“Being with you, Ange, being a couple—it was never about taking your independence. It’s about becoming a team. Facing these life challenges together.”
She reached for a tissue at the side of her bed and blew her nose. “I know. It was just this resistance deep down. This fear you’d leave me if I gave you everything.” She blew her nose again. “It was asking me if I wanted children that blew it to a head because that also terrifies me. The idea that I could be a mother.”
“You’d make a wonderful mother.”
“Oh please.”
A crooked smile curved over his lips, and his eyes gleamed as she held his gaze.
“If you still want me,” she whispered. “If you’re really prepared to put up with my shit, I want to give this my best shot, Maddocks. I can see it now, a way forward. Come hell or high water. I know … I think I really do know in my heart that we can weather anything that comes now. Together. Until death do us part.”
His face crumpled. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. He leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth, and she tasted the salt of those tears as he whispered in her ear, “You are so stubborn that you had to turn it all around, didn’t you? You had to take the proposal into your own control.”
She smiled and wiped her cheeks. “Hey, you told me not to come back until I was sure.” Her mood turned serious. “This is me being sure, James Maddocks. If you still want this, marry me on April twenty-seventh, a spring Saturday in the city, at the cathedral. I have my dress, and my dad said he’d give me away.” She paused, holding his gaze. “And maybe my mother will sing. With Ginny and her choir.”
“You told them?” he said quietly.
“I told them maybe it would happen.”
He fell silent as he struggled with a surge of emotion. “Yes, Angie Pallorino.” His voice hitched. “Until death do us part.” He regarded her steadily, moisture glistening in his eyes. “Just hold off from trying to hasten the death part, okay? We need a calm run for a while.”
She laughed with relief and love and release, and he kissed her again hard on the mouth, and Angie felt as though she’d come home. She hadn’t known until this point what that truly felt like. Now she did. Home was these people. Home was those you loved. And a family could be built of many disparate parts, irrespective of the past. Or because of it.
CHAPTER 48
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I see the evening star from my tiny window in the container where he keeps me … It reminds me of long ago nights like this, sitting at a campfire with my dad. He taught me to fly-fish when I was little girl—that was the beginning of a journey that led me to this point, to the river where I thought I was going to die. To this place in this container. Life is like a river, said Rachel. Life is absurd. The only constant is the water of change. She’s right. I’m at a different point in that river now, and all that matters is You. I survived—I continue to survive—only for You. I wasn’t able to get rid of You. I was going to, but something stopped me that day I went with Sophie. I thought I’d think about it further on the fishing trip. I still had a window of time to do this. And I threw everything against You during that trip—drinking, trying to have sex with different men. I was beating myself up with it all because, I think, I was scared. So very scared. Of losing my independence. Of losing my choices. Of being responsible for a life. But when I looked into the cold eyes of death, when I had faced that temptation to give up or hold on, it was You who took over.
I did it for You. And Your birth changed everything. It made me the most blessed person in the world, even while inside this container. I’d given life. I looked into your little eyes and saw they were green as the river that changed me, and I named you Claire … and one day I will sit at a campfire with you, Claire. One day we’re going to get free …
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29
Angie found Claire on the Port Ferris Bay dock.
The young woman stood right at the very end that jutted into the gunmetal-gray water. Whitecaps dotted the horizon. Rays of sun streaked down through a gap in the thick wads of cloud. Claire’s long hair blew loose in the wind, and her hands were buried deep in her pockets. She was oblivious, it seemed, to the shriek of gulls that swooped down on the man behind her who was hauling his crab pot up over the side of the dock. The old man was bent over, sorting through his catch, casting the undersize crustaceans back into the water. As Angie approached the man, she thought of forensic scientist Jacob Anders and his seaside lab and the taphonomy studies he was doing in conjunction with Simon Fraser University to see how long bodies took to decompose underwater. And what sea creatures, like crabs, ate at the flesh. He’d helped Angie in her hunt for her sister. She’d come a long way since her sister’s little foot had washed up on a beach in Tsawwassen.
Like Claire, Angie had been devastated by the revelation she was not who she’d been told she was, that she’d been raised on lies. That her entire life was false.
Yet she’d also learned later that those lies had been born out of love. Misguided love, yes. But love was not simple. Nothing about life was simple, or black, or white. Life was like that water in the bay and that sky. Shades upon shades of gray. A continually shifting interplay of light against dark and, every now and then, a few rays of sun.
Angie had been released from hospital this morning. Maddocks and Ginny were waiting to drive her back to the city, where she would catch a plane and go straight to see Holgersen in the hospital in Vancouver. Before she left, however, she had to see Claire. Especially after reading the words Jasmine had written while being held captive in that container.
From the hospital last night, Angie had called and asked Claire to meet her. Claire had refused. Angie said it was necessary in order to tie up some things for the investigation. Claire had reluctantly agreed. But only if they met out in the open. On neutral turf. Someplace where she could breathe fresh air and escape if she needed to.
Angie understood.
Her collar turned up against the cold sea wind, Angie reached the end of the dock and came up beside Claire.
“Thanks for meeting with me.”
