Fallen

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

WILL TUCKED HIS HANDS INTO HIS POCKETS AS HE WALKED down the hallway to Evelyn Mitchell’s hospital room. He was almost giddy with exhaustion. His vision was so sharp that the world was his Blu-ray. There was a high-pitched whine in his ear. He could feel every pore in his skin. This was why he never drank coffee. Will felt wired enough to power a small city. He had spent the last three nights with Sara. His feet barely touched the ground.

He stopped outside Evelyn’s room, wondering if he should’ve brought flowers. Will had cash in his wallet. He turned around, heading back toward the elevators. He could at least get her a balloon from the gift shop. Everybody liked balloons.

“Hey.” Faith pushed open her mother’s door. “Where are you going?”

“Does your mom like balloons?”

“I’m sure she did when she was seven.”

Will smiled. The last time he’d seen Faith, she was crying in her mother’s arms. She looked a little better now, but not by much. “How’s she doing?”

“Okay. Last night was slightly better than the one before, but the pain is still bad.”

Will could only imagine. Evelyn had been rushed to Grady with a full police escort. She’d been in surgery over sixteen hours. They’d put enough metal in her leg to fill a deluxe erector set.

He asked, “What about you?”

“It’s a lot to take in.” Faith shook her head, as if she still couldn’t make sense of it. “I always wanted another brother, but that was only because I thought he might beat up Zeke.”

“Seems like you can take care of yourself.”

“It’s a lot more work than you’d think.” She leaned her shoulder against the wall. “It must’ve been so hard for her. What she went through. I can’t imagine giving up one of my children. I’d just as soon rip out my heart.”

Will looked over her shoulder at the empty hallway.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about—”

“It’s okay,” he told her. “You know, a surprising number of orphans end up in the penal system.” He gave her some of the better examples. “Albert DeSalvo. Ted Bundy. Joel Rifkin. Son of Sam.”

“I think Aileen Wuornos was given up by her parents, too.”

“I’ll let the others know. It’s good to have a woman on the list.”

She laughed, but obviously her heart wasn’t into it. Will looked over her shoulder again. There was a large nurse with a bouquet of flowers walking down the hall.

Faith said, “I was sure that we weren’t going to make it out of that house.”

There was something in her voice that told him she still wasn’t past what had happened to her family. Maybe she never would be. Some things never left you, no matter how hard you tried.

Will said, “We should really get better codes in case this happens again.”

“I was terrified you wouldn’t understand. Thank God we had all those arguments about changing your phone off military time.”

“Actually, I didn’t understand.” He grinned at her shocked expression. Will had kept his cell on speakerphone while he talked to Faith. Roz Levy had rendered her opinion as soon as the call ended, telling them the room was a clock and that she’d be more than happy to run over there with her Python and take out the punk standing at noon.

Will told Faith, “I’d like to think that I would’ve figured it out eventually.”

“You realize that a blood sugar of eighteen hundred would probably mean I was either dead or in an irreversible coma?”

“Sure, I knew that.”

“Jesus Christ,” she whispered. “So much for our well-oiled machine.”

He felt the need to tell her, “The helicopter was all me. The infrared camera told us where you were, confirmed that his partner was dead.” She didn’t seem impressed, so Will added, “And the lights were my idea.” They’d lined up two squad cars and blasted their xenon lights at the front windows. Caleb’s shadow against the curtains had given them something to aim for.

“Well, thanks anyway for shooting him.” She could obviously read his expression. “Oh, Will, it wasn’t you?”

He let out a long breath. “Amanda promised me she’d give me one of my testicles back if I let her take the shot.”

“I hope you got that in writing. She didn’t exactly hit a bull’s-eye.”

“She blames my rifle. Something about me being left-handed.”

The grip was universal, but Faith didn’t argue. “Well, I’m glad you were there. It made me feel safer.”

He smiled, though he was fairly certain all of this could’ve happened without his presence. Amanda was resourceful, and Will had basically hidden behind a wall while Faith risked her life.

She said, “I’m glad you’re with Sara.”

He fought the silly grin that wanted to come. “I’m just hanging in there until she decides she can do better.”

“I wish I thought you were joking.”

So did Will. He didn’t understand Sara. He didn’t know what made her tick or why she was with him. And yet, she was. And not just that—she seemed to be happy about it. Sara had been smiling so much this morning that she could barely purse her lips to kiss him goodbye. Will had thought maybe some toilet paper was stuck to his face where he’d cut himself shaving, but she’d told him that she was smiling because he made her happy.

