by Nora Roberts
She smiled a little. “I like Oscar because he’s so rude.”
Because of the smile, he took a chance and lowered the bed guard. Emma didn’t object when he sat on the edge of the bed. “I haven’t seen Sesame Street in a little while. Does Oscar still live in a garbage can?”
“Yes. And he yells at everyone.”
“I guess yelling can make you feel better sometimes. Do you know why I’m here, Emma?” She said nothing, but gathered an old black stuffed dog to her chest. “I need to talk to you about Darren.”
“Da says he’s an angel now, in heaven.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“It’s not fair that he went away. He didn’t even say goodbye.”
“He couldn’t.”
She knew that because she knew, deep in her heart, what you had to do to become an angel. “Da said that God wanted him, but I think it was a mistake and God should send him back.”
Lou brushed a hand over her hair, moved as much by her stubborn logic as he had been by the mother’s grief. “It was a mistake, Emma, a terrible one, but God can’t send him back.”
Her lip poked out, but it was more defiance than a pout. “God can do anything He wants.”
Lou stepped uneasily onto shaky ground. “Not always. Sometimes men do things and God doesn’t fix it. We have to. I think you might be able to help me find out how this mistake happened. Will you tell me about that night, the night you fell down the steps?”
She shifted her eyes to Charlie and plucked at his fur. “I broke my arm.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I have a little boy. He’s older than you, almost eleven. He broke his arm trying to roller-skate on the roof”
Impressed, she looked up again, eyes wide. “Really?”
“Yes. He broke his nose, too. He skated right off the roof and landed in the azalea bushes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Michael.”
Emma wanted to meet him and ask him what it had felt like to fly off a rooftop. It sounded very brave. Like something Darren would have wanted to try. Then she began to pluck at Charlie’s fur again. “Darren would have been three in February.”
“I know.” He took her hand. After a moment she curled her fingers around his.
“I loved him best of all,” she said simply. “Is he dead?”
“Yes, Emma.”
“And he can’t come back, even though it was a mistake?”
“No. I’m very sorry.”
She had to ask him, ask him what she hadn’t dared ask her father. Her father would cry, and might not tell her the truth. This man with his pale eyes and quiet voice wouldn’t cry.
“Is it my fault?” Her eyes were desperate as they shifted up to his.
“Why would you think so?”
“I ran away. I didn’t take care of him. I promised I always would, but I didn’t.”
“What did you run away from?”
“Snakes,” she said without hesitation, remembering only the nightmare. “There were snakes and things with big teeth.”
“Where?”
“Around the bed. They hide in the dark and like to eat bad girls.”
“I see.” He took out his notepad. “Who told you that?”
“My mam—my mam before Bev. Bev says there aren’t any snakes at all, but she just doesn’t see them.”
“And you saw the snakes the night you fell?”
“They tried to stop me from going to Darren when he cried.”
“Darren was crying?”
Pleased that he hadn’t corrected her about the snakes, Emma nodded. “I heard him. Sometimes he wakes up at night, but he goes back to sleep again after I talk to him and take him Charlie.”
“Who’s Charlie?”
“My dog.” She held him out for Lou’s inspection.
“He’s very handsome,” Lou said as he patted Charlie’s dusty head. “Did you take Charlie to Darren that night?”
“I was going to.” Her face clouded as she struggled to remember. “I kept him with me to scare the snakes and the other things away. It was dark in the hall. It’s never dark in the hall. They were there.”
His fingers tightened on his pencil. “Who was there?”
“The monsters. I could hear them squishing and hissing. Darren was crying so loud. He needed me.”
“Did you go into his room, Emma?”
She shook her head. She could see herself, clearly, standing in the shadowed hallway with the sounds of hissing and snapping all around. “At the door, there was light under the door. The monsters had him.”
“Did you see the monsters?”
“There were two monsters in Darren’s room.”
“Did you see their faces?”
