by Nora Roberts
“You didn’t say what you arrested them for.”
“For what they did to you and your sister.”
“Eliza didn’t hit us.”
First name, Lee noted. Not our mother.
“She put those grooves in your face.”
Zane touched the scratches with his fingertips. “I guess so. It’s hard to remember.”
“She let it happen, that makes her complicit. She abused you, Zane, just like Graham did.”
Zane wanted to believe. God, he wanted to believe. “He knows a lot of people. He can get really good lawyers.”
“Trust me.” Lee gave him a steady look that eased the cramping in Zane’s gut. “I’m pretty good at my job. Emily’s going with me because I think she can help convince your mother to tell the truth.”
“Then she won’t go to jail. But—”
“A lighter sentence if she tells the truth, cooperates. But she’s not going to be able to take you away from Emily or your grandparents. For one thing, both you and Britt are old enough to choose; for another, we’re going to prove she’s unfit. You don’t need to worry about this.”
“Will you come back and tell me what happens?”
“Yes. Are you prepared to go to court, to stand before a judge or jury and tell what happened?”
“Yes. I want to.” It rushed through him, that want, like a wave of strength. “I want to look him in the face and say what he did. I want to.”
“Good, because you’re going to get your chance. I’ve got to get to it now.”
“Sir? Thank you. Thank you for getting me out, for keeping Britt safe. I’m never going to forget it.”
“You take care of yourself, Zane. Let’s get you inside so your grandparents can fuss over you.”
“They’re good at it. Sometimes I’d imagine we could live here,” he said as Lee helped him up to the porch. “After one of the times, I’d think what it would be like to live here.”
“Now you will.” He opened the screen door. “Can you make it the rest of the way?”
“Yeah. I can make it.”
I bet you can. I bet you will, Lee thought.
“Tell Emily we gotta get moving.”
* * *
They talked about it from every angle on the drive to the station house in Asheville, and while Lee’s impression of Emily as a tough woman who handled herself only strengthened, he still hesitated at the door of the interview room.
“You’re sure you want to do this?”
“Lee.” Emily laid a hand on his arm. “I am doing it. It may not do any good other than getting it out of my own craw, but I’m doing it.”
“When you’re finished, or you’ve just had enough, bang on the door.”
“Got it.”
He opened the door, signaled the cop in the room to come out. Emily walked in, and the door closed behind her.
Eliza sat at a small table, back straight, cuffed hands folded on the table. Her face carried the night’s violence, but her eyes, Emily noted, burned with angry pride.
“It’s about damn time.”
Her stomach hurt. Emily noted it with a detached interest as she sat across from her sister. “It really is, isn’t it?”
“I’ve been in this hellhole for hours. I’m being treated like a criminal, and they won’t tell me where Graham is, what’s happening. I need you to find out. My lawyer assures me he’ll have all these ridiculous charges dismissed, and at the very least we’ll be released on bond until we can clear our names. But in the meantime, I need some of my things. I’ll give you a list.”
Fascinating, Emily thought. She’s exactly the same as she’s always been.
But I’m not.
“No, you won’t. You’re under the mistaken impression I’m here to help you. I’m not. And the fact you haven’t asked about your children only cements that.”
“My children—and they’re hardly helpless babies—are conspiring against me, against Graham. Zane’s dangerous, Emily. You have no idea what—”
“Shut up.” Eliza’s head snapped back when Emily lashed out with the two words. “Another word against Zane, one goddamn single word against that boy, and I walk away. You’ll have no one. I know what happened last night, what happened over Christmas year before last. I know everything, so don’t bother with the show, Eliza.”
To help push her temper under control, Emily sat back. “They’ve allowed me to come in and speak with you. It’s just you and me. They can’t listen. It’s against the law. I need to know why. Why you’d do this to Zane and Emily. Why you’d let Graham do this to them, to you. I need to know why.”
“Stop being an idiot and do something useful for once! I need my skin care products. The fact that you’d take the word of a couple of recalcitrant teenagers over your own sister just proves what a fool you are.”
“Cut the crap. I’m not getting anything for you, doing anything for you. Worried about your face, Eliza, your skin tone under the black eye and bruises? Just think what it’s going to look like after a few years in prison.”
“I’m not going to prison.” But her lips trembled.
“You are, how long and what kind depends on what you do, what you say when the police come in.”
“Our lawyer—”
“Stop right there.” To push the point, Emily shot up a finger. “That’s your first mistake, and it’s a big one. You’re not stupid, so think a minute about sharing a lawyer with the man who gave you that eye. You’ve got a chance—but it won’t hold for long. You better get yourself your own lawyer, and the one thing I will do is give you the names of a couple of good criminal lawyers I found when I thought I’d need them to help Zane. He won’t need them now.”
“Zane needs to be locked up. He—Don’t!” As Emily pushed to her feet, panic rang in Eliza’s voice for the first time. “Don’t leave me here.”
“Then stop the bullshit.”
“How do I know you’re not recording this?”
