“What about the A on the bottom of the chair?”
She gave a stuttered laugh. “That was an arrow. I assumed that the crime scene techs would find it. I wanted them to know that the main culprit was sitting on the couch. Caleb must’ve left hair, fiber, fingerprints.”
Will wondered if Ahbidi Mittal’s team would’ve figured out the message. Will had certainly botched the job.
She asked, “Tell me, did they really dig up my backyard?”
Will realized she meant Caleb’s crew, not Ahbidi Mittal’s. “You told them the money was there?”
She chuckled, probably thinking about the boys running around in the dark with shovels. “I thought it seemed plausible, inasmuch as it’s happened in the movies.”
Will didn’t confess that he’d seen too many of those movies himself.
Abruptly, Evelyn’s demeanor changed. She looked back at the ceiling. The tiles were stained brown. It wasn’t much of a view. Will recognized an avoidance technique when he saw one.
She whispered, “I keep struggling with the fact that I killed my son.”
“He was going to kill you. And Faith. He killed countless more people.”
She kept staring at the tiles. “Mandy told me not to talk to you about the shooting.”
Will knew that Caleb Espisito’s death was being reviewed by the police, but he assumed Evelyn would be cleared in a few days, just as Faith had been. “It was self-defense.”
She let out a slow breath. “I think he wanted me to make a choice between the two of them. Between him and Faith.”
Will didn’t confirm that he shared this opinion.
“He could forgive his father. Hector had a nice life, but he never married and he never had another child. But when Caleb saw what I had—what I had struggled to build back with Bill and the children—he resented the hell out of it. He hated me so much.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I remember one of the last things I told him before all of this happened was that holding on to that kind of grudge was like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
Will guessed this was the kind of advice mothers gave their sons. Unfortunately, he’d had to learn that lesson the hard way. “Do you remember anything about where they kept you?”
“It was a warehouse. Abandoned, I’m sure. I yelled enough to wake the dead.”
“How many men were there?”
“At the house? I think eight. There were only three at the warehouse, counting Caleb. Juan and David were their names. They tried not to use them, but they weren’t very sophisticated, if you get my meaning.”
Juan Castillo had been shot outside of Julia Ling’s warehouse. David Herrera had been shot in cold blood right in front of Evelyn and Faith. Benny Choo, Hironobu Kwon, Hector Ortiz, Ricardo Ortiz. In all, eight people were dead now because of one man’s twenty-year grudge.
Evelyn must have been thinking the same thing. Her voice took on a desperate tone. “Do you think I could’ve stopped him?”
Short of killing Caleb before it happened, Will didn’t see how. “Hate like that doesn’t burn out.”
She didn’t seem comforted. “Bill thought what happened with Faith was my fault. He said that because I was with Hector, I took my eye off my children. Maybe he was right.”
“Faith is pretty determined to do her own thing.”
“You think she takes after me.” She waved away Will’s protest. “No, she is exactly like me. God help her.”
“There are worse things.”
“Hm.” Evelyn’s eyes closed again. Will stared at her face. Her features were almost obscured by the swelling. She was about Amanda’s age, the same kind of cop, but not the same kind of woman. Will hadn’t spent a lot of his life feeling envious of other people’s parents. It was a waste of time to think about what could’ve been. But talking to Evelyn Mitchell, knowing the sacrifices she had made for all of her children, Will couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.
He stood, thinking he should let her sleep, but Evelyn’s eyes opened. She pointed to the pitcher of water. Will helped her drink from the straw. She wasn’t as thirsty this time, but Will saw her hand clench around the morphine trigger.
“Thank you.” She put her head back on the pillow. She pressed the trigger again.
Will didn’t take his seat. “Can I get you anything else before I leave?”
She either didn’t hear the question or chose to ignore it. “I know Mandy is hard on you, but it’s because she loves you.”
Will felt his eyebrows shoot up. The morphine had started working fast.
“She’s so proud of you, Will. She brags about you all the time. How smart you are. How strong. You’re like a son to her. In more ways than you know.”
He felt the need to glance over his shoulder in case Amanda was laughing from the doorway.
Evelyn said, “She should be proud of you. You’re a good man. And I wouldn’t want my daughter partnered with anyone else. I was so happy when you two got together. I only wish it had turned into something more.”
He checked the door one more time. No Amanda. When he turned back around, Evelyn was staring at him.
She asked, “May I be honest with you?”
He nodded, though Will wondered if that meant she hadn’t been honest so far.
“I know you’ve had a difficult life. I know how hard you’ve worked to turn yourself into the right kind of person. And I know you deserve happiness. And it’s not going to come from your wife.”
As usual, Will’s first impulse was to take up for Angie. “She’s been through a lot.”
“You deserve so much better.”
He felt the need to tell her, “I’ve got some demons of my own.”
“But yours are the good demons, the kind that make you stronger for having them.” She tried to smile. “ ‘If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.’ ”
He took a wild guess. “Hemingway?”
