Silent Scream

Chapter Six

Monday, September 20, 12:15 p.m.

You are batshit crazy,” Albert said, backing away, palms out. “No fucking way.”

Mary sat on the grass in front of the library, her eyes red-rimmed. “Eric, Joel’s dead. How can you even suggest such a thing, now of all times?”

Joel’s death had actually given him the argument he needed to convince the others to help him torch the texter’s target. Just this one, he thought. Tomorrow, we run.

When do you tell them about the video so they know they need to run?

Tonight. After the job is done.

The warehouse belonged to a guy named Tomlinson who sold plumbing fixtures but who had to have done something bad to be a target of blackmail and arson.

“Albert, come over here and stop pacing like a tiger. People will notice.” Eric sat down next to Mary and patted her hand. “Look, Tomlinson’s warehouse was next on Joel’s list.” Which was so totally not true, but fortunately Joel was not there to refute it.

“He sells plumbing fixtures. What does he have to do with wetlands or habitat?” Mary asked. “Joel never mentioned Tomlinson to me.”

“He mentioned him to me, lots of times,” Eric lied smoothly. “Tomlinson’s an investor in KRB, Inc. One of the bigger investors, in fact.” Of course he was not. But he didn’t expect either Mary or Albert to know how to double-check him. “If KRB goes forward with their project, it’ll be with money this guy gives them.”

“You’re batshit crazy,” Albert mumbled again. “Doing another one, after last night?”

“It’s the perfect time,” Eric said. “Look at it this way. Who knows what Joel told his parents or what they may have suspected? He goes home upset. He’s been going on about saving the wetlands and there’s a fire. You all took showers, but his clothes still smelled like smoke. The Fischers aren’t stupid. If we never do another, they’ll think Joel did the condo fire. If we strike again, they’ll know Joel had nothing to do with it.”

“They’ll suspect you,” Albert said stonily. “You were his friend.”

Hell of a friend. I gave the order to have him killed. “No, they won’t suspect me,” he said flatly. “Mr. Fischer used to say I had no imagination. No passion. Just a number cruncher. He’d laugh about it. Say I was the one safe person to have around Joel. That I kept him from running off half-cocked to do his causes.”

“How could this happen?” Mary lamented. “Joel was upset when I dropped him off last night, but he wasn’t… you know.”

“No, what?” Albert asked.

“Suicidal,” she said. “The road was dry. It was daylight. I think he ran off the road deliberately. If I’d thought he’d hurt himself, I never would have left him.”

Eric didn’t dare look at Albert. “It was an accident, just like the girl. Nobody meant for the girl to get hurt. It was an accident.”

Mary covered her face with her hands. “I can’t watch the news. I couldn’t stand knowing her name. I keep trying to forget her, but I see her there, screaming.”

A shiver slithered down Eric’s spine. The image hadn’t left his mind either. But at least Mary wasn’t watching the news, so she hadn’t heard about the guard yet.

“Mary, listen. Think about what had Joel so fired up. What had you fired up. Those wetlands. Our earth. We wanted to keep one corner of our earth… safe.” He oozed sincerity. He was choking on it. Yesterday he’d believed every word. Today he just wanted it to be over. “We stopped them, but only temporarily. With Tomlinson’s money, they’ll rebuild. Bigger, maybe. That means all of our sacrifice was for nothing. Joel would have died in vain. You don’t want that, do you?”

Mary shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

“He would have wanted this,” Eric murmured. “You know it. We owe it to him.”

She went very still. “What do we do?” she whispered.

Eric wanted to blow out a relieved breath but kept it in. “Meet in the parking lot, same place as before. Tomlinson has a guard dog. We’ll need to bring some steak with some sleeping powder on it. Just to make him sleep, Mary,” he added when she flinched. “I had some muscle relaxants, but they expired a long time ago.”

“I have some sleeping pills,” she murmured. “Just to make him sleep.”

“Absolutely,” Eric assured her.

She squared her shoulders. “Joel’s burial is tomorrow.”

Eric’s brows rose. “Tomorrow? Oh yeah. That’s some Orthodox rule, right?”

“Burial within twenty-four hours. I want to go, but if I go alone his parents will freak. You’re going, right? You’ll go with me?”

If I’m still in the country. “Of course. Get some rest. Don’t watch the news.”

He watched her go, then turned to Albert. “You in?”