Rising, Emily took off her shirt, turned a circle. “You and me, Eliza. Graham pays the lawyer, and who do you think he’ll represent if it comes down to choices? Make yours, and when I walk out of here, I’ll contact one who’ll represent you.”
She put her shirt on, sat again. “We were raised in the same house by the same people. We were raised to respect ourselves. Why have you let Graham abuse you, your children? Why didn’t you come to me, to anyone, for help?”
“You don’t understand anything, and it’s our business. Our marriage. We love each other.”
“A man who hits you doesn’t love you.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Eliza actually cast her eyes toward the ceiling. “Always so ordinary. Always.” Face alive again, Eliza leaned toward her sister. “I am not ordinary. Graham and I have passion, something else you don’t understand. You married a loser, then couldn’t even keep him.”
“His so-called passion put you in the hospital.”
“Things went too far. He isn’t allowed to hit me in the face, that’s the agreement.”
Honestly, Emily thought, she’d honestly believed she couldn’t be shocked again. Yet she was.
“You—you have an agreement about where he’s allowed to hit you?”
“And when we put this mess behind us, he’ll have to make breaking the agreement up to me. But there were circumstances.”
She hadn’t believed it, not really, hadn’t believed Britt, not in her heart, about that single, sick, sorry thing.
“You like it. You get off on it.”
“Don’t be such a prude. We have passion, even after nearly eighteen years we have real passion for each other. He has a demanding, stressful career, and he needs that passion at home. You think you can judge me? Look at what I have. The biggest, most beautiful house in Lakeview Terrace, vacations wherever I want to go, a husband who buys me gorgeous jewelry, an exciting sex life.”
She tossed up her hands, looked at her sister with a kind of cold pity. “What have you got, Emily? An o
ld house, a bunch of bungalows you have to rent out, and no man who wants you.”
They sat, Emily thought, debated this with her battered-faced sister in prison garb, with a police guard on the door. And still Eliza saw herself as superior in every way.
And the single thing Eliza had that Emily had envied hadn’t made Eliza’s list.
“You know, Eliza, there’s something else you have you didn’t put on that list. Two children.”
“I never wanted them.” She shrugged them off, as she might an old sweater. “I kept my part of the agreement. Two children. And I did everything perfectly. They had everything—good clothes, a good school. Dance lessons for the girl, sports for the boy, music lessons for both—though Zane’s pathetic there. Healthy meals, discipline, education, and the proper amount of recreational time.”
Yes, yes, yes, she could still be shocked, Emily realized. “They’re part of the agreement.”
“How would it look if we had no children? A man in Graham’s position needs to present the right image.”
“So they’re part of the image. It didn’t matter to you when he hit Zane?”
“A disrespectful child needs to be punished. Zane’s nearly grown in any case.”
“So you’ve, basically, finished with him.”
“He would have been sent to the right university, given every opportunity. He’d have studied medicine, become a doctor. Now?” She shrugged again, another old sweater discarded. “I have no idea what Graham will want to do. We’ll have to discuss it.”
“You and Graham will no longer have anything to say about either of the children. They’re with me now.”
“Please. As if any court would take them from two parents of our reputation and status.”
“Exactly. Your reputation and status are shredded. The cops know everything.”
“Teenagers’ words against ours.”
“There’s also the statements from the staff of the resort, where you took Zane after Graham beat him. Didn’t think of that, did you?” she added as she saw the flicker in Eliza’s eyes. “Didn’t consider that lie might come back to bite your sorry ass one day. And there’s so much more, but I’ll leave that to the police to tell you, and whatever lawyer you go with. You may have a chance to make a deal, to plead down some of the charges against you. Either way, when you go to court on this, I’ll be one of the people testifying against you and against Graham.”
Eliza’s face went hot under the bruising. “You were always a bitch, always jealous of me. That’s what this all comes down to. You’ve always been jealous. Because I’m prettier, popular, I married a doctor.”
“No, Eliza, in fact I never was, and now I can’t even feel pity for you. I came in here to try to convince you to tell the truth, to make some sort of deal so you only spent a few years rather then a decade or more in prison. But after this? I just don’t care. I won’t wish you good luck, Eliza,” she said as she rose, “because I don’t.”
She read fear clearly, tilted her head. “I wonder, did you and Graham have an agreement on what you’d do if you ended up like this? Did either of you consider it might fall apart, and what you’d do when it did?”
Now she shrugged. “I bet he’s thinking about it now.”
Turning, she lifted her hand to bang on the door.
“Contact the lawyer.”
Emily glanced back. “Which?”
“The one you have. I want my own lawyer.”
“Okay, I’ll do that. I’ll do that, Eliza. It’s the last thing I’ll do for you.”
She banged on the door, and when it opened, left without looking back.
* * *
It took time, but Lee didn’t mind keeping Graham waiting. The DA pushed hard for holding him without bail, and used the two minors, seriously injured and in potential jeopardy, to good effect.
It hadn’t hurt to have Chief Bost speak out.
So he bought a little time, time enough for Eliza Bigelow’s new lawyer to catch up, to push for a deal.
