“You helped save my life. That’s a bit more significant than some stuffed suit at a black-and-white soiree.”
“There’s something else.”
“What?” He looked genuinely concerned now. The evening had been so beautiful. It pained her to say what she had to say next.
She whispered, “You know my nickname.”
“What nickname?”
“Bethie. You’ve called me Bethie. Many times. Always Bethie, never Liz or Beth. I never told you that was my nickname, Tristan. And how many Elizabeths do you know who go by Bethie instead?”
The blood drained out of his face. His eyes widened, and for a moment, he appeared so horror-struck she wished she could recall her words. Simultaneously, both of their gazes slid to his side, where the scar still puckered pink and raw beneath the protective cover of his shirt.
“Blimey,” he breathed.
Bethie had a chill. The night was hot, the humidity oppressive, and still she rubbed her arms for warmth.
“This was a bad idea,” she said abruptly.
“No—”
“Yes!”
“Dammit, no!” He reclaimed her arm, his grip firm but not painful. “I’m not your daughter.”
“I know that.”
“I’m fifty-two years old, Bethie . . . Elizabeth. My favorite food is steak, my favorite drink Glenfiddich straight up. I run my own business. I enjoy fast cars, fast boats. Lord be praised, I have a deep and abiding love for Playboy, and it’s not for the articles. Does any of that sound like a twenty-three-year-old girl to you?”
“How did you know Amanda’s age?”
“Because the doctors told me!”
“You asked questions about her?”
“Bethie . . . love, of course I asked questions. Someone had to die for me to live. I think about that. Hell, half my nights I lie awake thinking of nothing but that. I am not your daughter; I swear I’m not even the ghost of your daughter. But I am a man who’s grateful.”
Bethie was silent. She needed to think about this. Then, she nodded. “It’s possible,” she offered, “that someone once referred to me as Bethie. You know, in the hospital.”
His grip loosened on her arm. “Yes, probably that’s how it happened.”
She had to know. “Did they tell you about the crash?”
“I know she was drunk, if that’s what you mean.”
“She’d being doing so well,” Bethie said softly. “She’d joined AA just six months before the accident. I had such hopes for her.”
He didn’t say anything, but his expression gentled. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering on the curve of her cheek. His thumb stroked her jawline.
“She was so sensitive,” Bethie murmured. “Even as a little girl. Nothing fazed Kimberly, nothing scared Kimberly, but my Mandy was always different. Shy. Timid. Bugs scared her. Thanks to Hitchcock, birds scared her. One year, she was terrified of the slide at the school playground. We never knew why. She slept with a night-light on until she was twelve.”
“You must have worried about her a great deal.”
“I wanted her to feel safe. I wanted her to see herself as strong, independent, and capable. I wanted her to be able to dream bigger than I ever did.”
“What happened to her isn’t your fault,” Tristan said.
“That’s what I try telling myself.” She gave him a halfhearted smile. “I blame my ex-husband instead.”
“Why?”
“His job. He joined the FBI when the girls were little, became a profiler, and for all intents and purposes, disappeared. Granted, he did important work, but I’ve always been a bit biased—I thought our children should come first. Silly me.” She heard the bitterness in her voice and grimaced. “Sorry. You didn’t need to hear all that.”
“Hear what?”
She smiled again, with none of the gaiety of before when the evening was new, but still a smile. “You’re very kind to listen to me,” she murmured.
“Ah Bethie, I stand by what I said before. This is the nicest evening I’ve had in ages. Good things can come from bad, you know. It’s taken me fifty-two years and one extremely dangerous surgical procedure to learn that, but I did.”
“Are you really only here for a week?”
“This time. But I could arrange to return.”
“For business?”
“If that’s what you’d like to call it.”
She ducked her head, a slow blush creeping up her cheeks. The telltale warmth betrayed her, and his thumb slowly tilted her chin back up. He had moved closer to her. She could feel the heat of his body just an inch away. He was going to kiss her, she realized. He was going to kiss her. She leaned forward.
“Bethie,” he murmured right before his lips touched hers, “let me take you for a drive.”
7
Quincy’s House, Virginia
It was after ten P.M. before Quincy finally returned to his darkened home. He juggled his black leather computer case, a cardboard box of manila files, and his cell phone as he fought with his key. The moment he opened the door, his security system sounded its warning beeps.
He crossed the threshold quickly and in movements born of years of habit, he punched in the entry code without ever having to look at the keys. A minute later, when the front door was closed and locked again, he rearmed the outside sensors while leaving the internal motion detectors disabled. Welcome home.
Quincy valued his security system. Ironically enough, it was probably the only object in his house worth real money.
He went into the kitchen, dropping his computer case and box of files on the counter, then opening his refrigerator for no good reason. It remained empty, having not magically grown any food from the last time he checked. He closed the door, drew himself a glass of tap water, and leaned against the counter.
The kitchen was sizable, modern. It had hardwood floors, a massive stainless steel stove with an impressive stainless steel hood. The refrigerator was industrial-sized and stainless steel. The cabinets were made of cherry wood, the countertops fashioned from black granite. Five years ago, the real estate agent had assured him that this was a kitchen perfectly suited for entertaining. Now Quincy looked at the yawning bay windows of the empty breakfast nook, which still didn’t contain a kitchen table.
