“Ah. That makes sense, Zachary. I guess I wasn’t thinking about it that way. You believe Heather, and so do I, so it didn’t occur to me that someone else might not believe her story. We know she was attacked violently.”
“But that doesn’t mean she’d never had any other contact with anyone else and that the baby was definitely conceived in the attack. The timing is right, but…”
“Yeah. Poor Heather, she must be frustrated too.”
“I think she took it better than I did, actually. Maybe it will hit her when she gets home. But at least she’s got someone with her. She’s not alone.”
“Good. I worry about you being alone. At least Kenzie is there more often now.”
“I’m fine.” The words came too loudly, and he was worried that Mr. Peterson would think he was angry at him. “Sorry. I’m just… frustrated and irritable.”
“Understandable. You had quite a disappointment over the case. Have you eaten?”
“Uh…” Zachary had to stop and think about it. “I’m not sure.” He looked around him and saw the used dishes. “Yes. I ate.” Provided the plates weren’t from the previous day. He usually remembered to wash them.
“Is that Zachary?” He heard Pat’s voice in the background. “Say ‘hi’ for me.”
“Tell him ‘hi’ back,” Zachary responded.
“He heard you. He says ‘hi,’” Mr. Peterson passed the message along.
Pat said something else, his voice lower, and then he was apparently gone. Mr. Peterson didn’t return to the conversation immediately.
“How is he doing?” Zachary asked.
“He’s really having trouble with Jose’s murder. And even more than that, with you getting… injured.”
“I’m fine. Tell him everything is okay. I’m keeping busy with work, all healed. Nothing to keep worrying about.”
“He blames himself for you getting hurt. You never would have gotten involved if it hadn’t been for him.”
“It’s my own fault for not thinking about the consequences. Being too impulsive. I was supposed to wait until I met up with Dougan. I didn’t do that and I walked right into Teddy’s operation. I should have realized it was too dangerous.”
“The two of you,” Mr. Peterson sighed. “It wasn’t Pat’s fault and it wasn’t yours. It was Teddy’s. He’s the one who hurt you. He’s the one who killed Jose. He’s the one who chose to break the law and to hurt people. Neither of you wanted anyone to get hurt. It was Teddy’s fault.”
Zachary shrugged to himself. He knew what had happened. He knew that if he’d made other choices, he wouldn’t have gotten himself hurt. He might not have ‘asked for it,’ but he certainly could have been smarter.
“Pat knows that it was more than just physical injuries,” Mr. Peterson said slowly. “He knows that even though the physical injuries have healed, you’re still suffering from the emotional fallout. And that your relationship with Kenzie…”
The knot in Zachary’s stomach tightened. His chest hurt. “What?”
“We’ve all noticed how it’s affected you.”
Zachary thought about it, the seconds passing.
“Zachary?” Mr. Peterson prompted. “You there? Are you okay?”
“Kenzie.”
“What about Kenzie?”
“You all know that Kenzie and I are having personal problems.”
Mr. Peterson didn’t reply.
“How would you know that? Because I didn’t tell you we were having any issues.”
“I’ve talked to Kenzie,” Mr. Peterson admitted after an awkward pause.
“You’ve been talking to my girlfriend behind my back.”
“Don’t think of it that way. That’s not how it was. Kenzie is worried about you. We’re worried about you. We talk to each other…”
“Did she call you?”
Lorne didn’t answer, obviously weighing his response. He didn’t want Zachary to think that he’d been invading his privacy. But he also didn’t want to get Kenzie in trouble.
“Did Kenzie call you?” Zachary repeated.
“Yes.”
“Kenzie called you to discuss our private relationship.”
“It wasn’t like that. She called because I know your history. As much of it as anyone. She called for advice.”
“How to deal with our relationship.”
“Yes… but that’s not a bad thing, Zachary. She didn’t dump you. She didn’t tell you that you had to change to suit her. She called to ask about the best way to… stay with you.”
“It’s not bad for my girlfriend to call you to discuss what’s wrong with our sex life?” He could barely keep his voice under control.
“I wish I could explain… that’s not how it was.”
“We have a good relationship,” Zachary said hotly. “I’ve done everything she wanted. I don’t ignore her or push her away. I started going back to therapy. We’re working through the stuff between us. Why would she have to call you?”
“I guess… she needed someone to bounce ideas off of. How to handle the problems you were having. She wanted to know if I knew about… previous problems. What would you want her to do? Call Bridget?”
Bridget.
Darkness bloomed in Zachary’s brain. He felt himself falling down a deep dark hole. A black hole.
“Zachary?” Mr. Peterson prompted, trying to bring him back.
“This is about Bridget?”
“No. It’s not about Bridget. She wasn’t calling about Bridget. I was just saying, who else would she go to? Who else knows anything about you and your previous relationships?”
“Bridget…”
“I told you, it’s not about Bridget.”
Zachary swallowed. He didn’t know what to say or do. He was used to being able to talk to Mr. Peterson without any problems. Lorne was next to perfect in his eyes, always supportive and compassionate. He let Zachary have his privacy and had never gone behind his back, as far as Zachary knew, with either Bridget or Kenzie. And other than Bridget and Kenzie… there hadn’t been anyone else in Zachary’s life. No one serious. No one that he had introduced to Mr. Peterson and Pat.
