Page 188 of The Woman Left Behind

Her eyes went to Rus, then she said to Harry, “I’d prefer this be private.”

“I prefer it wasn’t,” Harry returned.

Her lips thinned.

“Have a seat,” Harry invited as he took his own.

Rus resumed his again as well.

She came forward and sat.

Harry rested his forearms on the desk. “Now, how can we help?”

She again shot a glance at Rus.

“Rita,” Harry called her attention back to him, “I know you know we’re busy. If there’s something we can do for you, it’d help if you got us started.”

“My boy wants to see his wife,” she bit off.

Harry refused to rise to the bait.

“I’m not sure he has a legal one of those,” Harry noted.

“You know who I’m talking about,” she spat.

Harry sat back and linked his hands on his stomach.

He then said, “I understand, as a mother, you want your children to have what they want. As a flight risk, your boy is being held without bail. He’s probably not thrilled with his accommodation. I’m afraid I can’t dredge up much empathy for him, considering he burned down my stables and grifted tens of thousands of dollars from unsuspecting women, and left three men, whose identities he also stole, in debt they have to untangle themselves from, illegally wed to women they’ve never met.”

Her face a mask of banked fury, Rita said nothing.

Harry continued, “Now, he’s in Seattle, which isn’t all that close. But it doesn’t matter where he is, what he had with Lillian was over years ago. She has no relationship with him. She’s not thrilled he woke up my father in the middle of the night while committing arson, but other than that, he does not factor in her life in any way. He can want whatever he wants. She is not going to visit him. She is not going to take a call from him. Except as a memory of a mistake she made she’s since rectified, he doesn’t exist for her.”

Rita remained silent.

“I take it you’re coming to me in the hopes I’ll intervene for him,” Harry guessed.

“You’re a fair man,” she snapped. “Usually,” she added sarcastically. “And I do believe you understand his feelings for her.”

Oh yeah, he understood Willie not being able to give up on the thought of being with Lillian, no matter how much time had passed.

Even so.

Harry leaned forward on his forearms again. “Right, and being fair, I’ll warn you, not as the sheriff, as Lillian’s man, this is one hundred percent not fucking okay.”

Rus shifted.

Harry didn’t break eye contact with Rita.

“Rita, I feel for you. You love your boy. He’s in a load of trouble. But do not ever come to me again asking for a favor for that man. You won’t get it. Not ever. And absolutely not if it has one fucking thing to do with Lillian. Am I understood?”

She sat rock solid and then she jerked her head in what Harry was going to take as an affirmative.

“You’ve changed,” she accused.

“No, I haven’t, Rita. You know me. You do because we’re the same. We’ll both go to the mat for someone we love. So you know where I’m coming from.”

Her eyes flickered on that.

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