Albert looked straight ahead. “What does he have?”

“What does who have?”

A muscle twitched in Albert’s taut jaw. “The guy who shot the guard. He saw us. He’s making us do this stupid crime.” His accent became more pronounced, as it always did when he became emotional. Usually Eric found it a turn-on. Not today. “That’s the only explanation for this ridiculous charade. So what does he have on us?”

What was there to say? “Video. The whole thing. Close-ups of our faces and of the girl’s face in the window. You smacking Joel and us dragging him away.”

“So we are now his bitches?” Albert asked bitterly.

“Either that or we run.”

“Where would we run? The world is a very small place.”

Eric attempted a small smile that fell painfully flat. “ France? They don’t extradite if there is a possibility of the death penalty. And you do speak the language.”

Albert did not smile. “This is Minnesota. We’d just go to prison for life.” He turned only his head, spearing Eric with his eyes. “When did you plan to tell me, mon ami?” What had once been an endearment was now a soft snarl.

“Tonight. After we were finished. I needed some time. If you refused, he’d show the video and I’d be trapped.”

“I, I, I,” murmured Albert. “You took a lot on yourself. When did I get to choose?”

“What would you have done differently, Albert?”

For a moment Albert said nothing. When he spoke, his voice was cold. “I wouldn’t have kept it from you. I’m not going to run. This person, how does he contact you?”

Eric took the cell phone and MP3 player from his pocket. “He texted me on my cell, then told me where to find these.”

“Tomlinson is not a KRB investor.”

“No.”

“That was not a question, Eric. Did you think I was too stupid to check on this myself? Before I agreed to this arson scheme of yours, I wanted to be sure you would remain unhurt. I checked the condo investors to be sure your father’s company was not among them, that they would take no financial loss. That in your zeal you would not bite the hand that feeds you.”

“And that feeds you, too?” Eric asked bitterly.

Albert’s expression remained unmoved. “Did you not wonder why I went along with you?”

Eric shook his head, not sure he wanted to know. “I thought you believed.”

“In saving a lake?” Albert scoffed. “I believed in your future. I thought if you got this… obsession out of your system, you’d be able to go on. I wanted to be sure you’d be safe.” This was said stiffly, accusingly. “So I did what needed to be done.”

“I’m sorry,” Eric said quietly. “I didn’t think.”

“No, you didn’t. Now it’s my turn to think. Tell me everything you know. Somehow we have to figure out who this blackmailer is.”

“And then?” Eric said.

Albert lifted a shoulder. “We kill him. What’s one more?”

Eric drew a breath, nodded. “And then?”

“And then, I’m leaving. Find yourself another toy. I’m not interested anymore.”

Monday, September 20, 12:45 p.m.

Abbott leaned against Olivia’s desk as she hung up the phone. “Well?” he asked. “You get anything from that serial number?”

“The girl’s name is Tracey Mullen,” Olivia said, moving her goddess statue to one side so that Abbott didn’t knock her fedora to the floor. “Tracey was sixteen. Her father lives in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and her mother lives in Gainesville, Florida.”

“You were right about the Gators,” Abbott said, then pointed to Kane who was drumming his fingers impatiently, the phone crushed against his ear. “What’s with him?”

“He’s talking with Tracey Mullen’s father in Iowa, who is deaf. They’re using a relay service. Kane speaks, the relay operator types into a TTY, Mr. Mullen types back, and the operator reads to Kane. It’s a slow process.”

“So what was Tracey Mullen doing in Minneapolis?” Abbott asked.

“We’re still sorting it out. I spoke with the mother in Florida, who’s hearing and who has custody, but who said Tracey begged to live with her father and go to the deaf school in Iowa. She put Tracey on a plane to dad two days before Labor Day. She thought Tracey was with dad. Dad thought she was with mom. It’s not clear why Tracey ran away, but she hasn’t been seen since Labor Day. She’d texted both of them, as recently as yesterday morning, indicating she was with the other parent.”

“Did either parent indicate the other was abusive?”

“Mom didn’t, but they don’t seem to communicate very frequently. Most of their communication went through Tracey. We haven’t mentioned the bruises and arm fracture yet. We’re going to talk with her teachers and area social workers in both Iowa and Florida to see if anyone noticed anything suspicious. This could take some time.”

“How did the mother sound?”

