Alone

by Lisa Gardner

  He didn't answer right away. She thought he was working on a good line of defense, but then he surprised her by announcing quietly, “My father would agree with you.”

  “He would?”

  “He joined AA eight years ago, and for him, it's been like discovering religion. He's big on atonement. Wants to acknowledge what he did. Wants to talk about the old days, ask for forgiveness. My brother, George, won't take his calls. As for me . . . I just want to forget. My father was who he was, and now he is who he is. I don't see the point of dwelling on it.”

  “Bobby, aren't there times when you are very, very angry? Angrier than you probably should be?”

  “I guess.”

  “Aren't there times when you look at the future, and you feel an overwhelming sense of hopelessness?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And aren't there times when you feel as if everything is out of your control?”

  He looked at her, clearly captivated. “Okay.”

  “That's why you need to talk to your father, Bobby. That's why your father needs to talk to you. Your family has changed, but it hasn't healed. Part of forgiving your father is also giving yourself permission to hate him for what he did. Until you do that, you're not going to move forward, and you're not honestly going to love him for who he is now.”

  Bobby smiled, a wan expression in his tired face. “I hate my mom, isn't that enough?”

  “Your mom's the easy target, Bobby. Once she left, you had to love your father; he was the only caretaker you had. But you also feared and loathed him for how he treated you. Hating your mother resolved the conflict. If what happened to you was her fault, then it was okay to love your dad. It's called displaced rage. Thirty years later, you have a great deal of it.”

  “Is that why I point guns at people I've never met?” he asked dryly.

  “I don't know, Bobby. Only you can answer that question.”

  Bobby steepled his fingers, splaying his fingertips against one another. He said abruptly, “Susan said I was angry.”

  “Susan?”

  “My girlfriend. My ex-girlfriend. When we were talking tonight . . . she said I deliberately shortchanged my life. That I held on to my anger. That I needed it.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I'm driven.” His voice picking up, he said almost hotly, “Is that such a bad thing? The world needs police officers. The world needs guys like me, perched on rooftops with high-powered rifles. Without me, Catherine Gagnon and her son might be dead. Doesn't that count for anything?”

  Elizabeth didn't say anything.

  “The rest of the world expects us to be all-knowing. But I'm just a guy, okay? I'm doing the best I can. I got called out to a scene. No, I didn't remember the Gagnons, and even if I did, what the hell do I know about them and their marriage? All I could do was react to what I saw, and what I saw was a man pointing a gun at his wife and child. I'm not a murderer, dammit. I had to kill him!”

  Elizabeth still didn't say anything.

  “What if I'd delayed? What if I'd watched it and done nothing? He could've shot his wife. He could've shot his son. And that would've been my fault, too, you know. If you shoot, you're screwed; if you don't shoot, you're also screwed. How am I supposed to win? How the hell am I supposed to know what to do?

  “He was pointing his gun. He had his wife in point-blank range. And then he got that look on his face. I've seen that look. Oh my God, I've seen that look too many times, and I'm so tired of other people getting hurt. You can't believe the blood. . . . You can't believe . . .”

  Bobby's voice broke. His shoulders were moving, giant, dry sobs, and then he was twisting away from her, mortified by his own outburst, seeking the back of the chair with his hand, clinging to it for support.

  Elizabeth didn't move. She didn't go to him. She sat there and let emotion heave through him in raw, violent waves. He needed this. After thirty-six years, a little emotional outburst was long overdue.

  He wiped at his face now, hastily drying his cheeks with the back of his hands.

  “I'm tired,” he said roughly, half apology, half excuse.

  “I know.”

  “I need to get some sleep.”

  “You do.”

  “I got a big day tomorrow.”

  She said bluntly, “This is not a good time in your life to be making major decisions.”

  He laughed. “You think Judge Gagnon cares about that?”

  “Can you get away from the situation, Bobby? Take a little break?”

  “Not with the DA's office conducting a formal investigation. Besides, there's too much going on.”