By the time he walked into interview, his gut told him he had it solid. Just like it told him Bigelow probably hadn’t been fully, what you’d call, forthcoming with his attorney.
He started the recording, sat.
“You’ll address your questions to me,” the lawyer told Lee.
“Sure. As you’re aware, Mrs. Bigelow has her own attorney. I’ve just come from speaking to him, and her. She rolled on you, Bigelow. Got herself a deal.”
“Spousal privilege—”
“Does not apply,” Lee interrupted, “if the communication between spouses pertains to the planning or execution of a crime. Mrs. Bigelow opted for a reduction in charges. Can’t blame her.”
Graham leaned over to murmur to his lawyer.
“Mr. Bigelow wants to speak with his wife.”
“You’ll have to take that up with her lawyer, and the warden of the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, who’ll be hosting her for the next five to ten. You know, she might’ve slipped by with three to five if it wasn’t for her part in lying to have her severely injured minor son locked up. That and holding down her minor daughter while her husband pumped the kid he’d just knocked around with a sedative so she couldn’t talk. That upped things.
“Your client on the other hand…” Lee opened his file. “He’s going for the full ride.”
“We will contend that Eliza Bigelow was coerced, and due to her own injuries, inflicted by her son, was emotionally and physically compromised.”
“You can try that, but the shrink cleared her. Oh, she’s got issues, but once she decided to tell the truth, a whole lot came out. One being striking his minor son in the stomach with the son’s baseball bat after a game your client deigned to attend, and wherein the minor son had the nerve to strike out. He was eleven. That’s what we like to call assault with a deadly.”
“My client denies any and all charges. We’ve filed for another bail hearing.”
“Yeah, I got that notice. Before you do, let’s just move ahead a few years. I want to be sure your client’s fully informed you about the events taking place from December twenty-third to December thirtieth, 1998.”
Lee took papers from the file as he spoke. “How on December twenty-third of that year your client’s two minor children came home from school to find their father, once again, hitting their mother. On this occasion, the minor son attempted to stop the assault and was in turn beaten unconscious.”
“My client refutes that allegation, and in the strongest terms.”
“The minor child, fourteen at this time, was subsequently locked in his room, initially denied medical treatment for his injuries. Which included a broken nose, bruised ribs, black eyes, a concussion. The nose, the good doctor here later set, without any pain medication. The child was also denied food until the following day.”
“It’s obvious Zane is suffering from some sort of mental breakdown,” the lawyer began.
“You got kids, counselor?”
“That’s hardly relevant.”
“Humor me.”
“I have two sons, eighteen and twenty.”
“Keep them in mind when you read these. Apparently Dr. Bigelow didn’t want to miss his holiday trip that year, despite his son’s condition. I have statements from several members of the staff of the High Country Resort and Spa where the family stayed from December twenty-sixth through December thirtieth.”
With his eyes on Graham’s, Lee pushed them across the table.
“Kid was supposed to have the flu—that’s the story they told the family when they kept him locked up over Christmas. What you’re reading is the story they told the staff at the resort.”
Graham leaned over again, but the lawyer held up a hand to hold him off.
“A boy, recovering from an illness, might easily fall off his bike.”
“And here are the statements from neighbors, teachers, the chief of police of Lakeview, the minor’s aunt. How does a kid get the flu, fall off his
bike, get confined to his room at the resort, and manage to fall off his skis?”
Lee shoved over more papers. “Then there’s Mrs. Bigelow’s statement confirming the beating, the confinement, the conflicting stories. And this.”
He laid a copy of Zane’s first notebook entry in front of the lawyer. “Written by a fourteen-year-old boy, in fear and pain. The details all match. That’s the night he started writing it out, Doctor Bigelow. The night Zane started documenting your systematic abuse.”
“I need to consult with my client. This interview is over.”
“You can consult with your piece-of-shit client all you want. I’m making it my mission in life to see he’s put away for the maximum sentence allowed by law. My goddamn mission.”
“I’ll bury you. All of you.”
“Be quiet, Graham. Don’t say anything.”
“You took their childhood, their safety.”
“I gave them life!”
“You gave them terror and pain.”
“They owe me for every breath they take, and it’s my decision, mine, to decide how to raise them.”
“Not anymore.”
“That boy thinks he can defy me? He’s lucky I didn’t put him in the ground.”
“Graham, enough! This interview’s over, Detective.”
“Your lawyer’s going to start thinking deal, pleading all this down. Not going to happen.” Lee jabbed a finger on the copy of Zane’s notebook page. “My mission in life.”
“I’ll have your badge! You won’t be able to get work as a fucking mall guard when I’m done.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Lee switched off the record, strolled out.
It took time—justice takes her time—but in just under a year, he lifted a beer and thought: Mission accomplished.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lee drove the lake road on a spring day with the mountains greening, the wildflowers popping, and his mood high. He had a lot on his mind, decisions to make, moves to take—or not—but with the lake mirroring the happy blue of the sky, white boats, white clouds sailing, optimism was the name of his game.