Olivia shrugged. “Devastated. Stunned. Angry. She and her new husband are flying up here on the first flight they can get.”

Kane hung up and let out an exhausted breath. “There has got to be a better way. Dad is on his way. He should be here after dinner. He seemed very upset, especially at his wife for ‘throwing Tracey out,’ but going through the operator, it’s hard to say.”

“Mom said Tracey begged to live with dad,” Olivia remarked.

“Dad said Tracey hated Florida but never said she’d asked to live with him. It’ll be interesting to have them all in the same room. I’ll line up a sign-language interpreter.”

“What about the guy she had sex with?” Abbott asked.

“Mom said there was no boyfriend. Tracey was focused on her studies,” Olivia said. “Whether that was true, Mom wanted it to be, or Mom was naïve remains to be seen.”

“Dad said Tracey didn’t have a boyfriend because her mother forced her to go to hearing school in Gainesville and she was isolated,” Kane said.

Abbott sighed. “I’ll call Jess Donahue. I’m going to want a shrink’s take on this family. I thought this girl had the implant, so she could hear.”

“Mom said they hadn’t had a lot of success with the implant,” Olivia said. “Tracey didn’t get the surgery until she was ten, after Mrs. Mullen got remarried. Her new husband paid for the surgery. Tracey didn’t have good success. Not everyone does.”

Abbott smoothed his bushy mustache thoughtfully. “I’m more concerned with the identity of the male she was with just before the fire started. Focus on him for now.”

“Let’s go back out to the lake,” Olivia said, “and see if anybody saw her there.”

“What’s going on with the Feds?” Kane asked.

“I called Special Agent Crawford, but he wasn’t in the office. Tried his boss, left a message.” Abbott got up to leave, but Micki breezed in from the elevator.

“I’ve been trying your phones for an hour.”

“We ID’d the girl,” Olivia said, “and were talking to her family. What do you have?”

“I ID’d the gel.” Micki pulled up a chair and sank into it. “Sodium polyacrylate.”

“And now we wait for English,” Kane said.

“Baby-diaper goo,” Micki said, chuckling when they stared. “Commonly called super-absorbent polymer or SAP. The crystals in baby diapers that do all the absorbing.”

Olivia was starting to feel the tug of fatigue. “Why?”

“Why coat the glass globe?” Micki asked. “Turns out SAP is also a fire retardant.”

“Absorbs pee and puts out fires. Can it cure cancer?” Kane asked, tongue in cheek.

“Smart-ass,” Micki said. “I couldn’t find any record of arsonists coating a glass ball in diaper gel. The old SPOT group used ripped-up firefighter coats to keep the glass ball from becoming damaged from the heat.”

“So this isn’t SPOT,” Kane said.

“Not necessarily,” Micki said. “Ultrathin baby diapers were around in SPOT’s heyday, but not the knowledge that the gel was fire retardant.”

“Can you track that particular kind of gel?” Olivia asked.

“No,” Micki said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. This stuff is as accessible as a bag of baby diapers. Which is pretty damn accessible. There’s no way to track it, and it’s a lot easier to get and cheaper than firefighter coats.”

“Aren’t you the bundle of joy?” Abbott asked sourly and she shrugged.

“Sorry. I’m going back to the site. We’re processing the scene outside and assisting the arson guys inside.”

“We’ll canvass the lake area with Tracey’s picture,” Olivia said. “Back at five.”

Monday, September 20, 1:00 p.m.

He checked his laptop, hidden under the counter. The phone he’d given Eric allowed him to track his movements all over town. Eric was on the move, but not on the run. He’d stopped at a butcher shop. He pictured Eric leaving with some thick steaks he could use to drug Tomlinson’s guard dog.

That they hadn’t been paranoid enough to have their conversation out of range of the bugged cell phone he’d provided disappointed him. He’d thought Eric smart enough to check for a bugged phone, but Eric was too scared to be smart right now.

That Joel was dead was a bit of a jolt. He wondered if Joel had really killed himself or if they’d already started to turn on one another. He’d put his money on Albert.

So… they’re planning to kill me. He had to hand it to Albert. Hadn’t given the big boy props for that many brains. His plan would never work, of course, but it was better than what Eric had proposed. Run to France. Idiot.

But they were obeying him on the Tomlinson warehouse, so at least they were smarter than Tomlinson.

