Redemption Road

8

Elizabeth dreamed, and the dream was memory. It was night and hot as she moved through the yard of the abandoned house on Penelope Street. A few lights simmered down the road, but they were far and dim. She crossed from the last tree to the side of the house, her feet slipping in wet grass as she pushed through overgrown bushes and pressed her back against ancient clapboards that were cracked and split and wet from the storm. Holding her breath, she listened for noises inside. The caller said he’d heard a scream. What Elizabeth heard was her breath, her heart, and water dripping from choked-out gutters. She pushed along the wall as wet leaves trailed across her face and hands, and streaks of lightning dropped far off in the fading storm. At the first window, she paused. It was below grade, painted black. Two steps past it a sound came and went so fast Elizabeth thought she could be imagining it.

A voice?

A cry?

On the porch, she thought for the last time about calling Beckett or Dyer or someone else. But Beckett was with his family and the city was burning. Besides, if people were inside the house, it would be kids smoking pot or screwing. How many calls like that had she taken in her uniform days? A dozen? A hundred?

She drew her weapon and felt the knob turn. Inside, it was pitch-black, the air heavy with the stink of mold and cat and rotten carpet. She closed the door and turned on her flashlight, sweeping the room.

Rainwater pooled on the floor.

The ceiling was a soggy mess.

She cleared the living room and kitchen, the back rooms and the hall. The stairwell going up was rotted through, so she ignored the second floor and located the stairs to the basement. She kept the flashlight low, her back against the wall. Eight steps down she found a narrow landing, a turn, and then a door that scraped when it opened.

Elizabeth led with the gun. The first room was empty: more water on the floor, mounds of rotted cardboard. She followed a hallway into a square space that felt dead center of the house. Channing was to the right, facedown on a mattress. Beyond her was another hallway, doors to other rooms. A candle burned on a crate.

She should back away; call it in. But Channing was looking at her, eyes desperate and black.

“It’s okay.”

Elizabeth crossed the room, weapon up as she checked doors, the hallway beyond. The place was a warren of passages, closets, blind corners.

“I’m going to get you out of here.”

Elizabeth knelt by the girl. She untwisted the wire where it cut her skin, first one wrist then the other. The girl cried out as circulation returned to her hands.

“Be still.” She tugged the gag from Channing’s mouth, watched the doors, the corners. “How many? Channing? How many?”

“Two.” She sobbed as Elizabeth removed wire from her ankles. “There are two of them.”

“Good girl.” Elizabeth hauled her to her feet. “Where?” Channing pointed deeper into the maze. “Both of them?”

Channing nodded, but was wrong.

Terribly, awfully wrong.

Elizabeth woke with the girl’s name on her lips, and her fingernails dug into the arms of a chair. The same dream came every time she fell asleep. Sometimes, she woke before it got really bad. Sometimes, it went the distance. That’s why she drank coffee and paced, why she never slept unless it crept up to drag her down.

“That was fun.”

Elizabeth scrubbed both palms across her face. She was soaked in sweat, her heart running fast. Looking around, she saw hospital green and blinking lights. She was in Gideon’s room, but didn’t remember taking off her shoes or closing her eyes. Had she been drinking? That happened, too, sometimes. Two in the morning, or three. Tired of coffee. Tired of memories.

It was dim in the room, but the clock said 6:12. That meant a few hours sleep, at least. And how many dreams? It felt like three. Three times down the stairs, three times in the dark.

Finding her feet, Elizabeth moved to the bed and stared down at the boy. She’d come in late and found Gideon alone in his room. No sign of his father. No doctors at such a late hour. The night nurse filled her in and said she could stay if she wanted. It broke a few rules, but neither of them wanted Gideon to wake alone. Elizabeth had held his hand for a long time, then sat and watched long hours walk up the face of the clock.

Leaning over the bed, she pulled the sheet to Gideon’s chin, flicked the curtain, and looked outside. Dew hung on the grass, and the light was pink. She’d see Channing today, and maybe Adrian. Maybe, the state cops would come for her at last. Or maybe, she’d get in the car and leave. She could take the Mustang top-down and drive west. Two thousand miles, she thought, until the air was dry and the sun rose red over stone and sand and views that went forever.

But Gideon would wake alone.

Channing would be without her.

Elizabeth found a different nurse at the station beyond the door. “You were here yesterday, weren’t you?”

“I was.”

“What happened to Gideon’s father?”

“Security escorted him from the building.”

“He was drunk?”