  “All right, Bobby. Then sit down again. Because there's one more topic we need to cover before you go. We need to talk, honestly, about Catherine Gagnon.”

  C ATHERINE AND NATHAN were in the lobby at the Ritz. She knew they must look odd. A woman, a small child, no bags, checking into a hotel at this hour. She didn't care. Nathan was literally shaking in her arms, his distress apparent in his pale, wide-eyed face. Pancreatitis, she was already thinking again. Or an infection, or chest pains, or God knows what. His health always deteriorated when he was under stress.

  She fumbled with her purse, trying to get it on the counter while still holding Nathan in her arms. A hotel clerk finally appeared, looking surprised to see someone at this hour.

  “Ma'am?”

  “I'd like a room, please. Nonsmoking. Anything you've got.”

  The man raised a brow, but didn't comment.

  A few clicks of the keyboard and he announced they did have a room available. King-sized bed, nonsmoking. Would she like a crib?

  She passed on the crib, but asked for a toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as three extra lamps. The lights didn't have to be anything fancy, they'd take whatever they got.

  Catherine produced a credit card. The hotel clerk swiped it through the machine.

  “Ummm, could I see some ID?”

  Catherine was stroking Nathan's back, trying to soothe his trembling. “Pardon?”

  “ID. Driver's license perhaps. For security purposes.”

  Catherine was perplexed, but obediently dug into her purse. She produced her license, and for the longest time the hotel clerk gazed at the photo on the ID, then back at her.

  “Ma'am, are you aware that this credit card has been reported stolen?”

  “What?”

  “Ma'am, I can't take this card.”

  Catherine stared at him as if she'd never heard English. She wanted a room. She wanted a beautiful room in a fancy hotel where bad things couldn't happen. Surely if you were surrounded by silk drapes and down pillows, monsters couldn't find you.

  “Perhaps your husband . . .” the hotel clerk suggested kindly.

  “Yes, yes, that's right,” she murmured. “He lost his card not that long ago. I didn't realize the company would cancel both.”

  She knew this wasn't Jimmy's doing, however. He'd never possessed this level of finesse. This was her father-in-law. This was James. “Things for you are only going to get much, much worse. . . .”

  “Do you have another card?” the man asked.

  “Umm . . . let me look.” She opened her wallet, staring blankly at her collection of plastic. She had an Amex and two more platinum cards. She could hand them over, but she thought she already knew the results. James was thorough. And the more cards that were rejected, the more reason the hotel clerk would have to be suspicious.

  She checked her cash instead. One hundred and fifty dollars. Not enough for the Ritz.

  She gave it one last try, hoping her voice didn't sound as desperate as she felt. “As you can see from the address on my driver's license, I live just around the corner. Unfortunately, there's been a terrible incident this evening and my son can't sleep in our home. We just need a place to crash for a few hours. I don't have another credit card, but tomorrow, I swear to you, I'll bring a check.”

  “Ma'am, we need a credit card to release a room.”

&n
bsp; “Please,” she murmured.

  “I have so much power. . . . You have no idea . . .”

  “I'm sorry, ma'am.”

  “He's only four years old.”

  “I'm sorry, ma'am. Surely you have some family that could help you?”

  She turned away. She didn't want this stranger to see her cry.

  Walking across the lobby, she saw an ATM. Fatalistically, she got out her bank card. Inserted it. Entered her PIN.

  A message flashed across the screen: “Please contact your nearest bank branch. Thank you.”

  The machine spat her bank card back out, and that was it. No cash, no plastic. She'd been trying to stay one step ahead, but still her father-in-law had outmaneuvered her. How far could she get on one hundred and fifty dollars in cash?

  Catherine took a deep breath. For one instant, she heard the weak little voice in the back of her mind. Just hand over Nathan. If she played her cards right, she bet she could get James to write her a check. No, scratch that—she'd get cash. Or better yet, a wire transfer. How much was a son worth? One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, a million?