Between customers, he quickly typed in a command and brought up Eric’s bank account on his computer screen. Eric had withdrawn a thousand at the bank branch near the university. At least he was smart enough to withdraw from his normal bank and in an amount that wouldn’t raise the brows of the teller. Eric routinely withdrew a thousand, and at first he’d been curious as to what the rich boy did with all that money.

Then he’d picked up on Albert and it made sense. Albert talked a good talk about walking away from his affair with Eric, but there was no way a poor kid like Albert was walking away from money like that.

He checked the cell phone he’d activated for Barney Tomlinson. His text to Tomlinson had been simple-pay or else.

Tomlinson had been one of the few marks he’d initially misread. He’d thought Barney a smart man, but after his demands had gone ignored, had changed his mind. Obviously Barney hadn’t believed he’d follow through on his threats to expose the man’s affairs to his wife. Barney Tomlinson had amassed a modest fortune in the last few years, and according to his sources, Mrs. Tomlinson had not signed a prenup.

Tomlinson responded to his text this time. My wife found out. She’s divorcing me. What more can you do?

He smiled. Oh, a lot, he thought. I can do a helluva lot. He’d been invisible for so many years that he was used to being ignored in person. He used it to his full advantage, in fact. But to have been ignored in direct communication… Well, that was simply rude.

If Tomlinson had simply paid when he’d first asked, the man would have kept the bulk of his fortune, at least initially. Now, not only would Mrs. Tomlinson get her share in the divorce, she’d get it all. Insurance would cover the loss of the warehouse. Plus the ten million Tomlinson had in life insurance would set his wife up for life.

I personally won’t get a dime. And he was cool with that. What he would get was (a) the satisfaction of knowing Tomlinson would die, very scared indeed; (b) the satisfaction that Mrs. Tomlinson would get the last laugh; (c) a visual aid for future marks who thought they could ignore him; and (d) more really great leverage on Eric, Albert, and, last but far from least, sweet Mary. And he was very cool with that.

Monday, September 20, 2:10 p.m.

Phoebe Hunter leaned in David’s kitchen doorway, watching her son finish the tile medallion his neighbor had started. Finally admitting his fatigue, Glenn had gone back downstairs, leaving her alone with David, the child she worried about more than all of her other children put together. “Not bad,” she said.

David looked up with a smile. “Glenn did most of it.”

“He does good work,” she commented.

“That he does. I’m always trying to get him to rest, but he likes to keep busy.”

“I noticed that,” she said dryly. “He sat at the table with me for about a minute before he got up, grumbling about the big bare spot you’d left on your kitchen floor.”

“A whole minute? That’s pretty good for him. I kept telling him I hadn’t decided what I wanted for the medallion, and he kept going on about those ‘damn fancy tiles.’ He just wanted to do the design himself. Blowhard.” He said it affectionately.

“I noticed that, too. But he likes you.”

“I like him, too.” He refilled their coffee cups and they went to sit at the table. “I met him at the firehouse my first day. He’s one of the retired guys who can’t stay away.”

“He told me. He talked more about that firehouse than anything else. But he also talked about you. He told me about all the tenants and how you take care of them. How you rock those babies in 2A to sleep in the night so that Mrs. Edwards and the girls can rest. How you rescue the Gorski sisters’ cat every time it climbs up a tree. How you make sure that he’s taken care of every time he goes to chemo.”

David fidgeted in his chair. “It’s nothing, Ma. Just what anyone would do. So, what’s going on at home?”

David always changed the subject when she wanted to talk about his charity work. Well, that’s why she’d come to see him, so she wouldn’t let him squirm away this time.

“Same old, same old adventures.” But she told him anyway, all the news of his siblings and nieces and nephews, no matter how mundane. As she talked, he studied her, much like he’d studied the floor. He was her hands-on son. Always loved his gadgets, taking things apart. Putting them back together, better than new. How often had she wished he’d do that with his own life? “What are you looking at?” she asked. “Do I have a new wrinkle?”

He smiled and she saw a glimmer of his father in his eyes. Her husband had been a handsome devil, and their sons were, too. David, most of all. “You look exactly the same,” he said. “I was just thinking about you driving yourself all this way. That was pretty adventurous yourself, Ma.”

“You act like I’m old,” she sniffed.

“No, ma’am, just directionally challenged.”

