Beating the Odds

Chapter 24

Friday night, Finn was alone in his office, working late again. He had the baseball game playing on low volume on the radio in the background. The reception was poor and the Phillies were losing badly. His mood was as dismal as their chances of overcoming a seven-run deficit with only two innings left to play.
Through his office window, he had a view of the parking lot between the police station and the courthouse. Rachel's car wasn't there. He'd seen her drive away about an hour ago, that long-distance glimpse was the closest contact he'd had with her in four days. He hadn't seen or spoken to her since their brief conversation after the preliminary inquiry on Monday.
She'd been reserved but not rude, both her language and her attitude clearly indicating that they were nothing more than colleagues once again. The entire conversation had been polite and professional, and through the exchange of small talk he could think of nothing but the feel of her naked body beneath his. And that was a dangerous preoccupation.
He needed to work with evidence, not emotion. Facts, not feelings. But whenever he was around Rachel, one seemed to get inextricably tangled up with the other. The attraction between them was clouding his judgement. He'd wanted to believe that having sex with Rachel would help cure his preoccupation. He'd convinced himself that this distraction was merely fascination with the unknown.
Then he'd made love with her.
The memory of her kiss haunted his mind. The scent of her skin tormented his body.
Dammit, he was doing it again.
He turned up the volume on the radio, hoping the play-by-play would drown out his errant thoughts.
There was no point in thinking about Rachel when he'd blown any chance of a future with her. But maybe that was for the best. He needed to focus on his job. He couldn't afford any distractions.
Maybe, when the Sebastian Smythe trial was finished, he might reconsider the situation. Maybe, by then, she'd no longer hate him.
The knock on his door was a welcome interruption.
Detective Abram poked his head into the room. "I finished the report on that high-school assault, so I'm going to take off."
"Hot date?"
Abram grinned. "My wife finally sold that house on Oakridge and she's taking me to dinner at DiMarco's to celebrate."
"DiMarco's? She obviously making more money than you these days," Finn joked.
"Real estate is booming."
"Maybe I should reconsider my choice of career. Public service is gratifying but not very lucrative."
"Obviously not all public servants are as poorly paid as we are," Abram told him. "It was the new A.D.A. who bought the house."

                                      ***

"Tell me again about the house, Mom."
Rachel smiled as William snuggled against her side, his question immediately followed by a huge yawn. "It has four bedrooms and three bathrooms and a huge backyard with a fence all around it."
"It really has a yard?" Having lived in apartments his entire life, surrounded by cracked concrete and worn asphalt, he was obviously enthralled by the concept.
"You can see if from your bedroom window," she told him.
"And there's grass and everything?"
"Grass and everything. Even a swing set and a sandbox."
"What color's my room gonna be?"
"What color do you want it to be?"
His response was immediate, as she knew it would be.
"Blue."
"Then it will be blu," she promised him.
"Can I have bunk beds?"
Rachel laughed. In that moment, she would have given him the world - bunk beds didn't seem like too much to ask.
"We'll see," she said. "Speaking of beds, however it's time to get you into yours."
The light in William's eyes dimmed a little. "I don't want to go to sleep."
"Why not?"
"Because when I wake up it will be tomorrow, and you're going away again tomorrow."
She swallowed around the lump in her throat, understanding only too well how her son felt, how precious every minute of the limited time they had together was right now. She tugged him onto her lap, and he didn't resist.
"Only one more week, William." She wrapped her arms around him, held him close. "Less than that - six days now. You'll finish school on Friday and Auntie Tina will bring you to Lima on Saturday."
"And then we'll be together again? For always?"
"For always."
One side of his mouth curved up in reluctant half smile. "Okay."
She hugged him right. "I love you, William."
"I love you, too Mom."
She scooped him off the couch and flew him through the air down the hall to his room. He was giggling when she tucked him into bed; she was smiling when she kissed him good-night.
Her light mood quickly dissipated when she returned to the living room and met her sisters probing state.
Rachel hadn't expected that Tina would share her level of enthusiasm, but she hadn't expected her obvious disapproval. She sighed and braces herself for the lecture.
"Don't you think buying a house is a little premature?" Tina asked.
"No," she denied. "I think it's exactly what we both need."
"You haven't been in Lima that long. How do you know yours going to want to stay?"
"I agonized over this decision, Tina. You know that. Moving out of Chicago is the best thing for me and William."
"What if the job doesn't work out?"
"Then I'll find another one."
"And if you can't?"
"Why do you always have to look at the negative side of things? Why can't you be happy for me?"
"I want to be happy for you," her sister said. "But I can't pretend I don't have reservations about what you're doing."
"I've thought this to death. I know the move to Lima is going to be a big adjustment for William, and I want him to have a home. Somewhere he can feel settled, secure."
"A house is a big commitment, and this just seems like another example of your tendency to act first and think later."
Rachel accepted the rebuke because she knew there was some truth in what her sister was saying. "Maybe buying the house was impulsive," she admitted. "But it's perfect. A two-story cape cod with cheery blue siding and white shutters and a basketball hoop."
"A basketball hoop?" Tina echoed, in a tone that suggested she thought her little sister had lost her mind.
Rachel didn't know how to make her understand, but it had been that hoop, more than anything else, that sold her on the house. It wasn't just a circle of metal with ragged netting, it was evidence of the family that had lived there - a husband and wife and their two sons - proof to Rachel that the house was a home. She desperately wanted a real home for her son.
All she said was, "I hope when you see it, you'll understand."
Tina sighed. "What are you going to do with four bedrooms?"
"I know it's more space than William and I need." More than she'd ever thought she'd be able to afford. "But the neighbourhood is perfect. The houses are well maintained, the streets are clean, and the school William will attend is right at the end of the street."
"It sounds nice," Tina allowed.
She smiled. "It's nothing like that tiny apartment we used to have."
"Are you really going to get him bunk beds?"
"He really wants bunk beds."
"You're going to spoil him," her sister warned.
She didn't care. She'd never before seen in a position to spoil him, and she refused to feel guilty for doing so.
Tina sighed. "I don't object to you wanting something better for William. I just don't understand why you had to do it now."
"I can afford it now. I'd planned to set all the money aside for William's schooling, but I believe giving him a home is as important to his growth as college. And there's still more than enough for his education."
Tina's disapproval was evident in the line between her eyebrows, the thinning of her lips. "You made a deal with the devil."
Rachel tilted her chin defiantly. "I did what I had to do."