by Lisa Gardner
“Do you think I’m stupid?” he said abruptly, and there was an edge to his voice she hadn’t heard before. “I lived in your world, Sergeant Warren, playing hardball with the best of them. I know a skeptic when I meet her. And I recognize bullshit when it’s shoveled at me. You’re a cop. You have no interest in healing. Your job is to judge. And you are extremely good at your job.”
In spite of herself, D.D. felt her hackles rising. “Hey, now—”
“She hurts,” he continued. “I feel Danielle’s pain and it calls to me, only because it’s so unnecessary. But not everyone wants to heal. I accept her choice, just as I accept that you will never truly believe what I say until it’s too late.”
“Too late?”
“Something’s coming. It’s powerful. It has purpose.”
“Tell me what you want, Andrew.”
“I want you to be careful, Sergeant Warren. Spirits don’t want something. They always want someone.”
Andrew clicked off the phone. Apparently, she’d pissed him off enough. Which was just as well, given that he’d confused her enough.
Negative energies, forces of evil, dark tidings.
D.D. thought of tonight’s scene, a nine-year-old girl’s forlorn body, swaying from a noose. D.D. didn’t need to be policing the spiritual interplanes. She had her hands full enough on this one.
She finally made it down the stairwell. She pushed open the heavy door, worked her away across the nearly empty space. She decided there was no sound quite as lonely as a single set of footsteps echoing through a vacant parking garage.
She was tired. She did hurt. Lightfoot had been right about some things.
She rounded a broad support pillar and discovered Alex Wilson waiting beside her vehicle. She stopped walking. They eyed each other. He had shadows under his eyes. Stubble across his cheeks. Wrinkles in his once crisp white dress shirt.
“Before … I was wrong,” D.D. said.
“Yeah?”
“Sometimes, I do need a man to take care of me.”
He nodded. “That’s okay; sometimes, I do need a woman to stroke my ego.”
“You look like hell,” she told him.
“Compliment enough for me. Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
She followed him to his car, leaving her vehicle to be retrieved later.
He drove the first five minutes in silence. It gave her a chance to lean her head against the warm window glass and close her eyes. Morning would be coming. Maybe it was already here. She could open her eyes and look for the sun, but she wasn’t ready yet. She needed this moment, dark and contained, inside herself.
“Andrew Lightfoot called,” she said presently, eyes still shut.
“What did he want?”
“To warn me that something wicked this way comes.”
“Can it fashion a noose and does it have an address?”
D.D. opened her eyes, sat up. “Excellent questions, if only I’d thought to ask them.” She sighed, rearranged herself in the seat. “I dropped Tika Solis’s name, but he didn’t bite. He definitely knows nurse Danielle, however. He requested that we not be too hard on her. Healing’s not for everyone.”
“Easy for a healer to say. Means he can charge twice his going rate.”
“Ah, but it’s a gift.…”
Alex finally smiled. He drove toward the North End. “Homicide or suicide?” he asked at last.
“You’re the expert; you tell me.”
“Lack of physical evidence,” he said.
“Yeah, I got that message. Crime scene has nothing, janitor saw nothing. Sucky all the way around.”
“No, I mean lack of physical evidence. As in no latent prints. As in door handle, office chair, light switch—none of them bore prints small enough to be a nine-year-old’s. Tricky, if you think about it—a girl opening a door, turning on the light, setting up a chair, yet never leaving behind a single fingerprint.”
“Fuck,” D.D. said, a world of exhaustion behind that one word.
Alex reached over, squeezed her shoulder. “Not what you were expecting this evening—from executing routine search warrants to processing a dead body.”
“Not what I was expecting,” D.D. agreed. Alex’s hand returned to the steering wheel; she felt its loss. “I don’t … I mean … Hell. One moment I’m on a date, next I’m at a house with five dead bodies. And that leads to another house with six dead, which leads us to a psych ward where a nine-year-old child escapes and hangs herself while we’re on the property. What are the odds of that?”
“A date?” Alex asked.
