“I know. He doesn’t hide it or anything. He pretty much told me what he wanted when we started dating,” Shawna explained. “I don’t have anything I want to do besides have a family and stuff like that, so it works for me. It was never going to work for you. I know that Joel told you he was fine with the two-career thing, but I knew he was lying. At first I thought maybe he was lying to himself, but then I realized what he really wanted.”
“To get close to my dad.” She’d figured that out, too.
“Your dad helped him move up quickly.” Shawna crossed her legs, one ridiculously high heel bouncing. She glanced over to the table where Roxie’s parents were sitting with Brian and then lowered her voice. “Did you ever wonder why your dad didn’t use those favors for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a man only has so many favors he can call in. He’s the reason Brian got transferred. He wasn’t going to move up with the captain he was under. So your dad pulled some strings to get him moved to a precinct where he could have more upward mobility. Why didn’t he do the same for you?”
She hadn’t known her father had been behind Brian’s move. She’d been told he’d earned it by breaking a couple of major cases. The trouble was she’d also heard rumors that her brother had merely been there when the cases resolved. It wasn’t too strange a story. It happened a lot. Some beat cop did the work and a detective took the credit.
But why should credit matter? It didn’t here. They helped each other here because there were so few of them. She hadn’t thought a thing about taking Major’s call the night before so he could handle the potentially much more important call. There wasn’t credit to be taken here. There was merely the job to do, partners to take care of.
However, she could think of a few reasons why her father wouldn’t use his precious capital. “I didn’t want to leave my team. I wanted my CO to be fired because he was a sexually harassing jerk of a man who didn’t deserve his badge. In fact, it was a transfer that got me to walk out.”
Shawna’s eyes focused on her. “But what would you have said if you could have moved to Brooklyn? To your granddad’s precinct?”
“That wasn’t what they offered me. Not they. Joel. He transferred me to Staten Island. No disrespect to them, but my talents would have been wasted there.”
“And they’re not here?” Shawna waved that off. “All I’m saying is I wonder if you would have had a different reaction if they’d offered to move you to the place you always wanted to be. I happen to know a couple of cops from that precinct, and they would have killed to have you. But Joel wanted to live in Manhattan.”
Plenty of people commuted. “What you’re saying is Joel wanted a wife who wouldn’t hurt his career. It doesn’t matter. I can’t go back and change things. I can’t tell my younger self, Don’t marry the douchebag who’ll have far more contact with your family after your divorce than you will.”
Shawna leaned forward. “It might be hard for you to believe, but Brian isn’t friendly with him. I know it looks like he abandoned you, but he didn’t want to. You didn’t even tell him you were quitting.”
She glanced over at her brother. Should she have talked to him?
“Roxanne, Shawna,” her mother called out. “Come over here. Seraphina made appetizers and they’re delicious. The shrimp here is excellent.”
Shawna’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t like the food here. It’s so spicy. All I want is a Frappuccino.”
Still, she got up and dutifully walked over to the outdoor dining table. Roxanne looked over to where Zep was laughing at something Harry said. Could she go join them instead? She sighed and followed her soon-to-be sister-in-law.
“That’s because they were swimming in the Gulf a couple of hours ago,” she told her mother as she sat down.
“Well, all the food here so far has been very good,” her father said.
Her mother took a sip of her wine. “I don’t know. It’s spicy. Roxanne, how did you cope with it?”
She’d coped because she’d had Zep slowly introducing her to it. I wanted to make sure you could always have something to eat. “I got used to it over time. It doesn’t hurt that Zep’s family owns a restaurant. I got to try a lot of things.”
Her mother’s eyes strayed Zep’s way. “Yes, his family seems interesting. His mother is definitely a character. She was here earlier to see her grandson, and she told me all about the two of you.”
Dear lord. What had Delphine said? She would only have been trying to help, but Delphine had a vivid imagination.