That was a true fact, so she let it pass. “Your place is coming together nicely. I’d hoped for a little more furniture, but I can see you’ve been busy.”

“Thanks. I put in windows, wood trim, and plumbing. I’ve got to do the floors on one and two, but you can start on color swatches and carpet styles now if you want.”

She nodded, sipping her coffee. “Speaking of floors, I hear you had an adventure yourself this morning.” She said it calmly, even though her heart still hadn’t returned to normal. “But you appear to be all right.”

He rolled his eyes, but there was worry there. “Who told Glenn about it?”

“Somebody named Raz, who heard it from somebody named Gabe, who heard it from somebody named Zell.”

“I’m sure the story was nowhere near the truth by the time it got to Glenn,” he said.

“Probably,” she agreed mildly. He was hiding something. She’d always been able to tell. Of all her children, David seemed the most straightforward, but he was the most complicated. And the most unhappy.

“So,” he said casually. “What did Glenn tell you?”

“That you were searching for victims in that condo that’s been on the news all morning, and the floor collapsed under your feet. You nearly plunged four stories.” She was still shaken. “And you caught some kind of ball before it slid into the big dark hole.”

He frowned. “I was hoping it would be a lot further from the truth.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “The ball is supposed to be a secret. You can’t tell anyone, okay?”

“I can keep a secret. It’s your friends I’d be worried about.”

“Yeah, I got that. I need to call the detective.” On his cell phone, he dialed a number from memory, holding his breath as he waited for an answer.

She heard a woman answer before he pressed the phone to his ear. “Sutherland.”

Dropping her eyes to her coffee, she eavesdropped shamelessly. Sutherland was a name she knew. She’d met Olivia at Mia’s wedding. Mia’s half sister seemed like a nice young woman. A little sad, but polite. And pretty. And apparently more involved with her youngest son than any of them had suspected. Paige’s voice had carried.

“Hi. It’s David Hunter. I just wanted to let you know that the news about the ball got out.” From beneath her lashes, Phoebe saw him wince. Mia’s little sister wasn’t happy.

He made a face. “Even my mother knows,” he said wryly. “She’s visiting and heard it from a retired firefighter friend of mine who got it through the grapevine. What do you want me to do?” He listened a moment, then shot a concerned look across the table and turned away. “You have an ETA?” he murmured.

Her head still down, Phoebe’s brows went up. ETA? Olivia was coming here?

Abruptly David rose and left the apartment and Phoebe wondered if he knew the door hadn’t shut behind him. “My mother is staying here,” she heard him say. “But I have a place we can meet. I’ll text you the address.”

There was silence, then his surprised voice. “You’ve identified her? Already?” More silence, then he said quietly, “Tell her father that we really tried. That I’m sorry.”

Phoebe sighed. Glenn told her that David had pulled a young girl from the fire, that she’d already been dead. David would worry over that. He’d go over it in his mind again and again, wondering if he could have done anything differently. If he could have fixed it. Saved the girl. Because that’s what David did. He fixed things. Saved people.

It was time her son saved himself, and if he couldn’t… then I will.

David disconnected, then reached for the doorknob, rolling his eyes when he found the door hadn’t closed. I need to fix that, he thought. With it cracked open, sound carried. It was reasonable to assume his mother had heard every word.

She looked up when he came back in, brows raised. “So how is Olivia?”

He swallowed his sigh. “The condo victims were homicides. She caught the case.”

“So where will you be meeting her tonight?” She lifted her hand when he started to protest. “I’m only asking because if you don’t want me here, I can stay with Evie.”

He sank into the chair next to her. “Ma.”

“I can keep secrets, son,” she said mildly. “Even the ones you haven’t told me.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. “What secrets haven’t I told you?”

She sat back, tilted her head, crossed her arms and studied him. He knew the look. It was the same one she’d used every time he’d gotten into trouble as a kid, and he knew what would come next would not be comfortable. “Well, for starters, that you fell in love with Dana Dupinsky at first sight.”

He looked away, his cheeks growing warm. “You knew all along?” he asked quietly.

“Yes. I knew you loved her, but she thought of you as a brother. I knew you worked tirelessly to support her work with battered women, along with supporting a dozen other charities in town. And I knew that it broke your heart when she married someone else.”

He closed his eyes wearily. “Who else knew about Dana?”