“Drunk. Disruptive. Your father took him home.”

“My father?”

“Reverend Black was here most of the day, and half of last night. Never left the boy’s side. I’m surprised you missed him.”

“I’m glad he could help.”

“He’s a generous man.”

Elizabeth handed the nurse a card. “If Mr. Strange causes problems again, call me. He’s too pitiful for regular cops, and more trouble than my father should have to handle.” The nurse looked a question, and Elizabeth waved it off. “It’s a sad story. And an old one, too.”

Elizabeth spent another twenty minutes with Gideon, then drove home as the sun broke above the trees. She showered and dressed, thinking again of the desert. By nine o’clock she was deep into the historic district, twisting down shaded lanes until she reached the street where Channing lived in a centuries-old mansion that towered over gardens and hedgerows and wrought-iron fencing.

The girl’s father met Elizabeth at the door. “Detective Black. This is unexpected.” He was in his fifties and handsome, a fit man in jeans, a golf shirt, and loafers worn without socks. They’d met more than once, each encounter under difficult circumstances: the police station on the day Channing disappeared, the hospital after Elizabeth brought her out of the basement, the day state police opened an official investigation into the shooting of Brendon and Titus Monroe. A powerful man, he was unused to powerlessness and police and wounded daughters. Elizabeth understood that. It didn’t make him any easier to deal with.

“I’d like to speak with Channing.”

“I’m sorry, Detective. It’s early, still. She’s resting.”

“She asked me to call.”

“Yet, this appears to be a visit.”

Elizabeth peered past him. The house was full of dark rugs and heavy furniture. “She very much wanted to see me, Mr. Shore. I think it’s important we speak.”

“Look, Detective.” He stepped outside and closed the door behind him. “Let’s forget what’s in the news, okay. Let’s forget that you’re under investigation and that the state police are giving my lawyers hell trying to get to Channing, who for some reason doesn’t care to talk to them. Let’s put all that aside and cut to the chase. We appreciate what you did for our little girl, but your part in this is over. My daughter is safe at home. We’re taking care of her. Her mother and me. Her family. Surely, you understand that.”

“Of course. That’s beyond question.”

“She needs to forget the terrible things that happened. She can’t do that with you sitting next to her.”

“Forgetting is not the same as coping.”

“Listen.” For a moment, his face softened. “I’ve learned enough about you to know that you’re a fine person and a good cop. That comes from judges, other police officers, people who know your family. I don’t doubt your intentions, but there’s nothing good you can do for Channing.”

“You’re wrong about that.”

“I’ll tell her you stopped by.”

He retreated inside, but Elizabeth caught the door’s edge before it could close. “She needs more than strong walls, Mr. Shore. She needs people who understand. You’re six feet and change, a wealthy man with the world at his feet. Channing is none of those things. Do you have any idea what she’s feeling right now? Do you think you ever could?”

“No one knows Channing better than I.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Do you have children, Detective?” He towered above her, waiting.

“No. I don’t have children.”

“Let’s revisit this conversation when you do.”

He pushed the door shut and left Elizabeth on the wrong side of it. His feelings were understandable, but Channing needed a guide through the bitter landscape of after, and Elizabeth knew those trails better than most.

Looking up at high windows, she sighed deeply, then threaded between box bushes that rose like walls around her. The path twisted around giant oaks, and when it spit her out on the driveway, she found Channing seated on the hood of her car. Loose jeans and a sweatshirt swallowed the girl’s small body. A hood kept her eyes in shadow, but light touched the line of her jaw as she spoke. “I saw you pull up.”

“Channing, hi.” The girl slid off the car and pushed hands into her pockets. “How’d you get out of the house?”

“The window.” She shrugged. “I do it all the time.”

“Your parents…”

“My parents treat me like a child.”

“Sweetheart…”

“I’m not a child anymore.”

“No,” Elizabeth said sadly. “No, you’re not.”

“They say everything’s okay, that I’m safe.” Channing clenched her jaw: ninety pounds of china. “I’m not okay.”

“You can be.”

“Are you okay?”

Channing let sunlight find her face, and Elizabeth saw bones that pressed too tightly against the skin, circles beneath the girl’s eyes that were as dark as her own. “No, sweetheart. I’m not. I barely sleep, and when I do, I have nightmares. I don’t eat or exercise or talk to people unless I need to. I’ve lost twelve pounds in under a week. It’s not fair, what happened in that house. I’m angry. I want to hurt people.”

Channing pulled her hands free from her pockets. “My father can barely look at me.”