Claire nodded but said nothing and did not look at Angie. Her profile was strong. Angie was struck—now that she knew the truth—by how much Claire resembled her biological mother in looks. The genetic echoes of both Jasmine and Doug Hart were all there in her height, her long, lean limbs, her smooth and even-toned complexion, her flashing green eyes. Angie’s heart crunched with affection for this woman. And with sorrow.
“I wanted to say thank you,” Angie said softly.
Claire inhaled deeply as she watched a boat entering the bay, gulls chasing and wheeling in the wake. The faint sound of the engine reached them, along with a tinge of diesel fuel on the wind.
Claire stole a glance at Angie. The young woman’s eyes were red-rimmed and full of pain and fury and aloneness. Angie’s chest constricted. Guilt whispered.
“Is that why you brought me out here—to say thank you?”
“Partly. You saved my life. I need to thank you for that. You also saved the life of another young woman who was lost and held captive for a year. Her name is Annelise Janssen. You brought her back to her parents, Claire, by calling Darnell Jacobi on your father and by pulling us out of that river.” She paused. “You could have left it. Let us all be buried and gone with the truth. No one would have known about Annelise. Or what really happened to Jasmine.”
She snorted. “My biological mother? Held captive by my own uncle from before I was born?” Tears glistened in her eyes, and her voice turned strident and husky. “I always wondered why he cared so much about me. Loved me sort of like his own. Like he loved his own fucking little bear cubs and fawns. Because I was like them, a rescue. I was pulled out of the river inside my mother. And my … my … I don’t even know what to call my parents now. Garrison and Shelley—my kidnappers who I called Mom and Dad my whole life, who I loved with all my heart—are my abductors? Don’t bother thanking
me, Angie. I have no joy, no satisfaction at all in having turned in my own. I don’t even have a home anymore. I can’t go back to that lodge.”
“Where are you staying?”
“A friend is renting me a basement suite in town.”
“You know, Axel Tollet did love you, Claire. Garrison and Shelley really did love and raise you as their own. This is partly why they were all so desperate to keep the truth buried, because they didn’t want you to know the truth. They didn’t want to hurt you. Or lose you.”
“Maybe the truth should stay buried sometimes. Maybe justice was already done. Porter Bates got his due.”
“And Annelise? Her parents? And the other women he took—the ones we don’t even know about yet? Jasmine? Her parents, her grandmother—what about them?”
Claire’s mouth went tight as she tried to control her emotions.
“I understand, Claire. I really do. I know what you’re going through.”
“You have no fucking idea what I’m going through.” She turned, eyes ablaze with green fire. “One minute—no, my entire life—I’m Claire Tollet. That’s who I believe I am. Then you show up. And I’m not. I’m … I don’t know what I am. I don’t know how you do it—rip up lives like this and still go to sleep at night.”
“I do know what you’re going through. You know that I do.”
Her gaze lasered Angie’s. There was combat, challenge in her stance.
Gulls swooped and shrieked above.
“I was the angel’s cradle baby, remember? I was dumped in a baby box, slashed with a knife, left with no past, no memory. I was rescued and never told where I’d come from. I was inserted into a dead child’s life, lied to my entire life. Told that baby pics, birth photos of a dead child were of me. I was even given the same name as that dead child. Until it all came apart, that web of deceit, and I learned I had a twin, that I was the offspring of a heinous sex trafficker and a young woman he’d abducted. A man who tried to kill me and who killed my sister and my mother.” Angie paused and continued to hold Claire’s gaze. “So I do understand something of what you’re going through, and I’m here for you, Claire. I’m here, and I know, and I have walked that walk. In the end, you come to realize that the truth is the best way. That closure rounds the circle. Not just for you but all the others impacted by the ripple effects of crime. Because nothing happens in isolation.”
Claire glowered at Angie, her eyes glinting with moisture.
“Here, I brought you something.” Out of the front of her jacket, Angie took the plastic sleeve containing the journal pages Maddocks had scanned for her. She handed them to Claire.
“What are these?”
“They’re what your biological mother wrote while in captivity. It’s evidence that will be used in court, but Maddocks secured copies for me and for you. These pages, these words, belonged to Jasmine. You are her next of kin, so you have a right to them.” Angie paused. “She wrote them to you, Claire.”
Claire lowered her eyes and stared at the tiny writing. “Next of kin,” she whispered. She took the pages from Angie and began to read. As Claire absorbed the first few sentences, strength seemed to whoosh out of her, and she sagged at the knees. Backing up, she sat on a wooden bench along the pier railing. She held her blowing hair off her face as she read the words in an audible whisper.
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight … I looked into your little eyes and saw they were green as the river that changed me, and I named you Claire … and one day I will sit at a campfire with you, Claire. One day we’re going to get free …
She swiped a tear from her cheek. “She named me?”
“She did.”
“She died for me. She died trying to get free for me.”
Angie seated herself beside Claire. “Hold on to that love, Claire. Secrets are forged and kept in the name of love. And hurt in the same.”
Claire looked up and out over the layers of gray upon sea upon cloud upon ocean. The clean, salty wind pinked her nose and cheeks. Tears wet her face. She inhaled deeply.