“Nothing serious. Never even made it through the entrée,” she assured him.
“You gonna try again?”
“Nah. Bachelor number one’s kind of faded by the wayside.”
“Good to know. Please continue.”
“So we got five dead, plus six dead, plus one hanged. They’re connected somehow. Gotta be connected. Only thing that makes sense, except, of course, none of it makes sense. How do you go from two family annihilations to one hanged child?”
Alex didn’t say anything, just touched her shoulder again.
“Fuck,” D.D. muttered, and turned to stare out the window, where the morning sun was staining the sky.
She’d have to start monitoring her squad for burnout, she thought. Especially Phil. She couldn’t imagine going from scenes like the ones they had to tucking your kids into bed. Phil would stop talking, the first sign he was starting to fail.
And her? She wasn’t sure of her signs. Seems like she never slept when she was working a hot case and she was cranky during the best of times. Maybe she’d secretly burned out years ago, and now it didn’t matter anymore. God knows she went long periods of time without ever connecting with another human being. No hugs, no morning cuddles, no kisses on the cheek. She didn’t own a dog to walk or have a cat to pet. She didn’t even have a plant to soothe her with its pretty green leaves.
Get in touch with your inner angel, Andrew Lightfoot had said.
Asshole wouldn’t last a day in homicide.
“I think Danielle Burton is the key,” D.D. murmured after a moment. “The nurse had a little episode when I was questioning her, then her boss Karen and her boyfriend, Gym Coach Greg, closed ranks. Karen let it drop that A Bad Thing had happened to Danielle’s family and out of sheer compassion we should play nice with her. Then Andrew Lightfoot essentially said the same.”
“Gym Coach is her boyfriend?” Alex asked with interest.
“Almost positive. Definitely something above and beyond the call of duty.”
Alex smiled at her. “I feel the exact same way about you.”
D.D. laughed, which finally made her feel a little lighter on the inside.
“I’m telling you, they’re an item, and she has a secret,” D.D. said.
“And I’m telling you … I know her secret.”
“Say what?”
“Way back when, Danielle’s father killed Danielle’s mother and siblings. Little bit of unemployment, lot of whiskey, and he shot the entire family, except her.”
“How’d you learn this?”
“A milieu counselor named Ed told me everything. How sad it was for Danielle to have to deal with Lucy’s tragedy, particularly so close to the anniversary of her family’s death, yada yada yada.”
“Sure it was only a gun?” D.D. asked. “What about a knife? Maybe her father also stabbed someone?”
“We’ll have to look it up.”
“Oh, we’ll definitely look it up.” D.D. leaned back in the passenger’s seat. “Interesting. Personal. Isn’t that what you said after the Laraquette scene? Whoever is doing this is following a script. The murder business is personal to him. Or her, as the case might be.”
“Danielle survived her father’s massacre. If she’s reenacting a past trauma, shouldn’t the scene involve a lone survivor?”
D.D. shrugged. “Hell, I’m a lowly sergeant, not a criminologist. Maybe she resents being the surv
ivor. Maybe she’s determined to get the deed done right. Maybe Danielle’s actually a very strong man, which would explain her ability to take out Denise Harrington and Jacob Harrington, each with a single killing blow.”
“Makes perfect sense,” Alex agreed.
“One way or another, all roads lead back to the acute-care facility,” D.D. pressed. “And inside the acute-care facility, all fingers point at Danielle Burton.”
“Bears consideration,” Alex granted.
They were almost in the North End now. He slowed the car and D.D. felt her earlier fatigue. Another lonely return to her one-bedroom wonderland. Another sleepless night, followed by another single-espresso morning. It really had been an atrociously long time since she’d had anything other than an Italian coffee machine to make her smile.
“You know who would be extremely good at taking out an entire family?” Alex was saying now. “The kind of player who has height, strength, and fitness on his side?”
D.D. regarded him blankly. “Who?”
“Couple of the MCs on the unit. Particularly, Gym Coach Greg.”