“They don’t have faces. One was holding him, holding him too tight and making him cry hard. He called for me, but I ran. I ran away and left Darren with the monsters. And they killed him. They killed him because I ran away.”
“No.” He gathered her close, letting her weep against his chest as he stroked her hair. “No, you ran to get help, didn’t you, Emma?”
“I wanted my da to come.”
“That was the right thing to do. They weren’t monsters, Emma. They were men, bad men. And you couldn’t have stopped them.”
“I promised I would take care of Darren, that I wouldn’t ever let anything happen to him.”
“You tried to keep that promise. No one blames you, baby.”
But he was wrong, Emma thought. She blamed herself. And always would.
It was nearing midnight when Lou got home. He’d spent hours at his desk going over each note, every scrap of information. He’d been a cop for too long not to know that objectivity was his best tool. But Darren McAvoy’s murder had become personal. He couldn’t forget the black-and-white photo of the boy, barely out of babyhood. The image had imprinted itself into his brain.
He had an image of the child’s bedroom as well. The blue and white walls, the scatter of toys as yet unpacked, the little overalls neatly folded on a rocking chair, the scuffed sneakers beneath them.
And the hypodermic, still full of phenobarbitol, a few feet away from the crib.
They’d never had a chance to use it, Lou thought grimly. They hadn’t been able to stick it into a vein and put him soundly to sleep. Had they been going to carry him out the window? Would Brian McAvoy have gotten a call a few hours later demanding money for the boy’s safe return?
There would be no call now, no ransom.
Rubbing his gritty eyes, Lou started up the steps. Amateurs, he thought. Bunglers. Murderers. Where the hell were they? Who the hell were they?
What difference does it make?
It made a difference, he told himself as his hands clenched into fists. Justice always made a difference.
The door to Michael’s room was open. The soft sound of his son’s breathing drew him. He could see in the faint moonlight the wreckage of toys and clothes strewn over the floor, heaped on the bed, mounded on the dresser. Usually it would have made him sigh. Michael’s cheerful sloppiness was a mystery to Lou. Both he and his wife were tidy and organized by nature. Michael was a tornado, a rushing wind that hopped from spot to spot and left destruction and chaos behind.
Yes, usually he would have sighed and planned his lecture for the morning. But tonight, the wild disarray brought tears of gratitude to his eyes. His boy was safe.
Picking his way through the rubble, he crept toward the bed. He had to push the traffic jam of Matchbox cars aside to find a place to sit. Michael slept on his stomach, the right side of his face squashed into the pillow, his arms flung out and the sheets in a messy tangle at his feet.
For a moment, then five, then ten, Lou simply sat, studying the child he and Marge had made. The thick dark hair he’d inherited from his mother was tousled around his face. His skin was tanned, but still had the dewy softness of first youth. His nose was crooked, giving character to what might have been a face too pretty for a boy. He had a firm, c
ompact little body that was already beginning to sprout. Bruises and scrapes colored it.
Six years and two miscarriages, Lou thought now. Then finally he and Marge had been able to unite sperm and egg into strong, vital life. And he was the best and brightest of both of them.
Lou remembered Brian McAvoy’s face. The stunned grief, the fury, the helplessness. Yes, he understood.
Michael stirred when Lou stroked a hand over his cheek. “Dad?”
“Yes. I just wanted to say good night. Go back to sleep.”
Yawning, Michael shifted and sent cars clattering to the floor. “I didn’t mean to break it,” he murmured.
With a half-laugh, Lou pressed his hands to his eyes. He didn’t know what it was, and didn’t care. “Okay. I love you, Michael.”
But his son was fully back to sleep.
Chapter Ten
It was bright, almost balmy. The breeze from the Atlantic ruffled the tall green grass. Emma listened to the secret songs it whispered. Over its music was the low, solemn voice of the priest.
