“Watching you and feeling ashamed.”
“You don’t look ashamed.”
His father stood and brought a stale smell with him. He hadn’t bathed. His hair was greasy. “I knew what you were going to do.” He put a hand on the bedrail. “When I saw the gun in your hand, I knew.”
Gideon blinked, remembering his father’s face, and the crown of flowers in his hands. “You wanted me to kill him?”
“I wanted him to die. I thought for a minute it wouldn’t matter how that happened, whether you killed him or I did. When I saw you with the gun, I thought, well, maybe this is right. It was a flash of a thought. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. “But then you ran and were gone so damn fast.”
“So you do hate him?”
“Of course I do, him and your mother.”
There was the anger, and it wasn’t just at Adrian. Gideon ran the last hour in his head: the way his father had said her name over and over, the thrust of it like a blade. “You hate her?”
“Hate is not the right word—I loved her too much for that. That doesn’t mean I could forgive or forget.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You shouldn’t. No boy should.”
“How could you hate her? She was your wife.”
“On paper, maybe.”
“Stop talking in riddles, okay!” Gideon rose up in the bed, pain spreading under the bandages. It was the first time he’d ever raised his voice to his father or expressed his own frustration. But so much of it was inside him, the filthy house and poor food and distant father. Mostly, though, it was the silence and dishonesty, the way his father drank himself stupid, yet had the stomach to curse and groan if Liz came by to help with homework or make sure milk was in the fridge. Now, he was talking about on paper as if he were not some kind of paper man, himself. “I’m fourteen years old, but you still ignore me when it comes to her.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. You turn away if I ask about what happened or how she died or why you look at me sometimes like you hate me, too.… Are you angry that I didn’t kill him?”
“No.” His father sat, and none of the tension left him. “I’m angry because Adrian Wall is alive and free, and your mother’s still dead. I’m upset that you’re shot and in this place, and that, when it came down to it, you were the only one of us with the courage to look her killer in the face and do what needed doing.”
“But, I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s not the point, son. The point is you had the gun, and I’m just the chickenshit who let you take it. Adrian Wall stole everything from me that ever mattered. Now, look at you, all shot through and small, and somehow bigger than I ever was. And why is that? Because I saw you with that gun and went weak inside for all of ten seconds. Ten goddamn seconds! How could I not be bound up and turned around and choking on the kind of anger that comes from that?”
Gideon heard the words, but thought they were bullshit. His father had half the night to stop him. He could have gone to the prison, gone to Nathan’s. “And my mother?” he asked. “What did she ever do to make you mad?”
“Your mother.” Gideon’s father turned his face away, then pulled a bottle from his pocket and drained a third of it. “When things got hard between us, we’d go to the church and pray. No reason you’d know that, but we did. If we argued about money or you or … other things. We’d kneel and hold hands and ask God to give us strength or commitment or whatever the hell we thought we needed. We were married in that church, and you were baptized there. I always figured if one place could fix us, then that’d be it. Your mother disagreed, but she would go to humor me. Goddamn.” He shook his head and stared at the bottle. “She’d kneel at that altar and say the words just to humor me.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Then, I’ll say one last thing and leave it at that. As much as I loved your mother and as pretty as she was…” He shook his head and drained the bottle dry. “The woman was no kind of fucking saint.”
* * *
After the run-in with her father, Elizabeth left Channing at the house and pointed the old car at skinny roads that ran wild into the country. It’d been like that since she was a kid: confrontation, then speed, sometimes for hours, and more than once for days. The next state. The next county. It didn’t matter. The wind felt good. The engine’s scream. But no matter how fast or how far she drove, there was nowhere to go and no white tape marking the end. It was the same empty escape—the same race—and when it was done, Elizabeth’s world was no more than her father claimed, just violence and the job and her fascination with Adrian Wall. Maybe he was right about that life. He’d called it pointless once, an embarrassment of lightless rooms. She was thinking of that now, of decisions and the past, and of the only child she would ever conceive.
* * *
It was nine at night when she told her parents the first real lie: “I’m tired,” she said. “I’m going to bed.”
Her father looked up from the kitchen table, and the notes he’d made for Sunday’s sermon. “Good night, Elizabeth.”
“Good night, Father.”
Such words had been said all the nights of her life. Dinner and homework, his lips dry on her cheek. A week had passed since she’d told the truth of what had happened at the quarry, and supposedly there was peace between them. She didn’t see it, though. She saw his hand on the boy’s shoulder, the way he’d told his own lies, saying, “Prayer and contrition, young man. These are stones in the path to God’s right hand.”
Elizabeth watched her father return to his notes. First gray was in his beard, hair thinning on the crown of his head.
“Come here, baby girl.”
Elizabeth went to her mother, who was warm and smiling and smelled of bread. The hug she offered was soft and long, so complete Elizabeth wanted to fall into it and never leave. “I don’t want this baby.”
“Hush, child.”
“I want the police.”
Her mother squeezed harder and spoke in the same guarded whisper. “I’ll talk to him.”
“He won’t change his mind.”
“I’ll try. I promise. Just be patient.”
“I can’t.”
“You must.”
