The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,129
And then, because it was a bruise he couldn’t stop touching, he thought about his mom, the question that he pummeled back under the surface of consciousness as soon as it broached: did she think she was keeping me safe?
“But why was Joy going to see her father?” Jem asked. “Why leave her car in Heber?”
“I think she left the car because she didn’t want to be in a vehicle that she owned. Plus, we already know that she loved the drama of imagining herself in an action movie, dodging corporate and government hit men, that kind of thing.”
“Ok, fine, I’ll buy that up to a point. But you didn’t answer me about her dad.”
“I don’t know. Hannah didn’t know either, or she would have told me.”
“But you have an idea.”
“It’s not even really an idea.”
“Let’s hear it anyway.”
“I just keep thinking that the last place anyone knows that Joy went was her father’s. And he lied to us about the last time he saw her—he told us he hadn’t seen her in a long time.”
“You think he killed her.”
“I don’t know why he would have lied.”
Jem considered this for a minute. The valley spread out in front of them; the scrub brush of the desert had been transformed into glass and steel, low and sprawling in every direction, bristling with the same persistence that kept sage and bitterbrush and ephedra growing in alkali soil.
“I don’t disagree with you,” Jem said, “but we saw him at the funeral. He was acting like a horny old goat, but I just can’t imagine him doing that to his daughter.”
“Really?” Tean said, head cocked as he turned to examine Jem.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I just—I just think you’re kind of wonderful.”
“Of course.”
“Right now.”
“And in general.”
“No, I’m pretty sure just right now. And I don’t disagree with you about how he was acting at the funeral, celebration of life, whatever you want to call it.”
“Ok, you softened me up. Now go for the kill.”
“Jem, family violence is tremendously common. Horrifyingly common. Approximately a third of all men and women will experience violence from an intimate partner. At least one in seven children has experienced abuse in the last year, and in those cases, the perpetrator is a parent over three-quarters of the time. Family violence accounts for eleven percent of all total violence. And that number doubles, twenty-two percent, for murders. More than one in five murders is in a family.” Tean blew out a breath. “Sometimes, parents kill their children out of twisted motives. They think they’re doing it for a good reason. A mother in Missouri recently killed her children because she planned on committing suicide. She knew that they’d have difficult lives growing up without a mother, and she wanted to spare them that. Animals do it too. Cats will eat their kittens if they’re under a great deal of stress, but it’s also been observed in lots and lots of species of mammals, insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Frick, human parents eat their children alive in a figurative sense all the time, in a million different ways.”
They drove almost a mile, the tires humming, the vents blowing the scent of pineapple air freshener. Jem thought about the sound of the bathroom door jiggling as a foster dad tried to force his way inside. He put his hand on Tean’s nape, rubbing his thumb in a small circle.
“I don’t want you to have to carry that stuff around inside your head anymore,” Jem said.
“I’m not the one who grew up—I just mean, I grew up fine. It doesn’t change the facts.”
“Tean, I don’t want you carrying it around. I met your family. I understand, a little. But you’re going to make yourself sick with stuff like that.”
A Mack truck whipped past them, the Ford rocking slightly in the air from its passage.
“I already am sick,” Tean said. “I think I’m already way too sick.” Then he shook his head. “Look, all I’m saying is that it’s not outside the bounds of possibility that Leroy killed Joy. I actually don’t even think it’s impossible that he killed her and genuinely felt remorse later. At some level, unless he’s a total psychopath, he must have felt some connection to her. She’s his daughter.”
“What’s his motive?”
Tean ran his hands around the wheel.
Tapping on the doc’s nape with his thumb, Jem said, “Why’d he kill her?”