He was tall and ruddy-faced with his white, white hair a shocking contrast to his black robes. Though his voice carried a lilt very similar to her father’s, Emma didn’t understand much of what he was saying. And didn’t want to. She preferred listening to the humming grass and the monotonous lowing of the cattle on the hill beyond the gravesite.
Darren was to have his farm at last, in Ireland, though he would never ride a tractor or chase the lazy spotted cows.
It was a lovely place, with the grass so green it looked like a painting. She would remember the emerald grass and the fresh, vital scent of earth newly turned. She would remember the feel of the air against her face, air so moist from the sea it might have been tears.
There was a church nearby, a small stone structure with a white steeple and little windows of stained glass. They had gone inside to pray before the little glossy casket had been carried out. Inside it had smelled strongly, and too sweetly, of flowers and incense. Candles had been burning even though the sun ran through the stained glass in colorful streams.
There had been painted statues of people in robes, and one of a man bleeding on a cross. Brian had told her it was Jesus who was looking after Darren in heaven. Emma didn’t think anyone who looked so sad and tired could take care of Darren and make him laugh.
Bev had said nothing at all, only stood, her face pale as glass. Stevie had played the guitar again, as he had at the wedding, but this time he was dressed in black and the tune was sad and quiet.
Emma didn’t like it inside the church, and was glad when they stood outside in the sunlight. Johnno and P.M., whose eyes had been red from weeping, had carried the casket, along with four other men who were supposed to be her cousins. She wondered why it had taken so many to carry Darren, who hadn’t been heavy at all. But she was afraid to ask.
It helped to look at the cows, and the tall grass and the birds that glided overhead.
Darren would have liked his farm, she thought. But it didn’t seem right, it didn’t seem fair that he couldn’t be standing beside her, ready to race and run and laugh.
He shouldn’t be in that box, she thought. He shouldn’t be an angel, even if it meant he had wings and music. If she had been strong and brave, if she had kept her promise, he wouldn’t be. She should be in the box, she realized as tears began to fall. She had let bad things happen to Darren. She hadn’t saved him from the monsters.
Johnno picked her up when she began to cry. He swayed a little, and the movement was comforting. She laid her head on his shoulder and listened to the words he spoke along with the priest.
“ ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want …’ ”
But she did want. She wanted Darren. Blinking tears from her eyes, she tried to watch the grass move with the wind. She heard her father’s voice, thick with grief.
“ ‘… walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil …’ ”
But there was evil, she wanted to shout. There was evil, and it had killed Darren. Evil had no face.
She watched a bird swoop overhead, and followed its path. On the hilltop nearby she saw a man. He stood, overlooking the small grave and the grief, silently taking pictures.
He would never be the same, Brian thought as he drank steadily, a bottle of Irish whiskey on the table near his elbow. Nothing would ever be the same. The drink didn’t ease the pain as he had hoped it would. It only made it sink its roots deeper.
He couldn’t even comfort Bev. God knew he’d tried. He’d wanted to. He’d wanted to comfort her, to be comforted by her. But she was buried so deep inside the pale, silent woman who had stood beside him as their child had been put in the ground that he couldn’t reach her.
He needed her, dammit. He needed someone to tell him there were reasons for what had happened, that there was hope, even now, in these the darkest days of his life. That was why he’d brought Darren here, to Ireland, why he’d insisted on the mass and the prayers and the ceremony. You were never more Catholic than you were at times of death, Brian thought. But even the familiar words, and scents, even the hope the priest had handed out as righteously as communion wafers hadn’t eased the pain.
He would never see Darren again, never hold him, never watch him grow. All that talk about everlasting life meant nothing when he couldn’t take his boy up in his arms.
He wanted to be angry, but he was far too tired for that, or any kind of passion. So if there was no comfort, he thought as he poured another glass, he would learn to live with the grief.
The kitchen smelled of spice cakes and good roasted meat. The scents hung on though his relatives had been gone for several hours. They had come—he wanted to be grateful for that. They had come to stand beside him, to cook the food that was somehow supposed to feed the soul. They had grieved for the loss of the boy most of them had never met.