  She wasn't a good mother. The authorities weren't as wrong as she would've liked. She didn't know how to love the way other people loved. She didn't know how to feel the way other people felt. She had gone into a hole a happy little girl; she'd emerged a hollowed-out shell of a human being. She was not normal; she merely did her best to imitate the normalcy she sensed in others.

  So she'd gotten a husband, she'd had a child.

  And now here she was, thirty-six years old and still terrified of the dark.

  Catherine pulled out her cell phone. She dialed a number. It rang for the longest time, then a male voice came on the line.

  “Please,” she whispered. “We have no place else to go.”

  D O YOU THINK Catherine Gagnon was abused by her husband?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think she deserved it?”

  “What the hell do I know?”

  “Come on, Bobby. You have anger toward your mother, you have anger toward Catherine. Part of that anger is the belief these two women could've done something differently. That they should've kept themselves from being victimized.”

  “I watched her,” he said abruptly. “Some nights, my father would walk through the door, obviously already liquored up, and I'd watch her start in on him. Been drinking again? Jesus, just one night couldn't you be a decent man and think about your family. . . . Come on, we all knew what was going to happen next.”

  “He'd hit her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she fight back?”

  “Not physically.”

  “But he'd hit her. And then?”

  Bobby shrugged. “I don't know. He'd get mad, then eventually he'd pass out.”

  “So if he started out by getting mad at your mother as you say, he'd take his aggression out on her, then pass out.”

  “I guess.”

  “So he wouldn't hit you or your brother?”

  “Not if we stayed out of the way.”

  “Do you think your mother knew this?”

  He paused, appeared troubled. “I don't know.”

  “A woman's love for her husband is a very complicated thing, Bobby. So is her love for her children.”

  “Yeah, she loves us so goddamn much she just can't wait to call.”

  “I can't comment on that, Bobby; I've never met your mother. For some women, however . . . some women might feel too ashamed.”

  “I thought we were talking about Catherine,” Bobby said.

  “All right. Do you think Catherine provoked her husband?”

  “She's capable of it.”

  “And Thursday night?”

  He resumed pacing again. “Maybe. It doesn't make sense. But then again . . .” He looked at Elizabeth. “It's the fact that we had met before, that we had spoken, that bothers me. Sure, I didn't remember her, I'm confident of that. But she asked me questions about the job, questions about how and when a tactical team would be deployed. Why those questions? What was she thinking?”

  “You said she's manipulative.”

  “Exactly. But at the same time . . . could she have pulled it off? I sure as hell wouldn't have gone anywhere near the trigger if Jimmy hadn't been holding a gun. So she'd have to engineer a scenario that would make him get a pistol, and then she'd have to risk herself and her son in a standoff with an armed drunk.”

  “Dangerous,” Elizabeth observed.

  “Ballsy.” Bobby shook his head. “If it was just her in that room, I could see it. But I don't think she'd risk her son.”

  “You don't believe Catherine is abusing Nathan?”

  “No.”

  Elizabeth arched a brow. “You sound very certain of that.”

  “I am.”

  “Would it bother you to know that I'm not as certain? In fact, the more I learn about Catherine Gagnon, the more I'm deeply concerned about the relationship between her and her son.”

  “You and everyone else.”

  “She's self-centered, you've said that yourself. And she's a victim of abuse, and we know these things tend to have patterns.”

  “I'm a victim of abuse, too,” Bobby said stiffly. He added almost defiantly, “And we just established that I like to lie, too.”

  “Bobby, look me in the eye. If Catherine Gagnon felt herself at risk, if Catherine Gagnon felt herself or her lifestyle seriously in jeopardy, do you honestly believe there's a line she wouldn't cross? A person she wouldn't sacrifice to save herself?”

  He stared at her mutinously.

  But Elizabeth wouldn't drop it. For his sake, she couldn't drop it. “You don't believe it, Bobby. That's another reason you can't let Thursday night go. Because, deep in your heart, you believe Catherine is capable of engineering the shooting of her husband. You're just not sure how she did it.”

