Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

Instead of having the balls to break through, figure it out, do what had to be done, he’d recruited me. But I wasn’t really angry at him. I was pissed off because I felt as much at a loss as he did.
    Julio stayed at the threshold while I crept in and sat on the bed, not sure whether the closeness would be comforting or threatening. I started winging it, babbling, more or less stream-of-consciousness-style, hoping I’d hit on something that got a response.
    “You know, Libby loved Sadie very much, too. It’s going to be very hard for both of you without her, and I understand how bad you feel. I want you to know that it’s okay to cry and feel as bad as you need to feel and that that feeling will go away, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow—”
    I stopped to get hold of myself, hoping she was too young to have seen
Casablanca
. I got up the nerve to stroke her hair, and to my surprise, she turned on her back and looked at me. Her eyes flicked to Julio, and I thought I saw fear in them—he had said she seemed afraid of him—and instinctively I turned, perhaps to see if I could see what she saw. But Julio smiled a quiet smile and left.
    The coward
, I thought, but my heart wasn’t in it. I knew he had done the right thing, leaving us alone.
    What next? It was anybody’s guess what was troubling her—other than simple grief—but that flicker of fear made me think there
was
something. Why would a child be afraid of her father?
    The first thing that came up made my throat go dry. I smashed it down quickly and tried to think. But my mind wouldn’t leave it. I remembered everything I’d ever heard about molested children—that is, about our reactions to them. We try to pretend it didn’t happen. We don’t want to believe it and we don’t listen. I couldn’t fall into that trap. I had to face it.
    “Sweetheart, is there something you need to talk to me about?”
    Terror. Absolute, unadulterated terror spread like a blush on her small face. She shook her head violently. I pretended not to notice. I smiled, or maybe grimaced; anyway, I went through the motion. “Good. Because if anybody hurt you, I wouldn’t let them get away with it. Adults are supposed to protect kids, and I’d do that. I’d make sure they never hurt you again.”
    I saw the relief even before I started the protection promises. Did she believe me? Was I winning her confidence?
    “Has someone hurt you?”
    She shook her head, eyes bland, telling me I was completely off base.
    “Are things okay between you and your dad?”
    Fear flickered again. Having faced the incest specter (and gotten nowhere), I tried to see beyond it. Why else might a child be afraid of her father?
    Because she had a guilty secret.
Or thought she had
.
    That must be it. Aha, I had it now for sure.
    “You know, Esperanza,” I intoned importantly, “what happened to Sadie was really awful, but you couldn’t stop it from happening. A lot of times people feel guilty when someone dies, but it’s only a feeling, it’s not real. I mean, they feel that way even though they couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with the person’s death.”
    Tears started in the brown eyes, and a sob from the deep wracked her body upright and into my arms. She clung to me like a barnacle to a gray whale, her body heaving as if she were retching, and I knew that it felt that way to her. I was swept to my own childhood crying jags, to the overwhelming feeling of needing to be rid of something.
    Unexpectedly she spoke to me. “Did they really put Marty in jail?”
    “I’m afraid they did, but she won’t have to stay there long. They’re going to let her out pretty soon.”
    She pulled away from me, but maintained eye contact, kept sitting. She seemed to be coming out of her waking coma.
    “Is jail worse than hell?”
    “To tell you the truth, not everyone believes in hell.”
    “They don’t? It isn’t a real place?”
    “Some people think it is. But no one’s ever been there and come back, so no one knows for sure.”
    “Jail’s real, though, huh?”
    “Yes, but you know what? I’m a lawyer—did you know that?”
    “You are?”
    “Uh-huh. And that makes me an officer of the court. The law says you can only go to jail if you’re guilty. As an officer of the court, I pronounce you Not Guilty.”
    She lay back on her pillow, her face infinitely sad. I had said the wrong thing.
    Desperate to keep her from retreating again, I said, “Can we be friends, you and