“The ones who figured it out for themselves. Max and Caroline.” David’s older brother and his wife. Long ago, Dana had helped Caroline escape brutal domestic abuse. For that alone, Dana would forever be part of their family. “The twins,” she added. Peter and Cathy were still “the twins,” even though they were pushing forty-five.

He opened one eye. “ Elizabeth, too?” he asked.

“Yes. Your little sister picks up on more than we all give her credit for. We kept hoping you’d find someone else, that you’d be happy. But you didn’t and we didn’t know what to do, so we didn’t say or do anything. Did we do wrong?”

He shook his head. “No. There wasn’t anything you could have done, Ma.”

“I know. Makes a mother feel helpless when her kids hurt and she can’t do anything. When you told me you were moving, I wasn’t surprised. I knew you’d have to get away. I was surprised you stayed as long as you did. When you told me Minneapolis, I figured you’d picked this town to be closer to Evie and Tom.”

David’s old friend Evie had left Chicago to escape demons of her own, and his nephew, Caroline’s son Tom, was a college basketball star here at the university. “I did,” he said, and that was partly true. “Though I don’t see either of them much. They’re both so busy at school, both with their own lives. And Noah watches out for Evie now.”

His mother smiled. “Which is how it should be. Now, that you and Olivia had a biblical… thing after Mia’s wedding? That I did not know until your friend Paige confronted you.” She lifted her brows. “Because I have ears like a bat.”

He rolled his eyes, his face on fire. “Ma.”

“David,” she returned, mimicking his tone. “I have to eavesdrop. You never tell me anything. Thanks to Paige, I have a fuller picture of the puzzle that is my son.”

“I’m no puzzle. Anyway, you seem to have had it all figured out.”

She shook her head. “Not really. There’s a piece of you I’ve never been able to completely understand. I’ve admired it, loved it, bragged on it, but never understood it.”

He found himself lifting his chin defensively. “And what’s that?”

“What drives you to serve. You went from a headstrong, bullheaded, narcissistic teenager who cared for no one but himself to a man who serves more than anyone I know. Almost overnight.”

David controlled his flinch, knowing she was watching him. God help me if you ever do understand, he thought as the pictures from the past flooded his mind. Broken bodies. And so much blood. It had been eighteen years and his throat still closed when he thought of Megan, huddled over her brother’s small body, protecting him with her last breath.

Because he’d been a headstrong, bullheaded narcissistic fool who’d cared for no one but himself. Their blood was on his hands.

He realized he was staring at his hands and looked up. His mother watched him with worried eyes. He forced a smile. “No real mystery. Dad died, and you and Max needed help with his therapy to walk again.” The car accident that had killed his father and paralyzed his brother had been another defining moment in his life. Helping his brother had become his salvation, the way to claw out of the abyss into which he’d fallen. After Megan. After that, service had become… necessary. “I had to grow up.”

“And you did,” she said, her gaze piercing as she studied him. “I know how much Max appreciates it. You dropped out of college after only one semester, gave up your own sports dream to get him through physical therapy, get him back on his feet again.”

He wanted to wince at the lie she’d always taken as truth, but didn’t. He’d already dropped out of college before his father’s accident, but his mother didn’t know that. He’d been failing, unable to concentrate on his studies. Unable to sleep. Unable to make the pictures in his mind go away. Nursing his brother back to health all those years ago had been the excuse he’d needed to keep his family from finding out what a failure he really was.

“He needed me,” David managed. His throat was raw, his chest hurt. He’d never understood the people who became comfortable with a lie. Eighteen years and it still tore him up inside.

“Yes.” His mother still watched him and he fought the urge to squirm. “But that still doesn’t explain why you picked women’s shelters and charities. Even before Dana’s shelter, that’s how you spent your time. Always working. Always helping.”

“It’s a good cause.”

“Yes. When it’s a cause. But for you, it’s more than that.” She sighed. “David, I was so devastated when your father died, events that happened around that time seemed to disappear. But the years passed and it began to occur to me that your focus on charity wasn’t a passing fancy or even a healthy hobby. It was your life, at the exclusion of everything else adults normally seek. No girlfriends, nobody special. I looked back, tried to figure out when it started. I started thinking about that year. There was a tragedy in the neighborhood the spring before your dad died.”

A tragedy. Yes, it had been that. A tragedy that could have been completely avoided if he hadn’t been so full of himself. He said nothing. He wasn’t sure he could.