“What matters, then?” she asked. “What truly matters if life is built on lies?”
“I don’t know. But I want to say truth. Truth matters. It’s what guides me now.”
Claire sat in stunned silence, trying to assimilate what she held in her hands. Her mother’s words.
“You need to hold on to that dream of yours, Claire. The SAR, the tracking. Finding the missing. You can help others find closure. In doing so, you will find yourself.”
“Is that what you do now? You think you’re helping others? Is that what drives you forward?”
Angie smiled wryly. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She paused. “I want you to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“She drove up from the city very early this morning. Wait here.”
Angie got up and walked a short way back down the pier. She raised her hand, calling the visitor over.
They watched as a car door opened up on the road. A squat figure exited slowly—a woman in a brown coat and wool hat. She was old, and she steadied herself with two sticks. Bending into the wind, she began to soldier slowly forward down the wooden dock like a crusty arthritic crab, her sticks like extra legs.
I’m Jasmine’s only remaining kin … I just want some answers before I my lay grandchild’s remains properly, and finally, to rest.
“She’s your kin, Claire. Your great-grandmother. She’s a retired justice of the Supreme Court. Her name is Jilly Monaghan, and she wants to meet you.”
CHAPTER 49
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30
Kjel Holgersen leaned back against his pillows. His neck was being held steady by a brace. Pain was a constant right now. And his brain was still thick and woozy from medication. Outside it was getting dark, late November rain streaming against the hospital window. December would dawn tomorrow. Then would come Christmas.
He checked the time. Visiting hours were almost over. No one was coming to see him. Why he’d even dared hope was beyond him. He reached for his iPad at the side of his bed and opened the cover. He pulled up a news site and began to read the stories developing around his and Pallorino’s discovery of a serial killer’s lair at the Nahamish. The media was hailing him as a hero.
He didn’t feel like one.
Nothing about his shithole life was heroic. Probably no one would miss him if he’d gone and died out there in the snow. Why he’d been given yet another chance was beyond him.
He shut the cover on his iPad and closed his eyes, thinking of those case files Leo had set to one side as being irrelevant, unsolvable, a waste of time. Maybe that’s why.
Because no one should be a waste of time.
He could still make a difference, like he’d made with Annelise Janssen in working with Pallorino to see that she finally came home.
Kjel made a mental note to look at those street kid files again, see what he might have missed the last time around. Because if Leo said they were worthless, Kjel figured they held something that warranted deeper investigation. Watch Detective Leo. Like a hawk.
With his eyes closed, he started to drift off to someplace warm, with a beach. A sparkling ocean. With drinks that came in colors like blue and orange and purple and were garnished with tropical flowers and little paper umbrellas.
“Holgersen?”
“A double,” he murmured, holding up two fingers. “Make mine a double.”
“Holgersen.” Someone was shaking his arm. He drifted groggily up from his tropical vacation. He opened his eyes.
“Jeezus, fuck,” he muttered when he saw who it was. “I thoughts you was my waitress. Where’s my drinks? What in the hells you doing here, Pallorino? You … you look like shit.” He struggled to sit up higher, but pain stopped him dead. He breathed slowly, trying to moderate the pulsing in his nerve ends. Trying not to move his head.
“Speak for yourself, you ugly old mutt.” Angie Pallorino set a packet of nicotine gum on the table next to his bed. “Mad
docks found that pack on your desk. Better check with your doc, though, before you go mixing nicotine into that cocktail of drugs they’re giving you.”
He grinned carefully and whispered, “Sweet mercies. You’s doing okay, then?”
She nodded. She looked super pale. She had bruises on her face and a line of tiny black stitches on her brow. And her nose was swollen. He struggled to hold in his emotions at the sight of her alive, struggled to rein in his affection for this hard-ass chick. Who was also so soft. Who he’d really kind of come to love. He’d heard how she’d rolled the car down the bank and gone into the river.
She touched his arm. “And you—how you feeling?”
He almost nodded, wincing again as his slightest movement caused him pain. “Good enough.” His voice would be a hoarse whisper for a while, the docs had said. “I’ll be back at the station in no time.”
She laughed. “Right. We’ll see about that. What do the doctors say?”
“They said the only other person they knows about who gots an arrow through the neck like this and narrowly survived because it missed everything important was some Russian dude, a father of two out for a walk in the park near a sports center in Moscow. Someone from the archery club there misfired, and he gots it in the neck. Outta the blue. Life is fucking weird.”
She held his gaze, her features turning serious. “Yeah,” she said. “It is. But mostly it’s better than the alternative.”
“Mostly.” Although Kjel wasn’t so certain about that.
She pointed to a pile of newspapers she’d set on the bedside stand. “Media is hailing you as a hero. The chief, mayor, everyone. You saved what they’re calling a daughter of the city, given her dad’s high profile.”
“Saw on the iPad. It was you who saved Annelise, not me.”
“No way. We made a good team.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Look, I … I’m sorry I left you there. I—”
“Hey, I’da have left you, too, Pallorino. Yous did what you was trained to do. You’re a good cop.”
The Girl in the Moss (Angie Pallorino Book 3) Page 35