“Tennessee Williams.”
The door opened. Amanda tapped her watch. “Time’s up.” She waved for him to leave.
Will looked at the clock on his cell phone. She’d given him exactly an hour. “How did you even know I was here?”
“Walk and talk.” She clapped her hands together. “Our girl needs her rest.”
Will touched Evelyn’s elbow because that was the only place that wasn’t bandaged or hooked up to something. “Thank you, Captain Mitchell.”
“Take care of yourself, Agent Trent.”
Amanda gave Will a shove as he left the room. He almost knocked down a nurse in the hallway.
Amanda said, “You tired her out.”
“She wanted to talk.”
“She’s been through a lot.”
“Are there going to be any problems on her shooting Caleb Espisito?”
Amanda shook her head. “The only person who should be worried is Roz Levy. If it was left to me, I’d have her up on obstruction charges.”
Will didn’t disagree, but Mrs. Levy had perfected her old lady act. No jury in the world would ever convict her.
“I’ll get the old hag eventually,” Amanda promised. “She’s like a stick—always stirring up shit.”
“Right.” Will tried to wrap this up. Sara had gotten off work five minutes ago. This morning, he’d suggested they have lunch together, but he wasn’t sure she would remember. He told Amanda, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He started walking toward the elevator. To his dismay, Amanda followed him.
She asked, “What did Evelyn tell you?”
He lengthened his strides, trying to lose her, or at least make her have to work for it. “The truth, I hope.”
“I’m sure it was buried in there somewhere.”
Will hated that she could so easily sow doubt in his mind. Evelyn Mitchell was Amanda’s best friend, but the two women were nothing alike. Evelyn didn’t play games. She didn’t take pleasure in humiliating people. “I think she told me what I needed to know.” He punched the down button on the elev
ator. He couldn’t resist. “She said that you were proud of me.”
Amanda laughed. “Well, that doesn’t sound like me at all.”
“No.” A thought occurred to Will. Maybe Evelyn had been dancing around the truth after all. Had she secretly given him a clue? Will felt a wave of nausea come over him.
You’re like a son to her. In more ways than you know.
He turned to Amanda, preparing himself for the worst day of his life. “Are you going to tell me that you’re really my mother?”
Her laugh echoed down the hallway. She braced her hand against the wall so she wouldn’t fall over.
“All right.” He punched the button for the elevator again. And again. And then a third time. “I get it. Very funny.”
She wiped tears from her eyes. “Oh, Will, do you really think a child of mine would turn out to be a man like you?”
“You know what?” He bent down so that he could look her in the eye. “I’m going to take that as a compliment, and you can’t stop me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
He walked toward the emergency stairwell. “Thank you, Amanda, for saying such a nice thing to me.”
“Come back here.”
He pushed open the door. “I will treasure it forever.”
“Don’t you dare walk away from me.”
Will did just that, taking the steps two at a time, safe in the knowledge that her little feet could not keep up with him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SARA TOOK OFF HER READING GLASSES AND RUBBED HER EYES. She had been sitting at the table in the doctors’ lounge for at least two hours. The patient’s chart on the tablet in front of her was starting to blur. She had slept a total of six hours in the last four days. Her level of exhaustion was reminiscent of her residency, when she’d slept on a cot in the broom closet behind the nurses’ station. The cot was still there. Grady had undergone a billion-dollar renovation since the last time Sara worked in the emergency department, but no hospital had ever wasted money on making residents’ lives easier.
Nan, the student nurse, was on the couch again. She had a half-empty box of cookies on one side of her and a bag of potato chips on the other. Her thumbs were barely visible as they furiously tapped on her iPhone. She giggled every few minutes as, presumably, a new email came in. Sara wondered if it was possible that the girl was getting younger before her eyes. Her only consolation was that in a few years, the junk food Nan loved so much would start to matter.
“What’s up?” Nan asked, dropping the phone. “You cool?”
“I’m cool.” Sara was oddly relieved that the girl was talking to her again. Nan had been pouting since she’d realized that Sara was not going to share the juicy details of her part in the hospital shooting.
The girl stood, brushing crumbs off her scrubs. “You want lunch? I think Krakauer was gonna order from the Hut.”
“Thanks for asking, but I’ve got plans.” Sara looked at her watch. Will was supposed to take her to lunch. It would be their first date, which said a lot about the way Sara’s life was going lately considering Will was the reason she wasn’t getting any sleep.
“Later.” Nan didn’t so much push open the door as throw her body against it.
Sara took a moment to enjoy the peace and quiet in the lounge. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. She’d accidentally left her glasses in her car this morning and had to hike back up the stairs in the parking deck to fetch them. That was when she’d found the note stuck under her windshield wiper. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the first time someone had left the word cunt on Sara’s car. She supposed she should be grateful that this time it wasn’t keyed into the paint.
