Fight Dirty Read Online Free PDF

no say in the decision to send his daughter to ReNew? Busy executive, how involved was he with his wife and family? Maybe Greene was having an affair; that would account for his distance. Andre made a note to look into the Greenes’ marriage. With a child dead, nothing was off-limits.
    “I did the best I could,” Caren said to the ceiling, leaning back against the couch as if she couldn’t support her own weight. “The school, ReNew, they had references—even from our minister. And I just couldn’t take it anymore.” Her chest heaved as she gulped down a breath. “I couldn’t watch my family self-destruct like that. I had to do something.”
    Greene made a low noise, deep in his throat, and finally raised an arm to wrap around his wif e’s shoulders, pulling her to him once more. He glared at Andre as if her pain was his fault. Andre kept his face impassive as he stared back. Nice thing about his scars, they made for a helluva poker face.
    Jenna broke the impasse, awkwardly handing Caren a tissue. Caren stifled her sobs, wiped her tears, but still didn’t look up. “You don’t understand,” she said in a low tone, one suitable for confession—or a funeral. “I was trying to save her.”
    “I t’s okay,” Jenna said, even though clearly it wasn’t. “Tell us what happened.”
    Caren nodded. Andre had a feeling Caren Greene enjoyed the spotlight as much as she did the catharsis of baring her soul to strangers.
    “I could take the smoking, her skipping school, the shoplifting, sneaking our liquor, even the marijuana,” Caren started. “I mean, we were all kids once, right?”
    Andre glanced up at that. Hardly overboard for a rebellious teenager. Of course, that was teenagers from his Homewood zip code—the kind of folks who wouldn’t even qualify to work as servants for a family like the Greenes. The M E’s report had documented a negative tox screen. BreeAnna had been clean at the time of her death.
    Jenna made an encouraging noise. Caren continued, “She hated me. She really did. The things she said when we fought—and we fought constantly. Hateful, vile, things. She even hit me a few times. I tried to get her to counseling, to talk to the youth ministers at our church—she refused. Said I was the one who needed help, not her. That I was trying to control her life—”
    Finally her husband joined in, although he still didn’t turn to look at his wife. “She was a fourteen-year-old girl, Caren. Of course, she hated her mother for trying to set boundaries. You can’t keep beating yourself up over it.”
    “Is that why you sent her to ReNew?” Jenna asked in a gentle tone. “Because she was becoming more violent?”
    Caren shook her head, staring at the wrung-out tissue in her hands. “No. Not just that. I was bringing her clean sheets and towels when I found a bag full of lingerie on her bed. Expensive lingerie she could never have afforded to buy. Things much, much too mature for her to ever wear. And then, in her bathroom, I found a pregnancy test.”
    That got Green e’s attention. “A pregnancy test?”
    Andre looked up. Why did Greene sound as if he was hearing this for the first time? If not from his daughter, then why hadn’t his wife told him? Maybe Greene wasn’t just a father who was absent physically; maybe h e’d checked out of the marriage and his family altogethe r . . . or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe Caren hadn’t disclosed anything to her husband because she was afraid of his reaction. Greene was solidly built, seemed like the type who might hit first and ask questions later, despite his veneer of a polished executive.
    “No. It was negative, thank God, but tha t’s when I knew I had to take drastic measures.” Caren glanced up at her husband. “Not like yo u’d ever do it yourself. She had you wrapped around her little finger, could sweet-talk you into anything.”
    He grimaced. “My hours, I work hard, travel weeks at a time—is it too much to ask to