Public Secrets

by Nora Roberts

  “Maybe, for a while.” He drew up a chair beside the bed. “But if you could tell me what you remember from that night?”

  She let her head fall back and stared up at the ceiling. Her monotone description of the party was similar to her husband’s, and to those of the others Lou had interviewed. Familiar faces, strange faces, people coming in, going out. Someone on the kitchen phone ordering pizza.

  That was a new one, and Lou noted it down.

  Talking with Brian, then hearing Emma scream—finding her at the foot of the steps.

  “People crowded around,” she murmured. “Someone, I don’t know who, called an ambulance. We didn’t move her—we were afraid to move her. We heard the sirens coming. I wanted to go to the hospital with her, her and Brian, but I needed to check on Darren first, and to wake Alice and let her know what had happened.

  “I stopped to get Emma’s robe. I don’t know why really, I just thought she might need it. I started down the hall. I was annoyed because the lights were out. We always leave the hall light on for Emma. She’s afraid of the dark. Not Darren,” she said with a half-smile. “He’s never been afraid of a thing. We only keep a night-light in his room because it’s easier for us if he wakes in the night. He often does still. He likes company.” She brought a hand to her face as her voice began to shake. “He doesn’t like to be alone.”

  “I know this is hard, Mrs. McAvoy.” But she had been the first on the scene, had found, and had moved the body. “I need to know what you found when you went into his room.”

  “I found my baby.” She shook off Brian’s hand. She couldn’t bear to be touched. “He was lying on the floor, by the crib. I thought, I thought, Oh God, he’s climbed up and fallen out. He was lying so still on the little blue rug. I couldn’t see his face. I picked him up. But he wouldn’t wake up. I shook him, and I screamed, but he wouldn’t wake up.”

  “Did you see anyone upstairs, Mrs. McAvoy?”

  “No. There was no one upstairs. Just the baby, my baby. They took him away, and they won’t let me have him. Brian, for God’s sake, why won’t you let me have him?”

  “Mrs. McAvoy.” Lou rose. “I’m going to do everything I can to find out who did this. I promise you that.”

  “What difference does it make?” She began to cry, huge, silent tears. “What possible difference does it make?”

  It made a difference, Lou thought as he stepped into the corridor again. It had to.

  EMMA STUDIED LOU with a straightforward intensity that made him feel awkward. It was the first time he could remember a child making him want to check his shirt for stains.

  “I’ve seen policemen on the telly,” she said when he introduced himself. “They shoot people.”

  “Sometimes.” He groped for something to say. “Do you like television?”

  “Yes. We like Sesame Street the best, Darren and I.”

  “Who do you like best, Big Bird or Kermit?”

  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, compact 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.