  “He was an abusive asshole!”

  “How do you know?”

  “She said—”

  “She lies.”

  “Dr. Rocco saw the bruises!”

  “Who is Dr. Rocco?”

  He flushed, chagrined. “Her ex-lover.”

  Elizabeth let that sink in. Then, abruptly, she switched gears. “Why did you see Susan tonight?”

  Bobby was clearly startled. “Because I felt like I owed it to her. After two years together . . . I should at least say goodbye in person.”

  “What did she say?”

  He shrugged. “Not much. I mean, we'd already broken up. What was left to say?”

  “Did that disappoint you?”

  “I don't understand.”

  “When you went to meet her tonight, did you really want to finalize the end of the relationship, Bobby? Or did you secretly wish for something else? Did you wish that she would fight for you? Did you wish that she would beg you to stay? Did you wish, deep down inside, that she would love you so much she would not let you go?”

  “I would never . . .” But he couldn't continue the protest. Caught off guard, stripped of his own defenses, he finally couldn't tell a lie. He whispered, “How did you know?”

  “Someone you loved once left you and never looked back. Now, all these years later, you're still waiting for people to leave, Bobby. In fact, the longer a woman stays, the more anxious it makes you. So you engineer little scenarios, little tests. The woman will either fight for you or she'll leave you. Either one eases your anxiety. At least temporarily.”

  “Jesus,” he said quietly.

  “When Catherine calls, you tell her to leave you alone, don't you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But she doesn't go away. She fights to see you. She tells you she needs you. She reminds you of her poor, sick son, and when you do show up, she makes sure you see her and Nathan together. For some men, I imagine she plays the sex card. But your female fantasy isn't a woman in black lace. Your fantasy is a woman who would never—ever—abandon her child.”

  Bob
by closed his eyes. She could see the dawning realization in his face, because slowly, but surely, he appeared horrified.

  Elizabeth leaned forward. “One more time, Bobby: Do you think Catherine Gagnon may have caused her husband's death?”

  He murmured, “Yes.”

  Elizabeth nodded slowly. “Then you have to let her go, Bobby. You have to stop seeing her. Because if Catherine Gagnon is a predator, then surely you realize now that you make the perfect prey.”

  I T WAS THREE a.m. when Bobby finally made it home. No lights were on in his unit. Just his answering machine blinked a frantic red dot in the night.

  He slumped into one of the hard wooden chairs in his kitchen. He felt wrung out, drained, not an ounce of emotion or intelligence left. For the longest time, he simply sat there and watched the message light blink.

  Slowly, he reached out and hit Play.

  His lieutenant. A guy from the EAU. A hang-up. His father. Two more hang-ups. Silence.

  Bobby leaned forward onto the kitchen table and used his hands to pillow his head.

  Three hang-ups on the message tape. Catherine, he thought.

  He squeezed his temples. Get her out of his head, get her out of his head. Don't let her mess with him like this. Sitting in Dr. Lane's office, it had all made perfect sense. Yet here he was, an hour later, alone in the dark, and already thinking of Catherine.

  Was she all right? How was Nathan holding up, and where would they go? Not to her in-laws, that much was clear.

  Maybe she had another lover. Why not? She'd certainly wasted no time coming on to him. Woman like that, not the type to go at it alone. Probably had a sugar daddy in every port. Maybe she was already lining up another doctor. Or, more likely, a lawyer. Yeah, she needed a big gun to take on Judge Gagnon.

  He bet she could find someone pretty quick. Right clothes, right time, right twitch of the hip.

  He wished he could hate her. But he didn't. Catherine was doing what she needed to do to survive. And he understood that too well.

  If someone else had taken the call on Thursday night, a sniper whose father had never smacked his mother, a sniper who'd never grown up watching that look of hopelessness bloom on another person's face, would Jimmy Gagnon still be alive?