She could see he’d drawn some incredibly detailed sketches on his paper. He was supposed to be writing a résumé, but as far as she could tell he had nothing more than his name on the paper and several well-endowed dragons.
“I don’t get paid enough,” she told him, truthfully. She smiled and tapped her pen on his paper, distracted. “Now put something down there so we can move on to your housing application.”
She’d seen Jack go down the hall past the open doorway. He’d given her a wave and a smile. Nice and friendly. Just like she’d suggested. Just friends.
Only why did it feel so lousy to get exactly what she wanted?
Jack had come in to the agency every day since Monday, laboring over something on the computer with Austin. He had told her that Austin was the one who had been doing whatever complicated thing Jack had thought someone was doing. Jamie didn’t understand any of it, nor was she sure how Jack was handling it, though he had assured her he and Austin had worked out a deal.
It irritated her that in typical businessman manner, he had just strolled in and taken over. It was her job to monitor Austin, not Jack’s. But since she didn’t understand the crime, and wasn’t willing to take it to the attention of the authorities, she was stuck letting Jack handle it. None of it thrilled her. She was disappointed in Austin. And a strange, weird, unpleasant part of her felt…cut off. Jack wasn’t seeking her out. Wasn’t trying to apologize or convince her to forgive him. It was like he’d given up, taken her at her word, and was okay with the label of friends even after the amazing night they’d spent together.
She wasn’t. Which meant she was nuts.
Another student, Luis, glanced up from the paper he was laboring over. “This is wack. I don’t understand why I have to fill all this stuff out. I never got any of this shit for free before…Who’s going to give me a job, an apartment, free day care now? I thought the government had budget cuts, man.”
“These are all private nonprofit organizations who sponsor programs to ensure your successful reentry into society. We work together with them to get you back on track. If you have a decent job, a nice apartment, a safe place for your kids, you won’t be tempted to do anything illegal, right?” Jamie put a warning in her voice.
Luis stared at her. “Right.”
“Because if you screw up and commit a crime, all these things will be taken away, you’ll be back in jail faster than you can say ‘this is wack,’ and your three daughters will be out on the street, ripe for the picking. They’re pretty girls, Luis, and your wife can’t watch them if she has to work two jobs to put food on the table.”
It wasn’t a threat, just the facts.
Luis got it. His jaw twitched. “You’re a real bitch, you know that?” he asked, going back to his paper. “That’s why I like you.”
“So, to get a break in life, all you have to do is commit a crime?” Richard, a physician convicted of insurance fraud, shook his head. “We live in a rather twisted state of emergency, don’t you think?”
“Shut up, Doc, and take your free shit,” Mike recommended.
“It costs more to maintain the judicial process and the incarcerated care of sixty-five thousand male prisoners in the state of New York than it does to provide services like these. The entire six-month heating and air-conditioning course that we’re enrolling Mike in costs less than it did to house him in prison for one week.”
“No shit?” Mike shook his head. “And the food wasn’t even all that great.”
That made Jamie laugh, even as part of her couldn’t focus entirely on her class. Her mind was on her father, her mother. And Jack.
She wasn’t sleeping well at night, and she wasn’t sure what to do, if anything. Jamie was a glass-half-full girl, and she knew she was okay, but she had no sense of direction.
What she should do. If anything. About anything. It made her feel helpless and lonely and frustrated.
Lucky for her, Beckwith had a plan.
Jack was headed out to his car after lunch to drive over to Hathaway for the rest of the day when he spotted Jamie’s father sitting on a bench across the street from the agency. He hesitated for a second.
The man wasn’t watching him, but was staring down at his feet.
Jack looked back at the Beechwood building. This wasn’t any of his business. Dealing with Austin wasn’t even really of his business, and yet he was up to his eyeballs trying to straighten that out, convinced that the kid showed promise and potential and shouldn’t be thrown away.
And here he was again, standing there knowing he should walk away, but completely unable to.
He and Jamie were friends, he’d like to think, as much as that label made him want to groan in agony and beat his head against the wall in frustrating despair. But that sort of move was a little dramatic for him.
Instead, he’d gotten drunk at Brad’s bachelor party and was spending all his free time with a teenage boy and an old man. It wasn’t a great form of therapy, but it beat wailing in the middle of Forty-fourth Street.
Jamie’s father glanced over at him, narrowed his eyes in recognition. Jack started across the street. He figured Jamie had invited him into the situation by crying on his shoulder. That had nearly killed him, and he didn’t want to see her hurt further.
Jack stopped in front of the man, who was now sitting straight up, looking suspicious and tense. Ready to fight, if necessary. Even with some hard years on him, Jack could see the resemblance to Jamie. Same eyes. Same freckles.
“I just wanted to tell you that Jamie knows who you are.”
“Excuse me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
But Jack could tell he knew. The guy’s face went white, his eyes ran scared.
“You know what I mean, Mr. Peters. And if you don’t want to talk to Jamie, maybe you’d better quit hanging around.”
Jamie’s father’s head fell into his hands, and he rubbed his scratchy unshaven chin. “I just wanted to see her…” he said, his voice breaking a little. “Just wanted to make sure she’s okay. I don’t mean her any harm.”
With a sigh, Jack sat down on the bench next to him. “Look, I don’t claim to know anything about relationships. My own family thinks communicating is critiquing each other’s clothing. And as you noticed, given the argument we had the other day, I’m not exactly Jamie’s favorite guy these days. But I think that you’re hurting her more by not talking to her. She wants to know where you’ve been, man.”