“What did you tell Kenzie?”
“I… I just said she should be patient, give you time to work it out. Bring it up with you directly.”
“But she wanted to know about my past.”
“To know how much of this was new, and how much… might have already existed before Teddy.”
“And what did you tell her?”
There was an uncomfortable pause. It was the point at which Mr. Peterson was going to have to admit that he had given Kenzie personal, private information about Zachary without his permission.
“Zach… it’s not something that you and I have ever talked about…”
“Yeah. So…?”
“I told her that… you had probably been abused in foster care. That I didn’t know any details, but with the number of different homes and institutions you had been in, it was probable. That there were red flags.”
Zachary swallowed. What else could Mr. Peterson have said? He hadn’t been there. He couldn’t give Kenzie any details. He was just confirming the suspicions that Kenzie already had.
“And Bridget never came up?”
“She asked about Bridget, sure. Whether… either of you had ever mentioned anything about your relationship.”
“Our sex life.”
“Yes.”
“And…?”
“You never said anything to me. That’s not the kind of relationship that we have. And Bridget…”
Zachary could just see Bridget ranting to Lorne about Zachary’s failings. She had no filter when it came to complaining about Zachary’s inadequacies in other areas of his life. Why not the bedroom as well? Zachary covered his eyes with his hand, as if that could block out whatever Mr. Peterson was about to say.
“And Bridget?” he repeated.
“Zach… you know I would never say anything negative to you about B
ridget. I know how much you loved her and how hard it has been to let her go. But… your relationship with her was toxic. Things might have seemed idyllic back in the beginning, but I was never comfortable with her. You weren’t yourself with her. And she treated you like a project, something she was going to fix. It was never a partnership.”
“What did she say to you?”
Mr. Peterson’s voice was strong. “I never let Bridget run you down in front of me. Not with you there and not when you were out of the room. Whatever she had to say about your private life, she didn’t say it to me. And that’s what I told Kenzie. I don’t know whether you had intimacy issues with Bridget and I preferred not to hear about them from Kenzie either.”
Zachary chuckled. He could see Mr. Peterson telling her that and could see Kenzie’s frustration at being told that it wasn’t appropriate. Zachary had never wanted to know any details of Mr. Peterson’s and Pat’s intimate life, and Mr. Peterson had never asked for any details about Zachary’s.
Lorne sighed. “I’m sorry. Maybe I should have said something to you at the time… but it was just a brief discussion, pretty much me telling her that her guess was as good as mine and if she wanted to know, she should ask you.”
“Yeah.”
“And you two have been talking, haven’t you…?”
“Yeah. Sorry if I overreacted. I just… this stuff is…”
“Personal.”
“And really hard. I don’t understand my own reactions. I don’t want to react the way I do, but I can’t help it.”
“How could your experience with Teddy not affect you? Would you expect Heather’s assault not to color her future experiences? It’s not a matter of choice.”
“But before… I could shut it out before. I thought that was all in the past.”
“It’s stirred up some old memories?”
“Yeah.”
“You said you’re going back to therapy.”
“I thought… it was time. If I want to be able to get over these problems with Kenzie… ignoring it wasn’t making it go away.”
“You guys will work it out. Give it time.”
28
Zachary kept busy over the next few weeks as they waited for the results of the second DNA test. The lab assured Zachary that they had retrieved enough DNA from the tiny mittens to run a profile, and after that it was just a matter of waiting while it worked its way through the system.
Zachary didn’t tell Kenzie that he knew about her going to Mr. Peterson behind his back. He knew she wouldn’t see it that way; she thought she was totally justified in digging into his past life to gain some insight into dealing with Zachary’s anxiety and dissociative episodes. But he found excuses not to be with her and to put her off most of the time when she wanted to get together. He spent almost a full week on night surveillance, which eliminated any time they could get together that week other than lunch hours, which they took close to the morgue rather than at the apartment.
Then he needed a week to organize and write the reports and to train Heather on some of the basics of investigative work. Since she was available during the day, he relegated his report writing to the evening, and the rest of the time he slept.
He was starting to run out of excuses not to see Kenzie, but he was also expecting the DNA results back from the lab any day. He would upload the results to GENEmatch, and it would spit out the names they needed, and he already had the name of a genealogist on hand who would help them make sense of the relationships and home in on the suspects.
Ella Day, the professional genealogist, was a small woman with thick blond, curly hair. She had a bright red lipstick smile and greeted Heather and Zachary warmly. He had the sort of feeling meeting her that he might have had in meeting with a medium or fortune teller. What she could do with DNA and genealogical information would have seemed like magic just ten years before. If Zachary hadn’t thoroughly checked out her background and references, he would have taken her for a scammer for sure.
She welcomed them and had them sit down in her comfy living room. She offered coffee and tea or cold beverages. Grant had not been able to make it due to a work commitment, so it was just Zachary and Heather for the meeting.