“Your friend died,” she said softly. “Her name was Megan, wasn’t it?”

He swallowed. Nodded.

“Her stepfather was a monster,” his mother murmured.

He swallowed again, the scene so clear in his mind. “Yes,” he whispered.

“He killed his whole family. I think we all thought it was sad, that we wished we’d known he was capable of such evil. I never considered how deeply Megan’s death impacted you. I should have. You’d been close in junior high. I’m sorry for that, David. I was so wrapped up in getting by after your dad died… and you were always so strong and steady. I never saw you were hurting. I’m sorry for that, too.”

He lifted his eyes to hers. She was sorry? She’d done nothing wrong. Not like me. He cleared his throat, hoped his voice would be level. “Why bring all that up now?”

She sat back in her chair. “Because I’ve thought about this for a long time and have wanted to ask you so many times. It never seemed like the right time, so I left it alone. I don’t suppose you understand that.”

He thought of Olivia, of how he’d put things off far too long. “More than you think.”

She leaned forward, covered his hand with hers. “For years I watched you donate your time and your talent to worthy causes. But during those same years I watched you be so alone it’s made my heart break. But you’re a man grown, so I kept my counsel.”

“And now?”

“Now… you look like you’re trying to start your life again. So I come to visit, hoping to find you settled. Instead I find an empty apartment and a son who’s still alone. Who still volunteers every waking moment of his time to others.”

David squared his jaw, looked away. “That’s not wrong.”

“Not when it’s for the right reasons. I’m not sure your reasons are the right ones. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were doing penance.”

He met her eyes, helplessly miserable. He wanted to deny her words, but could not.

Her eyes filled with tears. “I thought so. Some- times, when you think no one can see, you get this look in your eyes. Like you carry the world on your shoulders. Why?”

His chest was too tight. But she was waiting. I can’t tell her the truth. Not all. So he carved away enough of the truth to make the pain on her face go away. “I saw it. The crime scene.”

Confused, she blinked, sending the tears down her cheeks. “What?”

“I was coming home from my friend’s house. You all were at Mass that morning. I saw police cars in front of Megan’s house, and I ran up to see. And I saw them. Dead.”

His mother blanched, horrified. “Dear God. Megan, her mother… they were…”

He nodded, kept his voice steady. “Beaten to death. Yes.”

She sat across the table, stunned. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Because I was ashamed. I still am. And I don’t want you to ever know what I did.

He shrugged. “I guess I was in shock. I was eighteen, Ma. Boys that age don’t get all emotional about things like that.” Which was a lie. He had been emotional. He’d nearly lost his mind. “But I remembered it. And I needed to do something to keep it from happening again. I can’t help the women themselves, but I can help the shelters.”

His mother blinked again, struggling for composure. “David, I wish you’d told me then. I can’t imagine what you saw. We should have gotten you help. Therapy.”

“I was eighteen, Ma. I wouldn’t have gone to therapy.” Hell, he hadn’t even told his priest. “So stop blaming yourself.”

She nodded uncertainly. “Well, that does explain a lot.” She looked at him, her eyes intense. “You do know there’s nothing you could do to make me not love you.”

And he realized she knew he lied still. “Yeah. I know.”

She reached for his hands, squeezed them fiercely. “I’m proud of you. Never forget that.” She sat back briskly. “Now, about where I’m going to stay.”

“Here,” he said firmly, relieved that was over. “You’re going to stay here. You need to check out all the apartments, get a feel for colors.”

“That would be best. I’m going carpet shopping,” she said. “If you’re going out tonight, you should get some rest.”

“Drive carefully, Ma.” He kissed her cheek. “I’m glad you’re here. I love you, too.”

He watched her leave, then sagged into a chair, his eyes closed, drained. But it would be fruitless to try to sleep. His mind was churning along with his gut. It happened every time he remembered that day. Today it was worse, lying to his mother.

He rose wearily. He had time to lay the floor in 2A. He could have the girls’ new fridge put in the living room until the floor was set. But first he sent a short text to Olivia with the address of Glenn’s fishing cabin. It was quiet there. They could talk.

I should have done it earlier. I’ve been a coward. He supposed after tonight there would be one less mystery in his life.

At least I’ll know exactly what I did the night I spent with Olivia Sutherland.