“I doubt that.”

“He thinks I should have run faster, fought harder. He says I shouldn’t have been outside in the first place.”

“What does your mother say?”

“She brings me hot chocolate and cries when she thinks I can’t hear.”

Elizabeth studied the house, which spoke of denial and quiet perfection. “You want to get out of here?”

“You and me?”

“Yes.”

“Where to?”

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not.”

Channing got in the car, and Elizabeth drove them out of the historic district, past the mall, the car dealers, and day-care centers. She drove into the country, then to the gravel road that ran deep into the woods before turning up the face of the mountain that rose alone from the hills around the city. Air whistled through the car as they climbed, but neither spoke until they neared the top and the road flattened into a parking lot.

“This is the abandoned quarry.” Channing broke the silence, but with little real curiosity.

Elizabeth pointed at a gash in the woods. “Just up that trail. A quarter mile.”

“Why are we here?”

Elizabeth killed the engine and set the brake. She needed to do something, and it was going to hurt. “Let’s take a walk.”

She led Channing into the shade, then up a winding trail that was beaten flat by all the people who’d walked it over the years. It grew steep in places. They passed bits of litter and gray-skinned trees with initials carved into the bark. At the top of the mountain, the trail emptied onto an overlook that offered views of the city on one side and of the quarry on the other. In places, trees grew from shallow soil; in others there was only rock. It was a stark and beautiful place, but the drop into the quarry was two hundred feet straight down.

“Why are we here?”

Elizabeth stepped to the edge and peered down at the vast expanse of cold, black water. “My father’s a preacher. You probably didn’t know that.” Channing shook her head, and Elizabeth’s hair lifted in a breeze that rose up sheer walls like an exhalation from the water. “I grew up in the church, in a small house behind it, actually. The parsonage. Do you know that word?”

Channing shook her head again, and Elizabeth understood that, too. Most kids could never understand church as a life, the prayer and dutifulness and submission.

“The church kids would come here on Sundays after church. Sometimes there were a few of us, and sometimes a lot. A couple of parents would drive us up the mountain, then read the paper in the cars while we hiked up here to play. It was good, you know. Picnics and kites, long dresses and lace-up boots. There’s a trail that leads to a narrow ledge above the water. You could swim or skim stones. Sometimes we’d have campfires.” Elizabeth nodded; saw yellowed memories of a day like this, and of an unsuspecting, narrow-hipped girl. “I was raped under those trees when I was seventeen.”

Channing shook her head. “You don’t have to do this.”

But Elizabeth did. “We were the only two left, this boy and me. It was late. My father was in the car, down the hill. It happened so fast…” Elizabeth picked up a rock, tossed it, and watched it fall into the quarry. “He was chasing me. I thought it was a game. It probably started out that way. I’m not really sure. I was laughing for a while, and then suddenly was not.” She pointed at the trees. “He caught me by that little pine and shoved needles in my mouth to keep me from screaming. It was fast and awful, and I barely understood what was happening, just the weight of him and the way it hurt. On the walk down, he begged me not to tell. He swore he didn’t mean to do it, that we were friends and he was weak and it would never happen again.”

“Elizabeth…”

“We walked a quarter mile through those woods, then rode home in my father’s car, both of us in the backseat.” Elizabeth didn’t mention the feel of the boy’s leg pressed against her own. She didn’t describe the heat of it, or how he reached out once and put a single finger on the back of her hand. “I never told my father.”

“Why not?”

“I thought it was my fault, somehow.” Elizabeth lobbed another rock and watched it drop. “Two months later, I almost killed myself. Right here.”

Channing leaned over the drop as if putting herself in the same place. “How close did you come?”

“A single step. A few seconds.”

“What stopped you?”

“I found something larger to believe in.” She didn’t mention Adrian because that was still too personal, still just for her. “Your father can’t make it better, Channing. Your mother can’t make it better, either. You need to take charge of that yourself. I’d like to help you.”

Emotion twisted the girl’s face: anger and doubt and disbelief. “Did you get better?”

“I still hate the smell of pine.”

Channing studied the narrow smile, looking for a lie, the shadow of a lie. Elizabeth thought she would lose her. She didn’t.

“What happened to the boy?”

“He sells insurance,” Elizabeth said. “He’s overweight and married. Every now and then I run into him. Sometimes, I do it on purpose.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because in the end only one thing can make it right.”

“What?”

“Choice.” Elizabeth cupped the girl’s face with a palm. “Your choice.”