The Acquittal by Anne Laughlin

Author:Anne Laughlin [Laughlin, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626392601
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2014-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

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Josie was bored to distraction. No amount of pacing, cleaning, organizing, or reading could keep her still. She was fairly certain at this point, four hours after being bailed out of jail, her mother wasn’t going to aspirate her own vomit and die. In fact, she was sprawled on the sofa in such a way her head hung over the side, face down, as if knowing a bucket was there waiting for her. Still, Josie didn’t dare leave the house.

Her father wasn’t due back from his fishing trip until Sunday night. The fishing trip, as she learned growing up, involved no bait, no boats, no fish. It was a retreat for some of the detectives her dad worked with. They rented a cabin in Wisconsin for a week, spent their days drinking beer, target shooting, bullshitting, generally acting like fifteen-year-old boys. They’d venture to the nearest roadhouse to drink in a more social setting and try to pick up women. Part of the joy of the trip for her dad was he simply would not answer his phone, so Josie didn’t even try to let him know his wife had just been arrested.

She’d been looking forward to her date with Lucy the next night and thought of calling her to see if they could move it up a day. Lucy could hang out with her and her drunken mother. That probably wouldn’t increase her chances of successfully seducing Lucy, but maybe her dating code allowed for sex on the third date and Josie wouldn’t have to cajole her. Lately she’d noticed her libido making a startling comeback. The meds she was on were libido killers. The fact she’d missed a dose here and there over the past several days was surely not enough for this sort of rebound. It must be Lucy. She picked up her phone and called her.

“Hey there,” Josie said.

“Hi!” Lucy sounded surprised to hear from her.

“I’m wondering if you can help me out.” She proceeded to tell Lucy what happened and that she could really use the company during her vigil over her mother.

“I’m on my way,” Lucy said.

She got there in forty-five minutes, looking freshly scrubbed. Her red hair was loose, the curls reaching up like growing flowers. Josie thought she was amazingly cute, but curiously her desire for her didn’t take a jump up upon seeing her. It simply stayed at attention. With the living room occupied by her mother and the basement reeking of her father, she led Lucy upstairs to her old room. “I’m sorry at how this looks,” she said. “There isn’t anywhere else to hang out except the kitchen.”

Lucy looked thoughtful, as if weighing the options. “No, this is good. I want to see the room you grew up in.” They went into the middle room in the hallway, still painted the same awful dusty rose color she’d grown up with. It looked like every kid’s room—the single bed along one side, the study desk on the other, a few shelves hung to display trophies or cherished objects, neither of which Josie seemed to have.

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