Elizabeth pushed away because her own decision was so suddenly hard inside her she feared her mother might feel it.
“Elizabeth, wait…”
But, she didn’t. She pounded the stairs, went to her room, and squeezed her legs together until lights were off in the house. When the time came, she went through the window and onto the roof, then down the great oak that had shaded her room since before she could speak.
A friend with a car waited at the end of the drive. Her name was Carrie, and she knew the place. “Are you sure about this?”
“Just drive.”
The doctor was slick skinned and Lithuanian and unlicensed. He lived in a trailer at the bad end of a bad trailer park and wore his hair long and parted in the middle. His front tooth was gold, the rest of them as shiny and brown as old honey. “You are the preacher’s daughter, yes?”
His eyes moved up and down, gold tooth flashing as he pushed a damp cigarette into the center of a narrow smile.
“It’s okay,” Carrie said. “He’s legit.”
“Yes, yes. I helped your sister. Pretty girl.”
Elizabeth felt a cold ache between her legs. She looked at Carrie, but the doctor had his fingers on her arm. “Come.” He moved her toward the back of the trailer. “I have clean sheets, washed hands…”
When it was done and she was in the car, Elizabeth was shaking so hard her teeth chattered. She hunched above the place she hurt. The road was black, and white lines flicked past, one after another and endless. She settled into the hurt, and into the hum of tires. “Should there be this much blood?”
Carrie looked sideways, and her face turned as white as the lines on the road. “I don’t know, Liz. Jesus.”
“But, your sister—??
?
“I wasn’t with my sister! Jenny Loflin took her. Shit, Liz! Shit! What did the doctor say?”
But Elizabeth couldn’t think of the doctor, not of his dead eyes or filthy room or the way he touched her. “Just get me home.”
Carrie drove fast to make it happen. She got Elizabeth to the house and onto the porch before something else broke inside and stained the porch like a flood.
“Jesus. Liz.”
But Elizabeth couldn’t speak, watching instead from the bottom of a lake. The water was clear and warm, but getting dark at the edges. She saw fear on her friend’s face, and black waters pushing in.
“What do I do, Liz? What?”
Elizabeth was on her back, everything warm around her. She tried to raise her hand, but couldn’t move at all. She watched her friend pound on the door, then turn and run and spray gravel with the car. The next thing she saw was her father’s face, then lights and movement, then nothing at all.
* * *
Elizabeth eased up on the gas, watching mile markers slide past as she played it out again: long days in the hospital, the silent months that followed. She blamed herself when the nights got long. For not wanting the baby, for the dead place inside her. How old would the child be had she kept it?
Sixteen, Elizabeth thought.
Two years older than Gideon. Two years younger than Channing.
She wondered if that meant something, if God indeed paid attention, and her father had been right all along. It was doubtful, but why else did she find these children? Why were the connections so immediate and unshakable?
“A psychologist would have a goddamn field day.”
The thought amused her because psychologists ranked about the same as preachers, which meant pretty low. What if she was wrong about that? If she’d gone for therapy as her mother wanted, then maybe she’d have finished college and married. Maybe she’d have a career in real estate or graphic design, live in New York or Paris, and have some fabulous life.
Forget it, she thought. She’d done good work as a cop. She’d made a difference and saved some lives. So what if the future was shapeless? There were other things and other places. She didn’t have to be a cop.
“Yeah, right.”
Those were her thoughts as she approached a creek with two boys fishing from the bridge. Her foot came off the pedal, and she moved past, parking beyond the bridge to watch. The smaller boy went into his cast, and for a moment everything hung in perfect balance: the rod all the way back, small arms flexed. He was nine, she guessed, his friend pointing at a deep-looking pool beside a willow tree and a slab of gray stone. The baited hook flicked out, landed perfectly. They nodded at each other, and she marveled that life could be so simple, even for a child. It gave her a moment’s peace, then the phone rang, and she answered.
It was Channing.
She was screaming.
* * *
Channing had stood on the porch and shaded her eyes as Elizabeth backed from the drive and accelerated down the street. The poor woman had been apologetic and calm, but Channing understood the sudden need to move and do and think wild thoughts. She felt the same thing when her mind went to the basement, like she could scream or rock in the dark or punch the walls until her fingers bled. Anything was better than stillness, and acting normal was the one impossible thing. Conversation. Eye contact. Anything could open the door.
She watched the street for another minute, then went inside and wandered the house, liking everything about it: the colors and the furniture, the comfortable clutter. A bookshelf covered an entire wall of the living room, and she walked its length, opening one book and then another, picking up photographs of Elizabeth and some small boy. In most of the pictures he was young—maybe two or three. In others he was older, shy looking and thin, and close at her side. He had troubled eyes and a pretty smile. She wondered who he was.
Turning from the photographs, Channing locked the door, poured a glass of vodka from a bottle in the freezer, and made her way to the bathroom at the end of the hall. She locked that door, too, and wondered if she’d ever relax behind a door that wasn’t bolted. Even here and safe, she felt as if her clothes were too thin and certain muscles had forgotten how to unclench. The vodka helped, so she took a sip, started the bath, and then lifted the glass again. She made the water very hot and waited for steam to rise before undressing in a careful, controlled manner. It wasn’t that she hurt—the stitches, the bite marks—but that she feared her eyes might betray her, that they’d find the mirror by mistake and linger on the bruises and dark thread and the tight, pink crescents his teeth had left. She wasn’t ready for that.
