The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,22
who didn’t want him to get the vice-presidential nomination.”
Eddie chuckled. “Yeah, sure. They’re all innocent. Like JFK. And Jefferson, sleeping with his slaves.”
“Don’t forget Bill Clinton,” J.T. added.
Eddie laughed out loud. “Oh, yeah. Especially Clinton. He was the most innocent of all. He and Kirk are probably buddies. Probably sit around over stogies and talk about the best blow jobs they ever got.”
Ash stiffened. “It could be true,” she said. “The setup, I mean.”
Eddie turned. “Kirk was busted DUI. Caught with coke and a hooker. How the hell does someone set that up?”
She didn’t know. She’d been asking herself the same question every night since the arrest. But if her father said he was framed, then part of her, the little-girl part that still remembered the way he’d sung her to sleep every night as a child, had to hold out hope.
“Maybe the Republicans held him down and poured whiskey down his throat,” J.T. offered and snorted as he laughed at his own joke.
“Yeah, and maybe they forced him into the car at gunpoint with that hot little piece of tail,” Eddie continued. He tipped his head back and took a long drink.
“Did they ever say whether his zipper was up or down when the cops pulled him over?”
Ash slid off her stool. “You ready to go?”
“Hang on. Let me finish my beer.”
“I’m ready now.”
Eddie’s jaw twitched. “Can’t you give me five minutes? What’s wrong with you?”
She crossed her arms and shifted from foot to foot. “I’m tired, okay? That’s what’s wrong with me. My feet feel like they’re going to fall off, I smell like ketchup, and I’m about sick to death of listening to the two of you rip apart some guy you don’t even know. Half of what the media reports isn’t even true. More than half.”
She stopped to draw a breath, and silence echoed through the bar. J.T. whistled, long and low. Eddie frowned, and something dark slid across his face.
“You know, I think I’ll walk after all,” he said after a long minute of staring at her. “Could use some fresh air.” He shoved some bills across the bar, scraped his stool out of the way, and headed for the door. “Thanks, J.T.,” he said. The door slammed shut behind him.
Ash watched Eddie’s shadow disappear down the block. Well, fine. She hadn’t wanted to drive home with him, anyway. She tried to believe her own lie as she walked to her car in silence a few minutes later. One flickering motion light clicked on as she crossed the back parking lot. Her VW started up with a hesitation, a little cough before catching, and she crossed her fingers that it would turn over.
Probably should get it looked at. She dropped her forehead onto the steering wheel. But where? By who? The only repair shop she knew of in Paradise was the place Eddie worked, and now she couldn’t take it there. Suddenly, she felt lonelier than the day Colin had left her.
Ash sighed. She hadn’t meant to say those things, hadn’t meant to lose her temper. She just couldn’t help it sometimes. Not for the first time, she thought she’d probably make a lousy courtroom lawyer. Holding her tongue wasn’t her strong suit. She bumped her way out of the parking lot and turned onto Spruce Street, taking the long way home.
She was better off anyway, keeping her distance from Eddie. Keeping her distance from all of them. She didn’t need to listen to him or anyone else say things like that about her father. Randolph Kirk had screwed up, but he was still Ash’s blood. Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel as she passed the silent town square and eased through the intersection in the center of town. A lonely yellow eye blinked down at her.
But why did you do it, Dad? Even if someone had set him up, even if someone planted the drugs and spiked his drink, what was he doing in a car with a girl younger than his own daughters? Tears started up, and as Ash made her way back to Lycian Street, she braked hard and edged to the curb. She didn’t know. She couldn’t find the answers. And she didn’t trust herself to ask her father.
She looked up and saw a dark house. If Eddie was home, he’d turned off all the lights, even the porch one they always kept burning. Now it looked like all the other buildings on the block: lifeless and cold. She raised