GRAHAM checked the address once more, then got out of his car. This wasn’t what he expected when he’d taken the contact information for Henry Theodore James . . . but then again, he had no clue what else he could have expected. The home was a simple, well-maintained single family dwelling in a lower middle-class neighborhood. Not the best area, but a decent part of Jacksonville.
Maybe in his mind, he’d seen something rundown, bordering on a hovel. A home to match the kind of man that neglected his son and that son’s mother for a decade.
Or maybe that’s just what he wished Henry James lived in.
No car in the driveway, though it could have been pulled into the single-car garage. The odds were he was at work. But Graham walked up the narrow walkway, lined by well-groomed shrubs, and knocked on the door anyway. He took another step back when the inside door opened.
“Yeah?” The man standing in front of him was about his age, with a dark goatee and Zach’s hazel eyes. He wore a T-shirt that had dried paint on it, jeans with the same splatters, and bare feet. His hands were clutched around a rag, as if he’d just finished drying his hands. “Can I help you?”
“Uh, yeah.” He looked down once more at the small scrap of paper he’d jotted the address down on. “I’m looking for Henry James.”
“Are you a process server?”
That made Graham blink. “No, no, I’m not.”
The other man shrugged and stepped onto the porch, letting the screen door slam in his wake. “That’s me. What do you want?”
Here was the man standing between a future with Kara. Flesh and bone, not a ghost. And blissfully unaware—or uncaring—of the shitstorm he left in his wake. Graham’s hand tightened around the address and let it fall to his side. Too tempting.
“I’m here about Zach. Zach and Kara.”
Henry made a little sound in his throat, then leaned one shoulder against the front doorjamb. “New lawyer, huh. Let me save you some time, buddy. You’re supposed to call my lawyer, not come to me directly. This is a sort of violation of privacy, I think. I’ll have to check with mine.” His grin was all teeth, and completely unfriendly.
Graham sent him a matching smile of his own. “Not Kara’s lawyer, buddy. Just a guy who cares. You’ve been dicking around with being a nonexistent father for long enough. Cut the cord. When she comes to you asking you to terminate your parental rights, you go along with it.”
“Ha!” Rolling his eyes, Henry kicked at the leg of a rocking chair on the small front porch and sat down with a thud. He propped his feet up on the railing, looking very comfortable with his asshole-ness. “Yeah, okay. I’m not sure who you think you are, but that’s not going to happen. That’s my son.” He jabbed at his chest in an imitation of a macho move. “My. Son.”
“Who you never see. Ever.”
“I’m a busy guy. I pay support.”
“Which you threaten constantly to take away. What is it, Henry? There’s some reason you keep holding onto the thread, using it to yank them back when you sense they’re leaving you behind. Pride? Ego? Maybe you like having a sob story for the ladies you meet at bars. Wah, my ex won’t let me see my kid. Please comfort my emotional wounds in bed.”
Henry’s eyes went steely. Finally, Graham had his attention.
“Maybe not. You like claiming him on taxes, perhaps. Do you list him on angel trees at Christmastime and take all the stuff well-meaning families donate to your son that you never see?”
The tick in his jaw told him to keep hammering.
“Maybe it’s a little closer to home.” Leaning in, he said in a low voice, “Don’t want to disappoint your own mom and dad by permanently giving up their grandkid.”
Henry leaped out of the rocking chair, knocking Graham back several steps. Graham could have easily defended himself, and chose not to. “Fuck you, asshole. Who the fuck do you think you are, coming here and insulting me? If you’re not their lawyer, you’ve got no business—”
“But I do,” he said softly, glad when Henry quieted down to listen. “It is my business, because they are my business.”
“Oh, that’s how it is. You’re fucking Kara. Shoulda figured. Now we’re talking.” Looking pleased, Henry sat again, elbows on his knees. “Surprised it took this long. So what, you want rights or something? Want the kid to take your name? You have any clue how expensive that kid’s medical junk is?”
That kid’s medical junk. It took everything in him to keep from plowing his fist straight into Henry James’ face until the man was spitting out teeth.
Trust the system. Use the system. So when you go to court, you can say under oath, “No, Your Honor, I never once punched him . . . even if he would have deserved it.”
Graham fought to sound reasonable. “What does it matter? You don’t want the responsibility, and I do. That should be enough. A little paperwork and you’re done.”
“Paperwork is pretty boring. And, you know, lawyers are expensive.” Henry glanced at the rag in his hand. “I might need another incentive to bother.”