Sinking into the bath, though, she thought of what Elizabeth stood for, of her patience and strength and will. Maybe it was the vodka, or something more. Whatever the case, Channing climbed from the tub before the water cooled. She kept her eyes up this time and confronted the mirror with a steadiness she thought she’d lost. She started with wet hair and the water on her skin, then looked at the bruises and marks and the ribs that showed too plainly. But it wasn’t enough to simply look. She needed to see, and that’s what she tried to do, to see not just the person she’d been or was, but the woman she wished to be.
That woman looked a lot like Liz.
It was a good thought that didn’t last. Someone was banging on the door.
“Jesus—”
Channing jumped so hard and fast she slammed her hand against the sink. It wasn’t a knock at the door, but a hard, brutal pounding.
“Shit, shit—”
She shoved a leg into her jeans, fabric sticking on wet skin, the other leg going in just as hard. The pounding got louder and more intense. Front door, she thought, over and over, and hard enough to shake the house. Channing pulled on the sweatshirt, thinking telephone, Liz, run. It was panic, pure instinct. She could barely breathe, and it took all her strength to open the bathroom door. The hall was dim, no movement. The pounding got even louder.
Creeping into the living room, she risked a glance through the window. Cops were in the yard—blue lights and guns and hard-faced men wearing Windbreakers that said SBI.
“This is the state police!” A loud voice at the door. “We have an arrest warrant for Elizabeth Black! Open up!”
Channing twitched away from the window, but not before someone saw her.
“Movement! Left side!”
Guns came up, squared on the widow.
“State police! Final warning!”
Channing ducked sideways, saw men on the porch. They wore helmets and body armor and black gloves. One of them had a sledgehammer.
“Break it.”
An older man pointed at the lock, and Channing screamed when the hammer hit. The sound was like a bomb, but the door held.
“Again!”
This time the frame buckled, and she saw bright metal. Six men stood behind the hammer, soldiers in a row with fingers tight above the triggers. The old man nodded, and the hammer struck a third time, the door breaking from its frame.
“Move! Move! Move!”
Channing felt the rush, but was already moving. She snatched up the phone and sprinted left.
“Movement! Back hall!”
Someone else yelled “Freeze!” but she didn’t. She hit the bathroom in a skid; slammed the door and locked it. They’d clear the house before they broke the door, but it was a small house, and she was already dialing.
One ring.
Two.
She sensed men, tight-packed in the narrow hall. It was the stillness, the silence.
Please, please …
The phone rang a third time, and Channing heard the click. She opened her mouth, but the door exploded, and the world was guns and men and screaming.
* * *
As hard as Elizabeth drove the car before, she pushed it to breaking now, turning off the crumbled road and onto a state highway, cars slashing past as the needle touched 105. The wind made so much noise she could barely think. But what could
she think about anyway?
The girl wasn’t answering.
Screams. A dead phone. But, she’d heard other things, too. Hard voices and shouting and breaking wood.
Elizabeth dialed the house, but the line was off the hook. She tried the girl’s phone again, but that failed, too.
“Damn it!”
Three tries. Three fails.
Desperate, she called Beckett. “Charlie!”
“Liz, where the hell are you? What’s that noise?”
She could barely hear above the wind. “Charlie, what’s happening?”
“Thank God. Listen. Don’t go to your house!” He was yelling to be heard. “Don’t go home!”
“What? Why?”
“Hamilton and Marsh…” She lost a sentence or two, then he was back. “Word just hit the street. They have an indictment, Liz. Double homicide. We just found out.”
“What about Channing?”
“Liz…” Static. “Don’t…”
“What?”
“State police locked us out—”
“Charlie! Wait!”
“Don’t go to your fucking house!”
Elizabeth hung up in numb disbelief. It wasn’t the warrant or that she’d be arrested. State cops were at her house, and so was the girl who’d saved her life, Channing, who was eighteen and hollowed out and liable to confess anything. Already, five minutes had passed.
“Too much time.”
She pushed the old car until the needle touched 110, then 115. She watched for slow movers and cops; squeezed the wheel hard and said her first real prayer in a dozen years.
Please, God …
* * *
But, it was over by the time she got there. She saw it from a block out: no lights at the house, no cars or cops or movement. She came hard anyway, locking up the brakes and rocking into the drive.
“Channing!”
She took the yard at a run, saw tire tracks in the grass, and the door broken in its frame. On the porch she hit the door with a shoulder, felt it rock on a single hinge. Inside, she found out-of-place furniture, dirty footprints, and the bathroom door, blasted off the hinges, too.
She was too late.
That was real.
She checked the house, anyway. Bedrooms. Closets. She wanted to find the girl, hidden maybe, or tucked away. But she was kidding herself, and she knew it. The warrant wasn’t for Channing, but they had a subpoena, and Hamilton and Marsh would use it, were probably talking to her now.