He didn’t know what to do with that. It didn’t make sense.

Faith knew how to stop the grin on his face. “What about Angie?”

He shrugged, as if Angie hadn’t left so many messages on his home and cell phone that both voicemail boxes had run out of space. Each message got nastier and nastier. Each threat more severe. Will had listened to every message. He couldn’t help himself. He could still see Angie with that gun in her mouth. He could still feel his heart rattle at the thought of pushing open his bathroom door and finding her bleeding out in his bathtub.

Thankfully, Faith didn’t dwell for long on the negative. “Have you told Sara you’re terrified of chimpanzees?”

“It hasn’t really come up.”

“It will eventually. That’s what happens in relationships. Everything comes up whether you like it or not.”

Will nodded, hoping his quick acquiescence would shut her up. He wasn’t that lucky.

“Look.” She put on her mom voice, the one she used when he wasn’t standing up straight or wore the wrong tie. “The only way you’re going to screw this up is if you keep worrying about screwing it up.”

Will would rather be stuck in Mrs. Levy’s trunk again than have this conversation. “It’s Betty I’m worried about.”

“Really.”

“She’s become quite attached.” That much was true. The dog had refused to leave Sara’s apartment this morning.

“Just promise me that you’ll wait at least a month before you tell her that you’re in love with her.”

He let out a stream of breath, longing for the isolation of the Corvair. “Did you know that Bayer used to own the trademark for heroin?”

She shook her head at the subterfuge. “The aspirin company?”

“They lost the trademark after World War I. It’s in the Treaty of Versailles.”

“You learn something new every day.”

“Sears used to sell preloaded syringes of heroin in their catalogue. A buck fifty for two.”

She put her hand on his arm. “Thank you, Will.”

He patted the back of her hand once, then again, because just once was probably not enough. “It’s Roz Levy you should thank. She’s the one who figured it out.”

“She’s not quite the sweet little old lady, is she?”

There was an understatement. The old biddy had made sport of watching Evelyn’s worst nightmare play out. “She’s a bit of a devil.”

“Did she give you her ‘pigeons and bluebirds’ lecture?” Faith turned around when she heard talking. The door to her mother’s room opened. Jeremy came out, followed by a tall man with a military haircut and a square jaw that instantly brought to mind the word jarhead. He held Emma on one of his broad shoulders. The baby looked like a sack of frozen peas hanging off a skyscraper. Her body gave a slight jerk as she hiccupped.

“This should be fun.” Faith pushed away from the wall with a groan. “Will, this is my brother Zeke. Zeke, this is—”

“I know who this douche is.”

Will extended his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Emma hiccupped. Zeke glowered. He didn’t shake Will’s hand.

Will tried for light conversation. “I’m glad that your mother’s okay.”

He kept glowering. Emma hiccupped again. Will felt bad for the man. As the owner of a Chihuahua, he knew the difficulties of acting tough while holding something impossibly tiny in your hand.

Jeremy saved them from their staring contest. “Hey, Will. Thanks for coming.”

Will shook his hand. He was a scrawny-looking kid, but he had a strong grip. “I hear your grandma’s doing better.”

“She’s tough.” He draped his arm around Faith’s shoulders. “Just like my mom.”

Emma hiccupped.

“Let’s go, Uncle Zeke.” Jeremy grabbed him by the elbow. “I told Grandma we’d move my bed downstairs so Mom can take care of her when she gets out of the hospital.”

Zeke took his time breaking eye contact. Emma’s continued hiccups probably had something to do with his decision to follow his nephew down the hall.

“Sorry,” Faith apologized. “He can be a bit of an asshole. I don’t know how it happened, but Emma loves him.”

Probably because she couldn’t understand a word he said.

Faith asked, “Do you want to go ahead and talk to Mom?”

“I was just here to check on you.”

“She’s already asked for you a couple of times. I think she wants to talk about it.”

“She can’t talk about it with you?”

“I’ve got the gist. There’s no reason for me to know the gory details.” She forced a smile onto her face. “Amanda told her that she promised you an hour.”

“I didn’t think that’d actually happen.”

“They’ve been best friends for forty years. They keep each other’s promises.” She patted his arm again and started to leave. “Thanks for coming.”

“Wait.” Will reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the envelope that had come in the mail this morning. “I’ve never gotten a letter before. I mean, other than bills.”

She studied the sealed envelope. “You didn’t open it.”

Will didn’t need to. She would never know how much it meant to him that she’d known that he could read the letter. “Do you want me to open it?”

