

  “I used to dream I was giving a talk in front of class in ASL, and even though I’d practiced and knew it forward and back, no matter what I did, nobody could understand me.”

  She made an I in the middle of her forehead. Idiot. “I had that damn dream for months after graduation. Finally propped my diploma up on my dresser where I’d see it first thing every morning so I’d stop panicking.”

  * * * *

  It wasn’t as crazy a day as it could have been, even with the last-minute add-on patient Walt hadn’t been expecting. When he finally climbed into his truck a little after six that evening, he closed his eyes and breathed a deep sigh of relief as he sat there and waited for the AC to kick in and cool the cab’s interior.

  Home.

  All weekend, no stress, just what he wanted to do, on his terms, and his time.

  He loved his job, even though he frequently didn’t have any control over what happened. He could help his patients learn to adapt if they had hearing loss, help their families understand. He did a lot of helping. He enjoyed that part of his job.

  He didn’t like not being able to erase frustration, or tears of sorrow at “bad” news, or taking away his patients’ issues.

  There were, however, more wins than losses, overall. He’d seen families go from initial shock to everyone learning ASL. He’d seen parents traverse the chasms from grief to amazement once they realized that hearing loss didn’t mean a loss of quality of life.

  Sometimes, families became stronger as a result.

  He’d seen amazing changes in technology over recent years that leveled the playing field even more. From text messaging to video chats that now allowed the deaf and hard of hearing to converse fluently, real-time, in sign language. Vibrant deaf and HOH communities springing up due to the Internet and social media finally allowing people to easily connect with each other.

  A far cry from when his uncle was a kid. Back then, outside of immediate family, and fellow students he went to school with at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine, hardly anyone knew ASL, restricting him to writing things down or missing a lot. At that time, being deaf was frequently equated by uninformed people with being stupid or mentally disabled.

  His uncle had gone on to earn a law degree, and up until his retirement a few years back had a flourishing real estate law practice.

  Walt grew up fluent in ASL because of his mom, who’d learned it as a child to converse with her older brother. Which had led to Walt frequently being called into the office in school, even as young as in middle school, to help staff translate when a teacher or translator hadn’t been available.

  His parents had forced him to take Spanish as his required foreign language elective during his junior and senior years in high school. As they’d noted, ASL would have been a no-brainer class for him, and they’d wanted him challenged.

  In retrospect he thanked them for that, even though as a stubborn teenager he’d sullenly sat there conjugating Spanish verbs and wishing he’d been able to coast through two years of at least one class.

  Finally, the truck’s cab cooled off enough he could close his door and buckle up. He stopped by Publix on the way home for groceries, and once inside his front door he could relax, unwind.

  He’d thought about going to Venture tonight just to hang out, but while trudging up and down the aisles in the grocery store fatigue had taken over.

  He was done peopling for the day.

  After putting everything away, he settled in front of the TV with take-out sushi.

  Ahh.

  He’d just finished eating when his cell phone rang. When he picked it up and looked at the screen, he saw it was Kimbra, his ex-wife.

  He hit end and laid it back down on the table.

  She texted him seconds later, the phone buzzing.

  Pick up. Work.

  Then it rang again.

  “I’m in a sushi coma. This better be good.”

  She sounded like she was in her car. “I’m on my way over now. I’m driving. ETA ten. Make sure to leave your pocketknife at home this time, Fingers. You forget it in my car again, I’m not making a special trip back to give it to you.”

  She hung up on him.

  He let out a laugh as he stared at his phone. “You’re lucky I love you,” he said to the thing before he started clearing his dinner remains and going to put his shoes back on.

  He was ready when she pulled into his driveway eight minutes later and she didn’t even have to tap the horn to let him know she was there.

  Sliding into the passenger seat, he was buckling up as she pecked him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  “You know, there is this word in English, spelled P-L-E-A-S-E.” He fingerspelled it as he talked. Then, he signed it in ASL, his right hand flat over his heart and moving in a clockwise circular motion.

  She was already backing out of the driveway. Taking her right hand off the steering wheel, she touched her fingers to her chin and tipped her hand forward.

  Thank you.

  “Smart ass,” he said, flipping her a bird.

  “You should know.” She flashed him a grin. Her dark golden brown skin set off her blue eyes. Tonight, her long, naturally curly dark brown hair flew loose and free, a playful explosion of ringlets she made no attempt to tame. Her Cuban father and black mother had playfully referred to Walt as the “fam
ily vampire” during the six years he’d been married to Kimbra, because he pretty much stuck out like one at family gatherings.

  Still did, since he and Kimbra had parted ways amicably and Walt was still considered one of the family, even by Kimbra.

  She also wasn’t wearing make-up, something highly unusual for her.

  “So what’s going on?” he asked.

  “I had taken a day off today, of course. Someone’s getting their ass chewed Monday for not calling me sooner.”

  “Ooh. Can I watch?”

  She flashed him another grin. “Sadist.”

  “You should know.”

  She snorted. “Fifteen-year-old kid. Mom’s deaf, and so is he. I’m still not exactly sure what the charges are, but the PD’s office requested me specifically, and the juvie detention center’s waiting on us.”

  “When did they pick him up?”

  “Three hours ago.”

  Most of the time when Walt accompanied Kimbra, it was for adult clients in the middle of the night, or on weekends or holidays, when the jail had trouble contacting an interpreter. Her office always kicked him a consultant’s fee for his work, so he didn’t mind it when she called him.

  As long as it didn’t interrupt a play date.

  In less than an hour, they were seated in a conference room with two detectives from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, the boy, Charlie Hensley, and the boy’s mother, Louise.

  The boy looked terrified and the mother looked enraged.

  Walt had a feeling they weren’t dealing with a hardened criminal.

  While Kimbra was going over the arrest jacket and talking to the detectives, Walt introduced himself to the mother and boy and told them to hold on while he tried to figure out what was going on.

  Finally, Kimbra turned to Walt. “He’s being held as a material witness and they want to question him. Since he’s a minor, they couldn’t question him until his mom or attorney was present because he asked for them. And they didn’t have an interpreter available. He’s not actually under arrest, but they couldn’t release him because he’s a minor.”