He traveled a lot. His place looked it.
He pushed away from the counter and roamed the space restlessly. Another long day completed. Another homecoming to . . . what?
Maybe he should get a pet. Fish, parakeet, cat, something that didn’t take too much care but would at least greet him at the end of the day with cheerful noise or even howling racket. He was not someone who needed a lot of creature comforts. He could handle the absence of furniture, the lack of artwork on his walls. His mother had died when he was very young, and most of his life had been lacking in softer touches. But silence . . . Silence still got to him.
He found himself thinking of dinnertime with his father, two people sitting at a scarred pine table, sharing a simple meal, and never saying a word. The farm had required a lot of physical effort. Abraham would be up and out at the break of day. He’d return at sunset. They’d eat. Watch a little TV. Read. Each night, the two of them in separate patched-up recliners, plowing their way through separate novels.
Quincy shook his head. His father had raised his only child the best way he knew how. Abraham had worked hard, put food on the table, and given his son an appreciation for the written word. Quincy could respect that now. He considered himself at peace with things. At least he had until a month ago. Grief played horrible tricks on the mind, and not even he knew what sort of demons were going to leap out of his subconscious next.
He was rattled these days, self-doubt stoked by lunchtimes no one knew of, when he went to Arlington and stood by his daughter’s grave; nerve endings eroded by weeks spent working with people who would no longer meet his eye.
He wasn’t used to feeling like this, as if the world
were an uncertain place and he needed to feel his way carefully or risk plunging into an unknown abyss. Some nights he jerked awake, his heart hammering in his chest with the frantic need to call Kimberly and make sure she was okay, that he still had one daughter left. Ironically enough, some evenings he was consumed by the desire to call Bethie, because while his ex-wife hated his guts, she was someone who had loved Mandy. She was a connection to his daughter, and with each day that went by, there were fewer and fewer of those connections left.
Quincy had not thought it would be this hard. He was an academic, a Ph.D. who’d studied the five stages of grief and the resulting physical and emotional turmoil. You should eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, engage in some sort of vigorous exercise, and avoid alcohol—it never helps. He was a professional, an FBI agent who’d been present numerous times when the word came down that some wife, husband, brother, sister, child would not be coming home again. You should maintain focus, revisit the last days of your loved one’s life as objectively as possible and avoid hysterics—they never help.
He was a man after all, an arrogant father who’d assumed tragedy would strike someone else’s family and never his. He was not eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. He was not objective about the last few days of Mandy’s life. Some days he desperately craved alcohol. And some nights he knew he was dangerously close to hysterics.
The great Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy. Quantico’s best of the best. How low the mighty have fallen, he thought, and it disturbed him to find himself still so egocentric, even when dealing with his daughter’s death.
He wished Rainie would call. He had thought that he would’ve heard from her by now, and it bothered him that he hadn’t. He rubbed his temples wearily, feeling the low beat of a headache that never really went away these days. And as if on cue, the cordless phone on his kitchen counter began to ring.
“Finally,” Quincy muttered and scooped it up. “Hello.”
Silence. Strange background noises, like metal clanging against metal.
“Well, well, well,” a voice said. “If it ain’t the man himself.”
Quincy frowned. The voice stirred memories, something in the back of his head. “Who is this?”
“You don’t remember me? Aw, and here I thought I was your loco simpatico. You fed boys break my heart.”
All at once, the voice clicked with a name. “How did you get this number?” Quincy asked sternly, while his palms began to sweat and his gaze flew to his security system to assure himself that it was still armed.
“You mean you don’t know yet?”
“How did you get this number?”
“Amigo, relax. I just wanna talk. Revisit old times on this fine Tuesday evening.”
“Fuck you,” Quincy said without thinking. He hardly ever swore, and a moment later he wished he hadn’t done so now, because the caller simply began to laugh.
“Ah, Quincy, mi amigo, you even swear like a suit. Shit, man, we’re hardened criminals here, you gotta do better than that. Fuck your mother, maybe. Fuck your mother up her mother-fucking ass. Yeah, that’s a good one. Or maybe,” the voice turned silky, “fuck your dead daughter in her dead-fucking grave with a white fucking cross. Yeah, I’d like that.”
Quincy gripped the phone harder as the words penetrated, and the first wave of anger washed over him like a tidal wave. He wanted to smash the phone. He wanted to smash it against his bare hardwood floor or black granite countertop. He wanted to smash it over and over again and then he wanted to fly to California just so he could beat the crap out of Miguel Sanchez, thirty-four years old and already sentenced to death, and he had never felt himself this angry, the rage throbbing in his temples and his whole body rigid with the need to lash out.
Then he saw his answering machine. The red blinking light indicating that there were messages. And the red digital display screen giving him the new-message count: 56. Fifty-six new messages on what should’ve been his unlisted telephone line.
He amazed himself with how calm he could keep his voice. “One call from me, Sanchez, and you’ll be sent straight to solitary. And remember, I’m the one who knows how much you hate to be alone.”