Alex double-parked outside her condo building. D.D. looked at the tall brick unit, tucked shoulder to shoulder with dozens of other two-hundred-year-old brick units. Then she looked back at Alex.
“Wanna come up?” she heard herself ask.
He hesitated. “Yeah,” he answered. “I do want to come up. But I think I’m going to pass. I think, if we’re going to do this …”
“When we’re going to do this?” she tried.
“Okay, when we’re going to do this … I want to do it right. I’m thinking red sauce and homemade pasta and really terrific Chianti. I’m thinking eating and talking and laughing and then … then all of that, all over again. It’s the advantage of being older and wiser. We know good things are worth the wait.”
“I’ve waited a long time,” D.D. said. “You have no idea.”
He smiled. “I’ve waited a long time, too.”
D.D. sighed, gazed back up at her building. “What if I said no hanky-panky?”
“No hanky-panky?”
“Just two consenting adults, remaining fully dressed.”
“Different,” he said.
She blew out a puff of air. “I don’t want to be alone. Okay? Maybe you don’t want to be alone either. So we go upstairs and we work on not being alone together. I’ll leave my shirt on, you leave your shirt on, and we’ll both go to bed.”
“Will there be spooning?” he asked.
“I hope so.”
“All right. I’m in.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Alex said, and pulled away from the curb in search of a parking place.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
VICTORIA
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Interrupting cat.”
“Interrupting cat—”
“MEOW!”
I dutifully laugh as Evan cuts me off. Interrupting cat is his favorite knock knock joke. He’s been telling it for three years now, and it never grows old for him. I don’t mind. I’d expected a long night with Evan, one where he worked out his agitation and frustration from being overmedicated the day before. Instead, he slept all the way till six this morning, one of his longest stretches ever.
He woke up surprisingly happy. We went for a bike ride around the neighborhood, then broke out the sidewalk chalk and drew an elaborate race car shooting flames on the driveway.
After a midmorning snack of raspberry fruit smoothies, we’re now relaxing in the shade of the backyard, birds chirping, squirrels scampering, and a neighborhood cat stalking both.
This is charming Evan, silly Evan, let’s-goof-off-and-hang-out Evan. This is the son I can’t let go.
“Your turn,” he says now.
I think about it for a second. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Iguana.”
“Iguana who?”
“Iguana give you a hug.” I lean across the grass and capture Evan in a giant bear hug. He bursts into a fit of giggles, squirming his way out my arms.
“Mommy germs!” he shrieks.
“Iguana kiss you, too!” I growl, crawling after him. The backyard is more dirt than grass these days, but I bravely stalk my eight-year-old across the patchy lawn. Evan scampers away just enough to pretend to resist.
We’re no different from any other abusive relationship, I think as I chase my laughing son around the yard. After every episode of explosive violence comes the temporary euphoria of reconciliation. Evan’s contrite for yesterday’s incident in the park. I’m contrite for drugging my child so I could have sex with a man who wants me only for my body. Now Evan and I are both on our best behavior. We need these moments, or neither one of us would make it.
The phantom would win.
We run around for a bit. I declare defeat first, flushed and panting from the oppressive humidity. Evan appears equally overheated, so we retreat inside for a blast of AC. I set up Evan on the couch with water and SpongeBob, then I return to the deck, filling the kiddy pool. Today would be perfect for going to the beach. I’m not that brave, or maybe I just don’t want to risk ruining the moment, so I work on the kiddy pool. Evan will add a fleet of fire engines and two Super Soaker guns. He’ll splash and spray. I’ll sit on a deck chair with my feet in the cool water, grateful for the relief.
I’ve just finished filling the pool when the doorbell rings. I pause, rooted to the spot in surprise. We don’t exactly get a lot of visitors. And there aren’t deliveries on Sundays.
Evan is still engrossed with whatever SpongeBob and Patrick are up to. Warily, I make my way to the front door and peer through the peephole.
Michael is standing there.
I have to concentrate to fit the key into the lock. I focus on my hands, willing them not to tremble as I crack open the front door, facing my ex-husband, but holding him at bay.
