Secrets to the Grave

48

Vince smiled as he watched Haley watching Big Bird on Sesame Street. The joy and keen interest in her eyes, the unselfconscious quality of her spontaneous dancing along with the character, her singing—decidedly off-key—all spoke of pure innocence and a wonder at the world around her.

He had missed this with his girls. Working long hours and traveling for the Bureau had carved him out a legendary career, but he had missed this. He would be a lucky man to get a second shot at being a father.

Not that he had written himself out of the lives of his daughters. Since his shooting they all had made an effort to stay in touch and to strengthen their relationships.

Anne had accompanied him to Virginia the past winter to meet the girls. Vince had been more than a little nervous about that. Anne was slightly closer to their ages than to his. He worried they would think he had gone off some midlife crisis deep end, taking up with a younger woman, moving to California, leaving the Bureau.

And they had at first. Amy, just sixteen, who had fewer memories of the tensions between her parents when they had been together, harbored more resentment toward him than had Emily, two years older. They still had things to work on, all three of them, but both girls had flown out for the wedding. He felt that was a good start to acceptance of his new life.

He stretched out in his big leather recliner—the Man Chair, Anne called it—in their cozy family room with its warm tan walls and cream-colored carpet. He was exhausted and still disturbed from his encounter with Zander Zahn. All that and he was going to have a nasty bruise on his cheekbone too.

Popped by a professor. The boys in the cop shop would have fun with that. Not that Zahn’s meltdown was anything to joke about.

Sighing, he closed his eyes for a few minutes in an attempt to relax his brain.

He had a lot of thoughts and theories turning over up there, and it had physically been a long day. But miraculously the pain in his head receded as he rested and used some of the breathing techniques he had learned from a chronic pain specialist. It rarely completely left him, but rather lurked in there somewhere at its lowest level, keeping him aware it could come out and nail him whenever it wanted to.

Gradually Vince came up out of the restful place his mind had been, and he became aware of the sense of being watched. When he opened his eyes he was looking into Haley’s. She stood beside the chair with her rabbit tucked under her arm.

“Hey,” Vince said.

“You were sleeping,” Haley said in her hoarse little voice.

He wondered if she would ever be rid of that reminder of being choked. At least the bruising on the exterior of her throat would eventually fade away, if not the memory.

“Do you have to take naps?” she asked.

“I like to take naps.”

“I don’t.”

“No? Why not?”

Her expression was very sober as she shook her head. “Babies take naps.”

“I’m not a baby,” Vince pointed out.

“No.” Her little mouth twisted up on one side in a funny smile. “You’re the daddy. Why don’t you have any kids?”

“Well, because Anne and I just got married. We haven’t had time to have kids yet.”

She thought about that, deciding it must be a reasonable explanation.

“Where’s Anne?”

“She had to go have a meeting with someone. She’ll be back in a little while.”

“I like Anne. She plays with me,” she said, as if she and Anne were longtime friends.

She seemed to have no reticence with strangers. But then her mother had been a very social person with a lot of friends who had come into Haley’s life on a regular basis. She had probably never had a reason to fear adults—until now. Vince wondered if that would change for her once the memories of what had happened came back to her. Probably.

“Will you play with me?” she asked.

“Sure,” Vince said. “What are we playing?”

“We’re playing you’re the daddy and I’m the little girl.”

“Okay. What do I have to do?”

“Read me and Honey-Bunny a story.”

“All right. You go pick out a book.”

She went to a basket full of toys and books Franny had brought over on loan and pulled one out, then came back and scrambled up in the chair with him, settling herself comfortably into the crook of his arm.

“Do you like to read stories?” Vince asked.

“I can’t read,” she told him. “I’m just little.”

“Does your real daddy read you stories?” He winced a little at the mental image of Anne kicking him in the shins for that.

Haley paid no attention to him as she opened the cover of the story-book.

“What about Zander?” he asked. “Does Zander ever read you stories?”

“Zander is weird,” she said without looking up.

“Weird how?”

She shrugged. “Just weird. He doesn’t like to touch anything. Isn’t that funny? Mommy says he’s fraggle.”

“What does fraggle mean?”

“I don’t know. Why does your shirt have a horse on it?” she asked, scratching at the purple Ralph Lauren logo on the black polo shirt.

“That’s a symbol for the company that made it,” he said. Fraggle? What the heck was fraggle?

“I like horses,” Haley said. “I’m gonna get a pony when I’m five.” She held up her small hand, fingers splayed wide to show him she knew how much five was.

Fraggle? Fragile?

“Did your mommy say fragile?”

Haley nodded. “Fraggle. What does that mean?”

“When someone is fragile it’s easy to upset them or hurt their feelings.”

Haley had already lost interest in the subject and was turning the pages of the book.

“Does Zander ever scare you, honey?” Vince asked.

She frowned but didn’t answer. “Do you know Zander?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Isn’t he weird?”

“Yeah, I’d have to say so,” Vince admitted.

“Read the story!” Haley said impatiently.

“Does your mommy read you stories?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes she makes up stories. She makes me books sometimes and paints the pictures in them.”

“That’s very special,” Vince said. “Are you missing your mommy?”

A faraway look came into her eyes and she said nothing for a moment. Finally, she said quietly, “My mommy fell down and got hurt.”

“I know,” Vince said softly. Anne was going to kill him. “Were you there when your mommy got hurt, sweetheart?”

Tears welled up. Vince held his breath.

“You’re not playing right!” Haley insisted, lower lip quivering. “You’re the daddy! You have to read the story!”

“Okay. All right, honey. Don’t cry.”

He could only imagine the consequences if Anne came home and Haley told her he had made her cry.

She settled in against him as Vince turned to the first page of the book, her body tense at first, as if she were still trying to ward off the bad feelings he had stirred up with his questions. But as he began to read the story about a princess who wanted to be a fairy, he felt her let go. Before he had read three pages she was asleep, dreaming of a place where bad things couldn’t happen, he hoped.