“That mean you don’t like talking about your daughter? Pretty, pretty girl, Quincy. How nice you gave her my favorite name.”
“—weeks in the hole. No one to brag to, no one to boost your ego, no one to rape when you realize you’re never ever going to even touch a woman again.”
“Do me a favor, fed. Next time you listen to my tape, picture your daughter’s face for me. Oh, and give your second daughter a kiss. Because someday, I’m gonna find a way out of this joint, and it makes me real happy to know that you’ve still got one daughter left.”
“One last time,” Quincy said tightly, his gaze locked on his blinking security system, “how did you get my unlisted number?”
And Sanchez drawled, “Unlisted? Not anymore.”
Quincy had no sooner set down his phone, than it rang again. He snatched it back up.
“What?” he demanded harshly.
There was a moment of silence, then his ex-wife’s uncertain voice. “Pierce?”
Quincy closed his eyes. He was unraveling. He would not unravel. He would not permit himself to do such a thing. “Elizabeth.”
“I was wondering if you could do me a small favor,” Bethie murmured. “Nothing major. Simply run a background check. You know, as you did before.”
“Your father hiring more contractors?” Quincy worked on loosening his grip on the phone and taking a deep breath. His father-in-law had built an addition on his home last year. He’d made his only daughter call her ex-husband to request background checks on the entire crew. According to his former father-in-law, it was the least Quincy could do.
“The name is Shandling. Tristan Shandling.”
Quincy found a piece of paper and wrote down the name. His heart was finally beginning to slow, the darkness receding at the edge of his vision. He felt more and more like his former self, and not some beast about to burst its chains. The red digital counter still glowed on his answering machine. Fifty-six messages. Something had gone wrong. He would deal with it, however, as he’d dealt with everything before. All in good time.
“Time frame?” he asked his ex-wife.
“Ummm, no rush. But soon. I think he has a place in Virginia if that helps.”
“All right, Bethie. Give me a few days.”
“Thank you, Pierce,” she said, and for once it sounded as if she meant it.
Quincy didn’t hang up the phone right away. Neither did she.
“Have you . . . have you heard from Kimberly lately?” he found himself asking.
Bethie seemed surprised. “No, but I’d assumed that you had.”
“Ah, so we’re equally shunned.”
“Maybe she tried to call you when you were gone. . . .” Bethie’s voice trailed off. She seemed to realize how that sounded and added hastily, “I tried to reach you earlier in the week, but you weren’t home and I didn’t feel like leaving a message.”
“I was in Portland visiting someone. An old friend.” He wasn’t sure why he offered the information, and the minute he did, he wished he could call it back. An old friend? Who was he trying to kid? When Bethie spoke, however, she didn’t sound angry or tense, which surprised him.
“Maybe I should pay Kimberly a visit,” she said. “She’s just an hour away, I could tell her I was in the area. It’s been a month.”
Quincy almost said no, then caught himself. Once, Rainie had accused him of taking his job too far. Even in his personal life, he showed up, gave his expert opinion, and left.
“Perhaps Kimberly just needs some space,” he tried neutrally.
“I don’t know why. We’re the only family she has left. Frankly, I thought she’d strive to be closer to us, not further away.”
Quincy rubbed his temples. “Bethie, I know that you’re sad. I’m sad, too.”
“Pierce, you’re spe
aking to me as if I were five.”
“We tried so hard for her. I know we don’t always agree on each other’s role as a parent, but we both loved Mandy. We wanted the best for her. We would’ve . . . We would’ve given her the world if such a thing were possible. Instead she got drunk, crawled behind the wheel of her vehicle and killed two people. I love her. I miss her. And some days . . . Some days, I’m just so angry.”
He was thinking of Sanchez’s call again, and the way his hands had fisted and his body had gone rigid. He was still angry, he realized. He was furious in places way down deep where it would take years to weed it all out and begin to feel normal again.
“Bethie,” he tried one last time, “don’t you get angry, too?”
His ex-wife didn’t speak right away. Then she asked quietly, in a strange tone, “Pierce, do you think if someone gets an organ transplant, that maybe they get more than just the other person’s tissue? Maybe . . . maybe they also get part of the other person’s being, some part of her soul?”
“An organ transplant is a medical procedure, nothing more.”
“I thought you would say that.”
“Returning to Kimberly for a moment—”
“She’s angry, she needs space. I got it, Pierce. I’m not as dumb as you think.”
“Bethie—”
The phone clicked off. His ex-wife had hung up on him.
Quincy slowly recradled the cordless phone on its base. And that, he thought tiredly, concluded one of the more civil conversations of his day.
Five minutes later, Quincy sat down at the kitchen counter. The scrap of paper with Tristan Shandling’s name had been pushed aside. Now, he had out a fresh spiral notebook and three black ink pens. He pressed the play button on his answering machine.
Then he began the two-page list of all the nice felons who’d called his unlisted telephone number simply to wish him dead.
The light on his security panel indicated his system was fully operational and armed. He watched it for a long time, thinking of Kimberly, remembering Mandy.