“Hell no.” She snatched it out of his hand. “It’s bad enough Zeke and Jeremy saw those videos I made. I had no idea I was such an ugly crier.”

Will couldn’t disagree.

“Anyway.” She looked down at her watch. “I need to take my insulin and eat something. I’ll be in the cafeteria if you need me.”

Will watched Faith walk down the hallway. She stopped in front of the elevator and looked back at him. While he was watching, she tore the letter in two, then tore it again. Will saluted her, then pushed open the door to Evelyn’s room. Almost every surface was covered with flowers of all kinds. Will felt his nose start to itch from the heavy perfume smell.

Evelyn Mitchell turned her head toward him. She was lying in bed. Her broken leg was elevated, Frankenstein bolts jutting out of a hard cast. Her hand rested on a foam wedge. Gauze was packed where her ring finger should’ve been. Tubes ran in and out of her body. The gash on her cheek was held together with white butterfly tape. She looked smaller than he remembered, but then, what she had been through was the sort of thing that could reduce a person.

Her lips were chapped and raw. She held her jaw still, talking with as little movement as possible. Her voice was stronger than he’d imagined it would be. “Agent Trent.”

“Captain Mitchell.”

She showed him the trigger for the morphine pump. “I’ve held off on this because I wanted to talk to you.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t want to cause you any more pain.”

“Then please sit down. It hurts my neck to look up at you.”

There was already a chair pulled up beside her bed. Will sat down. “I’m glad that you’re well.”

Her lips barely moved. “Well is a bit down the road. Let’s just say I’m hanging in there.”

“Beats the alternative.”

She said, “Mandy told me about your part in all of this.” Will assumed that had been a very short conversation. “Thank you for looking out for my daughter.”

“I think you get more credit for that than I do.”

Her eyes watered. He wasn’t sure whether it was from pain or the thought of losing Faith.

And then he remembered that she had lost another child, too. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She swallowed with obvious difficulty. The skin on her neck was nearly black with bruises. Evelyn Mitchell had been forced twice now to choose between her family with Bill Mitchell and the son she’d had with Hector Ortiz. Both times, she had made the same decision. Though Caleb had made it pretty easy for her the last time.

She said, “He was a very troubled young man. I didn’t know how to make it better. He was so angry.”

“You don’t have to talk about it.”

A gravelly chuckle came from her throat. “No one wants me to talk about him. I think they’d rather he just disappear.” She indicated the cup of water on the table. “Could you—”

Will picked up the cup and angled the straw so that she could drink. She couldn’t lift her head. Gently, Will reached around and supported her.

She drank for almost a full minute before releasing the straw. “Thank you.”

Will sat back down. He stared at the bouquet of flowers on the table across from him. There was a business card attached to the white bow. He recognized the logo from the Atlanta Police Department.

Evelyn said, “Hector was a CI.” Confidential informant. “He snitched on his cousin. They were in this gang, and it had started as something small, a reason to break into cars and snatch purses so they could play video games, and then it got really mean really fast.”

“Los Texicanos.”

She nodded slowly. “Hector wanted out. He kept talking and I kept listening because it was good for my career.” She waved her good hand in the air. “And then one thing led to another.” Her eyes closed. “I was married to an insurance salesman. He was a very kind man and a very good father, but …” Breath stuttered through her lips as she sighed. “You know how it is when you’re out there in the street chasing down bad guys and your heart is pounding and you feel like you’ve got the whole world bucking between your legs, and then you go home and—what?—cook dinner? Iron shirts and give the kids a bath?”

“Were you in love with Hector?”

“No.” She was firm in her answer. “Never. And the strange thing is, I didn’t realize how much I was in love with Bill until I had hurt him so badly that I was going to lose him.”

“But he stayed with you.”

“On his terms,” she told him. “I was out of the negotiations by then. He met with Hector. They came to a gentleman’s agreement.”

“The bank account.”

She turned her gaze toward the ceiling. Slowly, her eyes closed. He thought she had fallen asleep until she started talking again. “Sandra and Paul had a lot of debt from helping her family back home. They couldn’t afford a child, even if they could’ve had one of their own. Part of the money in the account was from Hector. Part of it was from me. Ten percent of every paycheck I got went to Caleb. It was like tithing, only not for the church—but still for penance.” The corner of her mouth went up slightly in something like a smile. “Though I suppose that Sandra gave a lot of that money to the church every week. They were very religious. Catholic, but that didn’t bother me like it bothered Bill. I thought they would give him a strong moral foundation.” The sound of laughter came from her mouth. “So much for that.”

“Caleb found out about you when Sandra got sick?”