Zachary was all edges, worried about whether they were going to get any information or whether it would just be another report of ‘he was not there.’ They needed to find the guy for Heather’s sake. Zachary knew how important it was in his own case to know who it was who had hurt him, to be able to put a face and a personality to dark shadow who had spoken to him and tortured him that night. When he allowed himself to think of what had happened, he wanted to know that it wasn’t some faceless bogeyman, but a real person. A person who was behind bars and would not hurt him or anyone else again.
Ella set down the drinks on the coffee table, smiling sweetly at Heather and Zachary. She still seemed to be emitting some sort of vague, other-worldly vibe, and Zachary didn’t know why. What she did was science-based. It was genetics, not ethereal vibrations or listening to ghostly voices. She was not an artist, but a kind of a scientist.
“Tell me about your story,” Ella told Heather, as she sat down and smoothed her skirt. Maybe it was the flowered skirt that was giving Zachary such a weird vibe. She should have been wearing neatly-pressed slacks or faded bluejeans, depending on whether she liked to present a professional appearance or a geeky one. The flowery skirt didn’t fit either image.
“What do you want to know?” Heather asked, guarded.
“This is your baby, right? You’re trying to track him down?”
“Well… no, not exactly. We’re trying to track down his biological father.”
“You lost track of each other, want to reunite? Or does your son want to meet him?”
“We want to put him in prison,” Zachary said, wanting to put a quick end to Ella’s fairy-tale notions. “This was no love affair. It was a brutal assault. We want to track the guy down, lock him up, and throw away the key.”
“Oh.” Ella nodded. “I’m sorry. I see.”
“You can help, right?” Heather asked.
“You’ve already uploaded it to GENEmatch and got some hits?”
Zachary pulled out the USB key and held it up.
“Great. Why don’t I get that loaded while the two of you relax for a bit? I’ll see what pops up.”
“Will you be able to do it today? Identify the biological father?” Zachary asked.
“There’s no guarantee. I’ll need to work the family trees and see if I can identify who the potential father is. It can take a few hours to a few weeks, but sometimes it is only a few minutes’ worth of work. You just don’t know ahead of time. But I’ll take a preliminary look at the results, and then I’ll have a better idea of the timeline for you.”
Zachary and Heather nodded together. Ella retreated to her computer on the other side of the room and sat down. Zachary watched her out of the corner of his eye for the first few minutes, saw her put the USB key in and start tapping away, waiting, mousing here and there, clicking, mousing some more. He couldn’t really tell what she was up to, and in a few minutes returned his attention to Heather, who was doing the same thing, looking away from Heather and back at Zachary. They both gave a little laugh.
“Leave her to it, I guess,” Heather said.
“Yeah. Hard to do. I keep expecting her to jump up and shout ‘eureka!’”
“At least we know it was good DNA and that there were matches.”
“The lab said they got a good DNA profile.”
“I was terrified of cross-contamination. That it would end up being the DNA from someone’s cat.”
“If it had been cat DNA, I think they would have told us before they sequenced it.”
“I know.” Heather bounced her legs up and down, sneaking another look at Ella. “I just feel like it is all going to go wrong. If I get my hopes up, I’m just going to end up being disappointed.”
“We can’t predict the results. All we can do is pur
sue every lead.”
“Well, you’ve done that. You’re really good at this.”
“I want to help you.”
Heather nodded. Her cup rattled on the saucer when she picked it up. Zachary wished that Ella had just served their drinks in regular mugs. He felt like he was going to smash something. Heather steadied her cup using both hands and took a little sip. She made a face and Zachary thought she probably wasn’t usually a tea drinker. It wasn’t his preference either, but he often had it with clients who were nervous, because it helped them to calm down, when coffee just make them more jittery. That was why he had suggested it to Heather when Ella had offered. Heather set her cup down again with a clink.
“How is Grant?” Zachary asked. “Your kids? What have you been up to lately?”
She rolled her eyes, recognizing that he was forcing small-talk, but she answered anyway, needing the distraction.
“Things have been really good with Grant. It’s like… talking about this has opened things up for us. It’s like we’re newlyweds again, just learning about each other and exploring new sides of each other that we’d never seen before.”
“You too? I mean… are there things that Grant has told you about him that you didn’t know before?”
“Yes… because he didn’t share. He knew that I was holding back on my history, and that I didn’t want to talk about anything to do with sex, so we just never did. We had a relationship… but it was just an outward, physical thing, without much passion or imagination.”
“Going through the motions,” Zachary said, remembering Kenzie’s words.
“Yeah. Like that. Going through the motions. I had two kids, so obviously we had a physical dimension to our marriage. But it was never emotionally fulfilling. Just… an appetite to be satisfied.”
“And that changed when you told him about what had happened to you?” Zachary tried to wrap his mind around that. He would have expected the opposite. That Grant would push back, not wanting to do anything that might make Heather feel bad. Or he would not want to have anything to do with someone who had been spoiled before they ever met. He hadn’t expected that it would have helped them to grow closer physically. Emotionally, maybe, but he had expected it to put a wedge between them as far as physical intimacy went.
He Was Not There Page 17
