A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(66)

Natasha shot him point-blank.





I’m a social worker, Levi. I’ll always be in victim advocacy.





2011


Natasha rapped on the back door of a run-down house, her gaze raking the disused toys littering the yard and the dead flowers in the window box. The occupants of this house hadn’t spent time outside in weeks.

The door opened a crack, and a suspicious eye peered out.

“I’m alone, Crystal,” said Natasha.

The door swung open the rest of the way, revealing a skinny white woman whose face, throat, and arms bore the mottled yellow remnants of old bruises. “I need money,” she said without preamble.

Natasha gave her Smile #3, Patient and Understanding. “Why don’t I come inside so we can discuss some community resources?”

Crystal Merritt stepped aside to let Natasha into the kitchen. It was scrupulously clean, which only drew more attention to the cracked linoleum and peeling wallpaper. Crude crayon drawings were tacked up on the refrigerator, and a handful of scraggly daisies were wilting in a vase on the counter.

“Are the girls at school?” Natasha asked, though she already knew the answer.

“They . . .” Crystal’s eyes darted shiftily to her left. “They stayed home sick.”

Natasha nodded. “According to their principal, they’ve been sick a lot recently.”

This wasn’t really part of Natasha’s job. She was Crystal’s victim advocate, assigned to help Crystal through the process of prosecuting her husband for aggravated assault. But all of the other social service agencies involved with the family had taken a step back, turned off by Crystal’s pattern of aggressive behavior intermixed with tearful self-pity, which had left Natasha in a sort of case manager role.

Natasha didn’t mind. One irritating person was more or less the same as the next.

“I’m afraid to let them go to school.” Crystal walked to the kitchen table, snatched a pack of cigarettes, and tipped one into her palm. “Eugene would grab them there and take them away just to spite me. You know he would.”

“We can discuss measures with the school to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Crystal’s hand shook as she lit her cigarette and took a long drag. Natasha kept her reaction off her face with the ease born of a lifetime of practice. So Crystal needed money, but she had enough to indulge an expensive habit that would slowly kill her and her two children?

Natasha would never say that aloud, of course. It wasn’t an empathetic response. It wasn’t something a social worker would say.

“I don’t trust the school,” Crystal said. “They’re on his side. Everybody is.”

Coaxing Crystal to sit at the table with her, Natasha asked, “What makes you say that?”

Crystal launched into her usual litany of complaints, which Natasha could safely tune out. They were always the same, from one person to the next: Blah blah blah, my life is so hard, nobody understands me, blah blah blah. Boring.

At one point, the two young girls ran into the kitchen, only to shrink back when they realized their mother wasn’t alone. They were quiet, big-eyed waifs, traumatized by years of watching their father beat their mother. Natasha drew them out a bit, got them smiling, and handed them a couple of small toys from the supply she brought on every home visit.

She liked children; for the most part, they hadn’t learned to be terrible yet. Ezra had been dropping hints lately about trying for a child of their own, and that might not be a bad idea. It was what a normal person would do.

The girls were playing happily on the kitchen floor when the conversation came back around to money. “I don’t know how anyone expects me to be able to take care of my kids and get all these work hours in,” Crystal said. She tapped her cigarette ash into a glass. “It’s impossible without any help.”

“Well, there are some local resources available for low-income single mothers-”

Bang bang bang!

Crystal and her daughters jumped and shrieked at the sudden violent hammering on the back door. Natasha, who’d never had a startle response, faked the same reaction a half-second later.

“Crystal!” a man bellowed from outside. “Let me in! I know you’ve got a guy in there.”

White-faced, Crystal dropped her cigarette and scrambled to her feet. Natasha stood as well, pulling out her phone to call 911.

She never got the chance. The door slammed, shook, and then cracked, the wood splintering around the flimsy lock. Crystal screamed as her husband charged inside.

Merritt was a big, burly guy, with the stench of whiskey billowing off him in waves. He swept Natasha out of his path, knocking her into the kitchen table. Her phone fell out of her hand and slid beneath the oven.

“Where is he?” Merritt grabbed Crystal by the throat. “Whose car is that outside, slut?”

She gasped, scrabbling at his hand. “Nobody’s! It’s just the social worker’s!”

“Don’t lie to me!” He drove Crystal into the far wall, lifting her onto the balls of her feet.

Natasha judged the distance between him and the place her phone had disappeared. He was far stronger than her, and if he saw her trying to call the police, he might turn on her instead. She couldn’t put herself in the vulnerable position of lying on the floor to retrieve her phone, but she didn’t know where Crystal kept her own cell, and the house had no landline.