She looked at Will. “I got a call from her. She sounded like she was warning me, which didn’t make sense at the time, so I ignored it. The first time I saw him as a grown man was at her funeral.” She shook her head at the memory. “God, he looked just like Zeke at that age. More handsome, if you want to know the truth. More angry, which was the problem.” Her head kept moving side to side. “I didn’t see how angry he was until it was too late. I had no idea.”

“Did you talk to Caleb at the funeral?”

“I tried to start a conversation, but he just walked away. A few weeks later I was cleaning the house and I noticed things were out of place. My office had been searched. He did a very good job. I wouldn’t have noticed if not for the fact that I was looking for a particular thing.” She explained, “I kept a lock of his baby hair hidden somewhere the children didn’t know about. I went to look for it, and it was gone. I should’ve known then. I should’ve realized how obsessed he was with me. How much he hated me.”

Evelyn stopped to catch her breath. Will could see that she was tired. But still, she continued. “I called Hector to meet. We’d been in touch since Sandra got sick. There wasn’t much time to catch up. We’d go to a Starbucks down by the airport so nobody would see us. It was the same as before—all that hiding. All that sneaking around so that my family wouldn’t find out.” She closed her eyes again. “Caleb was constantly in trouble. I tried everything with him—even offered to give him money so that he could go to college. Faith’s struggling to help Jeremy with his tuition, and here I was offering this boy a full ride. He just laughed in my face.” Her tone turned sharp, angry. “The next day, I got a call from an old friend in narcotics. They’d picked up Caleb with some serious weight on him. I had to get Mandy to pull some strings. She didn’t want to. She said he’d been given too many chances already. But I begged her.”

“Heroin?”

“Coke,” she corrected. “Heroin would’ve been beyond my reach, but the coke we could work with. They knocked it down because we agreed to send him to rehab.”

“You sent him to Healing Winds.”

“Hector lives a few miles from there. His cousin’s boy had been at the facility, Ricardo. And Chuck was there. Poor Chuck.” She stopped, swallowing to clear her throat. “He called me at the beginning of this year to make amends. He’s been sober for eight months now. I knew that he was doing some counseling work at Healing Winds, and I thought Caleb would be safe there.”

“Chuck shared his story with them.”

“Apparently, that’s one of the steps. He told them about the money. And of course, even though Chuck assured them that I had nothing to do with it, they didn’t believe him.”

“It was Chuck in the hospital that day. He was the cop who asked Sara whether or not the kid was going to make it.”

She nodded. “He saw what happened to me on the news and came down to see if he could help. He didn’t stop to realize that with his record, no one would want his help. I’ve asked Mandy to try to smooth things over with his parole officer. It was really me who got him into trouble. My guys have always stood up for me, even when it wasn’t in their best interest.”

“Do you think Caleb thought you were on the take like the rest of them?”

She was obviously surprised by the question. “No, Agent Trent. I really don’t think he did. He had this preconceived notion of me as cold and uncaring, the mother who never loved him. He said that the only thing he’d inherited from me was my black heart.”

Will remembered the song that had been playing when Faith pulled up to her mother’s house. “ ‘Back in Black.’ ”

“It was his theme song. He kept insisting I listen to the words, though who the hell knows what all that screeching is?”

“It’s about taking revenge on the people who’ve given up on you.”

“Ah.” She seemed relieved to finally understand. “He played it over and over again on my kitchen radio. And then Faith came and the music stopped. I was terrified. I don’t think I’ve ever held my breath for that long. But they didn’t want Faith. Not Caleb’s crew, at any rate. Benny Choo told them that he would handle everything. He kept Ricardo back with him. The H inside him was much too valuable, but he told the other boys to take me and leave, so they did.”

Will wanted to be sure about the sequence. “Caleb was there at the same time as Faith?”

“He looked at her out the window.” Evelyn’s voice trembled. “I have never been so frightened in my life. Not before that, anyway.”

Will was more than familiar with that kind of fear. “What happened before Faith came? You were making sandwiches, right?”

“I knew Faith would be late. Those sessions usually run long. There’s always some jackass in the first row who wants to show off.” She was silent for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “Hector came to get me at the grocery store. He knew my routines. That’s the sort of man he was. He paid attention when you told him something.” She was silent a moment, perhaps in honor of her former lover. “He’d gone to visit Caleb at rehab and been told that he’d checked himself out. They don’t lock them down. Caleb just walked out. We shouldn’t’ve been surprised. I had already made some calls and figured out that Ricardo was getting himself mixed up in things that were not going to be good for any of them.”

