Long Lost - James Scott Bell Page 0,35

property and as part of the divorce settlement Ashley kept the place. That just about covered the debts Steve had left on the marriage.

Maybe his friends and drug connections wouldn’t have believed it, but Steve really wanted the marriage to work out. Even though he probably married Ashley for the wrong reasons. He wanted an emotional savior, and nobody was up for that job.

They met first year of law school. Steve was still managing to get pretty good grades even while toking and drinking at night. One day Ashley sat next to him in contracts and said, “You’re such a jerk.”

He looked at her through sore eyes. “Good morning to you, too.”

“You’re one of the smartest guys in here,” she said, “and you’re wasted all the time.”

He started to throw some attitude. She batted it back like Mike Piazza. So they compromised and went for coffee, where he found out she was the daughter of a judge, a champion high-school swimmer, and a birdwatcher. When he asked if she’d ever seen a blue-footed booby she laughed. That got him a dinner.

By the end of the term they were in love. To celebrate the end of finals, Steve took Ashley to a carnival near the school. Just for laughs. They’d been studying hard for so long they almost forgot what laughs were like.

But that night the laughs came in buckets, and on the Ferris wheel he asked her to marry him. She answered with an immediate yes and a kiss that jumped to the top of the all-time-best-kiss list.

Her dad was less than thrilled with Steve, who could tell the old man sensed something a little off about him. Ashley protested, chalking up Steve’s lesser qualities to boyish eccentricity. Because of her, Steve stopped with the weed. Built up enough trust that she married him after graduation.

She went to a firm in Beverly Hills, Steve to the DA’s office downtown. For two years it was a pretty good marriage. Everything was cool until Steve defended a drug dealer from the west side, a middle-class kid whose parents got him out on bail.

He’d managed to keep the guilt over Robert hidden from Ashley and his employer, the county of Los Angeles. But the deep things eventually bubble up, like the hot stuff in the La Brea Tar Pits. Instead of admitting it to Ashley and getting help, his young client got him an 8-ball of coke, free of charge. Not the cheap stuff, either.

Which is what started the downfall. Ashley hung in there. Steve knew she lasted longer than most women would have. But damage was done to the foundation, the cornerstones of trust and loyalty. He lied to her and put his habit above everything else.

And so he couldn’t blame her for finally calling it quits. She was better off without him. Most people were, even his clients.

Ashley met him at the front door, looking great. Red hair and emerald eyes. Lean and athletic as always. And she smelled of lavender—the soft, enticing smell of her favorite shampoo. It had always made him feel so . . . safe. It was the fragrance of a love that would last. Until it wasn’t.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Ashley said.

“Me too,” Steve said.

“That’s just amazing news, finding your brother.”

“Yeah. Can I come in?”

“If you wouldn’t mind just going on into the garage, I have some work to do in the study,” she said.

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going to lose it.” The last time he was actually inside this house, he broke some furniture and threw a bookend through a window.

“I think it would just be better,” Ashley said.

Steve went around the side of the house, the once familiar now alien and shadowed, and into the garage. It was obvious where his stuff was. The disordered pile in the back corner. The rest of the place was Ashley all over. Rows of color-coded boxes, perfectly stacked like LEGOs, with her notations on the side in a neat, even hand.

His things, what had remained when he moved out, were in brown boxes, a couple of garbage bags with twist ties, and his mom’s old trunk. It was the one thing his dad made for her, she told Steve once. And it was where she kept the old family photos.

Steve hadn’t looked at those in years. When he’d gone into foster care, the trunk was the one thing he insisted on dragging along with him, as if it were his last link