He had pulled away from his family, Brian admitted. Because he had had his own, had made his own. Now what was left of the family he’d made was sleeping upstairs. Darren was sleeping a few miles away, beneath the shadow of a hill, beside the grandmother he had never known.
Brian drained his glass, and with oblivion on his mind, poured another.
“Son?”
Looking up, Brian saw his father hesitating in the doorway. He wanted to laugh. It was such a complete and ironic role reversal. He could remember, clear as a bell, creeping into the kitchen as a boy, while his father sat at the table getting unsteadily drunk.
“Yeah.” Lifting the glass, Brian watched him over the rim.
“You should try for sleep.”
He saw his father’s eyes dart and linger on the bottle. Without a word, Brian pushed it toward him. He entered then, Liam McAvoy, an old man at fifty. His face was round and ruddy from the cross-stitches of broken capillaries under his skin. He had the blue, dreamy eyes that had been passed on to his son, and the pale blond hair now wiry with gray. He was gaunt, brittle-boned, no longer the big, powerful man he had seemed in Brian’s youth. When he reached for the bottle, Brian felt a jolt. His father’s hands might have been his own, long-fingered, graceful. Why had he never noticed before?
“It was a fine funeral,” Liam said, groping. “Your mother’d be pleased you brought him here to lie with her.” He poured, then thirstily downed three fingers.
Outside the soft rain of Ireland began.
They’d never drunk together before, Brian realized. He poured more whiskey into both glasses. Perhaps, at last, they would find some common ground. With a bottle between them.
“Here’s a farmer’s rain,” Liam said, soothed by the sound and the whiskey. “A nice soft soaker.”
A farmer’s rain. His little boy had dreamed of being a farmer. Had he passed that much of Liam McAvoy into Darren?
“I didn’t want him to be alone. I thought he should be back in Ireland, with family.”
“It’s right. You done right.”
Brian lit a cigarette, then pushed the pa
ck toward his father. Had they ever talked before, the two of them? If they had Brian couldn’t remember. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
“There’s a lot that happens in this world shouldn’t.” Liam lit the cigarette, then picked up his glass. “They’ll catch the bastards who did this, boy. They’ll catch them.”
“It’s been a week.” It already seemed like years. “They’ve got nothing.”
“They’ll catch them,” Liam insisted. “And the bloody bastards will rot in hell. Then the poor little lad’ll rest easy.”
He didn’t want to think of vengeance now. He didn’t want to think of his sweet little boy resting easy in the ground. Time had passed, and was lost. There had to be reasons for it.
“Why didn’t you ever come?” Brian leaned forward. “I sent you tickets, for the wedding, when Darren was born, for Emma’s birthday, for his. For God’s sake, you never saw him until his wake. Why didn’t you come?”
“Running a farm’s busy work,” he said between swallows. Liam was a man filled with regrets so that one easily melded into another. “Can’t go larking off anytime you please.”
“Not even once.” Suddenly, it seemed vital that he have an answer, a true one. “You could have sent Ma. Before she died, you could’ve let her come.”
“A woman’s place is with her husband.” Liam tilted his glass toward Brian. “You’d do well to remember that, boy.”
“You always were a selfish bastard.”
Liam’s hand, surprisingly strong, clamped down on Brian’s. “Mind your tongue.”
“I won’t run and hide this time, Da.” His eyes, his voice were steady. In both was an eagerness. He would have relished a battle, here, now.
Slowly, Liam removed his hand, then picked up his glass. “I won’t butt heads with you today. Not the day my grandson’s been laid to rest.”
“He was never yours. You never even saw him until he was dead,” Brian tossed back. “You never bothered, just cashed in the tickets I sent to buy more whiskey.”
“And where were you these last years? Where were you when your mother died? Off somewhere playing your bloody music.”