“Morning, Victoria,” he says stiffly. He’s dressed in summer business casual. Brooks Brothers khaki shorts, a sharply pressed button-up shirt with little yellow and green stripes. He’s like a picture from a men’s magazine: fit high-finance at play.
“Is Chelsea all right?” It’s the only thing I can think of to say.
He nods, then clears his throat, shifting from one brown leather boat shoe to the next. He’s nervous. I remember my ex-husband well enough to recognize the signs. But why?
“I thought about what you said,” he states abruptly. “About Evan and the wedding.”
“What did I say?” I ask stupidly.
“Chelsea misses Evan. She thinks it’s unfair for her to be in the wedding but not him. In fact, she says she won’t serve as flower girl if Evan’s not included.”
Michael flushes charmingly, admitting with his expression that he knows he’s being outmaneuvered by a six-year-old, and is already declaring defeat. I’m used to angry Michael. Cold Michael. Frustrated Michael. I don’t know what to make of this man.
He spreads his hands. “Can I come in, Victoria? See Evan? Maybe discuss?”
I still have my body in the doorway, blocking Michael’s presence from our former home. Despite my pleas for him to see his son, now that he’s here, I wish he weren’t. His sudden appearance will agitate Evan, wreck our happy morning. I’ve enjoyed the past few hours. I don’t want them to end.
Too late. I hear footsteps behind me, Evan’s natural curiosity driving him toward the entryway. I know the moment he’s spotted his father because Evan’s footsteps still. I turn around, and will myself to handle whatever Evan does next.
“Daddy? Daddy. Daddy!”
Evan rockets across the foyer. He’s through the door and hurtling into his father’s arms with the speed of eight-year-old lightning. Michael staggers under the unexpected onslaught, but manages to keep his footing. Then Evan is holding his father’s hands and dancing all around him, touching him, poking him, plucking at him, while sayin
g over and over again: “DaddyDaddyDaddyDaddyDaddyDaddyDaddyDaddyDaddy.”
Michael shoots me a look. I shrug. You don’t surprise a kid like Evan. Michael knows that as well as anyone. At least he should.
To give Michael some credit, he doesn’t say or do anything right away. He lets Evan bounce around on his tiptoes, circling, prodding, jumping, shrieking, blowing off steam. Then, when it appears the initial euphoria is subsiding, Michael pats Evan lightly on the shoulder, and says: “Hey, you got tall.”
“I’m very tall. I’m HUGE.”
“Strong, too.”
“LOOK AT MY MUSCLES!” Evan screams, dropping into a bodybuilder’s pose.
I wince. “Evan,” I say, as calmly as I can, “I just filled your pool. Why don’t you show your father your new pool?”
Evan loves this idea. He bounds back into the house on his tippy toes—a sure sign of agitation—and goes running straight for the sliders. In his heightened state, however, he forgets to open the doors. Instead, he smashes into the glass, ricocheting onto the floor, nose exploding, blood spraying. Evan scrambles up, covers his bleeding nose with his right hand, and attempts to leap through solid glass a second time. This time, he stuns himself enough to stay down for the count.
“Jesus Christ,” Michael says. But he doesn’t retreat down the drive. Instead, he enters the fray.
We fall into old patterns, rituals so deeply entrenched they come back naturally, without either of us ever saying a word. Me, the nurturer, crossing to Evan, taking his hand and murmuring words of comfort as I inspect the damage. Michael, the fixer, already in the kitchen, filling a washcloth with fresh ice, then returning to place it high on Evan’s nose. I have a flashback, to the days when Michael stood shoulder to shoulder with me to handle Evan, to raise Chelsea, to fight the war. He simply grew tired. Who could blame him?
Evan’s not crying. He’s so revved up by his beloved father’s unexpected return that he’s beyond tears. His emotions are running about three planets beyond the moon, and there are no tears in outer space. Just black holes everywhere.
We need to get him to his pool, where he can splash and jump and scream out the tension wiring his bony frame. He’ll come down from orbit without anyone getting hurt.