“Heroin.”

She let out a slow breath. “Hector and I put it together as I drove him back to the house. We knew that Ricardo was working at Julia’s shop, just like we knew that nothing good was going to come out of any of these boys getting together. Folie à plusieurs.”

Will had heard the phrase before. It referred to a psychological syndrome where a group of seemingly normal people developed a shared psychosis when they were together. The Manson Family. The Branch Davidians. There was always an unstable leader at the center of the sickness. Roger Ling had called it the head of the snake. A man like Roger Ling should know.

Evelyn said, “Part of me wanted Faith to come home early. I wanted her to meet Hector, so I would be forced into explaining.”

“Did Caleb kill Hector?”

“I think it must’ve been him. It was sneaky, and cowardly. I heard the gun—you don’t forget the sound a silencer makes once you’ve heard it before—and I looked out into the carport. The trunk was closed and there was no one there. I didn’t think twice. Maybe I had thought this was going to happen all along. I scooped up Emma and took her into the shed. I came back with my gun and there was a man in the laundry room. I shot him before he could open his mouth. And then I turned around and there was Caleb.”

“You struggled with him?”

“I couldn’t shoot him. He was unarmed. He was my son. But I got the better of him.” She looked down at her wounded hand. “I don’t think he was expecting me to be so aggressively opposed to his trying to cut off my finger.”

“He cut it off right then?” Will had assumed it was part of a later negotiation.

“One of the other boys sat on my back while Caleb cut it off. He used the bread knife. He sawed it back and forth like you’d do with a tree. I think he enjoyed hearing me scream.”

“How did you get the knife away from him?”

“I don’t really know. It’s one of those things that happens without your thinking about it. Actually, I don’t remember much of what came next, but I do recall that other boy falling on top of me, and the feel of that knife going into his stomach.” She exhaled sharply. “I ran into the carport to get Emma and get the hell out of there. And then I heard Caleb screaming. ‘Mama, Mama.’ ” She paused for another moment. “He sounded like he was hurt. I don’t know what made me go back inside. It was instinctual, like with the knife, but that was self-preservation, and this was self-destruction.” She obviously still struggled with the memory. “I was aware of it—how wrong it was. I remember thinking quite clearly as I ran past my car and back into the house that this was one of the stupidest things I would ever do in my life. And I was right. But I couldn’t stop myself. I heard him crying for me, and I just ran back inside.”

She paused again for breath. Will could see that the angle of the sun had changed so that it was shining into her eyes. He got up and tilted down the blinds.

She breathed out an exhausted-sounding “Thank you.”

“Do you want to rest?”

“I want to finish this, and then I never want to talk about it again.”

That sounded exactly like the kind of thing Faith would say. Will knew better than to argue. He sat down in the chair, waiting for her to continue.

Evelyn didn’t start back immediately. For a full minute, she just lay there, her chest rising and falling as she breathed.

Finally, she said, “For about three years after he was born, around once a month, I’d tell Bill and the kids I had to go do paperwork at the office. Usually it was a Sunday while they were at church, because it was easier.” She coughed. Her voice was getting raspier. “But I’d really go to the park up the street, and I would sit on that bench by myself, or if it was raining, I would sit in my car, and I would just cry and cry. Not even Mandy knew about it. I’ve shared everything in my life with her, but not this.” She gave Will a meaningful look. “You don’t know how hard it was for her with Kenny. She couldn’t give him children, and he wanted a family. His own blood. He was very insistent about that. Telling her about how I longed for Caleb would’ve been cruel.”

Will felt a little squeamish hearing something so personal about his boss. He tried to get Evelyn back to the day she’d been abducted. “Caleb tricked you to get you back into the house. That’s why you didn’t take Emma and leave?”

She was silent long enough to let him know that she was aware he was changing the subject. “You can’t fool someone who doesn’t want to be fooled.”

Will wasn’t so sure about that, but he nodded anyway.

“I ran into the kitchen. There was Benny Choo. Of course it was Benny Choo. Carnage everywhere. He was in his element. We had a bit of a struggle, which he won, mostly because he had help. He wanted the money. Everybody wanted the money. The place was filled with angry men demanding money.”

“Except Caleb,” Will guessed.

“Except Caleb,” she confirmed. “He just sat on the couch eating sandwich meat right out of the bag, watching them run around and tear apart my house. I think he loved it. I think it was the most fun he had ever had in his life—watching me sitting there, scared to death, while his friends ran around like chickens with their heads cut off looking for something that he knew wasn’t there.”

“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 elevator. 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.