Sara didn’t have to consult a handwriting expert to know that the message was from Angie Trent. There had been another note left on Sara’s car yesterday morning, though this time the greeting had been waiting for her when she left her apartment. Angie was getting better. This second note packed more punch than the more innocuous “Whore” from the previous day.
Sara wadded up the paper and threw it toward the trashcan. Of course she missed. She got up to retrieve the note. Instead of tossing it into the trash where it belonged, she unfolded the paper again and stared at the word. It was certainly nasty, but Sara could not help but think it was deserved. In the heat of the moment, she never let herself think about the wedding ring around Will’s finger. The cold light of day was another matter. He was a married man. Even without that legal designation, there was still a bond between him and Angie. They were both connected in a way that Sara would never understand.
And it was very clear that Angie was not going to bow out gracefully. The only question was how long it would take before the woman managed to drag Sara down into the gutter with her.
There was a knock at the door.
Sara made sure the note was in the trash before opening the door. Will was there. He had his hands in his pockets. Though they had been together in every way possible, the first ten minutes between them were always awkward. It was as if he was perpetually waiting for Sara to make the first move, to give him some sort of sign that she hadn’t yet tired of him.
He asked, “Is this a bad time?”
She opened the door wide. “Not at all.”
He glanced around the room. “Am I allowed back here?”
“I think we can make an exception.”
He stood in the middle of the room. His hands stayed in his pockets.
Sara asked, “How’s Evelyn doing?”
“She’s good. At least, I think she is.” He took his hands out of his pockets, but only to start twisting the wedding band on his finger. “Faith’s going to take some time off work to take care of her. I think it’ll be good for both of them to have some time together. Or really bad. You never know.”
Sara couldn’t help it. She looked at the wadded-up note in the trashcan. Why was he still wearing his wedding ring? Probably for the same reason Angie kept leaving notes on Sara’s car.
Will asked, “What is it?”
She indicated the table. “Can we sit down?”
He waited until she was seated, then took the chair across from her. He said, “This doesn’t sound good.”
“No,” she agreed.
He tapped his fingers on the table. “I think I know what you’re going to say.”
She said it anyway. “I like you, Will. I really, really like you.”
“But?”
She touched his hand, resting her finger on his wedding ring.
“Yeah,” he said. No explanation. No excuse. No offer to take off the ring and throw it to the wind. Or at the very least, stick it in one of his damn pockets.
Sara forced herself to continue. “I know that Angie is a big part of your life. I respect that. I respect what she means to you.”
She waited for a response, but none seemed to be coming. Instead, Will took her hand. His thumb traced along the lines in her palm. Sara couldn’t stop the reaction her body felt from his touch. She looked down at their hands together. She let her finger slip under the cuff of his shirt. The ridge of the scar felt rough against her skin. She thought about all of the things she did not know about him—the torture he had endured. The pain he’d brought on himself. And all of it had happened with Angie right by his side.
“I can’t compete with her,” Sara admitted. “And I can’t be with you if I’m worried about you wanting to be with her.”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to be with her.” She waited for him to say that he wanted to be with Sara. But he didn’t.
She tried again. “I can’t be second place. I can’t know that no matter how much I might need you, you’ll always go running to Angie first.”
Again, she waited for him to say something—anything—that would convince her that she was wrong. Seconds ticked by. It felt like an eternity.
When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet that she could barely hear him. “She cried wolf a lot.” He l
icked his lips. “When we were little, I mean.” He glanced up to make sure Sara was listening, then looked back down at their hands. “There was this one time when we were placed together. It was a foster home. More like a factory farm. They were doing it for the money. At least the wife was. The husband was doing it for the teenage girls.”
Sara felt her throat tighten. She struggled against the impulse to feel sorry for Angie.
“So, like I said, Angie cried wolf a lot. When she accused the guy of molesting her, the caseworker didn’t believe her. Didn’t even open a file. Didn’t listen to me when I said she wasn’t lying this time.” His shoulders went up in a shrug. “I would hear her at night sometimes. Screaming when he hurt her. He hurt her a lot. None of the other kids cared. I guess they were happy it wasn’t happening to them. But for me …” His words trailed off. He watched his thumb move along the back of her fingers. “I knew that they’d have to open an investigation if one of us got hurt. Or hurt ourselves.” He tightened his grip around her hand. “So, I told Angie, this is what I’m going to do. And I did it. I took a razor blade out of the medicine cabinet and I cut myself. I knew it couldn’t be a half measure. You’ve seen it.” He gave a strained laugh. “It’s not a half measure.”
“No,” she agreed. It was hard to understand how he’d managed not to pass out from the pain.
“So,” Will said. “That got us out of that home and they shut it down and the people running it weren’t allowed to foster kids anymore.” He looked up, blinking a few times to clear his eyes. “You know, one of the things Angie said to me the other night was that I would never do that for you—never cut myself like that—and I think she’s right.” There was a sadness in his smile. “Not because I don’t care about you, but because you would never put me in that kind of situation. You would never ask me to make that choice.”